My Body

I've started more directed play with the Bug though it's still self guided. I set up a shelf with several themed activities (that focus on different skills such as gross motor, fine motor, early math, discovery/science, music, and language)

This week's theme has been 'Body Parts' and the Bug has enjoyed playing doctor to help learn! He loves giving shots...

We did several sensory table activities with pictures of body parts. Parts of the head and face were hidden in rice (not pictured)

And other body parts were hidden in oats! 

The Bug tried matching the pictures with his own body parts (pretty sure this picture is an arm...) he can identify parts if we say the word though not all of them. 

These were his two favorite books and he had fun playing with Mr. Potato Head and making faces using eyes, noses, and mouth we cut out of pictures! It was a fun week of learning about our bodies!

Shredded Paper!

The Bug is finally getting to a point where he isn't eating everything but I'm still cautious since he occasionally still sneaks bites... He has lots of small animals so we hid the wild/zoo animals in with some shredded paper! 

The Bug had to use his pincer grip to pull the animals out and separate them from the paper.

We explored the animals by name and sounds when we knew them.

He also enjoyed shaking the paper all over! It's so much fun to see him exploring and learning!

Gelatin Exploring!

Sensory table time is the Bug's favorite and we have been spending lots of time enjoying the weather outside so our porch is the perfect place to enjoy the summer without getting too much sun and there aren't bugs! 

I wanted to try something different and stumbled across some gelatin I had bought a while back so we got to work making it! This is plain so there's no flavor and we added food coloring to make it fun!

The Bug tried squishing it, shaking it, and mixing the colors together! (They don't mix well for the record!)

He played for quite a while- so glad my guy loves sensory play!

Prewriting with Crayons!

Now the the Bug is 18 months, I'm trying to introduce more while letting his interests guide us. He has been super interested in coloring lately and we're doing it more and more. As he gets more skilled, I've put away the markers and focus more on materials that he has to put pressure on to make marks in order to continue his journey to writing! 

His grip is changing and it's so exciting! While he's still not using a traditional grip, he's using more directed pressure from his pointer finger to make marks!

A GREAT addition to your art area is crayon cakes! We use broken crayons (or buy used crayons at the thrift store!) and melt them in Silicone baking molds! These happened to be ones I made over the winter holidays but they have molds in all sorts of shapes!

Simply, unwrap crayons, break so they fit into your mold and bake them at 200 degrees until the crayons have melted. (My current oven takes 5-10 minutes depending on crayon thickness!) when they're melted, take them out and let cool in the molds- silicone stretches well to release the crayons!

Car Wash!

The Bug is a boy through and through and cars are one of his very favorite things to play with. We happened upon a toy car wash at a thrift store which has lead to a new pretend play game!

He just loves to zoom the cars through the car wash!

If you don't have a toy car wash, a shoe box is a great stand in! You can add things like felt hanging down, sponges, and a pipe cleaner hose!

We might have to do a water table car wash this afternoon with some sponges too!