Crackin' Eggs

At the end of winter I started saving egg shells to use for planting seeds, but we didn't get to do that this year. Because, well, the kids found my stash and got crackin'. :) Turns out, they really enjoy playing with egg shells. (Just as a note, these shells were thoroughly washed and boiled to avoid any contamination, which I would recommend especially if young ones are playing with them.) So now after every big breakfast we save the egg shells for this activity. I normally set it up when I'm cooking a big dinner and can't keep my eyes on them if they are playing in the living room.. So I set them up at the table with some egg shells and they are completely focused on crushing them into smithereens. 
We love our Black and Decker play tools. We got three different sets for the kids for Easter and they use them almost every day. The hammer iis the favourite tool. The big hammer is the most fought-over toy that they own. And they don't fight too often, but it's normally over who gets to use the big hammer. When they first played with the egg shells they used their hands and feet. Munchkin still prefers to use his hands, but Bean loves to use the hammer to smash them.

Munchkin trying to figure out how to crack open the shells using the back of the hammer.

This activity makes Bean so happy. She loves smashing them!

And stabbing them with the screwdriver.

Munchkin got the hang of the hammer..

And of course littered the shells all over the floor..

There are a few activities we want to try in the future using egg shells. I know you can grind them down and add them to paint to add a nice grainy texture. And it would be cool to paint them and roll them around on paper and crush them and see how the paint spreads out. We don't waste the shells though. Once they are done playing with the shells we clean them up and take them outside to add to our compost heap. Food for worms!

Sensory Bin: Arctic Life

Arctic Life

Since today was an overcast day with a few light showers, I decided to make today's sensory bin water-based. We couldn't go outside to the park because of the rain, but we could still get wet and have fun! The arctic is a habitat that we have not explored yet, so before we put together the bin, we looked at some pictures online. I asked Bean what we needed and she collected a few animals, cotton balls (because they are white and look like snow) and some cut plastic grass, because of course that was seaweed and the animals had to eat. They snacked on real seaweed while I filled the bin with ice-cold water and added one drop of neon blue food colouring and sea salt (not too much). 

Earlier in the day we were working on our Letter I-spy bins. We needed another item for I and had decided on igloo. So Bean and I made one using wet cotton balls. She dipped them in the water and then stacked them in a small round bowl. We only layered around the edges and then put it in the freezer for a half hour. I never got around to taking a picture of that bin because we ended up using it for this bin instead. 

While they played in the bin I played arctic animal sounds from YouTube and Bean tried mimicking them. It was wicked cute and she was especially interested in the penguins because they walked around with eggs tucked under their bellies. I gave her a plastic egg and she tried to balance it on her feet but wasn't able to walk like that, so she put it under her shirt instead. :)

Cotton balls, bowl of water, dry round bowl.

Press the cotton balls up against the bowl and then pop it in the freezer for a half hour.

The items Bean recognized from pictures we found on Google (a dolphin, a whale, a puffin, a penguin, a polar bear and a boat).

The water was shallow enough that Munchkin didn't make too much of a mess splashing :)

At the last minute Bean grabbed a few coffee filters and then did not use them. We left the igloo in the bowl until they were ready to add it.

The igloo was fantastic! I think the water being so cold helped, but it lasted over a half hour. It didn't last any longer because Munchkin destroyed it.

The cute little igloo!

Because the water was blue the cotton balls slowly absorbed the colour until they were blue too. Until they were completely wet they were floating around like icebergs.

Munchkin remembered what happened to the cotton balls the other day.. so he proceeded to rip them apart.

Bean decided the penguin lived on top of the igloo and flattened it down so the penguin could get back in the water more easily.

Munchkin had added the glass beads and now he had to collect them again and hold them close..

And then throw them back in to watch them splash. :)

It will be really fun to try this again with real ice and build icebergs for the penguins and polar bears to slide off of. :)

Colours: Search and Find

Today we worked on colour sorting using pom poms and buttons. But Munchkin prefers to pour and scoop the pom poms and doesn't care about sorting them by colour. So we decided to have a search and find using toys that we had in the living room since that would be more engaging for him. We used Bean's favourite colour book as a reference. We did not find any of the things on the pages, but it helped them associate objects by its colour. Munchkin needed some guidance with this, so to help him I would hold up two objects and ask, "Which one is ___?" and have him point to the one he thought it was. Bean especially liked leading Munchkin around to try and find objects that matched the colour we were working on.

This was a great exercise for both of them because it was very engaging. I did not have these objects out in the open for them to pick through, they had to go searching in their toy bins. If they were stumped, I would suggest "check in your play kitchen" or "check your car bucket" or "did you see if any of the animals matched the colour?" 

