Ocean Discovery Bottles

 I did the first of the two bottles I'm going to showcase here several months ago, but I just didn't think it was enough to do a whole post about. Now that I'm in the middle of an ocean kick I decided it was the perfect time. Then, I found another awesome ocean discovery bottle and knew the two of them would make a great post.
So first, we have our ocean waves bottle. The idea for this one actually came from my Early Childhood Ed classes back in college, but I've seen it all over pinterest too. You take a regular old water bottle (preferably one with smooth sides, you may have to wander the drink aisle at your grocery store until you find the perfect bottle) and empty and clean it. Fill it just over half way with water and a drop or two of blue food coloring (I know, ocean water isn't actually blue, but you need the contrast here). Then fill the bottle the rest of the way with oil. I've made two of these and I found that I prefer Canola oil over Vegetable oil although they both work fine. If I remember right, the ideal oil for this is baby oil because it is clear (unlike cooking oils which tend to be yellowish) but I've never gotten around to trying it. I found some little plastic fish at the dollar store and dropped them in there too. I also tried adding glitter in the first one I made but I decided it actually made it hard to see the other contents, which is why I made a second one. Once you've got everything you want in there, use a hot glue gun or whatever else you have handy to glue the lid shut and that's it!
Because oil and water don't mix you can really see the waves forming in the bottle as you move it around. It's really fascinating, even for me! Erik loves watching the waves and trying to find the fish.

 He also loves to shake it all up so everything is all mixed together (not a bad way to build those arm muscles!) It's fun to watch the layers settle back out.

Now, I wasn't able to get a decent picture of the other bottle, but it's pretty amazing, and while the first one I just showed is neat, this Jelly Fish Bottle is almost magical.  I am going to use a photo from the original site, but you should definitely go check out her tutorial and other pictures, this is just too cool to pass up!

AND if you decide to pin it, PLEASE go to the original post and pin from her blog, not mine. She SO deserves the credit for this one!

Photo Taken From http://bhoomplay.wordpress.com/

Is that not the coolest thing you've ever seen?! I put it together last night and I love it! I made my jelly fish a little too big for my bottle, but I haven't glued the lid on yet so I'm probably going to fish it out of there and try again. It's still AWESOME though! I think I'm way more in love with it than Erik is, but he's little, I'll give him some more time.

Sea Spuds

Well, I know I've been something of a slacker lately, but it's hard to do new activities when I'm not in my own home. Today we dug around in Grammy's craft stash and pantry to come up with an ocean themed activity to complement last week's post.
I've been wanting to try out potato printing/stamping for a while now, but I've just never gotten around to it. For some reason today seemed like the right day so we gave it a try. I knew I wanted to do something ocean-y, so I googled fish clip art and used this as my inspiration.

I took two small potatoes (I tried to choose ones that would fit reasonably well in Erik's little hands) and cut them in half, then carved my design into the cut end. I found it was easiest to take a pencil and mark the outline of the shape (it didn't actually write, but the tip left an impression), and then take a paring knife and do the actual carving. We ended up with a goldfish, a sea turtle, a whale, and a star fish. I'm pretty pleased with how well they turned out, although the turtle is far from perfect.

Next I squirted a little bit of paint on a couple of paper plates and put one of the potato stamps onto each plate. These were arranged around Erik's paper so that he could easily reach any stamp he wanted.

 Erik caught on right away to what we were doing, but it was only a minute or two before he tried to eat the paint. I put a stop to that really quick and he was ok for another minute or two. Then he discovered that he could stamp on his face...

 ...and in no time at all this devolved into a body painting extravaganza. I was kicking myself for not thinking to take off his clothes first. Oh well....

 Despite the mess, we did get some fun artwork to hang on Grammy's fridge, and (between the painting and the resulting bath) we managed to kill quite a bit of time. I guess that means it was a success.

Squishy Ocean Bags

This is (I think) the last post I will do with Paisley in it. I had planned on doing a week with an ocean theme, but we only got as far as this one activity. Life just kinda took control and didn't leave me time to do all the things I had planned.
I got the idea for this one from here and here. Both of these are about the same and I can't remember which one I saw first so I might as well credit them both.

I made a few basic ocean shapes out of the foam sheets that we had leftover from our bath stickers and sticky story boards. Some real sea shells would be really fun for this as well, although you'd want to make sure they don't have sharp points.

I did a piece of coral, a starfish, a fish, and a shell. You could add a octopus or jellyfish or anything else you can dream up (and draw). The details are drawn on with a fine tip permanent marker. 

Next you put some water with a tiny drop of dish soap in a ziplock baggie and (after squeezing out all the extra air) seal it shut with some duct tape.

I turned the kids loose with these and they loved them. Erik liked hunting through the soap bubbles to find the shapes and Paisley preferred to just shake the heck out of hers. 

For being so easy to put together, this activity sure had a lot of entertainment value!

Another use for Rainbow Rigatoni

I still have one more activity we did with our rainbow noodles that I haven't posted yet. It's nothing big or fancy but it is one more use for a cheap and easy resource.
We made some home made play dough from this recipe for a play group with some of our friends and then we used it and the small dowel rods left over from this toy to create a simple activity (I found it here).

