Inventive Playdough

Harry's not great on messy or creative play. We're working on, and currently attending a course at the local Children's Centre to give me some new ideas. However, I can persuade him to spend some time playing with playdough on occasion. The trick, of course, as with anything toddler-related, is to be inventive and relate it to their interests.



I used to simply use the playdough and model it into cars. We also rolled and cut out shapes, but this never really grasped Harry's interest as much as real '3D' cars.

More recently we have started using his construction vehicles (and woe betide you if you call the 'backhoe loader' a 'digger') to build scenes. I coloured the playdough we made last week in appropriate colours (including black for the tarmac) and he loved making the road and filling in the potholes (hmm, wish there was someone like Harry locally to do this for real!) The only problem was that he lamented the lack of a 'grader' in his construction vehicle set to level his road!!

Today we went for something different. Thanks to the 'Harry and his Bucket full of Dinosaurs' books (Harry's new favourites), he has developed a new interest in dinosaurs (I seriously have to gen up on my knowledge of names and also on which are carnivores, omnivores and herbivores!) so we go out the dinosaurs with the playdough. He particularly like feeding Tyrannosaurus and making footprints. We discussed the difference between the herbivore and carnivore footprints and in their teeth. It's nice to find something new to grab his interest as otherwise our days are mostly spent racing and performing elaborate dramas with his car collection!

The recipe I use for playdough is from the Wonderplay book, which has loads of awesome ideas in it. 1 cup flour, 1 tbsp oil, 1 cup water, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tsps cream of tartar, food colouring.

Mix dry ingredients in saucepan; add wet and mix together; cook over low/med heat; stir constantly (about 5 minutes); knead until smooth; add colouring as desired.

I recommend gel food colouring, as sometimes the liquid stuff makes it too wet if you put enough in to create a vibrant colour.

Planning Play

As all the mums and dads out there will know, it's tricky to plan things with toddlers. They have their own minds, after all, and don't always what to do what we think they will enjoy or what we think they should do.

However, each week after reading what Harry does with the childminder on a Thursday morning I have found myself feeling a bit wistful that we don't manage to complete that much when we are at home. So I am planning a little experiment. By no means am I going to be removing Harry's 'free play' time, but I am going to try to make an activity open to him each afternoon that we might not otherwise have done. For example, Harry almost never instigates creative/messy play - by which I mean he is very unlikely to ever ask to do colouring, painting, play dough etc. However, as much as he loves his cars, by the end of the afternoon he does sometimes seem to reach saturation and ask for the TV on.

So, this week I am going to just think a little ahead and make sure I am prepared for a good play session straight after nap time. We are going to go for a dinosaur theme as Harry has really been into his 'Harry and the Dinosaurs' books recently:

Monday -  am: Daddy is on holiday - Soft play. pm: Track-making with cars and paint (or Daddy's choice).
Tuesday - am: Cousin Isla coming to play. pm: Playdough and dinosaurs.
Wednesday - am: Toddler group at Children's Centre. pm: Dinosaur sticking/colouring activity.
Thursday - am: Childminder. pm: Dinosaur swamp cakes (with green colouring!)
Friday - am: Messy Play Group. pm: Active play - stomp like a dinosaur! I plan to make a cushion fort/forest/swamp in his bedroom with all the blankets and pillows in the house.

Do you plan your child's play? Does it work? What do you think of my ideas? I hope to feed back to you next week how we got on!

Learning Through Play - the holiday edition

I just found this post hanging around in my draft folder, and thought I would share it with you all anyway! I think I was waiting for a picture, but haven't got around to it!

It is amazing how much toddlers can learn just from playing and experiencing the world around them. This doesn't have to be a planned, scheduled activity -although we do try to fit in a few of those each week. Most of the time we just go with whatever we are doing and I fit in whatever we are working towards.

