Sinking Boats

Peanut has been pretty sick this week and possibly getting a couple of teeth, too. That means that when he is awake, he gets almost all of my attention. So when he is napping, I want to give Monkey some serious one on one without spending too much time preparing an activity. This sinking boat experiment is perfect!

I got the idea from @darlamyersclass on Instagram. 

Supplies: bucket of water, aluminum foil, glass beads (coins would also work well)

After filling the bucket with water, Monkey and I sat down to make our boats. 

We put them in the water and I asked Monkey if they were sinking or floating. Then I told him we were going to put beads in our boats, one at a time, and count how many until the boat sank. Monkey guessed it would take four glass beads to sink his boat. 

We started filling our boats. 

The boat I made held 20 beads before sinking. Monkey's held 25. 

Monkey had an idea to put the boats together and do it again. We thought it might hold more beads with both boats. We called it double trouble! 

It ended up holding 20 beads. 

After that Monkey wanted to keep playing with the water and glass beads. 

If Monkey was older and his attention span was a little longer, I would have tried to have him make another, different boat to see if he could get more beads in it. But for today, this was great! Just what the two of us needed. 

Mar 

Dancing Rice

Today Monkey and I did a science experiment that you've probably done before. It's easy to set up, uses ingredients you have at home, and ends up being pretty cool!

I loosely followed the instructions found here: http://buggyandbuddy.com/baking-soda-and-vinegar-science-dancing-rice/

Supplies: vinegar, baking soda, rice, clear glass jar, spoon, water 

To start, Monkey poured one cup of water into our glass jar. 

Next we added 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda and stirred until it dissolved. 

Then Monkey poured some rice into the jar, about enough to cover the bottom. 

I asked Monkey to tell me what happened to the rice when he poured it in. 

He said, "It all went down." We quickly discussed sinking vs floating. 

Finally, it was time for the last, and best, step. Monkey poured two tablespoons of vinegar into the jar. 

The rice started rising up right away. 

The bubbles created by the reaction of the vinegar and baking soda lift the rice up to the surface and then pop, and the rice sinks again. So the rice is dancing! Monkey noticed the little bubbles so we talked a little about the science behind this experiment. 

Monkey watched for a few minutes before his attention took him somewhere else, but the rice continued to dance for about fifteen minutes, which I thought was a really long time! 

Mar 

Letter Matching Easter Eggs

I have seen this idea many, many times over the years, because it's just so clever. It uses Easter eggs buts doesn't have to be done at Easter. 

Supplies: plastic Easter eggs, sharpie

First, Monkey helped me break apart the two halves of the eggs. 

Then I used the sharpie to write an upper or lowercase letter onto matching colour eggs. 

Tip: The way I did the letters was wrong. When Monkey put the egg together, the letters were written in opposite direction. I didn't realize this until Monkey started the activity and it was too late to fix it. It's not really too big a deal but it would be a little more familiar for Monkey to see the letters in the same direction.

Then Monkey got started. As per usual, he wanted to do the alphabet in order, which for this activity was harder than usual since all the eggs were mixed up in a bin for him. 

I tried to get him to just pick up any egg and find its match, but he didn't want to. So instead, I helped him find the letters in order by telling him which colour to look for. 

We ended up doing about half the eggs on the first day and then finished the rest the next day. It took a little longer than Monkey could give his attention to all one sitting. 

This ended up being a fine motor activity as well because the eggs were small and Monkey sometimes had trouble putting the two halves together. 

Finally, Monkey got them all matched. 

This would be a great activity to take in the car on a road trip because it takes a little while to get through all the eggs. 

There are lots of other possibilities for using Easter eggs like this, you could do word families, numbers, etc. 

Mar

Easter Eggs Exercise

Even though spring is just around the corner, we're in that hard part of the year where it feels like winter has been dragging on. When there's lots of snow it's easy to get outside with Monkey, but now the snow is mostly gone and it's been raining a lot. It can be tough to burn enough of Monkey's energy every day without going outside, so I have to do what I can to get some of that energy out inside. 

I found this idea here: http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/2015/02/exercise-eggs-scavenger-hunt.html

If you haven't visited No Time for Flash Cards, I highly recommend it. There are hundreds of awesome ideas. 

