Category: 12 to 18 months

Rainbow Jello Sensory Play

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I originally intended this as a sensory project for Veronika, but it turned out that my kindergartner loved it just as much; it was a nice reminder that even though he’s into battling Star Wars Lego figures, he’s still a little boy at heart.

First you’ll need to make jel dessert in all colors of the rainbow. Regular jell-o is available in every color, but not the vegan brands. I can find vegan jel dessert in red, orange, and yellow, but for the other colors, I use clear jel dessert and add food coloring.

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Prepare all the colors, then set in the fridge until firm. (Note: the green never did firm up, which may have been because I used too much food coloring and made it too watery. As a result, our sensory play had a variety of textures).

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Spoon the jel desserts onto a tray in rainbow order. It won’t stay this way for long…

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I placed the tray over a few towels and stripped Veronika down to a diaper – no worry about sticky clothes here – then let her loose with spoons and spatulas. She immediately got started!

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As mentioned, big brother Travis wanted an equal share of this project. He couldn’t wait for a jello snack.

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And just to play!

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Soon the kids were scooping and stirring and mushing. They layered rainbow “cakes” and stirred up rainbow “soup”. “Soup!” Veronika proudly repeated back when Travis used the word.  There were lots of fun vocab words to use, like soupy and lumpy and blobby and wobbly.

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Plus: “Yummy!” she said, whenever she got a little taste. A perfect way to fill over 30 minutes of play.

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Restaurant Games

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Dining out with a toddler is a lot harder than dining out with baby. While babies might be content to coo from a stroller and watch the world go by, not so your toddler! Here are a few favorite games I’ve found to keep Veronika occupied.

Drawing Games: Restaurants often provide paper and crayons… but good luck with that paper staying on the table. Now, I carry a roll of masking tape in my purse. Tape the paper down, and your toddler won’t be able to rip up his or her masterpiece!

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Hide a Hand: Hide a small item in one hand. Let your toddler see it, but then close both fists. Today, for example, Veronika loved finding a piece of chalk over and over, grinning with delight no matter how many times I switched it back and forth between my hands.

 

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Hide-and-Seek: This is a classic of course. Hide a small object (a quarter works well) in an easy to spot location, and let your toddler be the seeker.

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Ta da! She found it under the menu.

Count Together: Finally, don’t forget about counting. Veronika already chimes along to “One, two, three…” and although she might not grasp what those words convey, kids can learn to parrot up to ten easily.  So count out sugar packets, crayons, single-serve creamers, or whatever else is on the table!

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Today Veronika loved counting pieces of chalk into an empty plastic cup.

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And of course, it doesn’t hurt if you happen to be at an establishment so cool that the table itself is a chalkboard and there is a basket full of dinosaurs to play with!

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Do you have a favorite restaurant game with your toddler? Please share in the comments!

Glowing Creepy Crawly Sensory Bag

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I used a black light and glow-in-the-dark spiders for this novel sensory bag. I thought Veronika would be very into the glowing bugs, but it turns out the black light was too interesting and distracting! I had read online that tonic water glows under black light. It was hard to tell if this was actually true, but the project was still fun!

To set up, combine 1 bottle of hair gel (use clear or yellow) and about 1/4 cup tonic water in a large zip-top bag.

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Seal and mix, then open the bag back up to add your “creepy” stuff. I had glow-in-the-dark spiders, as well as a few googly eyes from the craft bin.

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Seal the bag, then place on the ground and turn out the lights. Turn on your black light and watch it glow!

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When the black light was on, the hair gel mixture was most evident. If we turned it off, the glow of the spiders became more apparent.

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Veronika loved poking at the eyes and bugs with a finger, and generally just squishing her hands all over it.

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But as mentioned, the black light was very distracting, so I’m going to think of ways to make a glowing sensory bag that doesn’t involve the light. Stay tuned!

Glitter Water Blob Sensory Bags

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Veronika has been having so much fun with sensory bags lately. What’s better than a rainbow array of bags to play with? Rainbow bags with glitter and bubbles inside!

