Marble Painting with a Toddler

Here is our first time using marbles with the Little One for painting.

You may be familiar with marble painting but I'll take you through the steps.

Cut a sheet of paper to fit your tray, any shape and size of tray, although keep in mind your little one's capabilities. 

 Since she is under two I chose a small pan.

Pick a marble and dip it in paint.

Normally I would have little pots with paint and a spoon to scoop the marble out but I didn't have any  pots available.

Put your painted marble onto the paper 

pick up the tray and try to roll the marble around.

She put several marbles in at one time and I showed her how to roll it back and forth as well as shaking the tray.

After each roll and shake she would dip the marble and put it back in.

I think her favourite part was dipping the marbles into the paint.

We ended up completing three sheets which I think will work great for a greeting card.

Who Lives in a Tree?

I built a tree around our tube stand and cut out some holes for our stuffed animals to live inside.

The Little One loved it!

The bird's nest is right at her level so that was the first stuffy to come out.

Once it was out she played with the flap, opening and closing it.

Then she decided to put her baby doll inside.

Next onto exploring the rest of the animals that live in a tree.

We have a fox, raccoon, deer, squirrels, chipmunk, skunk, eagle, robin, owl, crow and baby birds in a nest.

One day I caught her using her saw pretending to cut the hole.

I found these paint sticks at Michaels when I had a half off coupon.

We decided to try them out to colour our tree.

They work great.

They go on smooth, there is no dripping and they dry quickly.

While our tree dried we visited the Little One's cousins and went for a walk.

We saw these decorated trees.

All wrapped to keep them warm for winter?

 Back at home we had one more thing to do to our tree and that was to add some more leaves.

The Little One loves tape and had fun putting the leaves on, taking them off and putting them on again.

We think it looks pretty good.

A Dream Come True

Before we had grandchildren and we were dreaming of having them one day, my biggest dream was to have time to bake with them.

Today that dream became a reality.

The Little One and I baked for the first time.

It was great being side by side.  

Reading the recipe together.

Measuring, mashing and stirring the ingredients.

Plus tasting little samples.

She is very eager to try everything and lets me know when she has had enough and wants to go and play.

But when the timer went off she was racing back into the kitchen to take a look.

Not quite ready yet.

 

Finally the Banana Peanut Butter muffins and loaf are done.

Not the best picture but we sure enjoyed our baking.

A Ghost Costume for Who?

The Little One has been having a lot of fun scaring each of us. And honestly we've had fun scaring her too.

In the evening I'll often hear her and her Dad chasing each other,

booing and screaming.

I thought it would be fun to make her baby doll a ghost costume.

Dad donated an old white t-shirt and I cut out a large circle.

The Little One watched while I put the sheet over her doll and placed an elastic around the neck to hold it in place.

Then I cut out two eyes and drew on a mouth.

As you can see in the above picture she thought it was great.

At the beginning but then she wanted it off of her baby.

It was hilarious to see her, sometime later, wearing the ghost costume herself.

Of course Dad had to try it too.