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!