The girls are at school and the big boy is at kinder, that just leaves the smallest at home.

Noey is not used to being at home on his own. He’s used to having one, or three big kids to follow around. He’s used to having all his older siblings arguing over who he loves more. He’s used to having them at his beck and call.

I am used to him having the big kids to entertain him!

Sometimes Noey and I are a little lost on the days like today, when Morgan is at kinder, and we have no errands to run. So I’m making a list of toddler activities… a list of things to do when you are almost two!

Sticking

There are lots of variations of this activity, but we just stick a big piece of self adhesive paper, sticky side out, onto a low cupboard and collect a container of collage bits. Noey has lots of fun sticking bits on and peeling them off!

Drawing
Noey is only just beginning to be interested in making marks on paper, so a big piece of paper taped to the table and some crayons are the best art activity for him right now.

Play Dough
With a big brother who adores play dough has had a lot of experience with this activity, and since he isn’t one to put things in his mouth it’s lots of fun. While the big kids like every play dough accessory under the sun, for toddlers less is more. Noey likes a plastic knife and some containers to put the dough in, and take it out, and put it in and take it out…

Loose Parts
The big kids love to use loose parts to create things and in imaginative play, but Noey just likes the bits. He likes to put them in baskets and bags, tip them from one container to another, line them up, and generally just muck around with them.

Stacking Things

Whether it’s blocks or stacking pegs, Noey likes to build tall towers… then knock them down!

Pegs
A recycled plastic container with some clothes pegs will keep Noey happy for ages, and is great for fine motor development.

Cars
We have lots of cars, and one of Noey’s favourite activities is to shoot them down a long cardboard tube and watch them race out the other end!

Pretend Play
Simple dress ups like hats and bags are lots of fun, and Noey loves to put things in and take them out of our toy oven, or pretend to be cooking with a bowl and a wooden spoon.

Cooking
I also let Noey help with real cooking. Ok so he mostly just stands on a step and watches, but he can also stir things as well as get small items out of the fridge or cupboard for me. He can be surprisingly helpful for a 21 month old!

Water Play.
It’s not as messy as it sounds if you only give them a tiny amount of water. Noah stands on a step and ‘washes the dishes’ in the sink with about of centimeter of soapy water in it. He also loves to play with ice blocks.

Get Outside.

Noey’s favourite outside thing is to go talk to the chooks. But he also loves chasing bubbles, swinging on the swing, clinbing and balancing on our tree stump stepping stones and just running around. Even when I don’t feel like going outside, just 15 minutes outside can improve both of our moods! If we can’t get outside something active inside like crawling through our box tunnel is fun too.

What is your favourite toddler activity?

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What To Do When You’re Almost Two. is a post from: picklebums.com

Another bonus of the never ending renovations is the never ending supply of big boxes! We haven’t even got the new kitchen appliances and already we’ve made a Lego town with one big flat box, and when the shower frame came out of it’s box (don’t get excited, that doesn’t mean we have a working shower yet!) I had plans for it!

This time the box was for the smallest member of our family.

The boy who doesn’t say any useful words such as ‘Mamma’ or ‘drink’ but who’s newest word is ‘hiding’.

“Where’s Noey?” his siblings ask him constantly.
And his reply is always…

“Hiding!”

Even though he is quite obviously not hiding.

Clearly he needed somewhere to hide, so we made him a tunnel.

This is as simple as it gets. It’s just a big box or large flat piece of cardboard. I roughly measured out thirds and scored a sort of straight line to fold along. Then I folded it into a triangle shape and taped it together.

Of course then my drawing mad big boy decided it needed to be decorated and we discovered it also made a lovely drawing surface.

And now Noey has somewhere to go when he is ‘hiding’!

Plus it’s lots of fun to crawl through the tunnel, to roll cars through it, or to curl up with a pillow and go to sleep… well for a second anyway!

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What To Do With a Big Box? – Make a Tunnel! is a post from: picklebums.com

There is nothing better than a bit of water play on a hot day, or even on a cold one.

Water play is one of those activities that offers opportunity for learning in all developmental areas. It’s soothing, engaging and just plain fun, yet sometimes it seems like too much work and too much mess, but it doesn’t have to be. Keeping it simple can make water play much more manageable.

At the end of last week it was hot and sunny. My smallest was also hot, and miserable with a bit of a temperature. It had been a long and cranky day and it was only half over. I needed something to both engage him and cool him down a little…. water!

