Halloween Sensory Play - Witches' Brew

I had a great Halloween play date planned, but had to cancel at the last minute because my household got sick. Now I have a bunch of activities to try out with O.

O LOVES playing in water and bubbles, so when I saw the idea for a Witches' Brew water sensory activity, I thought it was perfect.

I had some ideas of the types of things I wanted to put in the brew, but I also wanted to keep it cheap. I happened to find some great $1 toys - eye ball bounced balls, sticky skeletons, sticky bugs, plastic spiders, spikes balls, etc. I added a bit of dish soap to the water to create bubbles and used food coloring to make it green. O had a great time (about 30 minutes! YAY!) independently playing with the brew. I gave him and extra bowl, a slotted spoon, a ladle, a measuring cup and some tongs to pick things out, stir and transfer.

We set up with a couple of bowls on the living room floor on top of a towel. You could also use the same idea in the bath tub or sans water just for touching.

Decorating Pumpkins Toddler Style

Way back in September I had the thought to let O decorate a pumpkin with stickers - easy, no mess. Then I found these great felt stickers in the $1 aisle at Target and just couldn't resist. O had a great time sticking all of the eye balls on his pumpkin and is very proud of his creations. We are using them as part of our table center piece and he likes to see them and talks about them all the time.

Fall Decorating

This year I wanted to keep decorations simple, but I LOVE fall...even though it takes forever to get to Houston. I really love decorations that can last through more than one holiday, too.

I found this great idea for color wrapping wheat stalks. It was so easy to do, you can use any colors you want and is a simple/elegant/casual Fall decoration that can last from September through Thanksgiving. (I did mine while binge watching Outlander.)

I had wanted to try my hand at some melted crayon art and saw an idea for melting crayons over the top of pumpkins (somewhere). SO COOL! It was pretty easy, but it took a little while for the crayons to heat up enough to melt, and I had to keep the hair dryer on a low enough speed that it didn't blow the crayon bits off.




Melted Crayon Pumpkins

Materials:
pumpkins
crayons
hair dryer
newspaper/parchment paper
glue (optional)

I started by washing off my pumpkins. I placed the pumpkins on a cookie sheet that I use for crafts, but you could use newspaper or parchment paper. Then I had O help me choose colors, and I broke small pieces off of the crayons and placed them around the top of the pumpkins. For my little pumpkins I only needed about 3 small pieces for each one. (If you want to use glue to hold the crayons in place as they begin to melt, just glue them in place and let the glue dry before proceeding.)

Then I held the hair dyer over the top to heat up the crayons. It might take a couple of tries to get the best setting, depending on your hair dryer. A setting that is hot, but not powerful works best. Once I saw that the wax was melting, I tipped the pumpkins in different directions to get it to drip over the sides.

Let them cool. And you're done!

Play Date: Construction

For September, I decided to do a construction themed play date - partly because my kid LOVES everything digger and construction, partly because I did a construction theme for his birthday and I could re-use some of the stuff.

Activities:

Sand & Digging
I was originally planning to have the kids play outside in our sand play area, but the weather didn't cooperate, so we were inside...with SAND! To keep things under control, I decided to try making kinetic sand.

Here is the recipe I used:
Kinetic Sand
5 c. play sand (you can get it at a local big box hardware store or from your sand box)
3 c. flour
1 c. oil (I used vegetable oil and I added another 1/4 cup)

For my purposes I made 2 of these recipes, put it in an old photo developing tray and mixed it up. When everything was mixed, I added some diggers and trucks, a couple of plastic spoons and forks, and a couple of plastic scoops. I also grabbed some rocks from outside and put them in bowls next to the sand.

Painting with Trucks
I put a few different colors of paint on a cookie sheet lined with foil and got a package of 5 small CAT construction machines at a local store. The kids rolled the construction vehicles in the paint and then on their papers.

Truck Wash
I put a few inches of water in a plastic bin and added a little bit of dish soap. The kids had (new) toothbrushes they could use to scrub their trucks. They love playing in water and bubbles, and this was a great way to wash hands and trucks after sand and paint. Of course a couple of kids attempted to brush their teeth!

Hammering Golf Tees
I got florist foam from a big craft store (cheaper than the styrofoam in the art section) and a package of golf tees. We already had a couple of plastic hammers for the kids to use. I started the foam blocks by lightly pushing some tees in. The kids mostly just pushed tees into the foam rather than hammering, but they really enjoyed doing so. And then they pulled them out and did it all again!

