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.

Sticky Sensory Bin

I started by putting wood pellets in the two tubs.

 Then I added a Pringles can that I had covered with brown paper 

then with contact paper - sticky side out.

 Finally I added acrylic leaves in the side with the Pringle can

 and acrylic acorns in the other tub with a big coffee can

that I had cut a hole in the top.

 It was a mistake putting the sticky can into the tub with all the wood pellets

because they stuck to it and left little room for the leaves.

 It worked better to put the sticky can on the tray between the two tubs

The children's fingers stuck to the can while they tried to stick leaves on.

It was a struggle keeping the can upright sometimes.

 She tried sticking an acorn to the can but it was too round.

The other tub wasn't played with as much.

The children were more curious about sticking leaves to a can

rather than dropping acorns in a can.

It was fun picking everything off to clear space.

Pumpkin Faces

I had a lot of pumpkin shapes left over from our Comparing Sizes with our big buddies.

So this week I set up an invitation to paint pumpkin faces.

The jack o'lanterns on the table were prompts to think

will my pumpkin be happy, sad, scary or?

While most of the children loved the painting,

 the toddlers wanted 

to explore the jack o'lanterns up close.

The first few faces that were painted were taped to our big

pumpkin in the middle of the table.

They started conversations about pumpkins at home,

where they got their pumpkins and if they have carved it yet.

Halloween with our Grand Friends

This morning we shared some Halloween fun with our grand friends.

The children played with popping toys that were new and exciting 

and had the grand friends smiling.

We carved pumpkins.

Digging in to scoop out all those seeds.

Oh it was wet, cold and slimy.

I noticed that none of the grand friends wanted to get their hands in there.

We drew ideas for our Jack O'lantern faces.

Then carved them while the grand friends watched.

"This one is mine."

 Julia led us in music and songs.

We sang Head and Shoulders.

Betty showed us how to do it.

And we learned "My hat has 4 corners"

I surprised everyone by wearing my Minion Banana costume.

Happy Halloween