Supplies: Easter eggs, paper, markers

First, I wrote down an easy exercise on a piece of paper for each of the eggs. We just happened to have these awesome sports eggs but any would work!

I purposely did all different numbers for the exercises so that Monkey could work on his number recognition, too. 

I put one paper in each egg and hid them around our main floor while Monkey was playing upstairs. 

Monkey came down and I told him I had a special Easter egg hunt for him. He started looking right away! We had to convince him to only grab one at a time so that we could focus on one egg and one exercise. 

Monkey opened the eggs and his daddy read out the instructions, having Monkey help with the numbers. Then we all did the exercise together. 

We taught Monkey how to do a push up! 

I also caught him doing some toe touches. All the other exercises were too speedy for me to catch on my camera! 

Happy Easter! 

Mar 

Easter Bath

I mayyyyyy have an Easter egg hoarding problem... We have quite a few! Okay, fine, a LOT. They are useful for so many activities!! But then when I saw this Easter bath idea, I felt completely justified about my collection. 

I found the idea for the Easter bath on this blog: http://de-tout-et-de-rien-caroline.blogspot.ca/2012/04/table-deau-sous-le-theme-de-paques.html?m=1

Supplies: plastic Easter eggs, bubble bath, kitchen utensils

Daddy kept the boys out of the bathroom so I could set the bath up as a surprise.

It doesn't even look that many eggs, right?!

The smile on Monkey's face when he saw the bathtub was priceless. I'd guess that it took him less than thirty seconds to get undressed and in. 

Both boys loved it!

Happy Easter!

Mar 

Easter Sticker Wall

This activity is one we've done before, except last time it was for Halloween. I set it up for Monkey but it was actually Peanut who enjoyed it the most! 

Supplies: butcher paper, Easter stickers

I taped the paper up on our easel and wrote out Happy Easter. 

Then I got the boys started. Peanut loved it. We did most of the stickers together, but a few times he managed to do it all by himself. 

I just loved watching them working together on this activity! Peanut often stands in front of the poster, touching all the stickers he put on. 

Happy Easter!

Mar 

Pom Pom Painting

Now that St. Patrick's Day has passed, we have a quick turn around to Easter this weekend! With no time to waste, we got started on some Easter art today. 

I saw the idea here: http://www.craftymorning.com/pom-pom-easter-egg-painting-craft-kids/

Supplies: paint, paper with Easter egg outline, paint tray, clothes pins, pom poms

To get this art set up for Monkey, I poured the paint into the tray and attached a clothespin to each pom pom. 

I just happened to have pom poms that matched the paint colours! 

I gave Monkey more direction than usual for this art. I wanted him to do stripes on the eggs like a typical Easter egg would have, so I showed him the picture from the blog where I saw the activity. 

Then he got to work. 

Monkey thought this was a lot of fun. 

I love how he uses both his hands for this. He does tend to use his right more often but when it comes to this sort of thing the skill level is probably about the same, so he uses his left also. 

Monkey finished all six eggs and probably would have kept going if I had more. 

Once they dried, I cut them out. 

I think they look so great, and so does Monkey! I love the effect of the pom poms and I'm so glad we used the neon paint, too. So bright and fun for spring!

Happy Easter!

Mar 

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin (Part 2)

Yesterday we did a St. Patrick's Day sensory bin using shaving cream. Unfortunately, it wasn't Monkey's favourite thing because his hands got all covered in shaving cream and he just kept wanting to clean them off all the time. So this morning I decided to try again, this time using water instead of shaving cream.

Supplies: food colouring, dish soap, water, kitchen utensils, St. Patrick's Day shamrock ice cubes and necklaces (cut into different lengths) 

Monkey helped me with the dish soap and the food colouring. 

Then I filled the bucket with water and set it out for Monkey and Peanut to play. 

I put down a plastic table cloth first, with a large towel on top. This usually does the trick for containing the mess when Monkey plays, but Peanut is a little more splashy! I had to stay close by with another towel to clean up the water he splashed onto the floor. 

Both boys loved this. It was definitely a better choice to go with water instead of shaving cream, mostly because it meant Peanut could play, too. 

By the time they were done, Peanut was almost completely soaked, by his own splashing! He actually played much longer than Monkey did. Next time I'll just have to take his clothes off first ;)

Mar