Exploring Autumn with a Toddler

I love Autumn and this year I wanted to show Dylan exactly why.  I had a think about some different activities we could do to really explore the season at it's best and then invited along a few of his friends as well for some Autumn activities in the park.

Last Sunday, we met under the bandstand in the park and I had set up a few little stations with things for the toddlers to do.  15 children and their parents came along to explore with us.

Using some of the leftover Dulux paint charts from my Easter egg hunt, I made scavenger hunt cards.  Each piece of cardboard had six coloured cards on, and the children had to find something in the park for each of the colours.  I thought this would be a great way to get the toddlers talking and they soon filled their bags with red leaves, yellow flowers and white feathers.

We then used the findings of our hunt to make pictures, and the little ones loved being let loose with a glue stick and some colouring pens.

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Homemade Father's Day Bunting

With less than a week to go until Father's Day, I decided we would get creative again and make a homemade gift for daddy.  Last year he loved his homemade Daddy photo frame and this year I decided that Dylan and I would make some bunting to go above his computer.

I am not going to pretend to be an artisitc genious but I do love to make things and this had to be suitable for a 22 month old.

I cut out the letters that spelt Daddy from an old cardboard box and prepared some paint with sponges (I couldn't find any of our art ones so cut up an unused kitchen scourer) and some bits and bobs that I had picked up from the pound shop.  I had sequins, cardboard shapes, torn up tissue paper, mini pompoms and some little stars.

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Easter Egg Hunting

After reading an amazing blog post on Lucy's blog Capture by Lucy, I was inspired to set up an Easter egg hunt for Dylan.  The little dude is too young for too much chocolate, but old enough to join in the fun so I thought that this hunt was perfect for him.   As our garden doesn't have too many hiding spots, I thought it would be great to pop down to the local park with it being at the end of our road, and as I was doing it in the  park, I decided to invite some of Dylan's friends.

I spent Good Friday evening cutting egg shapes out of Dulux paint charts, and armed with some pound shop pegs, I set about hiding them around the park this morning.  15 of Dylan's friends turned up at half past ten and spent the morning hunting out the paper eggs in the little bags I had decorated.  

Once they had finished hunting, I swapped the paper eggs in their bags for a small chocolate egg, small plastic egg full of raisins and some bubbles and it was time to play on the swings and slides.  It was lovely to see them all together playing outside, and luckily the sun was shining for us!  Dylan managed to fall asleep on the walk back from the park and with it taking all of 60 seconds I was very impressed - I think there were lots of tired toddlers by the end of the morning!

We had a lovely morning, and I have all my paint chart eggs ready for another little hunt next year!  

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Happy Easter

My favourite chocolate has to be a cadbury's chocolate egg.  Nothing beats what is wrapped in that shiny purple paper, and the fact it usually comes alongside a couple of yummy creme eggs is certainly a bonus!  This year Dylan is old enough to have a little bit of chocolate, although we are still limiting it as he has never had more than a bite or so before and Archie is definitely too little (although as I am breastfeeding, I could always eat his share?!)

I have been getting crafty in the evenings in preperation for the big day and made some egg shaped rattles for the littlest one so that he can join in this Easter.  I found the idea on the lovely Red Ted Art blog and thought it was within my capabilities, and would be perfect for the boys.

It involves all things we had in the house, and as I prepared an omlette, instead of cracking it, I made a small hole in each end and blew the egg out into the bowl.  I rinsed the egg shells and left them to dry, before filling them with some rice and covering them in paper mache.  Voila . . . home made egg rattles!  I used coloured tissue paper to make things easier, but if I make them next year I would do it with newspaper so that Dylan can enjoy painting them.

I was very impressed with my effort and my plan is to hide them around the garden on sunday so Dylan can have a mini egg hunt as well. 

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend and that the Easter bunny is very generous!

