Academics – Page 33 – Butterbees and Bumbleflies

Autumn Sensory Bin

In continuation of our week of autumn, here’s what I threw together for Becca this week: dry beans, old popcorn kernels, foam leaf stickers (I peeled the backs off and stuck them together), play pumpkins from Dollar tree, and flat toothpicks. Of course I also gave her her favorite scoop, and a little bowl as well. She really doesn’t like the toothpicks at all. So I keep presenting them in different ways so that she’ll have the textural experience. She likes the pumpkins and the leaves and digging her hands in the beans. At one point, she started sorting the corn kernels from the beans. Ever the OCD… not too fond of things mixed together. HA! She also asked for a tray to assist in her sorting.

Total Prep Time for Mommy: five minutes just to throw it all together

Total Play Time for Becca: she didn’t play at this one as long – only about 10 minutes. I think when I give it to her today, I’m going to help her pull out the toothpicks… and then I bet she’ll play with it for much longer. Those durn toothpicks!

An Invitation to Autumn Play

Continuing the theme of fall/autumn activities this week, I thought I’d share the shelf I set up as an invitation to dramatic play as well as reading – on theme. Here’s how I prepared the shelf:

I didn’t have to buy a thing – just went thru my decorations in the attic! I went thru our various shelves of books, and came up with some fabulous options, and put the board books here for easy access. (See below for a listing and links for purchasing.)

In the basket, I placed a bunch of little pumpkins and gourds that I had on hand – I believe I got them at dollar tree and hobby lobby a few years back. The basket was also a hobby lobby find ions ago. (AKA – if it gets torn up, I’m not gonna cry over it!)

So the books – as you can see, a couple of them are Target dollar section books. But here are the links to the others (all affiliate links – thank you for your participation!).

Duck & Goose, Find a Pumpkin – Becca LOVES Duck and Goose books. So much that she’s already excited about writing a letter to Santa Clause to ask for more of them. 🙂

It’s Pumpkin Day, Mouse!

Eating the Alphabet (yes, I consider this a fall/harvest book)

Jack and Jill: A Halloween Nursery Rhyme

She immediately went for the Duck & Goose book, and then slowly got everything else out. She has really enjoyed having these items available for free play/read anytime!

Total Prep Time for Mommy: About ten minutes – because I got distracted while digging through the decor in the attic. 😉

Total Play Time for Becca: She will regularly sit here and spend about 5-10 minutes at a time, if not longer.

Orange/Pumpkin Scented Playdough

I love making play dough, I really do. But it’s been a LONG time since I had made any because I really need stuff I can throw together quick, and I’m not really willing to dedicate 20 minutes of my time just to making something I’m gonna throw away in two weeks. But, with all the fun play dough options out there, I wanted to try my hand at modifying my favorite recipe, to see if I could make something fun for fall. And wow, was it a success!! I had to remind Becca that we don’t eat the play dough, we just smell it and look at it and feel it.

Here she is smelling it – she did this several times – it really does smell GOOD, ya’ll. (A great conversation about our 5 senses followed – and she informed me that we can hear it too – we can hold it to our ears and squeeze it!) I gave her some fall shaped cookie cutters to play with, and she loved them! She kept calling the turkey a chicken, but we can work on bird recognition later. 🙂

So, here’s how you make your very own pumpkin play dough:

It works best in an electric skillet, but can be done on the stovetop in a non-stick pan. I recommend using a wooden spoon for mixing, but that’s not required. Bring to a boil: 1 1/4 cup water and an overflowing Tbsp + an overflowing tsp of vegetable oil

Meanwhile, mix in a bowl (child can help if you feel like also having a math lesson!): 1 cup flour, a little less than 1/2 cup table salt, 2 tsp cream of tartar, 2 tsp pumpkin pie spice, 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, and 2 packets of orange Kool-aid.

Turn the heat off on water/oil after it’s boiled hard. Dump in the dry ingredients, and stir well until dough forms. Use the spoon to lump dough together in the center, allow to cool for about ten minutes, then place in freezer bag or sealed plastic container. Condensation will form- this is good, and helps the play dough stay moist.

Note: If your dough isn’t very moist, but rather grainy, you have too much salt and/or not enough oil.

I highly recommend thorough hand washing when done, and then using hand lotion- the salt in the dough can really dry your skin, and the cinnamon and nutmeg can cause super sensitive skin (like Becca’s) to turn a bit pink. The dough should be kept in a sealed container when not in use, and will stay fresh for about two weeks.

Enjoy the scents of fall in your kitchen!

