Pulleys and Carabiners

We recently installed a zip line in our backyard.  There was a lot of talk about pulleys, so I thought I would install some in the playroom and let my son explore.  I have a few Command hooks on the ceiling from our Suspended Marble Run.  I used fishing line and tied up some pulleys ($2.00 from Lowes),  ran some rope through them (from the Dollar Tree), and attached a carabiner to one end.

I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only did he love them, but there was way more learning going on than I anticipated - ever watch a 3 year old manipulate a carabiner?   He went through every bucket in the playroom - hooking, unhooking, using his imagination, etc.  He thought they were "so cool" that when Daddy got home, it was the first thing he showed him - with a huge smile.  :)

pulley

manipulating the carabiner

He loved this!!

"Look, Mommy, its a bucket of bones.  Im gonna take out a bone and be a doggy and you throw the bone for me and I'll fetch it."

Command Hook

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Audio Basket

Reading is one of our favorite things to do.  Since having my 3rd child I feel like we get less day time reading.  Something we used to do often.  My youngest is at that "I am crawling, and I want to see and play with everything you are doing" stage.  It's sometimes very frustrating for my older two when we are sitting down reading, and she comes along and wants to pull at the book, etc.  I wanted to give them another outlet for something that they love to do so much.  

My oldest has a CD player in her bedroom but she hasn't been using it too much lately.  I think she may feel a little alienated in there.  I originally had planned on buying another CD player for our sunroom or the living room.  While I was looking for CD players I noticed the portable ones.  To be honest, I didn't even know they made these anymore!  I thought they would be perfect for us.  The girls can use them wherever they want in the house, in the car.... why didn't I think of this earlier!  They were so happy when I showed them how it worked... "It doesn't have to be plugged into a wall?! I can go anywhere!"  

I created this basket for them.  It has books, a CD case,  and two portable CD players with headphones.  I purchased children's headphones.  They fit better on their head and the volume control is better.  

I purchased alphabet stickers from Michaels and placed one letter on the book, the CD sleeve, and the CD. 

First they find the book they want.  It has the letter "G" on it.  

Then they go into their CD case and find the corresponding CD.  Yes I know this does not match!  LOL  I tried to place the stickers in the same place on all three things.  This worked wonders for my girls to independently set up and put away the stories.

My oldest "reading" her first story.  

They loved this!  

We purchased our Audio books at all different places.  

Barnes and Noble (Curious George, Griaffe's Can't Dance)

Amazon ("I can read" series)

We have quite a few Hawaiian ones that my girls love (My sister lives on Kauai). 

RL 

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happy child

happy child

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Happy Spiders

The other day my oldest asked to make GLUE CATCHERS.  She wanted to make a spider...  I wasn't sure how that was going to work with the legs.  I asked her if she just wanted to hot glue the whole thing instead.  She said yes and it led us to this...

To start off, I laminated a piece of white paper as the working board.  I figured this would be easier to peel off the hot glue than wax paper.  I also wanted her to be able to draw the design.  She took a black dry erase marker and drew her spider on the laminated paper.  

After she drew the spider she went over it with hot glue.  

*** ONLY DO WHAT YOU ARE COMFORTABLE WITH***

First part finished.  Yes, I know the spider has 12 legs... "It was a creepy crawly spider so he needed to have lots of legs."  

After peeling the spider off the paper.  

I thought that was going to be the extent of this, but then she said he needs to be black and have a face.   

Applying modge podge to the spider.

We brainstormed together on how we could make him black. She ultimately chose to cover the spider with sand.  

Sprinkling black sand on top.  

She picked some things out of her art buckets to make a face and hot glued them on.  

Finished!  

We hung him from the ceiling.  :-) 

We made a spider, but this would be fun to do with any sort of design!  

RL  

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GIVEAWAY: Morning or Evening Rhythm Chart

The winner of the rhythm chart giveaway is Lori Hodgins Brazell. Lori, please contact us via email: playathomemom3@gmail.com!

Last August we had our first giveaway with Traci McGrath at A Kids Day: A Simple Way To A Simpler Day, and it was a lot of fun. In the post I talked about how Traci’s daily rhythm board helped me simplify my life and get a bit more organized; you can check out the post here. Then this past spring Traci sent me her newest morning rhythm board to try. It was nearing the end of the school year and Addi and I were both tired and a bit out of sorts. We needed some inspiration and a fresh way to connect.

Morning Rhythm Board

Then it arrived, and as you can see it is beautiful. This 8”x 10” hard art board with textured watercolor papers turned out to be just the lift we needed to keep us going by removing the “nagging” on my part (yes, I’ve been known to nag, and even moan…I’m only human). Traci made us personalized leaf magnets, and each morning Addi climbed into my lap on the rocking chair to choose the order for the morning’s events while we looked out the window (my partner took some lovely pictures, but I can’t find them for the life of me!). It was a beautiful way to connect with my daughter and empower her to take charge of her mornings.

