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 ... 

Shirt off - much better! Now there's more to paint!!

Painting belly and hands. The pasta art is no fun anymore. 

He is showing me his hands and saying, "Purple, blue on there."

Off to take a bath now:)

Theme based play

Playing post office

 

Learning how the USPS works.

 

Writing/coloring a letter & sealing the envelope. I addressed it to her house.

Dropping the letter in the mail!

 

Since my nieces were always asking if we could do letters and mail them, I created this mailbox out of cardboard, and set up a section in the playroom for just mail play.

 

 

They are so cute:)

 

Playing Doctor

The girls had been asking me if we could set up a doctor's office for about a week. I lacked many of the utensils to play doctor. I could have went out and bought a kit, but instead, realized I had the following items to create a very exciting experience, and it lasted nearly all day!

•Glue

• Water

• Safety Scissors

• Gauze

• Bandage wraps

• Note pad/pen

• Anything else you can think of to play doctor!

We mixed glue and water to create the paste. I shredded newspaper to use as the cast. The girls said they needed a patient with a broken leg, and I just so happened to have one available (or two).

Someone preferred to do their own thing, as usual:)

Meanwhile, I had two legs wrapped up!

And, later, after my casts dried, I broke my wrist. Boy was that bandage tight! Hahaha. This was so fun! The girls later wrapped up their baby dolls and and stuffed animals as they used them as patients in their office.

Sticky paper fun!

Sticky paper fun

 

I'm in love with clear contact paper - the possibilities are endless!

 

Creating a fall tree. I traced D's hand and arm in brown cardstock paper, cut it out and stuck it to the paper. We (my niece and I) shredded colored paper to use as the fall leaves. Then, they went to town sprinkling the leaves all over the paper. We laminated it by placing another sheet over the top. My niece's shown below:

 

Sticky paper tree:

 

The kids and I went for a walk and gathered sticks. We talked about how the leaves were falling and the different colors we saw. In fact, we gathered a lot of pretty leaves, but they just didn't stick for this project:

 

This was one of my favorites!

 

What did we do with all of the leaves we gathered? Well, another sticky paper craft - of course. We made fall placemats. Stuck the leaves to one side and laminated once done. Viola! There you have it; a placemat:) I don't have pictures.

The aquarium:

We got a 55 gal fish tank; and D loves it! Yet, at only 18 months, he seemed confused as to what to do, and always wanted to help feed them. So, on a rainy weekend, I set up his own aquarium with mirrors. He was able to see the fishy tank behind him:)

Fun with cardboard tubes!

 

Fun with cardboard tubes:

 

• Paper towel and toilet paper roll marble (pom pom) run

• Wrapping paper roll car/train ramp

 

I'd love to go off this idea and make plastic tube marble runs, pool noodle runs and sturdy car/train wall runs. Ahh ... the possibilities:)

 

Marble run:

Marbles got too much momentum for this simple and light-weight run, so we used pom poms. So much fun for 4 & 5 yrs. They were giggling and jumping around!

 

For D, we used wrapping paper tubes and set them up on the side of his train table. He loved to send his cars and "choo choo's" flying down the tubes. We connected the bottom of the tube to a train bridge later for more excitement.

Color recognition

Color recognition

 

I try my best to think of fun ways to introduce colors. D is only 19 months, so these activities are very simple ones. Here are a few things we've done.

 

•Home-made colored play doh with matching colored objects

• Same colored blocks/objects on light panel

• Introduce a color and walk around the house pointing to find things that color

 

All things white:

D loves snowmen, so I helped point to where he should stick the 'snowballs'.

White pom poms, fake snow, cotton balls, white feathers.

He never touched the feathers!

 

The important thing is that I sit with him throughout the entire activity and talk about the color. I'll also talk about what he's doing. "You're sticking white pom poms down. Now, you're picking the white pom poms off. You have white snow stuck to your fingers. That's silly!" He loves to hear what he's doing.

The ABC's of crafts

 

The ABC's of crafts

 

I didn't take pictures of all of our crafts, but here are a few. I'll need to add more as we go.

 

 

Egg carton Ants

 

B is for bunny!

 

 

B is for Binoculars!!

 

B is also for Butterfly! Coloring folded paper towel and dunking in food coloring and water. Putting a fuzzy stick around the middle to make a butterfly.

 

C is for Clifford ears!

 

 

D is for Dinosaur tracks:)