Baby and Tot Activities

If we aren't running around in the morning, I usually try to have some sort of activity for the boys.  The first one below is simple sensory play with torn up paper, for Cooper.  This surprisingly kept him busy for quite a while.  He started feeding the paper through the holes of the nesting/stacking cups, filling them, dumping, etc.  

Next up flower arranging!  Evan was sooo excited to try this.  Though, honestly, this one didn't keep his interest, despite the anticipation.  Still a great little, and totally free activity.  Cooper also decided to try his hand at it!

Yeah for painting!  This painting day we were stamping.  I saved the end of a celery bunch and let them use that to stamp flowers.  It's amazing the types of stamps you can make from the ends of veggies!

And next up, I was the most excited about, is a pom pom activity that builds the fine motor skills.  The use of the tongs is a pre-scissor skill.  So the idea of this activity for Evan was to use the tongs to pick up pom poms out of a jar and into the color coordinating cup!  For Cooper, I got a juice jar, with a narrow neck, and showed him how to put the pom poms into it and how to try to take them out of it!  They both worked on their activities and also swapped and found even more ways to have fun with the given materials, including some team work.  This one's is a keeper, I have it stashed away to bring out every couple of weeks.

Next up, a super simple activity.  Give them a colander and some pipe cleaners- show them how to stick the pipe cleaners in the holes- wa- la!  The simplest things are great learning tools!  I wish I could set up new ones every day, but that's not practical, so I aim to have a new one once a week.  Even then, that doesn't always happen, but it's all good.