We made gak! Or whatever you call it.

Now this was fun! Messy, messy fun. To make this you need cornstarch and water. A bowl, some food coloring and patience are great to have too. First, I had K squirt some food coloring into a water bottle and shake it up. (That alone was so fun we had to do that another day with all the different colors.) Then she measured out some cornstarch and poured it into the bowl. After that, she poured the water on top. We mixed with our hands until we liked the consistency. We had to go back and add water, then add cornstarch, etc. etc.
This stuff feels so cool. K loved watching it slip through her fingers. She played for so long. Then she got up and said "bath." We had to laugh at that.
Another great thing about this activity is that if you just let this water evaporate, you can go back and use the cornstarch again. That's why I do this in a plastic shoebox with a lid.

Write, write, write

This post is all about handwriting. Let your little one use anything and everything to "write" or draw. Chalk, markers, colored pencils, crayons, pens, anything. In this picture, I was writing on a birthday card with a pen. K (17 mos) was sitting at the table with me coloring with triangular crayons. But, she decided she wanted what I had and took the pen. She is actually using an ideal grasp here, the tripod grasp. Don't worry if your toddler is not doing that. Many kids still use their whole fist to write. Some things you can do to encourage a tripod grasp: break crayons in half, break colored pencils down and sharpen both ends, use the pipsqueak markers or other short and fat writing tools and last have them write on a vertical surface like a wall or an easel.

Coloring Eggs

This year was our first year to dye Easter eggs. I could not wait to do this. But then I wondered why I was so excited to try this....it was so very messy. But K had a great time. She put the dyed eggs in her mouth and dropped them a few times so she literally had the dye from head to toe.

I chose the dye that comes in a cotton swab instead of the cups full of dye because I *knew* the whole cup of dye would be throw across the room.

Highly Recommended

I highly recommend going to Dollar Tree. They have a great teaching aisle. In it are $1 window clings. Around a year, we got K the window cling animals and put them up in the tub to remind us to work on animal sounds with her. She LOVED them. Once she mastered the animal names and sounds, I went back and bought the window cling shapes. At first, I only put up square and circle. Once she knew those, I added triangle (or "tritriangle") and star, adding more after she knew those too.

At 18 mos, K knows her basic shapes...thanks to the window clings!

Pizza Pizza

Mmmm...Pizza! When Katie was 15 mos. old she hated eating pizza, but loved to help me make it. Here we're just spreading sauce on to little bagels. She then added cheese (which she ate most of) and pepperonis to each pizza bagel. This activity worked on the fine motor skill of spreading and using her pincer grasp, one to one correspondence (one pepperoni per mini bagel), and she had a blast!

Sidewalk Chalk

Sometimes crayons are too small for little hands. Sidewalk chalk is a great option when that's the case because it's bigger. Also, kids don't have to stay on the paper and can be mobile while coloring. K is 15 mos. here.

It's never to early to TRY.

Katie is 14 mos. here. I had been so excited to color with my baby, that despite knowing that she would eat the crayons, I HAD to get her some.
She does have some in her teeth in this picture, but you know what? That's ok. She also did scribble the most beautiful scribbles I have ever seen.
The moral of this story, is go ahead and try crafts with your baby. As long as your "supervising" them, they'll be ok. And have lots of learning fun.





























Now for play-doh, I will admit 14 mos was a little early. She apparently LOVED the flavor. But it is such a great sensory experience. So, if you little one can't keep it out of their mouth, just put it in a zipper bag and they can still pound it out but can't eat it.

First Post!

Deciding which activity to use in my first post was tough. I decided only to go back as far as when K was 13 mos. old since this is for toddlers and up. Also, I wanted an activity that everyone could do and that teaches kids many lessons.

What better activity than cooking? Cooking teaches children to follow directions, count, measure, improve fine motor control, and so much more. K has spent plenty of time with me in the kitchen. Sometimes just talking to me, sometimes helping, and sometimes pulling at my pants and driving me nuts.

This activity was simple. It was a snow day and I have a sweet tooth. So we made cookies. Not a complex recipe, just the one from the back of the chocoloate chips. One thing I suggest when cooking with your cutie, especially at first, is to premeasure out your ingredients into prep bowls. Then your helper can just dump them into a bowl. Bon appetit!