Toddler Fun - Giveaway Fun

I know five - well four - little boys who are going to be having a lot of fun in the next few days. The winner is...
Rowena!

Congratulations Rowena. I know where I can reach you so I'll be getting this prize to you soon. ☺

Thanks to everyone who shared on Facebook, signed up for the emails and commented on the posts. I had a lot of fun this week.

Toddler Fun - Play Dough

I've saved the best activity for the last - in our opinion. This one takes some prep but that's part of the fun.

I don't particularly like play dough, but sometimes you can't go with what you like, and for fun you just can't beat play dough unless you add the fun of making it yourself.

One afternoon my older children were all out so I gathered the little ones that were left and while the baby napped we made some play dough. I found a recipe online and thought we would try it. So here is our step-by-step picture tutorial. The recipe can be found here.

We gathered our ingredients.

We assigned everyone their spot by the stove because if you don't...it's not a good thing. Just saying. We were going to do four colours so everyone picked the colour they wanted to be "in charge" of.

I dumped the ingredients in the pot and they stirred it if it was their colour. It cooks up fast. I had to wash the pot between each colour, but it wasn't hard.

After about five minutes of cooking it's a bit rough looking. We put it on the counter to cool.

When it's cool enough it's time to knead it. This takes about five minutes and my daughter did most of it. At this point my five-year-old started complaining about the smell. It smells like commercial play dough - I hate that smell. The recipe I was using had recommended various spices to scent it but I didn't have them. Then I had a brainstorm - essential oils. We used peppermint in the green, lavender in the blue, and lemon in the yellow. For the red I used cinnamon to help make it not so pink - it worked. We kneaded the oil or cinnamon in since it was too late to add it to the original mix.

The finished product - yeah!

Let the fun begin.

Our giveaway ends tomorrow have you entered?

Toddler Fun Posts:

• Introduction
• Paper
• Beads and Pipe Cleaners
• Popsicle Sticks
• Snacks
• Miscellaneous 
• Books 
• Puzzles

Toddler Fun - Puzzles

I mentioned that my little guy does not like toys very much, but we have discovered that he LOVES puzzles. I think it's in his genes. My mom and I are both huge puzzle fans. When I was going through a life-trying event in my early 20's I did puzzles endlessly. When it felt like my life was falling apart it felt good to have something that went together.

Anyway, we have a small stock of wooden puzzles now. Some are still beyond his capabilites. He's able to do 12-piece puzzles and wooden shape puzzles where the piece fits into a hole in the board.

This picture was several months ago when he first discovered puzzles. I love his smile of accomplishment.

The animal puzzle here makes noises when he puts the piece in. It also makes noises when you walk past it which can be a bit disconcerting.☺

I like wooden puzzles because they are so sturdy and stand up to a lot of use. We really like Melissa and Doug puzzles. Out of four puzzles pictured in this post, three are Melissa and Doug. In the second picture you will see my son has a book. Each letter and corresponding picture is a puzzle piece. Sometimes he takes all the pieces out and finds their place, sometimes just the animals, sometimes he asks me to secretly take a piece out so he can search where it belongs.

There's a puzzle in our giveaway. It ends tomorrow.

Toddler Fun Posts:

• Introduction
• Paper
• Beads and Pipe Cleaners
• Popsicle Sticks
• Snacks
• Miscellaneous 
• Books

Toddler Fun - Books

This just wouldn't be a blog about our family if we didn't bring books into the posts. We have books everywhere in our house and that is not an exaggeration. One thing about my toddler - I think I mentioned this already - he doesn't particularly like toys but he LOVES books. Most of the books he knows are well-known classics, but I thought I would go through a list of his favourites. Maybe you've forgotten some of these and this list will jog your memory to get these out with your little one. Some of them are out of print so you have to watch for them at yard sales and thrift stores.

Here they are in no particular order:

• Winnie-the-Pooh
• Peter Rabbit
• Ladybird books
• Dr. Seuss
• Jim Arnosky - author with gorgeous picture books that he illustrates 
• 

• Eric Carle
• Lois Lenski - Amazon carries these classics. If you've never read any of Lois Lenski's books, check them out. My toddler loves her "Small" series.
• Teddy Bear's Fun to Learn - This is my little guy's all-time favourite...the one he asks for without fail. My husband has read this to all of our toddlers. We are on our fourth copy.

 

• Richard Scary
• Virginia Lee Burton

 

• Curious George

I cannot leave this post without talking about photo books. I used to get mine printed through Creative Memories. I haven't had a book printed since they reorganized their company, but I have three almost ready to go. My children LOVE photo books. They are the story of their life. I know as moms we are all really busy, but I see this as part of my job as their mom to preserve their history. So I paper scrapbook and do digital scrapbooking.  It really doesn't take long to put a photo book together. I would encourage you to find a programme you are comfortable with and make it a goal to make at least one photo book over the next year.

Don't forget to check out our giveaway.