Total Prep Time for Mommy: about 20-25 minutes

Total Play Time for Becca: on first use, about 30 minutes, but I know she’ll use it every day for the two weeks til I have to throw it away and make some more. Maybe I’ll try apple scented play dough then… hmmm…

Crazy Hair Day

As I have been racking my brain trying to think of good hand-eye coordination activities that also include math, this was a fun one I came up with using a styrofoam ball that I cut in half, and pipe cleaners that I cut into quarters. These spiky haired dudes are super funny, apparently, because giggles abounded when I brought them out. Then we worked on patterning by threading the colored beads onto the “strands” of “hair.” I would start a pattern, and she would continue it. She also liked sorting them by color so that one strand had only purple or only blue. This was the first time I really worked with her on patterning, so I was amazed to see how well she did – I even introduced an “AAB” pattern, and she repeated it like a pro. Her attention span of adding to each strand was short – so sometimes she would just say with color came next, which I thought was just fine. I have left this activity where she can reach it – still on its tray, with all beads available for use, and she keeps coming back to it at various times to add more beads. She says it’s “super fun, Mommy!”

The original presentation

I had to show her how to put the first bead on the pipe cleaner – she was unsure what to do with them, which kind of surprised me because she usually does really well with invitations to play, and figures out on her own what to do, but she was trying to poke the beads into the styrofoam, which was NOT what I wanted her to do. After a while, she got obviously tired, so I dumped the beads out on her tray, and grabbed her bulldozer, which was nearby, and let her have fun pushing the beads around.

Total Prep Time for Mommy: About 5 minutes – since I had to cut the styrofoam ball and the pipe cleaners and then stick them in, and try to find a little bowl for the beads.

Total Play Time for Becca: In the first sitting, she played for 30 minutes, but has gone back to the tray several times for 2-5 minutes at a time.

Be Willing

Part of being a mom is learning to step out of your comfort zone a little. If anyone had told me that I’d have a conversation about electricity with my two year old and then allow her to look through the scrapbook of our house being built to try and find the electrical trench dug from our box at the street up to our house, I would have told them they were crazy. But, that’s just the kind of world I live in. I have to be willing to converse with her about electricity and other amazingly “out there” concepts… and, I have to be willing to let her look through my scrapbooks – because not only was she WAY more careful than I would have ever expected, but she was AMAZED and totally in awe of seeing what our house looked like before we moved in – she loved pointing out rooms she recognized from the pictures, and thought it was so cool to see the balcony before the banister was up, and her bedroom with just the carpet pad – no carpet. Sometimes I have to be willing to let go of some of the things I hold “sacred”… and take a leap of faith that she’ll find them as sacred as I do…

Another thing I’ve had to be willing to do is allow her to have a drawer in the kitchen. She LOVES to sit and pull everything out of her drawer and sort it, pretend to cook with it, etc. And I have to be willing to step past my OCD issues about kitchen items on the floor, and just let her play. Let her discover. Let her learn. When I do, it’s SO worth it. She played in her drawer and was content while I worked around her for over 40 minutes!!!

I’ve never done “fun food” until today. Because being a mom is about being willing to try something new. She LOVED the face I made for her, though despite my best efforts, the cucumber did not get eaten. She DID take a taste, though, and concluded that it was crunchy before she decided to spit it out. Maybe I’ll keep trying to make food more fun, and eventually, she’ll get enough tastes that she’ll start eating! This article from Super Healthy Kids has some great tips we are starting to employ in our household!!

Being a mom is also about being willing to deface your home a little bit just for the fun of it! I saw this idea about covering light switch plates with washi tape (that now I can’t find because I just saw it in passing on some blog’s fabulous FB post somewhere), and I decided that Becca’s room needed some washi tape plates. She declared they were “so pretty” and “beautiful Mommy” several times. So yup, it was totally worth trying something new. Heck, sometime when she’s not in the room I might even take off all the electrical plates and do them, too. Because it’s not in my comfort zone to do that… and being a mom is all about being willing.

It’s about being willing to let my hubby play the most annoying song ever created to our daughter to hear her giggle hysterically and then watch them snuggle on the couch to read the book. Yes, if you didn’t know, there is a book titled “What Does the Fox Say?” The illustrations are super fun. The text? Well, it’s the words to the song… (And no, we did NOT buy the book. We checked it out from the library… I’m only so willing. HA! BUT, if you love the song, you can buy the book from my affiliate link here!)

What have you had to be willing to do that you weren’t sure you could handle? Is it being willing to get up at 5am so you can have 30 minutes of your day by yourself? Is it being willing to share your favorite smoothie because you know that it’ll get your sweet one some good vitamins and they’ll only drink it because it’s yours? Being a mom is about being willing. Yup. And it’s not always easy, but when I step out of my comfort zone with Becca, it’s usually always fun. Because I have to be willing to accept the fact that my brilliant, beautiful little girl is more grown up than I give her credit for, and is always ready to prove herself.