Stacking with Mega Blocks

Hooray for getting our internet back! Its been a wireless week around here, and I think some people in this house were about to start gettin' crazy. So what have we been up to? Well, if you're one-years-old in this household, you have been declaring war on bedtime and developing an OBSESSION with your parents' cell phones, and when your great-grandmother calls you steal the phone and run away with it, shrieking in a dialect nobody can understand. And also, you have been developing a fascination with Mega Blocks.

Collin got his Mega Blocks for his first birthday, and boy, are they swell. They're like legos for one-year-olds. Big, brightly colored, not in the least complicated. Collin didn't really know what to do with them at first, so for a while, he would just wait patiently through my, "See how Mommy stacks the blocks? See? See? Like this! See???" until I gave up and he'd unceremoniously dump them all over the floor. They would stay like that until we began sliding all over the living room on them, like little multicolored plastic banana peels. Then, when Collin wasn't looking, I would stuff them all back in their nifty little Mega Bag and forget about them until Collin came toddling over to me, hauling them one way or another. Like Santa Claus, with a bag almost the size of his body, but filled with bricks. It's pretty hilarious.

Mega Blocks come with this rad little wheely contraption that you stack on. In case you feel like wheeling a teetering tower across the room.

Have respect, ya'll.

This was the first time Collin actually stacked the blocks himself . It's a proud day.

Tada!

We're very excited about our Mega Blocks.

Since Collin is such a big boy now, stacking blocks all by himself and all, he wanted to wear his (ADORABLE) back pack. Another first birthday gift that I love.

Ohmygod, is that not so cute it breaks your heart a little?

He paraded it around the room with pride.

And then...

Tried to stuff it with blocks. Only it was zipped, so he settled for burying it in blocks.

So much stacking, backpack-wearing fun!

Summer time and rice

It's Litha! Also known as the summer solstice. Strange that it's summer, as I have been craving autumn and winter activities, lately: decorating a tree, carving a pumpkin. If Collin were older, I would find a way to incorporate those favorite holiday traditions into Litha. Perhaps carving a watermelon or a summer squash? Decorating a pot of summer flowers? Maybe next year. Although, our Litha tradition (that we never got to do last year because Collin was still a newborn creature) is planting a fairy garden, which is the next best thing. We'll be doing it over the weekend, when we have time to do it as a family, along with watching A Midsummer Night's Dream with a margarita in our hands.

When I realized it was Litha (Are you impressed with my organization? When I realized it was Litha...), I grabbed the paint and got ready to make this adorable flower out of Collin's hand prints. It wasn't until I was showing him what we would be doing that I realized it was a very, very bad idea, and I stopped while I was ahead. Picture fistfuls of red paint. ALL OVER. You know I'm not one to be afraid of a little mess for the sake of learning, but that was pushing it, even for me. So I compromised and made an impromptu sun out of a paper plate and some washable crayons. 

Just between you and me? I did most of the coloring. Collin did most of the eating of crayons.

 So, just in case you thought this would actually be a post having nothing to do with sensory play, I will prove you wrong. Do you notice the learning theme we seem to be exploring lately? We still had an unopened package of white rice laying around, staring at me, wondering when I was going to use it already. So, after the afternoon nap, I brought out the bin and a mixing bowl. Collin immediately recognized the mess-making tools and ran right over.

He dove right in. Let's have a moment of silence for the clean floor that's about to be destroyed.

I added a measuring cup to encourage pouring rice into the bowl, but I let him do his thing for a while before making any suggestions.

Oooo look at how the rice scatters everywhere when it hits the floor. Let's do it again!

Don't let the measuring cup inside the mixing bowl deceive you: we're still working on our pouring skills. He's not there yet, but he's discovering how useful his hands can be to get Object A into Object B.

His hands are his pouring method of choice.

Ironically, he really enjoyed pouring rice into the measuring cup by hand. Not what I had in mind for the measuring cup, but maybe that's because I don't think outside the box.

