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!