To make these glittery bags, fill sandwich-sized zip-top bags about one-third of the way with water. Now add food coloring and glitter.

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They will look best if the glitter and food color are in the same family; so for example I used a purplish glitter in the red bag, gold in the yellow bag, and silver for the blue and green.

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Seal the bags (tightly!) and place where your toddler can come discover them.

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Veronika first just loved squishing her hands on them and watching all that glitter and water move about.  She seemed especially intrigued by the red one.

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Then we stood them upright so she could lift the bags and grip in two hands, which was good glittery fun. We talked about how sparkly they were!

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If you lay one bag over the other, as with blue and yellow, you get a color-mixing effect, too, although this was a bit lost on her.

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The most fun was when we shook the bags and produced bubbles inside – sometimes huge! – which she then chased around with a finger.

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These easily kept her busy for about a half hour, a big hit.

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Playing with Cups

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Let’s face it: sometimes a toddler can be in the way. Whether you’re helping an older sibling with a project or trying to get chores done, sometimes those little hands just need to be kept busy!

The easiest hack ever? Give them plastic cups to play with. Do you need to add anything to the cups? Nope, that’s it; just plastic cups!

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I handed Veronika this stack of clear cups when originally she wanted in on a messy project with big brother. But the moment she saw the cups on the floor, she was hooked.

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She sat surrounded by a pile of them and stacked them. Sometimes she stacked them upside down, and sometimes facing up (nesting).

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Sometimes one faced down and one faced up. Then she could topple them over.

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After a while, she had fun kicking and rolling them, and chasing after them. She even discovered that they made neat reflections when held in front of the shiny dishwasher.

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I may just give her cups to play with every day. We’ll have to try some in colored plastic for future variation!

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What’s your favorite toddler toy hack? Please share in the comments!

Cream of Wheat Imagination Bowl

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One of Veronika’s latest words is “truck” and she has a set of construction trucks that she loves to play with, just right for toddler-sized hands. Today, I engaged her imagination by making an indoor “construction site”. Cream of wheat made the perfect base for this easy sensory play; it’s simple to clean up from floors or wipe off of clothing, and it also makes it okay if a toddler decides to taste the “sand”, resulting in a much more pleasant experience than an outdoor sandbox!

Once I demonstrated how she could drive her trucks through the pretend construction zone, she jumped right to it. I showed her how she could use the bulldozer blade to push through the cream of wheat, which was a big hit.

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I loved watching her concentration as she carefully sprinkled “sand” into the dump truck.

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She also loved just vrooming the various trucks, which made fun tracks in the “sand”.

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Trucks lend themselves naturally to lots of onomatopoeia as you play. Be sure to make  beeps and vrooms and other car noises, and your toddler is sure to join in!

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What a great way to get the imagination going and have hands-on sensory play.

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Hot Cocoa Sensory Tub

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Disclaimer: This is by far the messiest sensory play I’ve undertaken with either of my children, and that’s saying a lot. But it’s worth it!

In retrospect, I would have done this activity around Christmas. Something about it felt very seasonal, perfect for the holidays, although technically it is still winter which means hot cocoa season. The original version of this game called for a container of hot cocoa mix, but it’s very hard to find a brand with no milk powder. Instead, I mixed together a tub of cocoa powder but added about 1/2 cup vanilla-flavored protein powder. This meant the mix wouldn’t be too bitter if Veronika happened to lick her fingers (which she did!). Straight cocoa powder probably won’t appeal to your little one.

To complete the set-up, I added a few gingerbread people ornaments. in keeping with the cocoa theme. If you want to keep the bin fully edible, use mini Dandies marshmallows instead. Or try gingerbread men cookies, if in stock around the holidays.

I added a funnel and a few scoops and rakes, and Veronika went to town!

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This was like indoor dirt, except it smelled divine. I held the scoop up to her nose a few times to fully enjoy that chocolate-y scent, which prompted little “mmm’s” of delight.

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Mostly she loved scooping through it.

