December Playroom Update

We've had so much fun in our fall farm-y playroom!  With the coming of the Advent season, it's time to prepare our space.  Advent is a time of simplifying in order to fully focus on Jesus as Emanuel--God With Us.  To keep in line with this, I simplified our playroom big time.  I took out a lot of stuff, and it helped that all our doll furniture is being borrowed for an adoption shower, so that was an easy way to clear some space in our play area.  I also took many items off the workshelves. 

To provide a little change, I covered the playroom rug with a pretty quilt my grandma made us as a wedding present.  I have decided to be a person who uses my quilts to pieces, so it makes me so happy to sit on it while I play with my babies! 

I also try to rearrange the set up and furniture of the playroom each couple of months to give a fresh feel and renewed interest in the areas. 

I took the green leaves and bees off our branch and now all that is left are a few yellow and brown leaves.  In January we'll add snowflakes and forest animals.  But for now I want the branch bare. 

As you can see, the animals are a big fan of the floor quilt.  :)

This side of the room just holds a few little chairs, the basket of doll clothing/accessories, and Ms. Mouse and her clothes. 

Our little table holds our lantern from the Lantern walk and lots of candles.  My kids LOVE these fake candles.  They love switching them off and on, singing with them (This Little Light of Mine, Twinkle, Twinkle....), and just generally playing with them!  On the candle tray we've also collected some pretty pinecones and Q and I made some acorn fairies out of felt scraps and acorns. 

New playsilks!  We took a trip to Hobby Lobby this week and Q chose two wintery colors.  She has been playing like crazy with playsilks and clothespins this week!  She is very into clipping the silks to her hair.....

I put several of Beck's cars/trains on the floor. 
As part of Advent, we're not going to go full into Christmas and Christmas decorations quite yet.  We'll take our time focusing on the birth of Jesus first.  As a result we don't have Christmas things out, except this book.  I bumped into it on my bookshelf and knew if I didn't set it out now I would totally forget about it, and Beck would be too big for it next year.  So I am cheating a little bit.  :)
We also have some of our fall items still out.  I LOVE giving myself permission not to go crazy into all things Christmas and allow our family to finish out the fall season and enter into Christmas leisurely.  I've never felt this peaceful during this time of year before.....All of that to say, we still have some pumpkins, acorns and gourds out in the playroom.  :)

Little Man is loving tools.  I got out a few of his pounding items.  I always put these types of toys on their own rug and teach my children that they (and their pieces) live on the rug.  This helps give a good boundary for items that otherwise tend to fly all over the room.  And hammers need a gently reminder and sometimes physical redirection that "hammers are for hitting nails or balls."  I love having some type of hammering work out at all times with toddlers--they have a natural tendency to hit when they are frustrated, and a hammering area provides a good spot for redirection--"We hit on our nailbench." 

I also put out part of our Melissa and Doug tool kit.  Just a couple of each of the screws and nails (one of our nails broke this week...booo) and three of the tools.  You know my constant mantra to only put out the number of items that a child can clean up successfully--you never HAVE to put out full sets. 

We always have fun playing with mixed nuts in their shells at holiday time.  Q chose these out of a big bin at the grocery store.  Putting them in a mini muffin tin encourages counting and one-to-one correspondence as well as fine motor skills when putting them in and out.  A spoon or tongs can be combined, for additional fine motor practice.  Beck likes to dump the tray and put them back (well....some of them back....he's totally a one year old!).  Q engages in LOTS of imaginary play with them.  And we have more than what fits in this tray, so anytime Daddy is home the kids will bring him nuts to crack for eating!  This is also a great science skill!!

In our doll basket I put out some doll coats and some festive dresses.   

My grandma made these dresses for us when we were kids!  Love that Q is now playing with them!

 
Our shelf isn't real exciting right now.  It holds Q's baby from her Rainbow Bridge ceremony on her 4th birthday and also a basket of clothespins.  As a reminder, I keep clothespins accessible at all times.  They end up coming into use for all sorts of things in the playroom--usually combined with playsilks!

On the dressup shelf I put out a little jewelery box of bead necklaces.  It's been out before, but for the past year or so it's been in the closet, so Q has renewed interest in playing with it!  And Little Man loves opening and closing it!

As we enter Advent we'll be adding specific items to our playroom, so stay tuned!

