Sensory Rainbows

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I haven’t a drop of Irish blood in me, but I’ve always adored Ireland – the literature, the music, the wit, the music, the scenery… Did I mention the music? So I wanted to bring a little luck of the Irish to our St. Paddy’s Day just for Travis’s enjoyment. Aside from making a rainbow snack, we put together this sensory rainbow while talking about the lore of the pot of gold that waits at the end. Now I just need to find a green shirt for Travis to wear!

I drew a line for each color of the rainbow on poster board, and set it aside.

Then it was time to sort our supplies! For the best sensory experience, use a variety of items – we used buttons, pom poms, stickers, beads, pipe cleaners, and more. Travis helped sort, and I put everything into little paper cups by color.

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I decided it would be least confusing to glue on the items one color at a time, so first asked Travis to make drops of glue on the red line and presented him with our red cup of items.

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Once he grasped the idea of what we were doing, he was very determined and excited to decide where each item would go. It was a bit exhausting, so we didn’t finish all in one session, letting the glue dry in between.

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As you work, talk about the textures! Our beads were hard, our pom poms were soft, our buttons were smooth etc. As a final sensory touch, I glued on cotton ball clouds.

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Wishing everyone a Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Over the Rainbow Snack

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There might not be a pot of gold at the end of this rainbow, but it still makes the perfect St. Paddy’s Day snack!

Spoon blueberry non-dairy yogurt onto a plate or shallow bowl and spread into a thin layer.

Top the yogurt with a rainbow of fruit – we used red strawberries, orange mandarin oranges, yellow bananas, green kiwi, blue blueberries, and purple grapes. A little sprinkle of shredded coconut at each end gave us puffy clouds.

Perhaps a few gold-wrapped candies could make an appearance as well…

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Zipline Butterflies

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We’ve been on a butterfly kick lately, and as a final cute project, we put together these coffee filter ones.

The toddler appeal here is that you need to use dot paints to decorate them – and you need to press down HARD. Travis didn’t need to be told twice – he loved pressing the paints and then lifting up to see if the color had bled through.

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Once he’d made as many dots as he could ever wish to, I opened up the filters to show him that we now had… symmetrical butterflies!

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When the paint dried, I twisted a pipe cleaner around the middle of each, twisting at the top to form two antennae. Tape the antennae to a small piece of plastic straw, and now your butterfly is ready to zip along!

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We attached a string in our kitchen and living room for the butterflies to fly. As an alternative, thread your string from tree branch to tree branch in warm weather, or have two adults hold the ends of the string so the butterflies can zip back and forth as you raise or lower your arms.

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One way or another, your toddler will be delighted.

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Block City

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No day like a snow day to build a whole city!

Save empty food containers (rectangles and squares work best, so set aside items like aseptic milk cartons, cereal boxes, cracker boxes, or pasta boxes ahead of time), and you’ll have a nice assortment when you’re ready to make the buildings for this game.

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We covered the boxes in bright construction paper, and then decorated. You can use markers and crayons, or tape on pictures from magazines – by the end, we had a fire station, gas station, trees, homes, and more.

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You’ll notice that my crafting skills are fairly abysmal – beauty wasn’t my goal here, just imaginative fun!

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Now it was time to make the road! I pulled out a sheet of butcher paper (an old tarp or any flat surface would work fine, too). While Travis arranged his buildings, I drew roads and scenery. I thought he’d want to use the markers on the paper as well, but he was more interested in driving around the cars I had set out.

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No reason we couldn’t add some real blocks in with our cardboard boxes, to round out the buildings in town!

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In sum, this ate up over an hour of a snow day – perfection!

Butterfly Balancing Act

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This balancing experiment is a nice way to talk about things like symmetry and centers of gravity, no matter how young your child is! They’ll love the beautiful butterfly you make, and absorb just a little science in the process.

First, I folded a piece of white paper in half and traced butterfly wings. Cut out the wings and unfold – you now have a perfectly symmetrical butterfly!

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Now place that paper over something sturdier (we recycled a cereal box) and cut out – this part was definitely a grown-up step.

Travis loved decorating his butterfly with dot paints.

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Once dry, it was time to see how it flew!

Using a little bit of playdough to anchor it, I inserted a straw. This will be the stand for the butterfly.

 

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Tape a penny to each corner of the butterflies wings for weight.

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Now balance it on the straw! You may need to shift a little until you find the center of balance, but once you do, your little butterfly friend will be aloft.

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I confess, I think I was more impressed with the final results than Travis was!

Footprint Butterflies

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Painting doesn’t get messier – or more fun! – than this.

We needed a harbinger of spring with a sleety snowstorm outside, and I thought butterflies would be perfect. First, Travis and I selected blue and green paints, and swirled them together on a paper plate. I was hoping this would give the butterfly a patterned look like in nature, though mostly it just meant we had a lovely turquoise.

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I thought Travis might be squeamish about stepping right in the paint and planned to apply it to his feet with a paintbrush – but he surprised me!

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He let me hold the plate to his foot and mush it around (“It’s cold!”) and then was patient as I pressed his foot down on poster board, angling his toes slightly out, for one butterfly wing. Repeat on the other side.

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We made two butterflies on our poster board, but after that, things would have gotten too muddled. He was having so much fun though that I laid out additional sheets of paper for him to slip and slide and stomp on – make sure to hold your little one’s hand.

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Finally, our butterfly wings were dry; I added in bodies and antennae and Travis drew a few scribbles of his own.

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Send to a loved one as a happy spring card!

Button Tree

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We haven’t let the icy weather deter us from outdoors adventures, including collecting treasures like sticks and winter leaves. But that doesn’t mean we’re not excited to see blossoms on the trees! This adorable button tree is a nice harbinger of spring.