 This was a great way for Erik to practice his fine motor control and hand/eye coordination, as well as to create a unique work of art. He loved pushing the sticks into the playdough, and then dropping the noodles over the sticks. This was a great way to keep him busy using things we already had laying around the house.

Ways to Keep a Toddler Busy on a Road Trip

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* 11/17/14       Welcome Pinterest friends! SO many of you have come to check out this one post, I just thought I'd say "Hi! Welcome to my blog." I hope that something here will make road-tripping with your little one(s) a bit easier. Let's face it, being stuck in the car with a toddler is possibly even more miserable for you than it is for them. :)  While you're here please feel free to look around and see what else we've got going on here. If you need ideas for cheap, quick, easy activities to do with your baby/toddler this is a good place to be. Also, feel free to check out some of my boards on Pinterest that might be helpful to you as well. Good luck and have a safe trip!

As I mentioned last time, we are currently staying with family in New Mexico after having moved from Mississippi. In case you've never thought about it, you ought to know that the distance between those two locations is about 1300 miles and it takes two 12-hour days of driving to get from one to the other.  Now think about doing that road trip with an almost two-year-old. Sounds like *fun*, right?
Yeah, that's what I thought too so I spent the time leading up to our move perusing Pinterest and the web in general for ideas on how to survive such an ordeal adventure. I got pictures of most of the things we did, so I'm going to share those with you today. With a little advance planning a long carseat ride doesn't have to be pure torture for everyone in the vehicle.
I assembled all the activities I'm going to talk about later, along with snacks and anything else I thought I'd need (scissors, glue, etc), in what I dubbed my Box of Tricks. It was all organized and ready to go, so I had everything I could want right at my finger tips.

First, a few tips:
***Remember, you're pretty much living in your car for however long it takes to get to your destination so resign yourself to a little mess, and noise, and stickiness, and crankiness, and all the other fun things that are part of life (just condensed into one tiny location).
***Put a towel under your toddler's carseat before you buckle it into the car. This makes clean-up much easier when you arrive. Now take a deep breath and remember you can wash/vacuum it all away when you get wherever you're going. (update: A reader commented on this post warning that placing anything between your child's seat and the seat of the car may decrease the effectiveness of your child's seat. See the comments for other suggestions to keep the mess at bay, and feel free to add to the discussion.)
***Hit the dollar store before you leave and pick up a new toy or two to pull out of hiding when you're desperate. This little treasure was one of Erik's favorite ways to pass the time on the road and it only cost me a dollar. Best buck I ever spent.

***Unless you have a very strict schedule that you HAVE to keep, don't give in to the temptation to hit the drive through for meals and just keep rolling while everyone eats. Look for somewhere to stop where Jr. can get out and run for a few minutes. The break will make everyone happier and you'll be glad you took a few minutes to relax.
*** Try to stay organized. Trust me, the chaos and clutter of toddler travel will make you nuts if you don't try to keep on top of it. While some mess is to be expected and accepted, try to make sure you have all the important things (toys count as important here!) where you can find them when you need them. I chose to keep all our things in a box, but I seriously considered this idea.
***Pack some fun snacks. And when I say "some" I mean "a TON". I used this idea to make some "Surprise" Snack Mix. I just bought a couple varieties of snacks (making sure to get a mix of sweet and savory, crunchy and chewy) and mixed them all together. (*we did learn that the french toast goldfish grahams make everything else in the container taste like maple syrup, so consider yourself warned!). Whenever Erik would get crabby/munchy I'd fill up a designated snack cup with some of the mix and he'd go to town.

*** Sit in the back seat with your child if at all possible, at least while he/she is awake. I know, it's not as fun, but remember they don't enjoy being stuck back there anymore than you do and maybe if you work together you can make it better for everyone.
***If there's enough room keep a comfort item or two within easy reach at all times. Erik got to have his favorite blanket and stuffed animal on the seat next to him at all times so he could grab them for a snuggle whenever he wanted.

And now for the activities we did (links take you to the sites that inspired me or to Amazon):

• Play dough in a balloon. I used the idea from this pin to stuff the play dough in there and it worked great! All the squishy fun of play dough and none of the mess. It builds strong fingers too! (Here is our favorite play dough recipe)

• Books. Lots of books! Grab a couple old favorites, and maybe even consider picking up something new to pull out when you've all had more of each other's company than you think you can handle.
Children's Books on Amazon
•  Mobile magnet boards. I made my magnets out of some magnet paper I had leftover from another project (this paper also gives you the option of printing images from your computer to make your magnets with). I used a light layer of glue to put the pictures on the magnets and then after they dried I covered them with contact paper. You can also get some adhesive magnetic sheets in the craft aisle in Walmart that would make it possible to skip the gluing step, or just do like the mom in the link above and just use magnet tape or stickers. The magnet board is just a cookie sheet I picked up for less than a dollar at Walmart. It doubles as a tray for other activities we did, and was small enough to fit nicely in the top of my Box of Tricks. 

