Paper Fort

I had a ton of packing paper laying around from a few packages I'd gotten in the mail. I was holding on to it to store decorations or what not but the kids found it and started throwing it everywhere and jumping in the piles and making a huge mess. I figured rather than get mad about it we'd stop and have some fun! We left it out in the living room for several days and daddy was just thrilled about it! ;) One night the kids convinced him to make a paper fort with them.
And he did! They were huge pieces of paper and actually worked quite well! 

 

 

I was fortunate enough to not have to enter the fort but the kids thought it was great daddy time! Where did they all go?!

 

 Oh, there they are! Daddy popped his arms up and the whole fort crashed down! Maybe he's the big bad wolf and blew it down?

So much for using it for wrapping decorations in! When we were done playing with it that week it was pretty much in shreds and went straight to the recycling bin!

Sorting Pasta

I hosted a toddler activity bag exchange last year and my project was pasta sorting. I got a bunch of different pasta's and dyed them with food coloring. Then the child can sort by color or pasta type. Lil Lady wanted to give it a try after I was done making it so I poured some out on the floor and she went to work.

She had lots of fun playing with the pasta and making piles of the different types, colors, as well as making patterns. I love it when we can tie in some learning into the play! 

 

Glow Sticks & Water Beads

Another fun activity to do with water beads is take them into a dark room and throw in some glow sticks. It makes them so much more fun to play in!
We put everything in a big bowl and then headed up to the bathroom (the only room without a window!) and turned off the lights. Lil Lady got soo excited!

If you don't have glow sticks on hand, go get some. They are awesome. We use them for all sorts of fun sensory activities. I buy mine at the dollar store by the handful! 

See how fun it looks to have them light up the beads? Pictures don't even do it justice. It makes them change color and adds a fun new dimension of play.

Just beware, your child my like to dump the beads everywhere making it quite fun to find where they bounced to in the dark! Also beware they just may want to play with this one for a very long time and bathtub edges aren't too comfy after a while! 

Squishy Baff

Have you heard about Squishy Baff? I bought some last summer at Walmart but here's a link to it on Amazon. It is pretty weird stuff. Imagine playing in a tub of applesauce that is colored. You are supposed to use it in a bathtub and let the kids play in the think goop and then you add a deactivator and it dissolves back to water. I knew Lil Lady would FREAK if we attempted that but thought we'd give it a try in a water table. I filled up the table with water then added half a package of Squishy Baff. Then we had to stir and stir until it thickened. She didn't want to help me stir it, surprise surprise. Once it was thick and goopy I plopped in some fun scoops and let the kids loose.

She was quite intrigued with it as long as it didn't touch her! See how carefully she is holding her bowl?

 

But eventually she got more brave and put her hands in and started to hold the gunk but still wasn't very comfortable with it.

 

Lil Man didn't like it at all surprisingly. He usually likes to get messy!

I left one side of the water table with plain water for her to use to rinse off as needed (which she did every time she got any on her!) but then she decided to add more water to the Squishy Baff to see what happened.

 

 

We then practiced scooping it up and pouring it in each others hands. She liked to dump it in mine more than hers. Lil Man still didn't know what to think of it!

It is a very fun sensory activity but is a bit pricey. I always use just a little of the pack so it goes a bit further and I highly doubt we will ever use it in the bathtub! 

Soapy Water Tub

Last year we had some friends over and I decided to do a Sensory Tub with them. I filled a container with a few inches of water them squirted some dish soap into it. I left it like that and then threw in a handful of sponges for the kids and told them to start squeezing the sponges in the water. It was so fun to see their reactions as bubbles galore appeared. Pretty soon there were more bubbles than water and they loved it. I also gave them scoops and bowls and things to play with in the tub.
It was a super easy sensory tub and didn't cost anything and used things that anyone would have around the house. It's always fun to do sensory play with friends too! :)

Water Beads

I am not very good at updating this regularly am I?! I will try to do better. If you are reading any of my posts, I'd sure love a comment or two! Especially if you try out any of our activities, let me know how your kiddos liked it!

As you all know, we LOVE water beads! You don't have to do anything fancy to play with them. This day I just grew the beads and left them in the water to squish around and play with. Lil Lady had a big bowl...

and Lil Man got a little bowl because he thought it was hilarious to dump them out because they bounce EVERYWHERE! Luckily they are easy enough to clean up on a wood floor!

 

Then Lil Lady wanted to grow another color so we started a green batch and she had fun playing with the baby beads while waiting for them to grow. Little did she know it takes hours for them to get big!