Harry is just learning to count, so that it something we spend a lot of time on at the moment. Most frequently, of course, we count the vehicles we see as that is Harry's favourite thing! At the moment we re also working on Harry's sensory play as he has always been extremely reluctant to get wet or dirty. It has been a little disappointing on holiday to be met with firm rebuttals whenever we suggest a dip in the pool or sea (although he does like sandcastles, so that is progress!)

Yesterday we bought a cheap paddling pool and I filled it and left it in the sun to warm up during nap time. I was hoping to entice Harry in, but no such luck. However, I did manage to get him to splash his hands and by fetching a plastic mug and a bucket we had a great time learning about weight and volume, as well as practising our counting! We learned that 11 cups is lots and lots of water - nearly filling the bucket- and that Harry can carry 6 cups of water in the bucket, even though it was much heavier that 2!

We had a lot of fun, and it really did remind me that 2 year olds really do learn so much every single day!

Swimming

Since the slightly disastrous attempts to get Harry into the water whilst on holiday, we decided that it was time we started taking him swimming more regularly. I do have him down on the waiting list for weekend swimming lessons, but with no family nearby to look after the baby I can't manage to take him to sessions during the week. We used to go to fabulous lessons when he was little, but sadly I went back to work on Wednesdays, which was when they were, so we had to stop. In the mean time Harry has developed a fervent dislike of water (whilst Archie ADORES it) so we thought it was time that we 'jumped in at the deep end' so to speak...

So, we headed off to one of the local pools on Sunday morning - with slight trepidation on my part at least. We split up - Daddy with Harry and Mummy with Archie and off we went. I kept my ears keenly trained for the squeals of a reluctant toddler - but heard nothing. When Archie and I were ready we ventured to the door leading from the male changing room (why they don't have family ones I don't know). I saw Harry who came running towards me - and promptly stacked it. I guess the 2 year old has not yet had it drummed into him that running on wet floors is a BAD idea!! Amazingly he didn't cry much. We sat on the edge with our toes in the water and then we were in!

Our aims of the session was to spend maybe 30-45 minutes in the water - hopefully without Harry either screaming/clinging to us for the whole time. We were so pleasantly surprised! Harry really enjoyed it! The pool was very warm, which was great, and he made some great progress during the seesion. He was wearing armbands and we even got to the point where we could let him go to float on his own for a few seconds. He wasn't terrified and we didn't force him to do anything. He spent most of the time laid flat supported by one or other of us kicking his feet and splashing his hands. He also learned how to 'spiderman' along the edge of the pool with no support at all. He wasn't too freaked out when he got his face wet, and we are working on blowing bubbles, but I really couldn't be prouder. What a super star! We are already planning to go next week (although we may still be in Cornwall) and hopefully to make it a weekly occurence.

Cakes

Another of our favourite activities is to make cakes - this is a dual purpose activity - we can make them AND eat them! Harry particularly likes using the new 'cement mixer' - KitchenAid. Let's hope he doesn't try to make actual cement in it :-/

First there is the measuring. I like to use recipes in cups because I think it's a little easier to understand. Harry can read all of his numbers up to 12 so he can help to read the recipe now which is lovely. He's not that dextrous at getting things into the bowl though, as you can see from the picture...

 

I did have a picture here of Harry licking the paddle (another key part of cake baking, I'm sure you all agree) but being the camera novice I am I couldn't figure out how to rotate it!

Once the cakes are in the oven, it's time to do some washing up...

...and to clean down the side. I'll be honest, I had to do it again after he'd finished, but he did a good job for a 2 year old and it kept him busy for the 10 minutes they were cooking!

Finally time to scoff a cake (and gloat at the baby who isn't allowed one...)

Bob's Top 5 - Non Fiction Books

Any non-fiction book with even a tenuous link to vehicles is a good book in Bob's world. In fact these are the books we turn to time and time again, he loves to learn about exactly how things work and what the world around us does.

