Sand, Buttons and Rice Trays

3-25-09 Sand Play
Ryan loved this one - too cold outside to play in the sandbox, just right for inside. Took some small objects and buried them into some of the sand from the sandbox. A bit of a mess inside, but it was worth it - he played for more than an hour in the sand and was grinning most all of the time. He worked on transferring the sand from one bowl to the other, as well as finding the objects, burying them, counting them, sorting them, etc. etc. etc.

The objects to be hidden:

Discovering the objects:

Playing with all sorts of kitchen items in the sand:

Transferring the sand...slowly...from one bowl to the other...slowly...



3-26-09 Buttons
This was another big hit and he asks for buttons quite a bit now - he also played for over an hour with the buttons! Sorting, dumping, picking up, making noise with, counting, making pictures with (Ryan started making shapes with them), spooning into muffin tins/cups/bowls/etc. - lots of fun with buttons. In fact, I forgot how much fun buttons were! We had a lot of fun going through all the buttons and discovering different patterns, shapes, sizes - comparing them all, talking about which ones we liked better than others, our favorites, etc. Ryan's favorite just so happened to be my favorite too.





I made these two, but he told me what to make. This is a teddy bear.

My son is obsessed with 'not happy' over the last few weeks - "Is she not happy?", "He's not happy", etc. "Mommy, show me not happy", "Mommy, he's angry", etc. He points it out in all the books we read and makes me go back to that page over and over, slowly going over each person's face. I do so hope this "obsession" is normal.

3-27-09 Rice Play
This led to rice play - he is loving all these transferring trays! He played with this one for almost an hour. Lots of scooping, dumping, feeling (great sensory with all these), digging hands in, spooning, etc. One of his favorite scoops is a toilet paper roll that has one end mashed flat and stapled together.



For the last few weeks, he likes to make letters out of random objects. This time, he poured sand into a few holes in the ice cube tray and said "Look mommy...a F!!!". Great job buddy!

03-21-09 Tot Schooling on the go...

We were able to capture pics this time - another trip to Lowes to work on our kitchen design. He loves the flat bed and we get some great time in with the designer. I can sit there and work with him in between questions from the kitchen specialist.

These beads are great - they are Noah's Ark beads (arks, lions, elephants, etc.). He had so much fun playing with them, making pipe cleaner bracelets, dumping, sorting, counting, loading in his dump truck, etc.


And, the trusty 'toothpick, popsicle stick, straw, etc.' water bottle. He just loves this and it is so simple. He plays with it forever - he really enjoyed looking at each popsicle stick in detail. These are the ones he painted (see this post). It gave me an idea - I think we'll do more things with pop sticks - wiggly eyes, markers, crayons, glue, collages, etc. and put in a bag to take with us to look in waiting rooms, etc.