Toddler Fun Posts:

• Introduction
• Paper
• Beads and Pipe Cleaners
• Popsicle Sticks
• Snacks
• Miscellaneous 

Toddler Fun - Miscellaneous

This first activity calls for fine motor control - something very good for little toddler hands to practice. I found the idea here. It's very simple. You place two or three spaghetti noodles in a piece of clay. Then your little one drops cheerios onto them. I have to admit mine never gets more than two or three on a noodle before he takes them off and eats them, but the goal here is to keep him busy and happy so if that's happening I'm okay with the snacking. Hey, we're multi-tasking - working on an activity and snacking. ☺ As you can see this activity takes a lot of concentration.

We have a wooden game that a neighbour found in her dad's closet and gave to us. It has six regtangular boards that each have eight pictures. For each tile there are eight square tiles with a picture that corresponds - not matches - a picture on the big piece. For instance there will be a picture of a vase and the child has to match the flowers to it or a baby pram matched with a baby. This is another favourite game. I control it by only giving him one board and eight tiles at a time. My older children like to mix everything up and do it all at the same time, but that's beyond my toddler's abilities right now. We also invented a game where we each had a board and saw who could get the tiles for their board first.

I have a small cardboard memory game that we haven't tried yet. I don't know if he's ready for it yet. You  know - the kind where all the cards are face down and you take turns turning over two at a time to find the matches.

Another favourite activity is spooning beans from one bowl to another. Sometimes the simplest activities seem to be the most fun. I mean really who would think that this would be fun, but my little guy loves doing this. Just like when he plays with beads though, I'm hyper-aware if the beans fall on the floor because of the choking hazard to our baby. This is a simple, cheap activity and one that sets up quickly. I think part of the fun is the noise it makes - especially if you use a metal container for one of the bowls. There's just something about noise that little boys can't seem to get enough of. ☺

What games does your toddler enjoy playing?

Check out our giveaway. It includes a game.

Toddler Fun Posts:

• Introduction
• Paper
• Beads and Pipe Cleaners
• Popsicle Sticks
• Snacks

Toddler Fun - Snacks

"Mommy, I hungy. I hungy." My youngest is very persistent, and this is something I hear several times a day. I have to weigh whether he's truly hungry or just bored. He does need something mid-morning. Four hours between meals is just too long for anyone to go without becoming cranky. During the morning I need to have quick and easy snacks that don't interrupt my teaching. Below is a list of things we like to snack on that are fast and don't really need any (or much) prep:

• apple slices with peanut butter
• yogurt with honey or maple syrup
• raisins or apricots
• bread with peanut butter or jam
• leftover pancakes with a topping - They truly are good cold.
• cheese
• pickled eggs - super easy to make
• one or two slices of salami - This is one his dad gives him. I can't stand even the smell of salami. ☺
• Ryvita crackers
• smoothies

He prefers to lick the peanut butter off. ☺

In  case you need more ideas I have several snack ideas pinned on my Pinterest "Food" board. Here are a list of posts from other blogs with much long snack ideas than I have here.

• 10 Non-Perishable Snack Ideas
• 40 Non-Processed Snacks for Busy Moms
• How to Make a Smoothie (chart)
• 46 Ways to Serve Fruits and Veggies at Snacktime
• 100 Healthy Snack Ideas

After seeing so many good ideas, I think I need to shake up our snack time. How about you? Did anything catch your eye? What does your little one snack on?

Have you entered the giveaway yet?

Toddler Fun Posts:
Introduction
Beads and Pipe Cleaners
Paper

Toddler Fun - Popsicle Sticks

We've had a lot of fun with the popsicle sticks, but they required a little more prep than other activities.

First I took a pack of coloured popsicle sticks and cut them in half. Then I cut magnetic tape into skinny  pieces to fit on the back of the sticks. Next I cut coloured paper into strips and glued them together. Finally we were ready for the next activity.

I put the paper onto a cookie sheet, and now his sticks will "stick" to the paper. Sometimes I let him just match the colours. Sometimes I set up a pattern - two blue, one orange two red, one yellow, etc. Sometimes we skip the paper and he just plays with the sticks on the cookie sheet.

I still have some coloured popsicle sticks so this is something I have on my to-do list. I don't think I'll be as fancy as described in the post with writing things on the sticks. It will be enough for me if he can just match the coloured sticks to the right popsicle.

By the way, I have a Pinterest board called "Busy Bags". I don't have a lot of pins on it yet, but it's all about activities you can do with your little ones.

Have you ever used popsicle sticks for an activity with your toddler? We'd love to learn something new to do with them.

Toddler Fun:
Introduction
Paper
Beads and Pipe Cleaners

Don't forget about our giveaway.

Busy Bag - Beads and Pipe Cleaners

I had a really hard time finding beads for some reason. The ones I found are a bit on the small side so we watch my little guy like a hawk when he has them because of the choking hazard for the baby. Anyway, this is another activity and involves very fine motor control because of the size of the beads and for when he's threading them onto a pipe cleaner.

