Apple Printing

I had about three months where both my kiddos went down for naps at the same time and that quiet time I had was soooo nice.  Now, though, my little princess has decided she no longer wants to take naps and pretty much only has about 15 minutes of "rest time" before she dances downstairs and tells me that nap time is over.  So instead of my quiet time, we have art/craft time together...which has turned out to be great one-on-one time for us (although I still miss that occasional solitude, you know!).

We're all ready for Fall so today we did some apple printing.  We tried this last year, but Sweet Girl wasn't really into it that much.  She had much more fun this time!

First she stamped red apple prints all over the paper.

Then she added a little green stem and some leaves to the tops of the apples.

And then she just had to experiment with the paint by painting the apple and finger painting.

Finger Painting a Rainbow

With all the rain we've had recently we have been fortunate enough to see quite a few rainbows.  Sweet Girl wanted to see one today, and since we couldn't find one, we decided to make one.

First she started off with just some simple finger painting.  She isn't the biggest fan of getting her fingers and hands all dirty so she usually just uses one finger.

Then she started to make her rainbow.

The finished product!

And I always keep some paper towels of a sponge close by for her to wipe her hands off as needed. 

Pink Sparkly Playdough

This pink sparkly playdough is the new hit at our house!  Sweet Girl and I had fun making this the other day.  As always, anything with glitter is super fun!

I used this basic playdough recipe and just added several drops of red food coloring for the pink color.  Sweet Girl helped me mix everything together in the pot and then I "cooked" it on the stove.

Once it reached a playdough consistency, I rolled it out and handed it over to her.  Then she added bottles and bottles of glitter.

Playdough is always fun!

Tot Trays

Color matching

These peg people get used a lot at our house.  Usually for pretend play in our doll house.  This tray is pretty simple and easy for Sweet Girl, but she enjoys them so I like to leave them out.

Pouring beans

Still a favorite at our house!

Knobbed cylinders

I usually try to just remove one row at a time because they can be pretty tricky to match up if they are all out.

Storytelling

For this tray I pulled out some of our little wooden animal/object pieces.  We will take turns pulling out one object/animal at a time and try to "tell a little story" about our objects.  Sweet Girl is really into stories right now.

Body part puzzle

Pretend Grocery Store Play

Sweet Girl is very much into pretend play right now.  Most days she is decked out in some elaborate costume of some sort....usually pink or purple, and usually princess.  And sometimes that said princess says she needs to go "shopping"....so we made up a pretend grocery store that was so fun!!

First I gathered up a little box, some coins and pretend dollars.

Then I sat out some of our pretend food.  I grouped like foods together. 

I added some labels to the empty boxes to help with number recognition and matching.

Then my little shopper went to the grocery store with her little baby!!

Once she gathered up all her groceries, I helped her "check out".  I made up a pretend amount and we counted out our money.  The little activity turned out to be quite a little learning experience. 

First Day of Preschool

Look who started 2-year old pre-school this week???  Granted it's a mom-and-me class, but hey...it's still pre-school.

I can't believe she is old enough to go to school!  She had a great first day!  As soon as she walked into the room she started dancing around on the rug.

Then, she quickly found the dress up clothes.  That's my girl.

We love you big girl!

Alphabet Box

I wanted to share our alphabet box today!!  The majority of the objects I use for our weekly letter sensory bin are from this box!  I had so much fun hunting for objects...and I'm actually still on the hunt for a few things!!  I found about half of our objects in the drawers, toy boxes and baskets in our house.  The rest I picked up at either the dollar store or the craft store!!

All of our objects are stored alphabetically in a hardware box I found at Lowes.  I used some alphabet stickers I already had on the front of each drawer. 

The hardware box is great because the drawers can be easily removed.

Here are our letter A and letter B objects.

Right now, I keep the box stored in a closet.  Eventually, I hope I can keep this box accessible to Sweet Girl so she can play with and sort the objects.  She loves playing with it!!  But I know if I left it out now, she would just hoard them all in her purse never to be returned!!

