Papa Bear - Father's Day Card | Toddler Craft

With Father's Day approaching, I though this is the right time to share what we did for last year's Father's Day. Mini and I made this cute little Papa Bear card for Mini's dad. I found this adorable card idea from Pinterest and was so happy with how easy it was to make something so cute!

He was only 2.4 years old and so this was mostly done by me under his close supervision! Oh well, he did help stick the little eyes and pompoms! :)

This is a fun little project to do with older toddlers who have just about gotten control of their scissor skills. Maybe this year again I will try making the same with him, only this time I will draw a circle and let him cut it out by himself!

DIY Mini Construction Site

My boy loves LOVES vehicles. And I LOVE DIYs !! This one is an awesome combination of both :)

I had a huge cardboard box lying around that I decided to convert into a simple construction site for the Mini. With some inspiration from Pinterest and some own ideas I made this Mini Construction Site.

First off, I taped the bottom of the cardboard box shut so that it cannot be opened from below. 

Then, I painted one side blue depict the blue sky and stuck a few cotton balls randomly to make cute little puffy clouds. Once the paint dried, added a sun on one top corner and using a black sketch pen, drew little birdies and a few buildings.

Also drew some roads and lanes on the base of the cardboard box to depict little roads for the vehicles to go on. I placed a few trays here and there and filled them with chickpeas, cotton balls, pompoms to depict various construction materials. 

Then, in came all the little construction vehicles, randomly placed across the roadways that I just drew. I also placed a few cotton balls and some chickpeas on his mini construction vehicles as well, as play prompts.

That was it! A mini construction site was ready for the little one. He happily plopped himself right inside box, at the heart of the site and began exploring the various items I had in there for him. 

Looks like the little construction engineer is on a dream break :)

Egg Carton Colour Match Game | Toddler Games

I love it when I get to re-purpose Mini's old toys and find newer ways to use them. That way, an old ignored toy gets a new life and garners new interest to be played with. 

In this DIY game, I recycled one of his early toddler toys. I had got him a set of lacing discs which he showed absolutely no interest in back then. Lacing never interested him and I have since then just kept away the entire set not knowing what else I could do with it.

A few months ago, I took the set out and used it for a super fun Shape Sorting Fishing Game which the Mini really took to and enjoyed. I was glad I was finally able to use the lacing discs in some way. We have since used them for simple sorting activity based on shape and colour. 

He loves colours in general and anything to do with colours! So, when I found a fine motor skills activity idea on Pinterest using egg cartons, I just knew I had to base it around colours for my little fellow. Using inputs from the post to prep up the egg carton with skewers, I added in a colour dimension and made it a colour sorting activity for him.

It took me all of 20-25 minutes to make this and kept the little fellow busy for a good amount of time. Along with the straight forward colours, I also coloured one slot in multi-colours just to get him thinking! He worked his way around sorting the coloured discs based on the colours around the skewers and took a while to figure out what went onto the multi-coloured slot :) Soon he decided random discs go onto that slot began stacking discs of different colours onto it.

Rainbow Rice Bin | Sensory Play Ideas

So, have you made your own batch of Rainbow Rice yet!? :) 

If not, go right over to my DIY Rainbow Rice post and make your mini a batch of it already! Its super easy and you will be done in no time!

If yes, yay! Read on to see some simple fun ways in which we enjoy rainbow rice sensory bin.

Scooping:

A few colourful stacking cups (a favourite toy from the Mini's babyhood days, re-purposed!), a shove, strainer and fork from a mini beach set and a few more random spoons of different sizes make for a lovely session of just scoop, fill and shove!

Mini Construction Vehicles Play:

Of course the little construction vehicles have to come in for some fun too! They always do :) So here is to more filling, scooping and dumping of gorgeous rainbow rice by tiny diggers and dump trucks.

Ice Cube Tray Counting:

This one was a self initiated activity by the Mini. I added an ice cube tray to the rice bin and he began filling the slots one by and one and went on to count them! So yeah, there you have a super fun counting activity as part of the rainbow rice bin! :) 

Popsicle Sticks - Upper and Lower Case Letters Match

The first activity that we did around upper and lower case identification was the one with building blocks. It was a fun little DIY that the Mini loved and I give that activity credit for actually helping him identify most of the lower case letters. 

