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Our B “Sound” Box – Baby Boy

01 Jan

Now I am having way too much fun creating these “sound” boxes. I decided to keep going with the alphabet. So far, we have a handful of boxes with family photos on the cover and one box with an image of Apples with the letter “A” on the bottom and beans inside. For “B”, I decided to recycle (or “upcycle”) a holiday card. I chose a card with a beautiful shot of our friend’s Baby Boy, Tucker.

Along with continuing to do these boxes comes refinement. So, they are getting a bit neater and hopefully will last a while as a result. I used double-sided tape to secure the image, then I gave the image a coating of Mod Podge for look and “seal” (ha!). I let that layer dry, which doesn’t take long.

Then I colored in a “B” with a permanent marker (I am considering purchasing sticker letters to make it cleaner but I like the hand drawn letters because it gives the letter more character.).

Then I filled the box with peppercorns and poke a few holes in the box to add the smell sensory experience.

I carefully used clear packing tape to secure the box shut. My boys would not leave this box closed, which isn’t a bad thing depending on what you want your little one to get out of the experience. I’d like to use these boxes again and again with the sound (and sometimes smell) experiences. They have plenty of time and opportunity to open, dump, close and refill things on a daily basis!

I am currently working on “C”, “D” and “E”. Thanks for visiting…

Marnie

 

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Posted in Activities, Basic Concepts, Early Literacy, Homeschool, Infant, Montessori, Music, Preschool, Sensory, Toddler

 

Kid Soup

31 Dec

Too simple. So simple. I thought about NOT posting but these activities are the best, I decided. Simple. Easy. Accessible.

It has been a difficult few days with a stomach virus hitting our home hard (everyone in the family was down). So, at times I was desperate to entertain our nearly one year old, W, with as little effort as possible because 1) I was not well and 2) I needed to clean up our home after the tornado struck down. Honestly, I tried Sesame Street but he wasn’t into watching it, which I was secretly very happy to observe. Instead, he’d rather explore the world around him, albeit a small world these past few days.

Lately, W has been modeling us more and more. Everything from drinking and eating to brushing teeth and hair. It is awesome to watch him figure out these every day motions. Today, I was eating chicken broth from a soup bowl on the floor. He was curiously watching me. As I finished up the bowl, he reached out for the bowl and spoon. I gave it to him.

He started to motion scooping into the bowl and bringing the spoon up to his mouth. So, I quickly rummaged through my “catch all” activity supplies cupboard in search of any random items I may have thrown in there that would be appropriate for him. I saw egg carton that I had ripped up for a future sensory tub base. Ah ha! Perfect. So I gave him the bag of carton scraps and he dumped some into the bowl.

How great! I looked at the bowl, though, and thought, how boring. I knew there must be some safe and easy way to give a little life to this bowl of soup! So, I opened the cupboard again and grabbed a bag of trusty pom poms. Colorful, soft and of all shapes and sizes. I handed them to him. He was delighted with the contents of his soup.

…and he continued to eat his soup with pure joy! He explored with sound by hitting the spoon on the bowl, the rug and the floor. He explored texture by feeling with his little hands the carton and the pom poms.

So there are a lot of wonderful developmental outcomes to this simple, spur of the moment activity: practical life, sensory and fine motor skills. The best outcome though? I was able to clean up the living room and begin the kitchen! Pure joy all around!

Thanks for visiting…and happy New Year to you all.

Lots of love,
Marnie

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Posted in Activities, Family Wellness, Fine Motor Skills, Infant, Montessori, Practical Life, Sensory, Sensory Tub

 

DIY Sound Boxes

26 Dec

Sound boxes are simple but carry a great impact with your developing child. Sound boxes help develop sound recognition and critical reasoning. They can bring with them another layer of basic concept learning (e.g. Letters).  There is a lot of room for creativity with this project, so give it a whirl. I think you’ll be pleasantly satisfied and surprised at the result.

My favorite arts and craft store in Seattle has this great little cardboard boxes in all shapes and sizes. When I found them, my mind went aflutter with ideas for my sons (age 2.5 years and 11 months). When I create a learning tool for my children, I like to think about tapping into a few senses. So, for example, when I create discovery bottles, I think about sight and sound.

I decided to decorate the boxes with images and concepts. The box featured in this post is an image of Apples from the National Geographic Little Kids latest issue. Another theme I created was of images of our family and close friends. So, one box has a picture of my mom and brother filled with small pasta stars and another has a picture of my best friend filled with red beans. Our family lives very far away, thousands of miles for the most part. So, finding all the ways we can to help our children get to know their family members is really important. Sound boxes are one way to accomplish this goal.

Materials:

  • Cardboard boxes (either ready made as I purchased or you can improvise with boxes around the home)
  • Images of objects and people
  • Tape
  • Scissors
  • Marker
  • A filling: Beans, rice, pasta, salt

 

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For the Sound Box in this post, I cut out an image of Apples in the shape of the box and covered it with clear tape to protect the image. I took the bottom of the box and used a marker to create the letter “A”. I then covered the bottom with clear tape. Then I filled the box with large white beans and closed up the box with a few layers of clear tape to make sure it would stay shut even with the prying of a toddler.  As I wrapped the box, I trimmed the tape so that it better fit the box’s height and also shaped the tape to best fir the shape of the box (the top and the bottom).  There are other fun ways to decorate the box with colored sticker paper, tissue paper, etc and even use Mod Podge to seal the decoration. The possibilities are endless…have fun!


Thanks for visiting.

Marnie

 
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Posted in Activities, Basic Concepts, Education, Infant, Montessori, Music, Preschool, Relationships, Sensory, Toddler

 

Resist Painting with Toddlers

23 Dec

I am so excited about “Resist Painting” with our children. We actually have a neighbor who does AMAZING resist painting with wax and other great materials.  So, seeing some of her artwork inspired me. Resist painting is a concept that involves placing tape (or other material) onto a canvas and painting over it. Once the paint dries and you remove the tape, the result is an interesting design with crisp and often funky edges.

Here is what we used:

  • Painters tape
  • Paint Brush
  • Washable Tempura Paint
  • 8 x 10 Canvas – I purchased at our local, Northwest Art & Frame. Most arts & crafts stores will carry them. Order online too.

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I didn’t take a picture of the painter’s tape laid out on the clean tape. We created a “J” (my son’s first initial) with the tape. You can kind of see the outline in this above picture.

The colors mixing was beautiful.

He really wanted to make sure the sides of the canvas were painted too…

Once we were done painting the canvas, we let it sit out to dry before peeling the tape off.

Peeling off the tape from the canvas was a lot of fun. Unfortunately I don’t have any images. For a 2.5 year old, the process of peeling the tape was as cool as painting the canvas. He love it when the tape revealed a “J”. The design you make with the tape doesn’t have to be perfect (clearly this “J” is not perfect) and that adds to the beauty of the result. We’re going to hang this beauty on J’s door.

I look forward to completing a painting like this each year with my sons.  Great activity for toddlers on up. Easy and relatively inexpensive. Next time, one thing I will do differently is use a deeper canvas to give us more surface area.  I forget what the technical canvas term is for these types of canvases but most art stores will be helpful to you.

Thanks for visiting…

Marnie

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