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Sensory for Toddlers

My local children's centre is a fantastic place and Dylan and I are familiar faces as we have been attending various groups there since he was only a few weeks old.  I have recently signed up for a free course there which explores sensory learning in children.  I won't lie - the initial draw was the free creche for 2.5 hours twice a week and a chance to sit down with some adults, have a chat and a cup of tea in peace.  Dylan is a sociable child and loves the creche room which is full of toys, messy play and snacks and he is more than happy to be left with the other children to do his own thing.

Meanwhile, I am really enjoying learning about his sensory journey, and how best to encourage him to learn. Humans are a unique species in that our young are born utterly helpless but with so much potential.  Some animal babies can walk within hours of being born and have to learn to defend themselves from the start.  Human babies however have millions of neurons and although not all the connections are there, with a little help they can grow into amazing young people.

Before a child is three, they develop most of these connections and it is up to us as parents to stimulate all their senses to ensure their brains develop as healthily as possible and to their maximum capabilities. We help them develop through touch, taste, smell, sound and sight and the course is designed to teach you more about why this is important and ways to do it.

I like to think that I encourage Dylan already.  We read books together do a lot of puzzles,  attempt messy play and go for walks to explore.  We expose him to all sorts of music and try to let him develop as much as we can.  Having some guidance though has been great and being able to drink a hot cup of tea as I learn has been even better!

For the first session we discussed some of the neuroscience behind their development and then set about with our own arts and crafts session.  I cannot wait for Dylan to be that bit older that we can do these things together and for some of the other parents, the idea is that they go home and try the ideas with their own children.  For those of us with small toddlers however, the finger puppets we made are a tool for stories, songs and exploring textures.  My monkey and lion (It is probably safer to tell you than let you guess- I may need a bit of practice still) have glitter, pipe cleaners, pom poms and felt on and Dylan loved turning them over and touching all the bits.  He also liked rawwr-ing at the lion and saying ooh ooh aah aah to the monkey.  I feel creative making up my highly out of tune and un-rhyming songs and he sways, dances and giggles as I sing them.

Today's session focused on auditory learning and how early a baby learns the art of conversation.  We made drums out of carpet rolls and balloons and got to decorate them with paper and stickers - It felt like a toddler group for adults but as Dylan is not really old enough to get involved with the making he just gets to enjoy playing with it! He has been busy bashing it and shaking it (I popped a few sewing machine bobbins in there which give it a great noise when you shake it)  and trying to pull off the fish and boat stickers.  I learnt a lot as we crafted and have always been fascinated by the fact babies prefer their native tongue from only 6 weeks old and wish I spoke another language as children seem to adjust to being bi-lingual so easily if they are brought up that way.

I am loving learning more about Dylan and Squish's sensory journey and feel more equipped to nurture Squish to grow up into the genius he could be.  I still have two more weeks left of the course and can't wait to build up my craft collection whilst also learning (and drinking tea in peace!)

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Summer Sun - Ways to have Fun

The white midriffs, pasty legs and abundance of sunglasses tell me that summer is here. Time for pub gardens and ice cold cider  the park and a carton of ice cold juice.  Living so close to the beach has one major advantage - free entertainment.  It doesn't matter if you are one or one hundred, the beach seems to be a source of constant amusement in the summer.  From sandcastles, to sunbathing, to sitting in deckchairs scoffing fish'n'chips, we do like to be beside the seaside.

This summer the baby will need entertaining a lot more than last year.  Last year he spent half the summer as a bump, and the other half as a sleeping, feeding, pooing machine, waking up only to feed, and even then he seemed half asleep.  This year I will have a (presumably) mobile, active toddler on my hands.

So here are the things we plan to do if the glorious weather stays this way:

-Lots of trips to the beach.  We are lucky enough to be a 5 minute walk from a gorgeous sandy beach so any spare time will be spent down there. Dylan loves feeling the sand between his fingers but I have yet to convince him that the cold waves are actually a lot of fun!

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