Let's Play Today! -by Auntie J: 52 Days of Mom & Me

52 days of Mom & Me

My mom gave me a deck of cards with activities to do with my son. I'm on constant look-out for opportunities to introduce my son to new things, so this is the perfect opportunity. Maybe one activity a week for the entire year? Let's see if we can do this!

#1 Get out three cups and an object to hide ... no need to explain as it's a childhood favorite. Head Slap! Why didn't I think of this yet?

I introduced the activity and hid the bear under a cup, moved it around one cup and asked D to find it.

After a while, he wanted to do it himself. It was so fun for me to watch and play along as he hid the bear from me!

There is the blue bear!!

#2 Balloon Ping Pong:

You'll need paper plates and popsicle sticks/paint sticks and a balloon. Simply tape the stick to the paper plate and play!

I had no idea how big of a hit this would be. We ended up playing for hours tonight. First of all, when I blew up the balloon for D he got overly excited; "WOW MAMA! BLOON!" and jumped up and down giggling.

We had so much fun with this game that it has inspired me to do an entire week's worth of balloon activities for our playtime with the girls.

Bring on Balloon Week!!!!!!!

Week #3:

I couldn't wait to do this one as I had two styrofoam blocks waiting for an activity to do with D. We used the blocks with floral wire for the girls to string beads on. D is a little young for that, so I thought he'd enjoy hammering nails into the blocks.

Usually this is done with golf tees, but we didn't have any, plus I'd prefer my son to understand that a hammer is used with nails, not golf tees. I gave him a nail. He shoved it right in and attempted to use the hammer ... and that was pretty much the end of the hammer. He isn't quite ready.

I handed him nails.

Then realized, he preferred and, he was capable of helping himself - even though it meant my big pregnant belly and I needed to bend over and pick a lot more off of the floor:)

I had no idea he would LOVE this activity!

Using his little fingers to push down on the top of the nail.

Trying to figure out the hammer again.

We turned the styrofoam blocks around and around until all four sides were covered with nails.

I bought large nails, and he was supervised the entire time. A very enjoyable activity for my son and I to do together.

Week 4:

This week, D got to use as much glue as he wanted and paste pasta to a piece of cardboard. D LOVES to squeeze glue out of glue bottles. (We did an activity around Christmas time where we squeezed colored glue into cookie cutters and let them dry - made sun catchers/ornaments.)

Here is how it went:

Glue and uncooked pasta.

My happy boy squeezing away - working on those finger muscles!

He was having so much fun!

See? :)

Then I brought out the noodles...

He did everything himself. No help from Mama!

I love how some are standing up and some are bunched up. The long noodles are in a bunch because he added glue to the container, and then picked those noodles out and dropped them on the paper. Cool!

The next day, we painted. He picked out the colors.

Also, he is wearing one of my shirts lol.

The shirt was upsetting him - he was feeling yucky (hence the red cheeks) and tired. I thought the shirt was a little awkward over his dress shirt anyway - why didn't I just do this in the first place ...