The first step of course is to collect your sticks – head some place beautiful in the summer sunshine for this part!

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Once home, Travis loved sorting through our collection. I quickly realized that he would be way more in to playing with the sticks than shaping them into a tree on poster board…

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…so after he had fun for a while, I took care of gluing our sticks in place.

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Once the glue dried, it was time to add the buttons! Travis was very proud to add big drops of glue and press a button “leaf” into place over each one.

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We had fun choosing which color buttons to place where.

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The final creation was so whimsical!

Bubble Wrap & Paint

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This project is messy but so worth it – paint, cool textures, exciting results… What more could a toddler want from an art project?

To start, I set Travis up with a disposable cookie sheet and paints, and told him he could squeeze on whatever colors he wanted. This alone was cause for excitement, since usually I measure out a portion of paint for him to use. He was very deliberate choosing which color should go where!

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Now it was time to smear it all together with a plastic spoon, which he loved.

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Once our baking sheet was filled with paint, we placed a piece of bubble wrap, bumpy side down, over the paint and pressed to make sure it was fully coated.

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Carefully peel up the bubble wrap and transfer to a piece of poster board. Press down again, then lift off and reveal your painting!

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We had to make several prints of course, adding new colors each time.

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Then Travis wanted to get his hands on the painted side of the bubble wrap, and pressed his painted hands onto a clean piece of bubble wrap, which was nearly as fun since it led to popping the bubbles.

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Great messy fun!

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Animal Bath Time

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We were stuck inside with a late winter snow storm, so it seemed as good a time as any to get messy!

In the bathroom, I laid out several of Travis’s animal toys (definitely use ones that are plastic and washable), along with various colors of paint on a paper plate and a few paintbrushes. He seemed almost disbelieving when I said we were going to paint the animals, but then dove right in!

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He loved choosing which colors each animal should be, including blue cows, yellow donkeys, and purple rabbits.

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After the animals had been covered in his artwork, it was time to give them a bath! Arguable this part was even more exciting than the painting had been.

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I had a bucket of soapy water ready to go in the tub, and Travis loved rinsing off the animals.

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He wanted to run them under the faucet too before we declared the game all done! In sum, a super nice snow day distraction. Although on a summer’s day, you could probably play this entire game out doors with big soapy buckets!

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C Week!

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Wow, just three weeks to go on our Letter of the Week journey – so let’s c what we did in C week!

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Car: Believe it or not, we haven’t taken the time just to play with Travis’s car toys in a while, so this week was a nice reminder! We pulled out our town car mat and garages, set up a race course made from duct tape, drove cars down ramps and through tubes, and more. Want something more crafty? Make a car out of a box!

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Clean: Getting children in the habit of cleaning up should be on your list every week, but this week in particular we made a game of it. Try simple ideas like setting a timer to see who can clean up the fastest, giving clear instructions (“Let’s put all the Duplo away first!”), or – for toys that are especially hard to part with at night – tucking them in to a cozy place to “sleep.” A tot-sized set of cleaning tools makes clean-up even more fun.

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Cardboard: Cardboard is everywhere and it lends itself so easily to the imagination. Check out the two crafts we made this week, with cardboard tubes as the base!

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Camping: Pitch a tent (or a blanket over a stool) and camp in your living room; your child will think they’re in heaven! We added a few cozy blankets, a campfire made of straw logs and felt flames, and then cozied up for books by flashlight. Check out Flashlight by Lizi Boyd or the Shine-a-Light series from Usborne.

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Castle: We headed to the non-fiction section of the library and got out a few neat castle books to help Travis understand more about what they are this week. From there, of course, we had to build our own from blocks at home! Fast Forward Castle and Look Inside a Castle are both neat options.

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Captions: For several art projects this week, we added captions, so that by the end of the week, we had a mini art gallery! I loved this idea so much that I hope to continue it beyond C week. After your child finishes a project, simply ask him or her what is happening in the picture. Write down their words on a little index card. It’s a neat way to get them excited about art and reading.

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Construction: In addition to cars, play with any construction vehicles you have. Better yet, make a construction site sensory bin.

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Cloud: We made a shaving cream cloud on a rainy day, then went cloud watching the next afternoon when the sun came out!

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Caterpillar: Very Hungry Caterpillar delights everyone from babies on up. This week we made a color match caterpillar, and also played with Travis’s other caterpillar toy, which happens to be appropriately named the code-a-pillar, his first foray into computer coding.

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Clock: Toy clocks are great because you can gently introduce the notion of time as your child absorbs a little here and there while playing! Travis loves spinning the hands on his talking clock, and we read clock books like Tick and Tock’s Clock Book and Telling the Time.

For our weekly extras…

Fine art: Colors are the name of the game this week! First, try color mixing with paint. I gave Travis a little each of red, yellow, and blue… Soon enough we had a big goopy mess, but it was a great way to get talking about how colors combine to make different ones.

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Read about colors with My Very First Book of Colors by Eric Carle or A Color of His Own by Leo Lionni, then continue the play by color mixing with ice cubes!

Food: Fun foods this week included carrot-raisin salad, homemade cornbread, crackers, cantaloupe, clementines, and a decadent bite of vegan cheezecake.

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Books: We covered cats and cows in books this week. Some fun titles are The Cow Who Clucked by Denise Fleming, Click Clack Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin, and They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel. Travis also enjoyed Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.

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Songs: Travis was in hysterics laughing over Never Smile At a Crocodile (from Peter Pan), and also enjoyed the changing pace of Little Red Caboose.

Math: You can try teaching your child to classify this week, or better yet – classify by color! We used our color match caterpillar for this, but there are toys you can purchase such as a color sorting pie as well. It’s also a great week for calendars; daily magnetic calendars are a nice tool to teach about the year/months/weeks/days.

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Be back soon for B week!