I also put out our other toys related to construction -
-trucks and diggers
-blocks (plastic Mega blocks and wooden building blocks)
-plastic tool box and workbench

The Evolution of a Sand & Water Play Space

In March my husband and I were so excited to begin working on a sand & water table for O. We made our plans based on this sand & water table. I had a great time picking the colors, and it was exciting to put in the rock base for the water side of the table.

BUT then it rained all spring in Houston. And even though we created a cover for the sand side of the table and had drilled drain holes underneath, we just couldn't keep the sand dry - or get it dried out. By August I noticed that the wood under the sand was beginning to buckle and split. UGH! We loved our table, but it was time for a redesign.

I scoured Pinterest for new ideas and ways we could adapt the table we already had. I started finding ideas on creating a sensory path and an outdoor play space, and tried incorporating them with a sand table, but in the end, we decided to just make the whole space into an outdoor sand/water play space.

It was much easier than building another table and only took us a few hours.

We make out the space for the sand and dug down a couple of inches. then we laid out a weed barrier and placed rocks around the edges. (The rocks we took form a raised garden in another part of the yard.) Then we filled the sand area with play sand and the water area with river rocks. My hubby salvaged the pipe and shower head from the old table and mounted it to our fence post. (O's favorite activity is standing under the shower head anyway - even when it was mounted to the other table, he would contort his body to get under the water.)

My main concerns for putting the sand area in the ground are the cat that visits our yard and the ants. I read that mixing cinnamon into the sand will keep the ants out of it. So far it has worked - I have seen them passing across the sand, but not taking up residence. And the play space smells great! As for the cat, I just try to sift over the sand before Ollie starts playing.

In the future I hope to create a music wall on the dance behind the sand area.

Play Date: Olympics

In an effort to socialize more and find a place to put my project energies, I decided to begin hosting monthly play dates for our local kids group. All of the kids in the play group are currently between 18-24ish months, so that is the target audience for the activities.

For our first play date, I decided to tag on to the 2016 Olympics and design an obstacle course and Olympic activities for the kids. After looking at many Pinterest examples of obstacle courses, I settled on creating something in doors (Texas heat and bugs). I am lucky enough to have a large open living area, so I enlisted my husband to build a couple of things and shift some furniture around.

Obstacle Course:
Hurdles - a pool noodle inserted on the cross bars of a couple of bar stools (but you could use dining room chairs)

Slalom - some cones set out (but you could use cups or plastic bottles)

Stepping stones - hubby made 4 "stones" by stacking pieces wood (cut to 8" x 8") to create different heights and screwing them together. He made 2 stones 1 piece high, 1 stone 2 pieces high, and 1 stone 3 pieces high. I stapled pieces of leftover "no-slip" rug padding on the bottom since we were using them on the wood floors.
Under or Over - a child size table placed in the pathway
Balance Beam - hubby cut down a 2x4 to a 4 ft length. He used the remaining pieces (2 1 ft lengths) to create feet for the beam by attaching them crossways underneath the beam. (Again I added rug padding to the bottom of the feet so it wouldn't slip around.) I placed it alone the back of our couch so the kids would hold on if they wanted to.

I also taped down a path for the kids to follow from obstacle to obstacle using blue painter's tape.

The kids did not run the whole obstacle course as a unit, but they did test out each element individually as they got comfortable with them. The balance beam was popular. The slalom cones did not stay put. I thought about taping them down, but decided the kids could play with them however they wanted.

Straw Javeline Throw:
I got this idea from Toddler Approved. For our version, I put out a couple of large bowls and a cup with straws. Mostly the kids dumped and placed the straws, but they enjoyed playing with them. And they practiced fine motor skills when picking up the straws.

And being a recovering art teacher, I have to include an art activity...
Printing Olympic Rings:
The kids used toilet paper rolls to stamp circles in the colors of the Olympic rings. To try and keep the paint as clean as possible, I put each color in a separate cup of a foil muffin pan and put a single tube in each color.

Only a couple of kids chose to paint, but they had a great time moving the colors around the page.

For snacks, I had fruit in the colors of the Olympic rings as well as some locally made allergy free muffins.

And as a final touch, each child got to take home gold medal! They were easy to make. I got sticky back gold fun foam and some large ribbon. I cut 2 circles out for each medal and stuck them together back to back with the ends of the ribbon caught in the middle.