Mari-Ann at Counting Coconuts wrote several awesome posts about her alphabet box!!  Be sure to check those out for more detailed information!

Rainy Day Fun

I am a total home body!!  I would be in absolute heaven if could just stay inside and craft all week.  Sweet Girl, on the other hand, is a go-go-go kinda girl.  She loves getting out of the house and running around!  But...on rainy days when we're stuck inside, she can get a little stir-cray.  Between the hurricane and crazy rains we've had recently, I feel like we have been locked inside.  Here is one of our favorite ways to get out some energy!!

The handy-dandy air mattress!

Yup...that's Sweet Girl LAUNCHING herself onto our air mattress.  I blow it up right in our living room and let her bounce away.  It's kinda like our own cheap version of a bouncy place. 

That face says it all!!!

Other indoor favorites:

Kicking around balloons and balls

Blowing bubbles

Red rover

Hopscotch (I make our hopscotch with blue painters tape on the floor)

DIY Quiet Book (Fast & Easy)

A few weeks ago we took a long trip up to New Hampshire to visit my husband's grandparents.  We have a short little flight and then a 2-hour car drive so I wanted to make sure Sweet Girl stayed busy and content.  I came across this idea for a quiet book using velcro and I knew it would be perfect for our trip!  (And yes...I'm still addicted to Pinterest.)

I cut out most of images using a Slice machine, glued them on and then laminated the pages.  Then I added the velcro, attached all the pieces and bound it together with book rings.

Here's a look at our pages:

Cover

My name is....

Matching shapes

Big and small match

Five Little Ducks song

Traffic Light

Matching color shades

Dress up

(These adorable dress up dolls and clothes are from Babalisme.  She has some incredible free printables.  I have printed out most of her dress up dolls!  They are just too cute to pass up!!)

Here's a closer look....how adorable!!

The book was great during our flight and road trip, but also turned out to be very handy for quiet time once we were up in NH.  Sweet Girl still loves to play with it and I plan on adding more pages eventually!

And are you following Playing House on Facebook?  Click here to "like" us and follow along!

Counting Cookies

I originally saw this idea over at Counting Coconuts and knew I wanted to make some for Sweet Girl.  They were super easy to make.  All you need is felt (I used brown and black), thread/needle, fabric glue and some batting/interfacing.  I used a large cup to trace my circles onto the felt.  Then I cut them out and placed a piece of batting in between the two pieces.  I hand stitched them together and used fabric glue to glue on my "chocolate chips".

We've had fun playing with these in our play kitchen.  Sometimes we will count the cookies, sometimes we will count the chocolate chips.  Sometimes I'll ask her to bring me the cookie with "just one chocolate chip" or the cookie with "the most chocolate chips", etc..  And then sometimes she will bring them to me and say "hey mom....look it has one chocolate chip".

Toddler Art - Homemade Puffy Paint

We had so much fun making and playing with our own homemade puffy paint the other day!  This stuff totally took me back to my childhood.  I completely remember doing this in elementary school! 

I followed the recipe on The Artful Parent.  Sweet Girl mixed everything together.  Then we added our different colors of food coloring and poured them into squeeze bottles.

It's neat to see the diminsion in the paint...for me, at least....I don't think Sweet Girl even noticed.  She did have tons of fun squeezing the bottles, though.  That's all that counts!

Baby Fun - Stars

This turned out to be a fun little activity for my guy!!  He is soooo busy and into everything so I wanted to try to find something for him to do that would keep him engaged and interested for more than one second!!

I stuck sticky note stars all over our kitchen door and let him go to town pulling them down!!  He loves to stand up and grab stuff so I thought this would be a fun activity for him.

Little Man pulled every.single.one. of those stars down.  Then I stuck them back up....again....and again...and again.  Then I did it for Sweet Girl too.  She just couldn't stand to miss out on all the fun!!