Instead of setting up a tub which he (being only 18 months old) would immediately dump out all over the floor and himself (and enjoy every minute of it), I decided to keep it really simple….

Spreading out a towel on the floor I sat him in the middle and gave him a couple of cups, a small bowl and some spoons. Into each bowl and cup I put an ice block. That’s it.

He sat and tipped the ice blocks out, put them in the bowl, tipped them out again, tasted them, squeezed them, put them in the cup and stirred them around with the spoon…

When they had melted I gave him a few more.

When he was done there was a few small wet patches on the floor where he’d strayed off the towel, and the towel was damp in spots, so I used it to wipe up the floor and clean up was done. He was wet down his front as I’d left his top on, but if he’d have been only in a nappy I could have towelled him off also!

Not only did it cool him down a little, he had lots of fun and learnt lots as well, and my sanity wasn’t stretched even further by this KISS water play idea.

Do you play with water at your house?

Joining in with It’s Play Time at Let The Children Play, and The Play Academy at Nurture Store.

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Sensory Play – Keep it Simple with Ice Blocks is a post from: picklebums.com

Yep, I’m blogging about play dough again!

I am collecting quite a few blog posts about play dough ideas and activities. It’s a good thing I like playing with dough as much as my big boy does.

The small boy is even starting to take some interest in the activity. He’s had a few tastes but he’s generally more interested in squishing it between his fingers and running off and hiding bits all over the house!

Morgan likes something a bit more exciting than a quick squish and run, so yesterday I collected a variety of things to make patterns in the play dough – shells, glass pebbles, a few different seed pods and gum nuts, and a selection of little plastic threading bits.

First we rolled out the play dough into big flat slabs, then we experimented with patterns and prints.

There was lots of classification and grouping going on, as well as a beginning understanding of repeating patterns…. and it all looked so pretty too!

Joining in with It’s Play Time at Let The Children Play.

What’s your favourite things to add to play dough?

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Play Dough Patterns is a post from: picklebums.com

I’d been saving up this activity for when I really needed to pull out something special. After a particularly bad day last week with lots of yelling (by the kids and me) I knew that time has come…

I quietly got out two tubs, a couple of containers, funnels and some scoops I’d been saving from the laundry soap. Then I went outside to the shed and filled up one of the tubs with chicken food. Yep, you read right, chicken food.

I try not to use food as a play material, especially when there is an easily available, cheap, just as good, alternative. Rice for sensory play is lots of fun, but rice is a food that we could eat if we didn’t play with it. Using the seed mix we feed our chickens is a ‘just as good’ alternative to rice, since our chickens don’t mind eating the seed even after we’ve played with it.

At first my school aged girls thought I was a little crazy.
A tub of chook food?
To play with??

But the Four year old sunk his hands in immediately and lifted them up, letting the seeds run through his fingers, saying “it feels funny!” That was all it took for the girls to sink their hands in too.

Hours later they were still pouring, mixing, sorting and running their hands through the chicken feed their crazy mother gave them to play with.

The chicken feed does end up on the table and on the floor, but given a couple of dust pans and brooms, my kids had as much fun sweeping it back up as they did playing with it.

With the lids on the tubs and stored somewhere dry and cool we played with this again and again over a week until we wanted to use the tubs for something else so we recycled the seeds back into the chicken feed bin, with a few handfuls going straight to our hen who has five new chicks.

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Sensory Play – A Tub Full of Seeds is a post from: picklebums.com

How do you start doing activities with your toddler or preschooler?

I started hands on activities with Henry when he was 2 1/2. I could have started earlier now that I have done activities with George as a baby and now a toddler. But at the time, I didn’t think he was old enough to understand and get involved.

The big question I always had was ‘What activities can he do?’

A good place to start with this age I’ve found, is to do what they love. Expand upon something they’re already engaged in.

For example, Henry loves to farm. He has always been interested in tractors, combines, semis, and anything that has to do with them. So when we brought corn in from the farm, he knew just what to do with it and has since clocked hours and hours of playing with corn, his imagination running wild.

Don’t think you need to be extravagant with activities. Simple is often best! Less is more ( or however you’d like to say it).

Children learn from the simplest ideas.

Often the first thing moms think about how to be more hands on with the kids’ is crafts!

I find crafts are the hardest activities that we do in this house. Henry’s usually not as engaged as he is when we’re doing activities that get us moving. However, when you make the craft interesting and also manageable by them, it becomes more fun for them.

