Our playroom is festive for spring.....and of course Beck gets to join in the fun, too!
One of the best learning toys for babies is great all year-round, but especially in the spring! This egg and egg cup practices the motor skills a very basic "puzzle" situation. It encourages hand-eye coordination. I got the cup in the unfinished wood section at Hobby Lobby and the egg is a wooden egg that has been dyed purple (it was a gift to us, but you can buy the wooden eggs at HL). Beck is still too young to fit the egg into the cup, but I present it to him already in the cup and let him take it out.
Older infants and young toddlers enjoy putting the egg in. Challenge your walking toddler to walk carrying the cup without dropping the egg to really encourage their motor skills. Also you might consider providing 3-4 of the egg cups and eggs for older infants/toddlers. You could paint around the rim of the egg cup and create a color matching activity, as well! Preschoolers can just enjoy the egg and cup for dramatic play. This is a long-lasting toy, you can see!!
These large wooden eggs have been dyed with watercolor paint and coated in canning wax, then rubbed to a smooth finish. I made these intially for Q a few years back and now Beck is enjoying rolling, holding, tipping, and exploring with them! We have lots of "egg hunts" with our wooden and mache eggs. That way we just get to enjoy the "hiding" and "finding" processes and don't even focus at all on the prize. It's not even an issue! Lots of fun is had doing egg hunts in the living room. A great bonus is that it encourages problem solving skills and direction-following, because often I have to give a few hints as to where tricky eggs might be hiding! Or when Q is the hider she has to think up clues....even HIGHER thinking skills involved with that! Egg hunts can be adapted for any age--even Beck can participate when we use a scarf to cover the eggs and let him lift it to find them!
Older infants and young toddlers enjoy putting the egg in. Challenge your walking toddler to walk carrying the cup without dropping the egg to really encourage their motor skills. Also you might consider providing 3-4 of the egg cups and eggs for older infants/toddlers. You could paint around the rim of the egg cup and create a color matching activity, as well! Preschoolers can just enjoy the egg and cup for dramatic play. This is a long-lasting toy, you can see!!
These large wooden eggs have been dyed with watercolor paint and coated in canning wax, then rubbed to a smooth finish. I made these intially for Q a few years back and now Beck is enjoying rolling, holding, tipping, and exploring with them! We have lots of "egg hunts" with our wooden and mache eggs. That way we just get to enjoy the "hiding" and "finding" processes and don't even focus at all on the prize. It's not even an issue! Lots of fun is had doing egg hunts in the living room. A great bonus is that it encourages problem solving skills and direction-following, because often I have to give a few hints as to where tricky eggs might be hiding! Or when Q is the hider she has to think up clues....even HIGHER thinking skills involved with that! Egg hunts can be adapted for any age--even Beck can participate when we use a scarf to cover the eggs and let him lift it to find them!
These flannel knot rabbits have been around a couple years at our house. Visit last years' spring posts for the how-to!
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