I asked him to pour some rice into my hand, but in all honesty, I think the rice got there mostly by my rudely intercepting his pour into the measuring cup. 

I also added a little dish with hopes that he would use it as a pouring tool . He happily used it to catch sprinklings of rice by hand.

One last rub in the rice.

I think we've hit a record for biggest sensory play mess ever.

That big pile is all the rice I swept up (while being supervised by Collin in the high chair).

This picture has nothing to do with rice, but it's awesome.



So, in the end, I think I've decided to retire the rice until Collin is a little older. The mess was uncanny, and I know uncooked rice can do bad things to tummies when ingested. Amazingly, Collin didn't seem terribly interested in eating the rice, like he is with everything else. He's still such a mouther. Either way, I'm going to play it safe until he's a little bigger.

After everything was all cleaned up and put away, we walked to the park and played there until bath time, in honor of summer. Happy summer! Get outdoors and get dirty!

Sensory play with pasta

Collin is 13 months old.

Today was a pretty fun day. It started with Mothersong (A multicultural singalong for families) at Sunshine Villa, a nursing home; or, should I say, nursing resort. The place was BEAUTIFUL, the residents were all cared for and happy. I want to retire there. Now. But being as community service is going to be a large part  of Collin's home school curriculum, I was very excited to take him to meet some elders. He was a little shy, as he can be, but he had smiles for everyone and the way he drummed along to the music in the middle of a big circle of singing elders was enchanting, to say the least. I'm hooked! We will be going back regularly to visit the residents and volunteer.

So after a refreshing nap, I decided it was time to make a mess. I asked Collin to pick whether he wanted to play with rice or pasta. He chose pasta.

He was very excited by how lovely a fistful of shell pasta can be.

He practiced moving handfuls of pasta into a mixing bowl. Please take notice of the nice clean floor before it becomes a pasta explosion.

I added more mixing bowls to liven it up a bit.

This would be Collin's first attempt to empty the entire bin of pasta into a mixing bowl. 

If at first you don't succeed...

No one can say the kid ain't strong.

Now we're filling the bowls with pasta by hand.

Until he discovers how fun it is to dump the pasta on the floor.  Goodbye, clean hardwood!

Hello, mess.

Then he practiced picking pasta off the floor and putting it back in the bowl.

You've got a lot more to go, Collin.

The play broom entered the equation, and he (adorably) swept the pasta that was left in the bin. Nevermind  the floor.

"What? You mean I'm supposed to sweep the floor?"

Then things got interesting. Notice the toys scattered here and there on the floor. I had put them inside the bin, thinking it would be a fun sensory experience for him to dig them out. However, he had better ideas, and was more interested in how it felt to be in the bin, himself.

"Oh, hey, a maraca was left in here!"

And then the remainder of the pasta was dumped on the floor.  Mission accomplished. After a  quick sweep, we headed outside to play. 

Sensory play with beans

Collin is twelve months old.


This learning adventure started out with three differently sized mixing bowls and some mixed beans of all different shapes and sizes.

This would be the part before the mess. Please take note of how nice and neat it looks. Hooray for me.

Collin spread the beans from one bowl to another.

Alas! A lid to a mixing bowl! This should make things interesting.

He tested the different sound the beans made when they hit the lid vs. the mixing bowl. And this is also where the mess starts.

To make it interesting, we added a scooping cup and a big spoon. And a bigger mess.

I thought to encourage more sorting of beans by using the lids as bean receptacles. Collin, however, was a little too thrilled that I had given him a big person spoon.

Hard at work.

It was such a thrill for him to use the cup and spoon with the beans. Not much happened by way of using them as tools to pour the beans, like I'd hoped, but that did not stop the enthusiasm.

I added a few small toys to the mix to kick it up a notch.

And this is the part where I had to let go of my need to control the mess and  find my zen. Yes, he is making a giant mess. That's part of the learning process.

Dumping the bowl for good measure.

And then he completely melted my heart by grabbing his play broom and "sweeping" the beans,

So much beany fun to be had.