Evening Rhythm Board

Having a strong daily rhythm is important, especially for young children. And for some families mornings and evenings are especially challenging. These rhythm boards are a great way to simplify these challenging times while also empowering children with our trust.

Morning & Evening Rhythm Boards

 

 

Over the summer we stopped using the rhythm board and I put it on the shelf near the rocking chair. I was taken completely by surprise when on the first day of school Addi ran to the living room and exclaimed, “I’ll get the bird board so we can chat about what to do first!” It has since circumvented numerous potential power struggles about other morning distractions (playing hide and seek, dress-up, dancing, etc.) with just a simple question: “what else is there to do before it's time to play?”

How to play:

1. Subscribe to the Educated for Love blog here.
2. "Like" A Kid's Day on FaceBook here.
3. Subscribe to the Play At Home Mom blog (see column to right)
4. "Like" Play At Home Mom on Facebook here.
5. Post "PAHM Giveaway - I did it!" on A Kid's Day FB.

 

Giveaway ends Sunday, September 30. Winner will be chosen using Random.Org and winner will announced on Monday, October 1.

Note: if you're not on FaceBook just subscribe to the 2 blogs and post "PAHM Giveaway - I did it!" on the comments section below.

 Traci McGrath creates the rhythm charts at A Kid's Day, writes a blog Educated For Love, and is an Outreach Coordinator for Simplicity Parening. She has two boys, ages 5 and 2, who love digging in the dirt, collecting bugs, making up games and stories, and playing music; together as a family they love being outside and camping.

 I hope you'll check out her website and blog, and I know you'll enjoy her daily rhythm boards as much as I have!

Everything good,
Amy

You have read this article Connection / Giveaway / Instilling Capability / Products We Love with the title September 2012. You can bookmark this page URL http://happychild2210.blogspot.com/2012/09/giveaway-morning-or-evening-rhythm-chart.html. Thanks!

Play Tiles

We have a memory box from Discount School Supply (can been seen HERE) that you can open up and stick different objects inside.  My daughter loves it and is always looking for different things to add to the box.  She tried putting a couple pictures of her cousins inside but the pictures were too big.  It led to this...

DIY memory

We bought this package of wood slats at Michaels.  I think they were 3.99.  My husband cut them into 3 pieces.  I am sure they sell them in smaller pieces somewhere else but I didn't feel like making an extra trip.  These were 1/8th of an inch thick which I liked as well.  I put some Modge Podge on the piece of wood, placed the picture on, let it dry, and then took a razor blade around the edges.  After you cut them out put another layer of Modge Podge on top to seal them.  $5.00 and 15 minutes later we had our own custom memory set!  

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While looking for the wood slates my brain was spinning with other things we could do with these.  We ended up making a bunch of different "Play Tiles".  The possibilities for these are endless!  You can see a few things we did with them below.  These would be great for travel, as a gift, and also wonderful on a magnet board or cookie sheet.  Just attach a magnetic strip or magnetic button to them.  

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I purchased these letters also at Michaels (Buy 2 get 1 free this week).  I believe they were 1.99??  They come with both uppercase and lowercase letters.  They also had quite a few different colors but I wanted to stick with plain black.  

I attached them to these wood tiles.  These are different from the above picture.  I don't have a picture of the package because we already had these on hand at home.  You can find them with the wood crafting stuff at Michaels.  I am almost positive they carry them at Dollar Tree, too.  These are made by Creatology...  they are "Wood Squares".  I placed a letter sticker on each tile... uppercase and lowercase to make a memory game as well.  

You can also just use them for plain matching.  They would also work well for spelling for older children.  Again, they would be great on the magnet board.  

So many options!  Different shapes.  These are just stickers placed on each square.  

Colors.  I love the way these turned out.  I just Modge Podged different colored foam sheets to them (Dollar Tree).  You can use them for matching, patterns, memory, mosaics, etc.

RL  

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DIY Story Telling Magnets

Here at Play at Home Mom, we typically provide activities that play off of the interests of our children, but this is something I did with my students when I was a teacher.  It encouraged verbalization, communication, storytelling, etc. 

I created these DIY STORY TELLING MAGNETS in hopes that my son might take interest……to inspire him.  I would say he enjoys them – and I love watching his stories and imagination take shape - but he’s way more interested in playing baseball these days….hours and hours of baseball. 