Sometimes I put a pattern of beads on a pipe cleaner which he has to copy. You wouldn't think this is hard, but apparently it is a learned skill. He much prefers I just give him a couple of pipe cleaners and his beads and let him do as he pleases.

I also have baby food jars that I glued different coloured papers on to. He likes sorting the beads into their proper jars. He is a bit troubled if a bead goes in the wrong jar.

I'm thinking about putting a knot in the end of a length of yarn, wrapping tape around the other end (like the end of a shoelace) and letting him string beads. I think this would be really good for his fine motor control.

Have you used beads with your little one? What is their favourite thing to do?

Don't forget to enter our giveaway.

Toddler Fun Posts:

• Introduction
• Paper

Toddler Fun - Paper

There are so many things that you can do with your toddler and paper. There's the obvious use of colouring on paper. My little guy is just getting to the place where he can be trusted not to break the crayons just for the fun of hearing them snap.

About a year ago I was trying to find some fat crayons for him because I figured those would be harder to break. I looked everywhere except online. I should have thought of that but then again I was pregnant so not exactly at the top of my game. Anyway, my husband came home with these markers. They were okay, and they are washable. I don't like markers in general so we didn't use them much. They did fill a need though. I'm glad that we can move on to crayons now even if all he does is a few scribbles on one page before he's ready for another. So we have colouring books or paper that's been printed on one side and he colours on the other.

I will also take a paper and put dots on it randomly. Then I give him a page of stickers, and he has to cover the dots. He likes doing this except when he gets too perfectionist about having every dot fully covered, and I have to peel the sticker off so he can replace it "just so". 

Sometimes I give him paper to cut. He loves doing this because only big kids get to have scissors so he feels very grown up. Right now he's still figuring out how to use scissors so his cutting is random. I'm hoping by this spring that I will be able to give him flyers, and he can then cut out pictures that strike his fancy. Then I will let him glue them on to paper.

In this picture one of his sisters is cutting out pictures that he picked. Then they laid them out and she would say something like "apples", and he would find the picture with apples.

I don't always involve his siblings in his "busy" time, but if they are finished their school assignments or it's summer, it's nice to have them play with him.

What do you do for fun with paper in your house?

Have you entered our giveaway?

Toddler Fun Posts:

• Introduction

Toddler Fun - Giveaway

I'm excited about this giveaway. I've put together a "starter" kit of things for your little one to do. I'm sure you also have things hanging around your house that you can use to make activities for you toddler - this will help.

So here's a list of what's in this picture:

• a page of stickers
• a pack of construction paper
• six mini cups for sorting/storing beads and/or pom poms
• pom poms
• a wooden puzzle of coloured shapes
• beads
• pipe cleaners
• magnetic tape (for mommy to prepare some activities ☺)
• an animal dominoes game
• popsicle sticks

Now for the rules:

• I'm sorry but this is only open to residents of Canada and the U.S.
• for one entry sign up to follow my blog by email
• for another entry share about this giveaway on Facebook (comment when you have done so)
• for extra entries leave at least one comment on any or all of the "Toddler Fun" posts (one entry/comment)
• The contest will close December 7th at noon when I will draw one winner at random

Have fun and hopefully your little one will be getting something to help fill his/her days.

Toddler Fun - Introduction

People almost always exclaim in amazement when they hear I have eight children. The comments usually run along these lines:

• You are so brave. (whatever that means - I talked about what I think about that statement here.)
• You must be busy. (really? I thought that's what being a mom whether you have one, two, eight or fifteen is all about.)
• How do you do it? (I love this one. Do they really want a rundown of my day.)

To the last question I usually reply that I only add one baby at a time so I just work them into our schedule. That being said some are easier to work in than others. And let me tell you Baby #7 was challenging from the very start. Here I thought I was a seasoned mother who knew everything. Baby #7 taught me differently. From the very beginning he hated change of any kind. He's getting better as he get oldesr but this will always be an aspect of his personality. When I say he hated any kind of change that includes changing from being awake to asleep and vice versa. Think about how many times a baby goes to sleep in his first year. I walked and walked and walked because that was the only thing that kept him calm - falling asleep next to me. My standby of nursing didn't help because as the nursing soothed him to sleep he would start to cry because he didn't like that feeling. Walking was more soothing to him.

School was hard too. My older children would often finish an assignment then walk the baby while I marked it. Now he's toddler and he does not particularly like toys or playing by himself. That has made school very challenging. I started to see on the internet moms who were planning activities for their toddlers while they homeschooled older children or just to get some learning in with their little one. I started to collect ideas and implement them. This week I'm going to share with you the things we like to do and a giveaway to get you started on a set of activities for your little one(s).

Please feel free to share any activities you and your toddler or preschooler enjoy. We are always looking for new activities.