1. 'Busy Airport: A lift-the-flap learning book' - This book has so much detail on every page that there will always be something to talk about. Harry has always particularly liked one man with a grey beard who he calls 'Ho ho'! You can follow the passengers through the airport and see them each step of the way so little ones can be well prepared for a plane journey. My only problem is that the copy we have is pretty large for fitting in hand luggage as I'd like to take it to the airport with us. I have seen other books in the same series in a smaller size though so you could probably get it smaller.

2. This is My Tractor (Mega Machine Drivers) - This is a pretty old book, I picked it up in the library book sale for 20p! It's definitely paid for itself many times over though. The book has lots of interesting facts about Charlie and his tractor (a John Deere, no less!) and it has a really appropriate amount of detail for Harry's age right now, pointing out all the different parts of the tractor and what they are used for.

3. The Usborne Big Book of Big Trucks - We bought this for Harry as a birthday present as it s quite expensive. It's a massive book though, with loads and loads of interesting facts and features of each truck and massive fold out pages. We've actually bought him a similar book for Christmas (shh, don't tell him) as we were so impressed with this one. It will definitely last for years, as there are lots of 'Guiness Book of World Records' style facts in it to keep him engrossed.

 

4. 'Cars' (Michelin I spy book) - This book has been a godsend for us, although it may not appeal to other toddlers Harry's age. It's nice and small and often gets thrown in my bag with a couple of toy cars if we are going out and about somewhere we might need distractions. Harry is absolutely obsessed with cars, and before his 2nd birthday could name lots of car brands from their logo or even just the shape of the car. We got this book so we could learn even more car brands with him, and we also use it to compare to his little toy cars to see which models he has. He can now name every single brand in this book when he sees them out on the road as well as some more unusual brands that aren't even included! He knows lots of specific car models too. Now he is keen on road signs, so we are looking out for a similar book!

 

5. Thomas the Tank Engine Haynes Manual - We don't actually own this book, but I'd really recommend it for any Thomas lovers out there. We got a copy out from my mum and dad's local library whilst we were on holiday there and I have learned so much! Like the difference between a tank engine and a tender engine, why Percy is chubbier around the middle (he didn't eat all the pies, he's a saddle tank engine, doncha know!). It's full of interesting facts and I have recently seen it in our local library too, so I'm sure we will borrow it again!

Painting Rainbow Footprints

Harry asked to paint the other day, so I got out our washable Crayola paints. we use a bun tin as a paint palette so we can get all the colours out and I recently found a pack of all different types of paintbrushes at Home Bargains. Our favourites are 'footprints' - little sponge 'stampers' on the end of a wooden stick. We have two sizes - the one used here is the larger one.

We dipped the stamper into different colours of paint to make a 'rainbow' effect. Rainbows are one of Harry's favourite things ever so this was very popular!

We talked a little bit about how mixed colours make different colours - not sure he quite 'got' it, but never mind!

Then he got down to some serious painting!

 



I love watching Harryenjoy messy activities because for a loong while he really hated getting dirty and didn't find it fun. Now it seems like he takes a real pride in his 'work'!

We also found some time to do some handprints.

The chubby little handprint closest to you is Archie's! The others are all Harry's - he pretty soon covered the whole paper so I had to do another Archie-print to save. Archie's first go at painting!!

Vehicles and Sticky Faces

I thought I'd try to get down on the blog some of the things we regularly do to entertain ourselves - I love getting new ideas of thngs to do from other peoples' blogs, and I also think if I keep a record of things we do I can look back and glean some inspiration from my own blog on those days when it just seems impossible to think of anything!

As usual, you'll have to forgive the poor quality of the pictures as a) I am not the photographer of the family (you'll want Ian for that) and b) I was using my BlackBerry.

As is probably obvious from most of my posts, my boy is a little vehicle obsessed so our craft attempts are usually heavily vehicle based. I do try to introduce other elements into our play though - today was emotions. I picked up these great foamy face stickers from the pound shop one day. They are very tactile and also easy for toddlers to use - although Harry can't yet peel off the backing by himself.