Fall "Playsilks"

Of course to go along with our fall-ish playroom we changed out the ever-present playsilks to be fall colors.  I had a red piece of crinkly cotton fabric and some orange gingham that fit the bill perfectly.  I am not a playsilk purist--we use all different types of flowey fabrics for our fabric play.  I do always have two hooks out--so we put out two playsilks/fabrics at all times.  If you haven't incorporated playsilks into your play area, I strongly recommend it!  For ideas, check out this site.
Start small--put out one or two pieces of fabric you have around the house.  Light blankets (baby swaddling blankes are great!), scarves, wraps work great!  Engage in some pretend play with your child to model some ways the playsilks can be used......become princesses, knights, monsters, or dress up your baby dolls with them.  Playsilks encourage imaginary play in great ways!  I teach Quinn how to find the center of the playsilk in her hand and place it over the hook when she is finished using it.  This is a great premath skill and also involves fine motor development.  At her school they fold the playsilks and place them in a basket, and folding (always done from top to bottom and left to right) is a great tool for pre-reading--it helps train the brain in the direction of print. 
So.....playsilks.....get-you-some!!!

Birthday Party Pretend Play

 We've had a bunch of birthdays in the past month in our family, including both kiddos.  I decided it would be a great time to turn our little kitchen into a birthday party play area.  That way we could keep out some of the birthday items that were used at the celebrations for further play.

I started by hanging up Beck's birthday garland across the area.  I put out a birthday plate and a glass birthday candle that looks like a cupcake.  I wrote a birthday sign on the little chalkboard.  Mimi had given Q the Melissa and Doug birthday cake set, so of course that would be perfect for the area!

 I moved in the little table and chairs from the playroom, covered them in a pretty cloth and got out some butterfly placemats Oma had given Q.  The balloon came from a friend's 1 year birthday party.  It's been a huge hit around here with both kids!

 We have a small basket of birthday cards--Q loves to have me read them to her, and also use them to give to her babies when they have their parties.  Of course we also have the card Oma and Opa gave Q last year with the meowing cats singing "Happy Birthday" in meows.  That's the most popular item.

 There's also a basket with gift bags, tissue, bows and goody bags.  Q wraps up all sorts of things for gifts.  It's so funny to hear her playing because she has the nicest manners with her babies.  "Tiska, thanks for giving Pink Baby a napkin!  She just LOVES it!  Say thank you, Pink Baby!"

 And of course there are party hats!  One from Q's 2nd bday and Beck's from his bday.

 I had this little metal treat tray.  I put our cardstock cakes we'd made a while back, two cupcakes from a cupcake set we have, the serving spatula from the birthday cake set, and two plastic strawberries inside silicon minimuffin liners.

 Q has done some decorating of her own.  These are invitations.  ;)

 And of course festive napkins.....

 There are a few things we keep put up.  The smaller pieces to the birthday cake set are just the right size for Beck to eat, so we keep those on the top shelf. 

 And Q's glass dishes also stay up on a high shelf that she can reach and her brother cannot.  I've talked in previous posts about why I think it's important for Q to play with fragile objects, if you are wondering.  :)

Both kids have had lots of fun playing in the birthday area.  Beck, of course, just explores the objects.  Q actually does wrapping and card writing and cake-decorating and pretend play.  They each work in the area at their own level.  Vocabulary, imagination, manners, and literacy skills are some of the areas of development that are touched by this activity.

Of course I got all the items from stuff I rounded up in the house.  This is an easy dramatic play area to set up because the props are simple and stuff that is always in most homes. 

Scarves

Quinn, my 3 year old, is LOVING scarves right now. Both her playsilks and also some smaller scarves. I have out a basket with different types--a woven winter scarf, some silky neck scarves, and even a long silky belt. She loves making them into clothes, tying them around her waist or wearing them like the wrap I wear baby Beck in. She also ties them on her stroller, wraps them around her babies, etc. Obviously this is a toy we don't let her have unsupervised because it could be a safety hazard. Scarves encourage her imagination in dramatic play, foster abstract representation (when she pretends the scarf is something else--dress, blanket, wrap, etc.), assist fine motor skills through knot tying, and I love the numerous opportunities they provide for open-ended play. Plus they are something I already have around the house! I change them out every now and then to give her a surprise when she goes to the scarf basket.

More December Changes

We used to keep our playsilks in a basket, but this just wasn't working great, so last night I made two felted hooks to keep them organized. I also added some "wintery" props to the dress up basket (seen on right side of photo)--a hat, scarf and some mittens, of course! And a little basket of clothespins on the small shelf for clipping playsilks--to make capes or tents or whatever strikes our fancy!

Bunny Ear dress up

Of course we added some fun bunny ears to our dress up basket! Love to see Q wandering around the house in them!!

More crowns....

We made St. Patrick's Day crowns last week (I know, a little late posting this, sorry....) First I cut out a general "crown shape" from white paper. Then I twisted pipe cleaners into clovers to glue on. We used bottled glue and glitter to finish adorning our crowns. Pipecleaners could also be used to make Easter Eggs, flowers, etc. These crowns are so much fun to make and toddlers and preschoolers LOVE making headgear!!

