Planting Flowers Play Dough

Happy Earth Day! As you know, we've been celebrating all month and we will be continuing to celebrate all month! Today we did two activities, but the craft I will be posting later (busy mom!)

We had a simple activity using Tegan's favorite medium, play dough. I got to dye the dough black which was fun for me for whatever reason-I am so used to natural or bright colors doing something dark was interesting!

Again I used my basic recipe, but with black food dye added:

• 2 Cups of Flour
• 2 Tbsp of Oil
• 1/2 Cup of Salt
• 2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 Cup Boiling Water

I had to use coconut oil this time as I was out of my dough oil I keep on hand-and I would have added less oil. When it cooled I had to had more flour because it was oily!

I let Tegan use her imagination on where she wanted to take this activity, which to my dismay wasn't the flowers. She only played with them for a short time, then continued to play with the dough as she normally would. 

Don't mind the strawberry yogurt all over her face LOL she would not let me clean her up! 

We read a few Earth day books, but I unfortunately didn't have any age appropriate garden ones! Hopefully next year I will. We did read a few flower books and tree books.

Happy Earth Day everyone! What did you guys do?

 

Sticky Earth

For our Earth Month theme, we did a simple activity we often do that is a lot of fun and also educational. We simply use contact paper (clear) and a type of medium to practice our fine motor skills sticking our medium to the contact paper.

I simply cut a circle shape (kinda, lol!) out of our contact paper (I got mine at Target-in the home aisles) and cut blue foil as well as blue and green foam shapes. 

Again, I just let her put the colors wherever, but it might be fun to see if you could do a replica Earth from your head! 

And our finished project:

The best part, the foam pieces are reusable so its something they can come back to throughout the day!

Sprinkle Play Dough-two ways!

Play Dough is the king here, probably more than water beads! In fact, Tegan has started to say "Play dough" in the most adorable way a 19 month old can!!

We like to create new doughs to keep her interested and express fine motor skills. Most of these are really simple and cheap ideas.

Today I made a basic dough-no coloring-and let Tegan shake out sprinkles I simply got from the dollar store. I didn't realize it would be such a huge hit!

I made my dough using the basic recipe: 

• 2 Cups of Flour
• 2 Tbsp of Oil
• 1/2 Cup of Salt
• 2 Tbsp Cream of Tartar
• 1 1/2 Cup Boiling Water

You would add your color if need be, but there wasn't for this activity! After mixing all together, I still like to put it in a warm pan on the stove and mix until it forms a tight ball. I feel it gets a better consistency. 

I simply then let her at it!

Since this was a "sweet" dough, we decided to add cupcake liners. I think scenting it with vanilla next time would be a great idea!

I store all my play dough in either recycled plastic containers (like yogurt or such) or if I am out, plastic baggies. To my wonderful delight, a few days later we pulled the dough out again to play and the sprinkles had MELTED! It made the dough look like a confetti dough!

I added some foam shapes to press into, but what she really liked was making "popsicles" 

What a great way to get to activities out of one dough!

Quinoa Breakfest Bake

I am 24 weeks pregnant (going on 25 soon) and this second pregnancy has been really hard on my health. I am still nursing Tegan (19 months) on a regular schedule as well; Not only does she nurse to sleep and awake for bedtime and her nap, but we will have 2-3 (at least) feeding in between. I under estimated the toll both being pregnant and lactating was having on my body. Despite a healthy diet (with treats of course!), and good supplements (fermented cod liver oil, magnesium) I have had a stomach bug/food poisoning twice, a severe sinus infection, and general feeling like blah. Of course, we can chop the blah to just being pregnant, but after being sick so many times (which is very unusual for me) I decided I needed to up my nutrition.

I have already gained roughly 32 lbs this pregnancy. I gained 70+ with Tegan, and I thought this pregnancy I would gain less, but that has not been the case. However, I am NOT worried! I am producing milk and a baby! Weight is JUST a number and I am focused on being healthy and happy! We are SUPER active too, regularly taking hikes, walks, and what not on a weekly basis so I know I am in charge of my health. Some of my recipes *are* caloric dense as well, but for all my pregnant/breastfeeding/tandem moms, this is a good thing!