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Once I showed he how to fill up the funnel, she became an expert at that.

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The gingerbread men were fun to put in the cocoa and bury, then dig up again. Again, I wish I’d thought to use edible marshmallows, though!

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By now she had completely spooned cocoa powder all over her pants and socks. Another mea culpa: wear only a diaper next time!

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Well, since we were already this messy, I figured why not take our sensory bowl from indoor “dirt” to “mud”. I poured in a little oat milk, which made the whole thing smell even better. She loved stirring and watching the powder dissolve in big bubbles.

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Okay, playtime complete; now it was immediately upstairs for a wash and a change!

Winter Picnic

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We’re in the final stretch of winter, and if you’re equally sick of being indoors and dying to get your toddler outside, here’s the perfect idea: Don’t wait! Throw a winter indoor picnic instead.

While Veronika was napping, I set the whole stage including big blankets on the floor, soft balls to throw and play with, and a picnic basket full of little lunch items.

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When she woke up, she immediately needed to check everything out. The balls were a blast to play with, and soon she and big brother were happily devouring their meal.

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We invited a few “babies” along, and Veronika loved putting them in and out of the picnic basket!

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Older kids might have fun talking about favorite warm weather memories as they eat. My two were just thrilled with the change of location from the kitchen table! Did they eat as much as usual? No, but we sure had fun.

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Nature Collage

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This was Travis and Veronika’s first art project together, a really wonderful milestone for siblings.

It started with a nature walk! On a gorgeous spring-like day, we took Veronika out to stretch her legs, and although she has come along on nature hikes, this was the first time she walked on her own two feet.

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Travis was a great help along the trail, pointing out the names of objects. “Log!” he told her proudly, and also pointed out grass, acorns, pine cones, sticks, pebbles, and dirt.

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Of course dirt had to be explored.

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When Veronika saw that big brother had a walking stick, she needed one too!

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As we hiked, the kids added treasures to a brown paper bag. Because it is late winter, there wasn’t a whole lot of color, but there was beauty to be found in dried brown leaves, curiously-shaped sticks, and bristly pine needles.

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Once home, I asked Travis what shape we should draw on construction paper. He chose a butterfly, but anything else from nature – a flower, a favorite animal – would be fun.

Working together, we dripped on glue and applied bits of our nature finds into a collage. Travis loved using an acorn for a big eye and pine needles for antennae. Veronika loved pressing down pieces of leaf on the wings. Something for everyone!

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She even loved squeezing the glue bottle.

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This project helped shape an absolutely beautiful afternoon, and I hope you find the project equally magical.

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Fruity Cereal Activities

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Rainbow Cereal Sensory (5)

A favorite snack around here is the Rainbow O’s cereal from Cascadian Farm. So today Veronika played with the cereal in three different activities! You could also do any of these activities with Fruit Loops or Fruity Cheerios, but I like the all natural ingredients in the Rainbow O’s.

First up was a simple sensory tub. I filled a round cake pan with some of the cereal and added brightly colored measuring cups for scooping.

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Veronika was a lot more interested in tasting and snacking at first…

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…but eventually scooping was fun, too.

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Next up, we made some art! I had her scribble on a yellow plate with crayon to make the center of a flower.

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I glued the plate onto blue cardstock and outlined petal shapes around it. Drip glue over the petal lines, and then cover the glue with the cereal. If your child is in preschool, he or she can definitely help with this step, which will be great for exercising little fingers. Veronika, on the other hand, was quite alarmed to learn she was not allowed to eat the cereal that had glue on it, so much so she burst into tears! So this might have been a little ambitious with a toddler.

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Finally, it was time to take some cereal on the go! With visions of spring dancing in our heads, I turned her snack bag into a butterfly: Fill a zip-top bag with some of the cereal, then seal and divide in two with a finger.

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Secure with a craft lace.

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When you reach your destination, make a necklace! Undo the craft lace and thread some of the cereal onto it, then secure about your child’s neck loosely.

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Now a bite is literally at hand the moment the urge to snack hits.

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