Nature "Crown"

I made Q a nature crown, taking advantage of all the green stuff starting to poke up around here! We took a walk around the yard and picked "stuff"--bits of different plants....and I twisted them together, did some looping and voila! A crown for my princess! I didn't have to use any string or wire since I found some good vines, but you might need some twine or yarn or thread to help hold your crown together if you can't find great vines. I also stuck in some clover flowers and other "weedy" flowers we plucked from the grass.

For us this was mostly used for a springy photoshoot.....

Preschoolers could make their own crowns! Cover a table with craft paper, line the middle with greenery found on a walk and go to town!!

Creation Day 3--our week in review

This week we studied about Day 3 of creation some more. Here's our week of "kitchen school" in review:

Monday: Went for a naturewalk to see some plants and trees that God created. We felt bark on trees and talked about its roughness. We chose some pieces of bark to bring home. At home we painted on them with white paint. This was a new texture to experiment upon with the paintbrush!

Tuesday: Mommy drew a tree on the paper and Q colored in it. We talked about how trees have bron on the trunks and green in the leaves. We glued the bark from yesterday onto the trunk and used some small pieces of green paper (actually green paper we had coincidentally just peeled off the green crayon!) for leaves. Q is working on squeezing out "just a dot, not a lot" of glue from the glue bottle. She still needs me to apply some pressure to the bottle some of the time, but she is doing great!

Wednesday: We made flower garlands to hang up. We took apart some silk flowers. Then we cut a length of thin ribbon and Mommy melted the end a bit with a lighter so it wouldn't frey. Q practiced threading the flower pieces onto the string through the hole in the center. Mommy tied knots to hold the flowers in place. We talked about the sizes and colors of the flowers Q chose. We hung 1 in our display area where we hang all our projects, and Q hung the other one in her playroom for her to hold and touch and play with.

Thursday: We looked at flowers in our yard. Oma is coming today, so we made her a bouquet of flowers for her bedroom! We practiced holding the flowers soooo gently so they don't get crushed and carrying the little vase of water carefully so none spills. Q wanted to do some gluing, so I put 10 drops of glue along a sentence strip (the pink piece of paper) and asked her to put one bean in each drop of glue. She was able to do this--which allows her to practice her one-to-one correspondance, which is a necessary foundational skill for mathmatics knowledge (counting, operations {addition, subtraction, etc.}, and ordering). She was fairly random about the order she placed the beans in, but as she becomes more familiar with this activity as we repeat it, I will begin to gently suggest she works from left to write (the way text runs) when she puts the beans in the glue. After the beans dried I wrote the numbers 1-10 on the top of them and we practice counting them, with her touching each bean as we count. It's hard to convince her not to pick them off! Also, as we did the gluing activity, after she put the beans on the way I asked, I let her complete her own freeform gluing of the beans, letting her do it her own way. She did a bunch of beans close to eachother. I always like to give her some freedom as well as some guidance when we do projects together. Letting her do the same project twice often serves well to meet this goal.

Friday: Opa is here! He and Q collected leaves outside and glued them onto a collage together.

Everyday this week Q also had sensory time. I gave her the choice to work with macaroni, water or dried beans. She has been choosing dried beans all week. She loves to use lids now, so I have been giving her a little pot with a lid she can put on and off. I also give her some type of scooping utensil each day--this promotes the fine motor skills needed for drawing and writing. I have been encouraging her to do some pouring as well, and she has improved at pouring so much this week!

Flower garlands:
These could also turn into great necklaces or crowns! Older kids could knot beads under each flower to keep them in place. I can see some great props for dramatic play being made this way!

We've been reading this book:
mostly because it's the best one they had at the library (not a great selection....) I love the illustrations and the text is actually Genesis 1. We read it each day up to the day we're studying (so for now up to day 3). We also sing the Days song each day.

Something for the Boy Mamas out there!

Saw these in the Houston Family Magazine and knew I had to post them for my boy mama readers! Perfect for birthday party inspiration or just for summer fun!

CAMO CUPCAKES

TANK RICE KRISPIE TREATS and WATER BALLOONS

Am thinking a face painting station where kids could paint up their faces would be a big hit, too!! And maybe an obstacle course??

Nature dress up clothes

Rain boots, rain hat, umbrella, purses, and a water sprayer.

Q loves pretending to "water" things in the playroom--she even knows how to make noise that sounds like water flowing!

Garden gloves

What gardener would be complete without gloves? These are especially important to Q because she knows I always work in the yard in my gloves. This pretty pair came from the dollar store. I have also seen child-sized gloves around.

These can be used to teach left/right orientation for older kids so that they match the correct glove to the correct hand.