I am really excited to share this recipe with you guys. It is very versatile and extremely delicious. You can easily add substitutions which I will mention.  This is easy to make 100% vegan and gluten free too, if that is what you wish!

Quinoa Breakfast Bake 

Serves 2

1 medium Banana-ripe or unripe (see substitutions)*

1 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or milk of choice)

1 cup of Quinoa Flakes

2 tablespoons of Greek Yogurt plain (or non dairy yogurt)

1 tsp Vanilla Extract

1/2 cup of Walnuts or nut of choice 

2 scoops of Collagen Polypeptide Powder**

Dash of Himalayan Salt

Cinn/Nutmeg  

*I used a banana in this recipe, and it came out like a banana bread. It was delicious, but there are tons of substitutions! Try using apple sauce, or for pregnant mamas trying to get dates in you can easily substitiute date paste. The substitution would be 1/2 cup- you could probably do more date paste as it is thick and not runny (like applesauce) if you like it to be sweeter. 

**I love my Collagen Powder. I get mine through a co op (here it is online, Vital Proteins) and it packs a whooping 18 grams of protein per 2 scoops. It is a easily digestible and absorbable protein, more so than many protein powders. It is also low in calories compared to protein powders. The blue lid is the non gelling form and you can add it to anything-baking, smoothies, yogurt, ect. 

I simply mixed all ingredients together with a hand mixer, and baked in my convection oven at 350 degrees for 25-35 minutes. 

I plugged in the info into myfittnesspal app, which I have a love hate relationship with, and these were the stats on one serving:

LOOK AT THAT IRON LADIES! Were else are you going to get 28% of your daily intake of iron like this? And the protein! I strive for 100 grams a day and this is 25% of my daily intake! This is such a super house for pregnant/lactating women! 

And best of all? It was DELICIOUS!!! 

Kinetic Sand and Seashells

So, I caught wind they had Kinetic sand at the .99 cent only stores-and I may not have died (lol). I don't live near one, but a gracious friend picked me up several bags. It was $1.99 for 2 lbs! We have been having so much fun with a large amount of kinetic sand, and what better way to play with this wonderful white sand than a beach theme?

Kinetic sand is wonderful for a variety of reasons, and one of the best parts is that it holds shapes really well. This was perfect for the real sea shells we used! It was easy to make prints and molds.

I also felt this activity went really well with the Earth Day theme, but I didn't have any age appropriate (19 months) books about the beach. If you have a older toddler this would be a great introduction.

Here is how well the sand holds natural shapes:

And even the inside of shells:

Here is some of the printmaking we did:

It would be fun to also incorporate water beads in a separate tray to really give this a beach feel-however I didn't want to ruin my precious kinetic sand! But maybe next time I'll be more daring :)

Silly Putty Jewel Dig to encourage fine motor

I have a 15 year old brother who is developmentally delayed autistic, and it is from his therapy work I witnessed growing up I get a lot of my inspiration from. Lo and behold my excitement when I rediscovered a old favorite-Therapy putty. Therapy putty is much different than regular silly putty, and for only $14 on amazon quite worth the investment-however I couldn't make the purchase this paycheck! Too eager, I made a simple putty on the thicker version.

It is very simple: just use dish soap and corn starch. Some people swear Dawn makes a better putty, I would believe that as I personally think Dawn is the king of soaps for power cleaning, but I had dollar store soap that worked just as well. Note the color of the soap will be the color of your putty in pastel version. Many say to use a 1:1 ratio, I cannot for sure tell you my exact measurements. I simply poured 1 cup of cornstarch and squeezed in soap until I got the texture I wanted. 

Now, I put it in a container and let sit, and that was kinda a mistake. Two days later, it was more doughy than putty. But we took advantage of it, and played with dish soap dough!

Then after a while, I took a chance and decided to add more soap to see it would putty back up.

And sure enough it did! Like I said, this is a thicker putty than store bough which is what we needed. So I brought out the gems. 

