Ocean Matching Game

I'm slowly introducing games to the little one and this is one that I had created a few years ago.

I had gathered items from my ocean bin and took pictures of each of item.

The idea is that she picks one toy and tries to find the picture that is the same.

This was her first time seeing these toys so she spent some time looking at each.

She especially liked the shark and was intrigued with it's wide open mouth.

She stuck her finger in it a few times and mimicked it.

She even cuddled it while saying mom.

She quickly picked up on the matching idea and would challenge me by placing a wrong toy on a picture and say 'same' in a questioning tone.

As she pulled more and more toys out she now began to look closer at the pictures.

Her second favourite is the clown fish.

The game ended when she went away to cuddle the shark.

We did play it again when mom and dad came home.

She surprised me by signing 'different' accurately.

What kind of games do you play with toddlers?

PomPom Basketball

Do you remember the blog post about Itsy Bitsy Spider?

If not check it out here.

This tube is the water spout we used for the spider to climb.

I repurposed it for a basketball hoop for our toddler.

Underneath it I placed a shadow box that her mom wasn't using and filled it with big, colourful pompoms.

 Right away she picked up the pompoms and 

I encouraged her to drop them in the tube.

She was fascinated that they came out the bottom.

She did it over and over.

Another playful way that we have been introducing colours.

It's Hot and No Pool

It is hot out.

Two of the days that I look after the little one there is a neighbourhood wading pool that we go to but today wasn't one of the days.

So what do you do to stay cool?

Play with the hose and fill whatever size tub you can find.

Her mom had done this last week and I was quite happy to do it again.

She didn't start in the tub. She started by watering the garden.

And exploring how the water came out of the nozzle, how it feels to slap her hand against it and how it felt when the water ran through her fingers.

By this time she took a closer look at what she was watering and we talked about if the strawberry was ripe enough to pick and eat.

Then she noticed the water running off the side of the concrete.

Dripping down below.

We sang' "drip, drip, drip".

 Looking for more things to water we decided to take care of some that are in pots.

These are mom's herbs that they planted together after Mother's Day.

This is Dad's new plant that he got from his mom for his birthday.

 Then she was interested in filling the tub.

 I brought bubbles to blow but they didn't work very well so I poured some into the water and we used our hands to make lots of bubbly water.

She spent a lot of time washing this little toy in the bubbles then rinsing it off under the hose.

After we were playing for about an hour we heard the neighbours sprinkler start so we peeked over the fence.

Treasure Basket - Sensory Tubes

 This month's treasure basket is full of test tubes.

I found these wonderful test tubes at our local parent/educator store called Planet Kids.

I've had them for almost a year before deciding that they work perfect for this idea.

Each tube is filled with items I had around the house.

Items that may or may not make noise when the tube is shaken.

As she took her tube out of the basket, for the first time, she tried to unscrew the lid.

That is one of her favourite activities.  She is fascinated with taking lids off and putting them back on.

I knew that so I made sure these were screwed on really tight.

Also items that I believe she would be interested in, like these tiny babies.

They were left over from her mom's baby shower.

As she played with the tubes she began to look at them longer and noticing more about the items inside, like the babies with bottles.

Or the colour of the buttons in the tube with pipe cleaners.

Or pompoms of different shades of blue.

Bells from my Christmas decorations. I filled the tube too full and had to remove some so they would make a nice jingle sound.

Plastic straws make a very slight sound.

There is a tube with rice and foil and another with purple sand.

And the last tube has coloured bow tie pasta.

With these tubes we worked on the concept of loud vs quiet, upside down and turn over, identifying objects and sounds, body movements, and putting things in and out of the basket.

Discovering an Ocean

During the Canada Day long weekend our daughter, son in-law and grand daughter came home for a visit.

It was the first time we could take Our Little One to the beach. 

Not just a sandy beach but an ocean beach where we find crabs, fish, barnacles and more.

We found little crabs, hiding under rocks, as soon as we got closer to the water's edge.

Then we found the waves and the sandy shore.

These little waves were a challenge for her little legs.

Good thing she had help from mom and dad.

Time to explore the shore.

The sand is so much fun to grab with little fingers and transfer to the bucket.

And fun to splash it all off.

Dad found a little fish as he was combing the edge of the surf.

Opa found our Little One as she was running across the sand.

Back at the Little One's home I created an ocean discovery bin for her.

I started with real and toy shells, fish, snails, crabs and more.

I covered those with strips of blue and green, thin vinyl tablecloth.

I stuck in these little plastic trees, that look a bit like floating seaweed, and more shells, fish and shiny flat pebbles.

Time to explore.

Her favourite was the shiny flat pebbles.

The bin is fun but nothing compared to the real live ocean and tide pools.