St. Patrick's Day 2019

 This is the second year that our grand daughter has come home for St. Patrick's Day.

 We headed to the forest to look for the Leprechaun tree and maybe some gold.

 Spring has arrived and the birds were singing.  The little one stopped whenever she saw a bird.  Often I had to get down at her sight line to see it.

 As we walked up the trail we found the first BIG tree.  We walked around it, peeking in all the little hidey holes and found little pots.

 Farther up the trail we came to the biggest, oldest tree in the forest.

This time I pointed, out to her, little doors set in the tree.

 She spotted them too and continued to walk around it.

We found the Leprechaun door.

 

How exciting to open the door and see what was inside.

Next we searched around the tree looking for gold.

We found funny green rocks instead.

 They fit into our little black pots.

Maybe these green rocks were special but what else would we need to find to help us figure it out?

Ah some magic liquid might help.  It was hidden in another tree.

We poured the magic liquid over the rocks

It bubbled and overflowed the pot.

We used a stick to stir it and find the rock.

But it had disappeared.

 In its place was a gold coin.

We found more rocks and changed them to gold too.

 I like the message left by this door;

"Find joy in the Journey"

We definitely did today.

Hope your St. Patrick's Day was magical too.

What's in the Tub Tuesday?

What's in the tub?  Big pom poms,

with big spoons, little bowls and an egg carton flat.

The girls loved the big spoons and managed to scoop with them better than they did with the little spoons last week.

I wasn't surprised when she put it in her mouth just like she did with the little ones.

 This one started transferring the pom poms from the tub to the egg carton.

Then her twin took them out and back into the tub.

A great partnership.

 The pom poms naturally ended up on the floor which expanded their play space.

So I found a few other containers that they could use to fill and dump.

If you don't like a mess then big pom poms are a great material to use as they are easy to clean up.

More What's Inside Eggs

The next toy I brought, to continue our discovery of eggs, is an egg full of animals.

Some come from eggs some don't.

She loved looking at each of the animals.

There is something about little toys that is attractive.

Our focus was to sort them.

Saying they come from eggs and they don't was difficult for her to differentiate so I started to say which comes from an egg and which comes from their momma.

Eggs! What's Inside of Them

The Little One is showing some interest in eggs so I dug out a few toys that I used at StrongStart.

Here is an 'incubator' filled with eggs.

Each egg has a creature that comes from an egg.

Two of the books we read before opening the eggs were Hatch and

Guess What is Growing Inside this Egg.

She did great opening the eggs and figuring out each creature.

We spent time building vocabulary around eggs, hatching, and all the animal names.

After all the eggs were emptied I brought out pictures of each creature for her to match.

What's in the Tub Tuesday?

 What's in the tub?  Puffed rice,

 spoons and little containers to fill.

The twins haven't had much experience with utensils yet.

They were quite intrigued with the spoons and I think instinctively knew that they go in their mouths.

Spoons are also great for making noise.

  

 They tried to use the spoons to fill the containers with puffed rice but realized they were more successful using their fingers.

Sometimes they worked on the same container, sharing it back and forth.

 

Their cousin wanted some of the puffed rice for a snack so I gave her a bowl with fresh cereal.  She decided to share it with her cousin which they loved.

 When they put some of the puffed rice into a container I closed them to use as shakers.

Book Play - Three Billy Goats Gruff

I introduced the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff to the little one using props and books.

First we chose which troll she wanted to use to tell the story.

She chose the rainbow haired troll.

Gently she put it under the bridge beside the blue water.

Then we met the 3 goats and set them up on one side of the bridge.

Time to tell the story.

We had fun making the sounds of the goats crossing the bridge 'trit trot'.

The goats made it safely to the other side.

And we decided the troll could stay under the bridge.

An Introduction to Play Dough

 Our oldest grand daughter really enjoys playing with play dough  so I decided to try it with the twins.

My worry with trying anything new with them is that they will put it in their mouths.

They are getting better at not mouthing everything but sometimes it's irresistible as you can see in the video, the little one is chewing.

It went better than I thought it would.

This will be an activity we can do more often.