Using contact paper and tissue paper is perfect for toddlers and preschoolers! They’re often fascinated with the stickiness of the contact paper and they’re able to stick the tissue paper on themselves.

That brings up another point. Focus on the process of the activity instead of the end result. Let them explore the materials and run around while doing it.

The process is where kids learn.

The product isn’t nearly as important, especially at this age. Join in the fun while creating and doing activities, your kids will appreciate it and its a special bonding time for you as well!

Remember to keep it short. Most activities only require 15 minutes of your child’s time. Adjust this to their appropriate attention span. But remember that they’re usually quite short, so don’t be disappointed if the first few times you try an activity, they don’t make it through even the short fifteen minutes (or even five!).

And most importantly, please have fun! Let the kids have fun and you too! Enjoy being a hands on mom with me! (And don’t worry about the dishes or the laundry, they’ll still be there later.)

Jamie is a stay at home mom, with two boys who are full of energy. She writes at hands on : as we grow about activities and art she does with her boys. She loves to sneak in learning opportunities during their play and tries her best at focusing on the process of a project, instead of the end goal.!

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Getting Started with Activities for your Kids – Guest Post from Hands On As We Grow is a post from: picklebums.com

I saw this idea to make liquid water colour paints at Artopotamus and pinned it to save for ‘one day’. Then ‘one day’ arrived as I cleaned out the art cupboard and was about to throw out all the markers that no longer worked and I suddenly remembered!

I only had a couple of markers in each colour so I wasn’t sure how successful it would be, but I set up a few containers of water and left the markers to soak for a week or so.

With one home from school sick today, but not too sick to be ‘bored’, I got down the container of markers and put a little of each colour into a container, grabbed some cotton buds and paper and sat down to experiment and create with my kids.

The colours were not quite as bright as I was hoping, but considering we only used one or two markers per colour it turned out great.

After a bit of fun with the paints Izzy wondered if the paints would work with candles or crayons as ‘magic painting‘ so we had a go and discovered they did. The marker paints are very similar to food dye but they cleaned up much easier and didn’t stain our fingers as badly.

So don’t throw out your old dried up markers… they still have a lot of creating left in them!

Linking up with It’s Play Time at  Let the Children Play and The Play Academy with NurtureStore.

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Easy Art For Kids – Marker Paints is a post from: picklebums.com

Sensory play doesn’t have to be a hugely messy activity, even if you set it up inside!

Today we set up a little tub of bubbles, just for one, or maybe two!

We started with a small tub and some small measuring cups, scoops and spoons that come with all the kids medication. We set it up on a table covered with a towel and made sure we had a cloth near by for wiping hands and spills.

Then I added a small amount of water, just enough to barely cover the bottom of the tub. I squirted in quite a bit of detergent and threw in two bits of sponge. I told my big boy to squeeze the sponges and watch what happened.

He was delighted to see white foamy bubbles explode between his fingers! He squeezed and smooshed, and squashed the sponges until the whole tub was full of white foam.

We had a lovely time scooping and pouring and mixing the foam and because there was hardly any actual water involved there was no spills and not even much damp clothing.

Joining in with It’s Play Time at The Imagination Tree this week.

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Sensory Play – A Tub of Bubbles is a post from: picklebums.com

It seems I am not the only one excited by today’s delivery!

I play Wordless Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys! and Play Academy with Nurture Store.

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Dinos and Packaging – Wordless Wednesday is a post from: picklebums.com

My big boy loves play dough. I mean, he REALLY loves play dough.

We have more commercially made play dough accessories than you can poke a stick at. I am not sure why you’d bother poking a stick at play dough accessories, but if you did, you’d have trouble poking all of ours. Those play dough accessories are fun, but sometimes it is the simple things that bring the most joy.

The other day, as a way to avoid doing the house work I suggested we make some play dough. Deciding to try something a bit different we used this recipe for ‘flourless play dough’ from Messy Kids which turned out great. It is soft and smooth, but it did leave a bit of a residue on our hands, and didn’t keep as well as our regular play dough recipe.

We made our dough hot pink (using some fluro liquitemp paint) and as we waited for it to cool we decided on a few new, but simple accessories. Silicone patty pans, tooth picks and cut up straws.

With just these few simple things we made so many interesting creations.

There were lots of birthday cakes with candles, some trees, an echidna, a dinosaur or two…. Hours of fun!

What are your favourite play dough accessories?

Joining in with It’s Play Time on Let the Children Play

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Play Dough with Straws and Toothpicks is a post from: picklebums.com