First, I drew the outline of some vehicles with circular windows: a car, a bus, a rocket and a plane. Harry stuck the faces into the windows. As we stuck them in we talked about the different emotions depicted on the faces. He is very precise about where he sticks things, although as you can see his motor control with drawing and colouring is not quite there yet.

 

We usually use crayons to colour, but as a special treat today we got out his (extra washable) felt tip pens. They are much easier to make marks with than crayons, so he does find them quite satisfying! Here is his completed bus - he was very pleased with it!

Reasons to be Cheerful

It's Linky time! I'm excited to share this week's reasons to be cheerful... I just have to think of them first!!


1. I'm still getting that hopeful and happy autumn feeling, which is fabulous. This is no doubt helped by the fact we have had a fair bit of sunshine, despite a bit of a chill in the air so I have been out and about with the Bob and the Bear, manfully still having picnics in the park (even in the rain yesterday!) I kept getting reminded of an autumn holiday I took with my husband (then fiance) to the East coast of America the year I was pregnant with the Bob and feeling all nostalgic and wistful about the beautiful trees and the lovely time we had, so we have decided to embrace Hallow'een the American way and host a little get together for some of Bob's buds :-D

2. I realise he doesn't get featured much at the moment, but I just wanted to share what a little ray of sunshine the Bear is. This week he had his second jabs and didn't even cry, despite 2 days later featuring a bruise that covers nearly all of one of his (rather substantial I must admit) thighs. Poor little sausage. I love to have baby chats, baby snuggles and baby kisses. In all the excitement of toddlerhood I think I some times to forget to mention just how squishable and adorable he is.

3. And finally - this week's cold - the first of the season (oh, how I wish it would also be the last!) is just beginning to dissipate. I'm hoping to go out for  run when I gets in from work and also hope we will all be feeling normal again by the weekend when we have a cake photo shoot planned for a good friend who is starting a business as well as a bat walk on Friday. If feeling better isn't a reason to be cheerful, I don't know what is!

Brio Disaster!

Don't you just hate it when this happens to your Brio track? Must be some kind of metaphor for life going nowhere or something!

(Luckily I've ordered some magic double ended pieces that should be arriving tomorrow!)

Bob's Top 5 - Fiction Books

Books (in no particular order):

1. Bizzy Bear books - these super-sturdy books have a variety of moving parts that have stood up to the most vigorous toddler action! The text flows well, and there are lots of things to spot in the pictures and talk about. We have two - 'Off We Go!' and 'Let's Get to Work!'. I'm not planning on getting any more or I might never get to read any other books again!

2. Meg and Mog books - these books have great bright pictures and interesting adventures that Meg, Mog and Owl get up to. The stories are very short and simple and thus appeal to little ones. I can see Bob really enjoying reading these to himself when he gets a bit bigger as they are quite comic-like with sounds and actions a key part of the illustrations.

3. Aliens Love Underpants - I pretty much know this book off by heart now from reading it many many times as Bob sits on the potty (please don't ask about potty training, that's a whole post of its own!) It has just the right amount of 'silly' and 'ridiculous' to appeal to little boys. I have a feeling this book is just the start of that sort of thing - anticipating Bob diving into the 'Wimpy Kid' favouries when he gets older.

4. The Gruffalo - Finally we are at the stage where Harry enjoys 'proper' stories, and not just books about tractors with a few words on each page! The Gruffalo is a big favourite with both Harry and Daddy - nothing at all to do with my silly voices, I'm sure! They particularly like it when I say 'Gruffalo Crumble' - although Harry seems to think that is his name - First name 'Gruffalo', second name 'Crumble'. We regularly have Gruffalo searches both in the woods and the supermarket (no, I don't know why either). We're meeting him for real this week at our new library!

5. Peace at Last - OK, so this is *my* favourite. I think this story is just the right length - not too many things happen - and it has noises as well as an easily understanable story with a nice ending. I think Harry kind of likes that there is a Harry bear but no Archie bear, ha ha.