So, ever since then I wanted to do a few more activities around the different cases and finally got around setting this one up. It is a simple DIY and can be easily made with items available around the house. I love cardboard box DIYs and this is one of the easiest of them all!

You can use simple plain coloured popsicle sticks for this, but I had fancy coloured ones and I loved the pop of colour they brought in to the set up as a good contrast to the brown of the cardboard box. So, its not a must that you use coloured popsicle sticks here, but if you like pretty things like me... try to get them! :D They should be available in most stationery supply stores.

This activity not only helps in upper and lower case letter identification and association, it also helps work on the fine motor skills of those little hands pushing the popsicle sticks through the slots on the cardboard. Mini had a lot of fun doing this over and over and after almost 6 months, he still enjoys playing with this DIY :)

Artificial Grass Mat Farm | Sensory Play Ideas

This is a ready-made set up that has absolutely no-prep required! Well yes. I found this awesome inexpensive door mat on Amazon which is made of artificial grass. I felt it is just perfect for a simple fun farm set up for my little boy!

It feels just like real grass and has the similar character as real grass does. I loved the feel of it and from the number of times he ran his palms over the mat and smiled to himself, I can say so did the Mini!

He has a few of tractors, of all different colours and sizes and a few farm animals. We teamed them all up and set them up on this little mat of ours and.... Voila! Our little farm is ready! :)

Or you can just forget farm setup and just enjoy the feel of the artificial grass under your bare feet! :)

Number Game: Count - Match - Stick

After our first counting activity, the Pompoms and Muffin Tray Counting activity, I figured the Mini loves counting! So, to keep up with his interest, I planned to do more of such easy to set up and fun activities that involved counting.

So before we go over to the activity, wanted to share an awesome hack I found out recently. I have had an eye on the easel paper roll that is most commonly used for toddler art and craft work. I love the long roll of paper that can be cut to any size and spread over on the floor or wall. But honestly I found the easel paper rolls that are available in India a bit too expensive for my kind of use! I was on the lookout for something more economical. On a recent visit to a packaging and paper cups/plates store, I found this long roll of paper that he was selling. It was meant to be used a dining table liner at functions and parties. It looked longer than a regular easel paper roll only slightly thinner. Also, it was more greyish than white, but who cared. It costed only Rs.70! Without a second thought, I bought it and there you see is our very own easel paper roll for our very many activities and fun times ahead ! :)

So, coming back to this activity, I used a strip of my version of the easel paper roll, a marker pen, sticky notes and our favorite white board. It took me all of 10 minutes to set it up and kept the little one entertained and occupied for about 30 minutes! :)

Animals Bath Station | Sensory Play Ideas

How can you go wrong with water play, right?! Which child does not like slapping around and frolicking in water!

My little Aquarian boy is no different and absolutely loves the water. He loves his bath time and always asks for a few minutes extra after bath to play around just a bit. It always calms him down after a long day or a cranky tantrum and makes him happy.

My boy is a little person who loves when there is a procedure to follow or a structure in place. So when I set up this animal bathing station, I did not just let him go wild on it. I guess that would have been fine too, but I knew a little procedure would be loved by him, so I gave him a little demo with just one animal...

I asked him to first dip the animal in soapy water. Then place it in the little bath tub. Then, spray water on it using the squirt bottle to rinse off soap. Use the towel to wipe the animal, off dry. And finally place the animal in the other bowl!

...he followed this procedure meticulously and repeated it with the rest of the animals one by one, giving me enough time to go finish up my lunch prep! :)

Rice Bin - Construction Site | Sensory Play Ideas

Okay, so this post needs not much text really! 

A bin full of rice and an army of construction vehicles -  what really needs to be said here!? Just go play and have fun loading, tipping and dumping :)

Okay, before you get started, maybe just read up my post on Sensory Play Setup and Ideas for some basic setup tips to contain the mess, if any and to ease up the process for you! 

I always set up my bins in our balcony for the open space available and for the natural lighting. And I always lay out a plastic mat under the bin to help set a boundary for spillage and also for easy cleanup.

Now, am going to just leave you with some pictures of my Mini at play at his little Rice Bin Construction site :)