I left My Very First Look at Colors book displayed for them in front of the bucket so if they needed they could run back and check which colour they were on.

Yellow - 

Red -

Green -

Blue -

Orange - 

Purple -

Pink -

Farm Land: A sensory bin using natural materials

The last time we made a farm themed sensory bin we used leftover Easter grass. It was fun, but I knew they could get more out of a natural materials bin. So this time we used ground coffee for the dirt and mud and cut grass and flowers. The animals were plastic though, I don't think we could have fit real animals in that bin. I also decided not to add the barn, since it takes up most of the bin (I really need to get a smaller one, since the animals are also small).
I covered half the bin in the ground coffee (I don't actually drink coffee, so this was fresh ground coffee, and for the mud I just put some coffee in a tupperware and mixed in some water) and the other half in the grass and flowers (buttercups and a small purple flower). Bean started by taking the mud out and putting it on the side of the bin and dumped the animals on top of the grass.

Normally we use tea for dirt and mud, so Bean just had to investigate! She loved the smell and texture. And it did not stick to her hands a lot, which she liked. 

They dragged the rake through the dirt and enjoyed the sound it made (there was parchment paper underneath, so it made a crackling sound).

Because the parchment paper was underneath, it was a lot easier to see the tracks made in the coffee. 

Bean added the mud back in and the pigs took a nap. The bull decided he wanted a mud bath too. It was great having the dry and wet coffee grounds in the same bin because we have been working on "light" and "dark" colours with Bean and this was a perfect example. It can also be used to physically describe something being "dry" and "wet". 

After about an hour, everything started getting mixed together :) We called it "farm soup". 

And all the animals got a luxurious mud bath. 

This is definitely Bean's favourite farm themed sensory bin! Next time we will make a fence and maybe add an oobleck watering hole :)

Gone Fishing!

In preparation for summer time, we have decided to make a fishing game. Bean loved fishing last summer with her great-grandpa. She has her own fishing rod, but last year she needed help using it. Now she has had more practice and loves reeling things in (mostly in the bathtub). Bean uses paperclips for hooks and Munchkin uses magnets.

I decided to use foam for this activity since it can be used wet or dry. I cut out a fish shape and then used it to trace more fish (I used a coloured pencil since it didn't leave any residual colour and only a thin indent). We decided to use red, yellow, orange, purple, green and blue foam and ended up with seven fish of each colour. I had some jump rings left over from a jewelry project, so I used those to make it easier to catch the fish. I poked a hole using a thin yarn needle through the foam before putting on the jump rings. 

And they were all so colourful and cute! Bean had so much fun fishing for them in her bath. She liked that they were moving targets and looked like they were really swimming around in the bath water. I think I will be making another batch of these fish, just bigger. Bean liked that they were small but I think Munchkin would do better with bigger fish. His magnetic fishing rod is a bit too big for these fish. 

Dino Eggs (AKA baked cotton balls)

My little ones absolutely LOVE dinosaurs. Last week we made dinosaur eggs using baking soda and it was a huge hit. This time we are using a recipe we found at Play Create Explore. They don't actually hatch dinosaur babies, but they do hatch white fluff, and that was good enough. 

The recipe is super simple:

1 cup flour

1 cup water

food colouring (optional, but colour makes it more interesting, especially if you are teaching colours and it's exciting to crack it open and see that the colour is only on the outside and it's still white inside)

a bowl and spoon to mix the flour and water together and bowls to separate the colours

Divide the flour mixture. We chose to do blue, green, red (turned out pink) and yellow.

I showed them how to dunk the cotton balls in and cover them, after that they had no problem (although I had to wash their hands several times because they don't like getting their hands dirty).

We placed a sheet of parchment on our cookie sheet just in case they decided to stick, and they came right off after they cooled down.

They made quite a few! The last few got dunked in the different colours, so we had a few rainbowy dino eggs. 

Bake at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. And... ta-da! 

They took a few minutes to cool down and then I put them in a bin and handed them hammers. 

They explored the dino eggs with their hands first. Bean discovered that she could squish them and a little bit of air would escape. She thought it was so funny and would squish them next to her ear and giggle. Munchkin immediately tried to tear them open and it wasn't as easy as he thought it would be. It was a good challenge for him, since he sometimes gets frustrated when he can't get something the first time. But Bean and I gave him some encouragement. Bean would remind him, "try, try, try again." 

Then they picked up the hammers and started smooshing them!

But it turned out that it was more fun to crack them open with their hands.

Luckily these weren't real dinosaur eggs, because they had so much fun breaking them. 

A few of them came right out of their shells!

There were a few left over, so we will be able to use them again tomorrow. So fun! I think the next time we make these we will add glitter :)