THINGS YOU NEED:

• ·         MAGNET SHEETS (and a printer)
• ·         SCISSORS
• ·         PICTURES – head to toe shots of friends and family, clip art, and/or pictures of toys or other items your child loves.

I used Microsoft word, inserted a 3x3 table, and then inserted a picture into each section.  This helped insure that all of my pictures were relatively the same size.  Lastly, I printed the pictures directly onto the magnet sheets and cut them out.

Playing with the magnets....everyone is riding a scooter or bike.  So cute!

 I plan to make more magnets – more friends and family, and more creative pictures that I know my son will love.

FOR MORE PERSONALIZED FUN - INCLUDING PEOPLE PUPPETS, CHECK OUT OUR  

FUN WITH FACES  

POST.

-         AK(MESE, ECD)

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Red Bath (Infant Play)

I'm just apologizing in advance for my upcoming blog posts.  Most of the pictures were taken with my cell phone.  Now that my youngest is movin' and groovin' my time is extremely limited!  

Creating a colored bath is a fun way to introduce colors to your infant.  You can do this a couple different ways....

1.  Using dyes (please see picture below).  

You can use natural dyes... please see THIS post.  You can use a couple drops of food coloring or liquid watercolors.  Lastly, you can purchase bath tablets such as these seen HERE.  

Here is a picture of my oldest daughter in her colored bath.  She was 9 Months here.  See any resemblance to my youngest??  :-P  

2.  Placing different objects all of the same color in the bath.  This is a great alternative for those of you who had concerns with the dyes.  

I set this up for my youngest (10 months).   I don't have a picture of everything I put in (uh duh)... but it's pretty much just a bunch of random stuff we had around the playroom.  I threw in some washcloths, silk tie, water balloons, etc. to give her different textures.  There are maybe about 10 objects in this tub...and even that is a lot.  I would recommend not putting to many things in the bath.  It can be very overstimulating to your infant to have a bunch of different things going on at once... especially if bath time is typically a relaxing/calming time for him/her.  I would also suggest that if you do a colored bath with dyes to leave it at just that.  Talk with your infant on how you can pour/dump/splash/fill up etc. the colored water.  When you use objects, as seen below, keep the water clear so it is more visibly appealing to them.  

"You're squeezing the red balloon.  That must feel squishy and cold."

"You have two red cups!  Let's see if we can stack them."

"We made a red tower!"

"You have a red towel on you.  That's so silly!!  Where did ______ go?"  There she is under the red towel"

"You have a red hat on your head.  Whoa, that was a big splash.  Look, your red hat is floating in the water now." 

I see you!!!  

For more fun things to do with infants please see our section here on the blog as well as our FACEBOOK ALBUM

For more water play for infants click HERE

RL  

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DIY Magnetic Jack-O-Lantern

We made DIY MAGNETS last year.  Today I thought it would be fun to use random things around the playroom to create more magnets for some jack-o-lantern fun.  The great thing about this is that all you need are some magnets and random things around the house.  Here is what I did....

• I printed out a pumpkin on a MAGNET SHEET and cut it out
• I drew some pumpkin mouths on a magnet sheet (with a Sharpie marker) and cut them out
• I used buttons, baby food jar tops, googlie eyes, nuts, container tops, etc to create eyes and noses - adhering the magnets to the back using a glue gun

The Invitation

There was a purpose for the extra noses....I just cant remember what he told me because it was a made-up word.  LOL

We took the emotion cards out to see if we could make pumpkins that have the same feelings as the pics.....fun!!

- AK (MESE, MECD)

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Gardening

We've enjoyed the summer garden, and especially harvesting. I thought my daughter might also enjoy planting things her own way. I set up the invitation on the porch, but she didn't notice it for a couple of days...such is the life of a curious 3-year old!

Invitation

She decided to add water to a cooler and played with the water for a bit.

She tried on the gloves

Digging in the dirt with gloves



Pouring the water through the funnel

 

She decided the gloves impeded her experience,
so she put them in the bucket.

Eventually she wanted to talk about what we did to grow our garden. We talked about the getting the soil ready, making room for and planting the seeds, covering the seeds, and adding water.



She took out some dirt and added the seeds.

She added water to the soil and then poured the soil over the seeds.
She didn't want the seeds to "wash away."

Clean up was "easy." She put everything in this
bucket and we rinsed it all off.

"Roar!"

Within 10 days we had cilantro sprouts!

Children love to be involved in everyday activities like cooking, rinsing dishes, laundry, and gardening; it offers an opportunity to connect, grow and learn together. And when we present them with an invitation that deepens their experience, it also deepens their knowledge and understanding of the world around them. And to be honest, I also hope this will somehow make these daily life tasks seem less like drudgery and more like moments of nostalgia when my daughter is an adult ...a mama can hope!

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