Playing with Rhythm Sticks (or straws!)

My son takes classes at The Little Gym every week and one of the activites that he's always enjoyed is using rhythm sticks to practice motor skills and hand-eye coordination. It also helps reinforce body part names (and even some letters). And of course, you can also practice music and rhythm. It's also a great opportunity for toddlers to listen and mimic.

The activity can be done with both babies and toddlers. Babies who are unable to hold the sticks and sit in your lap while you tap this sticks, or you can help them hold the sticks while you tap them. I remember Ethan enjoying this activity even when he was only a few months old.

Daddy helping

We actually have a pair of rhythm sticks at home...they are relatively inexpensive. But what if you don't have a pair?

Enter Daddy's great idea to use straws! The straws are great because I can leave them accessible in the toy box. They also don't hurt as much if the tapping gets a little crazy! Of course, they don't make the same great sound that the rhythm stick do!

Sorry for the photo quality here- I had a camera attacker on my hands!

Here are some of the activities we do:

• Drum them on the floor
• Tap on your...toes, knees, belly, hand
• Put them on your head like bunny ears
• Make letters...T, X, L, V
• Roll them between your hands...under your hands...under your feet
• Tap them together
• Tap your stick on my stick. Now I tap yours.
• Tap one like you're hammering a nail
  

Rolling on his leg

Of course, I'm sure you can come up with more--maybe even your little one will add to the list!

Masking Tape Sculpture

Toddlers (and babies too) really enjoy the sensory activity of playing with masking tape. In looking for a crafty activity that we could do with minimal prep time and mess, I pulled out a piece of cardboard, some crayons, and some making tape. Initially I thought we'd place the tape on the cardboard and color on it, next to it, etc. (more like these masking tape paintings)

The project morphed a bit. Ethan wasn't really all that interested in coloring (he was more in the mood for paint), but he was very happy to pull off pieces of tape and stick them to the cardboard. Sometimes the tape would be flush against the cardboard. Sometimes the tape would arc off of the cardboard. Sometime the tape was a knotted mess. Other times the tape was only sticking to other pieces of tape. 

"Rip it Mom!"

The end result was a curly tape sculpture that the little guy really enjoyed making (and had negligible amount of clean up). Total cost was approx 50 cents worth of tape.

Win-win!

What fun have you had with masking tape?

Seeing Stars this July 4th

I have to admit, I'm a bit lax on the intentional crafts and projects lately. June has been insane for our family and our preparations to move have our house looking a bit like a box fort. Still, when the little guy asked to paint this weekend, I quickly pulled together a Fourth of July star theme.

I had brought some form stars in a dollar bin awhile back and Ethan painted them while he sang "Twinkle Twinkle" (his idea). You could just as easily cut out stars from construction paper. The point here is that the project doesn't have to be amazing to be fun and creative. 

Imagine they are hung from curling ribbon. That was my intent, but all the ribbon is already backed away neatly in a cardboard box. Instead, we improvised and hung them on the back door with some scotch tape. They look good :)

Here are some other projects from that past that you may enjoy while you celebrate your holiday this week:

Handprint Fireworks

Aluminum Foil Stars

Hope you enjoy a fantastic and safe holiday!

Yummy Guacamole

I can't begin to count how many people have been turned into
"guacamole-lovers" after trying this guacamole recipe. (I think the secret is to be generous on the amount of lemon and lime juice.)

Now that summer grilling season is upon us, we've been making a ton of guacamole. It's so refreshing in the summer heat and awesome on hamburgers. Of course, avocado is full of heath benefits for the whole family-babies and toddlers included! 

Special Kitchen Helper

If you have a "Special Kitchen Helper," this is the time to recruit them. Smashing avocado with a potato masher is a great job for a toddler!

Yummy Guacamole

3 ripe avocados

1/4 c. red onion

2 T cilantro, finely chopped

Approx 1 T lime juice

Approx 1 T lemon juice

½ teaspoon coarse salt

Grated black pepper

½ ripe tomato, remove seeds and pulp

Mash avocado in bowl.  Add onion, cilantro, lime, lemon, salt, and pepper.  Mix.  Add lime and lemon juice to taste.  If not serving immediately, cover with plastic wrap placed directly on the surface of the guacamole to keep air from reaching it.  Refrigerate.  Add tomatoes just before serving.

The guacamole is pretty forgiving. We often omit the cilantro when we don't have any on hand. Sometimes we leave out the pepper or reduce the amount of salt.

Hope you enjoy it as much as we do!

More Rock Painting

Our rock painting project last month has quickly my most popular blog post. I was also so excited to have the craft featured at The Imagination Tree!

But the best tell of a good project? When you're little person specifically asks to do it again.

Can't wait to move these to our new house later this summer!
Thanks for reading! :)

Pouring Practice

"Ethan do it."  

Yup, we're in the thick of the "I do it" stage. In most cases, I welcome the desire for independence. With a little patience, it can actually be very helpful. One independent task I don't always embrace is pouring liquids. Practice is important, but practicing with the gallon of milk is not my favorite idea!

Here's the situation: We recently had one of those days where the little guy was so excited to put out the pool that he could hardly wait for us to inflate it and lug the water out of the house a gallon jug at a time (No hose! Ugh!) Don't get me wrong- I really don't mind getting out the pool, but this was one of those days where all excitement was lost after two glorious minutes of water time. Bummer!

Thinking quick, I ran into the house and grabbed two plastic cups and suggested that we have pouring practice. It was an absolute hit. We started with me holding the empty cup and Ethan pouring the water. Then we would trade cups-- I'd give him the full cup and he'd give me his now empty cup. It was also a good opportunity to practice the opposites "empty" and "full," and also learn the word "trade." The pool made such a great place to practice...but of course, the bathtub would be great too!

The end result was fun and great practice. I'm still not ready to let him pour the milk, but we'll work on it. :)

Learning Colors- Color Match and Sort

The way that we learn is absolutely fascinating to me; the way we learn colors is no exception.

 

There are 3 steps to learning colors:

• Color matching- "This ball is red. Can you find me a red ball?"
• Color identifying- "Which ball is red?"
• Color naming- "What color is that ball?"

Cool, right?!?

The ability to color match usually begins around 2 years old, but there is no reason that you can't start practicing earlier...you could be surprised!

SEE! This is serious FUN!!!

Enter Goldfish crackers. Our little guy loves Goldfish, and he's recently taken to the Space Adventures crackers (although this works real well with the Goldfish Colors too). 

All you have to do is take one, for example, a purple cracker, and ask your little one to find you another purple cracker. Continue until all your crackers are sorted (or eaten)! After Ethan was done, he directed "Mommy eat the orange ones." (See how the orange crackers are way off to the side like that--clearly those are the boring "regular" Goldfish). Priceless.

I admit- it'd be better to sort on a table or plate,
but sometimes learning activities magically happen
 in the moment, and goldfish on the carpet is the happy result.

Not only is this great for learning colors, but any type of sorting is a developmental milestone and gives toddlers a great sense of accomplishment.

This particular day we were playing by the seat of our pants, but I've seen on Pinterest where some crafty folks have made color matching boards that correspond with the Goldfish colors, and that's a great idea too!

So what are you waiting for?? Time to play with your food!