The goal of any activity is to have fun, but it is special when a activity requires more manipulating fine motor gestures than normal, and this is exactly what this provides. Therapy putty does the same; it requires manipulation and hand strengthening coordination that helps children learn. 

We pressed down the gems, and then worked to get them out of the putty. This was of course just a lot of fun for Tegan. She also used a Popsicle stick to help pry them out. This was also a pretty easy activity to clean up, as I picked up the putty and crumbs that were left I wiped off with a wet rag-activating the soap so I could also say I cleaned off her table ;) 

Tegan loves doughs of all kinds, but this putty kept her busy for an hour with playing with the cut outs and them gems. Defiantly a hit. I am still going to order the Therapy putty and write a review on the difference between it and our homemade version, so stay tuned! 

Earth Month Activity

Earth Day should be more than just a day don't you think? That is why Tegan and I are celebrating all this month! We have different activities, books, and crafts throughout this month to explore environments, animals, plants, and more.

Today we did a simple craft that was a lot of fun. It is also one I've been dying to try! Baked Cotton balls!

It is very easy; first make a 1:1 ratio of flour and water. The best description of the consistency is pancake batter like!

I then added some paint, in blue and green (earth colors!)

I laid out the cotton balls and paint, and prepared a wax paper sheet. Tegan is not into crafts as much as she is into her activities such as the bins, so it took coaxing for her. She preferred to "dip" the balls into the batter and place. Mom had fun rolling them around ;)

We placed them in a circle shape. If you have older kids, feel free to try to make it resemble Earth, but we were happy with just placing them wherever.

I preheated my oven to 300 degrees F. Some people said it took 60 mins to bake, and some even said 90+, but I have a gas double oven, I used my smaller oven and they were dry in less than 30, so it is important to check yours!

The cotton balls were glued onto the wax paper, which is perfect for our intended use. After I let cool, I simply hot glued it to a piece of construction paper and viola!

Happy Earth MONTH!

Fireman day!

Our town had a fireman/firetruck meet and greet this morning. Although this picture might fool you, Tegan had a blast!

We had a rough morning, and even worse we decided to skip our nap basically. But we were able to do our craft and bin still, which helped keep her calm and content.

First up, our failed craft (lol). I mean to do tissue paper bleed art, and I did not know you needed specific tissue paper! Yes peeps! It needs to say bleed tissue! So ours did not bleed at all, but the water did stick the tissue paper on!

we simply glued the recycled brown paper on the construction paper, and gently placed the tissue paper. We took a paint brush and dipped in water and "painted" the tissue paper on. 

Then yesterday, I made a quick "fire" bin using materials I had. Tegan is a little young, so I didn't go all out for this theme. I used black beans and sand I had already from a previous "space" bin, and red/yellow/black pom poms. I made a "house" out of a tissue box.

To extend play, I added toilet paper rolls for the pom poms

Overall, it was a very fun theme I think we will revisit in the future for sure! 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Sensory Bin

Tegan, who is 19 months, is finally really getting into books (persistence paid off!) and she loves short story board books. I decided to make book time even more fun by an accompanying sensory bin. This week we decided to do Chicka Chicka Boom Boom (who doesn't love this book?)

                                    

First I wanted to make a magnetic tree, and let me tell you, this was a lot of grief. The best way would be to buy black spray paint and spray the cans; I didn't have that option and I didn't want to spend the money so I tried using construction paper. After MUCH trial and error, overall it wasn't super effective. Even taunt and tight it hindered my cheap ABC magnets from sticking (lol). I ended up ripping it off in the end and just using the cans. To make the tree, I simply hot glued three used cans (black beans, mmm!) and used the black construction paper and green for the leaves.

You have many options on what to use as the filler. You really can't go wrong with corn, beans, rice, pom poms, ect. I decided to use our rainbow rice.

We read aloud the book, opened the bin, and while she played I read it to her again. If she was older, it would be fun to find each letter alphabetically and put it on the tree. 

Besides the coconut tree struggles (lol) this was a easy and quick set up that she really enjoyed! Especially once she was able to stick the letters better to the can. 

Stay tuned as we will be doing weekly book activities AS WELL as Earth day activities for the month of April!