Birds of a feather

We started our morning with breakfast and some art. The boys were in exceptionally good spirits and eager to get dirty. This project is simple, all you need are some paints, paper and some feathers (plumes if you want to be fancy). 

The great thing about this project is it gets better as the time goes on. The feathers start sticking together  and sticking to your fingers as you go on painting. Bear was not only creating art but experiencing a whole new texture at the same time. I have to say that sticky, paint filled feathers made him giggle and get frustrated all the same time. As you can see W only used his feather to paint for a total of two seconds before attempting to eat his paint. 

They both spent the rest of their morning giggling and getting messy. Afterwards we hung out paintings to dry. Look at Bear's face in the last image! He was so proud of his work.

Exploring the five sense - Touch

Despite my lack of blogging we are still here, and still continuing with our five senses activities. To read about our first one you can click HERE. This activity is super easy and can be done with items around the house. 

I gathered together a few scraps of fabrics from old projects.  I looked for fabrics with different types of textures. Here is what I used and the words I used to describe them to Bear. 

1. faux fur (soft, furry)
2. felt (smooth) 
3. burlap (rough, scratchy)
4. feather, not a  fabric but since we have been talking about owls and birds it was perfect (fluffy, soft)
5. minky fabric (bumpy)
6. PUL (slick,smooth) 

I would hand him each fabric one at a time and ask him what he thought it felt like.  He used words like soft and fluffy on his own. I would describe the rest of the items to him having him touch them  as we went along. He loved rubbing  the items against his cheek, until he got to the burlap. 

This was a quick and easy project with not a lot of set up or clean up required, but it helps introduce textures and build on your little ones already growing vocabulary. 

banging on pots and pans

Saturday's are the most challenging days of the week for us. Usually by bedtime the house is a mess and I am to the end of my rope.  That day was especially stressful as B a was a bit under the weather. I decided that instead of getting upset I gave them something new to explore and keep them entertained while I cleaned up the living room and the kitchen. Out came a few kitchen items such as wooden spoons, spatulas, whisk, muffin tins.etc. and it worked!B loved banging on all the pots and  pretending to stir food and eat it while W found his new all time favorite toy. A whisk. He could not put it down. It was so great to see them both exploring and by the time they lost interest both rooms were clean and it was time to read a few books before bed. I often forget of the sheer value of exploration of everyday items. I will definitely be pulling out more whisks on tough days :)

Easter sensory box

Easter grass, plastic eggs, pom poms

finally warmed up to the grass and is not starting to throw it everywhere... time to clean up. 

 There is so much hype on sensory bins/boxes that I finally had to try one for myself. I found this theme here (one of my favs) and I decided to give it a try being that I had some of these items already.

My first question? How do you keep it in the box? The first thing this little Bear did is dump it out. Now that I recall I have done a sensory bin with him when he was younger using corn kernel and the same thing happened. At first he wanted nothing to do with grass and just played with the eggs and pom poms. Then he warmed up to the grass he started hiding his eggs in it. ("go?" Bear talk for "where did it go?" while throwing his hands up) I even let Wolf touch the grass for about a minute before getting way to paranoid about it. He was very fond of the blue egg so he didn't mind not playing with the grass.
 My conclusion to a sensory box was that it was okay? I would probably do it again in another theme but it didn't really engage Bear for very long before he lost interest. Maybe it's just him? I cute memory non the less.