         *These magnets are made from a couple of books I picked up at the dollar store.

         *These magnets are made from magazines I picked up off the freebies table at our local public library. We discovered that fashion magazines have the biggest pictures of faces, so look for those. 

•  Remember I said we used the cookie sheet for other things besides magnets? I stuck some painters tape and a few pieces of contact paper in my Box of Tricks to make a mini sticky story board. 

•  Pack a container of Fruit Loops and some pipe cleaners. Encourage your child to thread the cereal on the pipe cleaner to make an edible bracelet or necklace. Snack and activity in one!Just be careful to help them finish off the ends so they don't bite down on any sharp ends of the pipe cleaners. 

• Remember to pack a few favorite toys from your toy box. You may have noticed our Mr. Potato Head in my Box of Tricks. We also had some matchbox cars and a few other small toys. If you can stand the noise, toys that have buttons to push and that light up and/or make noise are great for the car as they are engaging even when the child is strapped in (unlike, say, cars which may be more fun when the child is able to drive them around the house). 
•  Pack some paper and crayons or colored pencils. We put ours in an empty PB container to keep track of them easier. Here is another time when the cookie sheet came in handy!

• Stickers! Hit the dollar store and stock up. And learn to be okay with stickers going on more than just the intended piece of paper. 
• Activity Boards. We were going to make this one that I saw on Pinterest, but then we found this one and decided it looked like WAY more fun. This (along with the ball I mentioned earlier) was one of the top 2 favorite things of the whole trip. When everything else was boring, the Latches Board never failed to entertain. 
• If worst comes to worst, you can do what we did towards the end. Pull out your laptop/ipad/ipod/whatever you have and watch videos. Erik can sit and watch videos of himself for hours, so we just played all our home videos over and over for about two hours the last day. Not ideal I guess, but hey, we all made it there without one of us killing the other so I count it as a success.
• And for one more thing that I had tucked into my Box of Tricks: I took a  big handful of our Rainbow Rigatoni and a piece of string all prepared as I described in that post and put them in a ziplock baggie. This was a great way for Erik to pass the time and it was nice to have an activity he was already familiar with.

Remember to just relax and try to have fun with your family. Look out the window and talk about what you see. Sing silly songs. Turn on the radio and dance/wiggle (as much as you can while belted in anyways). Stop and see the sights along the way (if time allows). And when you start to feel tired of being the constant entertainer and the seat gets hard and the road seems to be going on FOREVER and you find yourself asking yourself "are we there yet?", remember that it's worse to sit and listen to a screaming kid. So chin up and put on a smile (their contagious you know) and hang in there! If mamma ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!

*****Be sure to check out the sequel to this post that I wrote on 2/9/16 for lots more ideas!

What tips/tricks do you have for traveling with little ones? 


*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Water Play

I warned you my posts would be much less frequent! Well, we have moved from Mississippi to New MExico are now officially "boomerang" children. We are comfortably settled in my parents home for the time being, until hubby finds a new job.

Today I'm going to share one of the activities we did with Paisley several weeks ago that just never got posted in all the hustle and bustle of life. Both kids had a blast with this one and would have loved it if we'd made it a part of our everyday routine.
All I did was take a big plastic tub, fill it up with water, and turn them loose. I also made sure to make some fun utensils and containers available to them to explore with. They got to splash and scoop and pour and squeeze and have a great time.

I put Paisley in some of Erik's old clothes so she'd have something warm and dry to go home in. Don't worry, her mom has much better fashion sense than this!

As is often the case, Paisley stood back and watched Erik for a few minutes before jumping in herself, but once she did she loved it!

Erik never did figure out why drinking out of the funnel didn't work. 

Paisley loved showing off her arm muscles by squeezing all the water out of the sponges. 

2 Ways to Play with Rainbow Rigatoni

I know, this is the second post about rainbow colored pasta I've done in the last little while, but this one is totally different and has been so much fun!
I used the instructions from here to dye my pasta (which I got for $1/box, so this is a cheap activity) and then used the noodles to do two different but simultaneous activities with Erik and Paisley.

Erik got to thread the noodles onto a piece of string to make necklaces (I know, boys don't usually wear necklaces, but  he was having SO much fun!). As suggested by the original blogger, I taped the end of a string with some masking tape (I probably taped 4-5 inches of the string so that when you put a noodle on it you could easily grab both ends of the masking tape) to make it easier to manipulate, and tied a noodle to the other end. I then showed him how to thread the noodles onto the string and he was hooked. He didn't want to leave the noodles on, but instead would put one or two on and then pull them off and start over. This means we didn't ever end up with a wearable necklace, but who cares?

 Paisley got to play with and explore the pan full of noodles as a sensory bin. She loved to scoop up handfuls of the noodles and throw them back into the metal pan; they made a great noise! She played with the noodles for quite a while, and seemed a bit miffed when I eventually put them away.

I saved these noodles and we've pulled them out several times since our first trial run with them. Each time they are a big hit, and never fail to keep the little ones entertained for a several minutes (long enough to fix lunch perhaps?)