Craft – a quick bunny’s tail

Luath and I made a quick bunny’s tail together.
I squashed a toilet paper roll lengthwise.  Cut two notches to make into a H shape.

We wound some wool around the tube.   I had cut a length of wool to make it easier to handle.

I then threaded the wool under the winded wool and tied this.  I cut though the wool on the oppostie side to the knot.  I then did quite a bit of trimming to make it into a tail shape.

Luath decided she would prefer to wind the wool from the big ball around the doll’s house.

(Luath is 26 months)

Easter Bunny visit

We have been having lots of fun hiding wooden eggs around the house this week.  The Easter bunny paid us a visit on Easter Sunday.  He popped into the doll’s house.

Luath and the dolls had fun hunting the eggs (cut from a cereal box).

He also hopped past the window.  Even though we only saw the ears, Luath said to daddy “that was you being the Easter bunny”

She enjoyed collecting what he left in the garden.
 
Finishing with her basket.

(Luath is 26 months)

Easter/Spring Basket

We aren’t a chocolate free house but Luath (and us) don’t need big chocolate eggs so I thought I would make up a Easter/Spring  basket instead,  mostly with items that we would be giving to Luath or ourselves anyway.
 
I lined a basket with a green tea towel that we use for play. The basket contains a child size hand fork and trowel, some seeds (sunflower, carrot, wildflowers), some garden gloves (too big but I plan to adapt once Luath tries them on), a terracotta sheep that you can grow grass on, a chew treat for the dog and a mandarin orange (Christmas stockings must have a citrus fruit so Easter baskets will too).

We are doing an egg hunt and the basket will be at the end.  Hoping we can use the gardening gear soon.
(Luath is 26 months)

(tiny) tot school - Chicken theme

14 months

Continuing with our Easter animal theme this week was chickens (egg, chick, hen and cockerel).

Learning Basket
themed books

themed toys
  


ball (eggs!) and hammer similar to this

  


wooden eggs

Activity File

 

 eggs into egg cups  (I have recently bought these with a view to painting them but I couldn't let Easter pass without using them).  I set up the eggs and egg cups on a tray and Luath enjoyed putting the eggs in (and sometimes out) of the cups.  It was interesting that sometimes she would notice an egg cup was empty and instead of using a free egg she would use the one from the egg cup next to the empty cup and then would pick up the free egg from the tray.

working while sitting on the tray

We also used the balls from the hammer game and the eggs for a few other games , make that a lot of other things, they were a huge hit,  including

putting them into a jar, closing the lid and shaking.  Sometimes the lid would pop off (a bit hard for Luath to close) and all the balls would come flying out which she found very funny.

pushing them down through a kitchen roll tube.  Fun when they got stuck

trying different "spoons" for an egg and spoon game. Too difficult for Luath to hold the spoon to balance an egg, but she liked putting the eggs onto a spoon as I held it.

bouncing with them on an exercise trampette

rolling them down a plank

chicken theme treasure tub

I made Luath's first sensory bin (of sorts)

craft
While at messy church we made a bunny card for daddy (OK it was very much mummy who made it but Luath did help with the glue and writing a message to daddy) and Luath painted and decorated an egg.  The paintbrush was very small so I loaded the egg with paint and Luath used the brush or her fingers to paint with.

Toy Basket hit of the week
We found a (musical) fox to complete our Gruffalo story bag.  Luath has fallen for him in a big way. 

source

I took out some wooden bricks and  this is the first time she really has showed much interest in bricks other than chewing on them.  She was especially interested in the cylinder ones and would hunt  the bag or pile, checking out each shape and only keeping or handing to me the cylinder ones.  She was keen to stack these. 


Other things this week

We started this week away from home for a night and on the way home had a very shallow paddle while wearing shoes and Luath loved throwing some pebbles into the loch.

I finally got Luath a metal child size fork so she could properly stab her food, we were both getting fed up with her plastic ones.  She had some chicken shaped mash one night.

I made an indoor adventure soft play area for Luath to embrace her new passion for climbing (and her lack of a safety valve)

 We had an indoor camp out one night.

We had a lovely time at an Easter messy church.  Luath especially loved helping me use a hammer to nail a message to a cross.  The cross was made out of tree branches still covered in moss and was carried to the church.  Our message was "we are grateful for the love of friends and family".

Find out what others were up to this week at 1+1+1=1

Treasure Tub - Chicken Theme

I have done treasure baskets (what a treasure basket is here, here and images here ) with Luath since she was about 6 months old, but have shied away from sensory bins (what a sensory bin is here, here, images here and here). I think there is quite a cross over between treasure baskets and sensory bins.   In my mind a treasure basket is a collection of (usually) natural everyday objects in a container and a sensory bin is a collection of objects in a container which is filled with a medium (rice, beans, cotton balls etc).  Both are used for exploration of the senses and can have many uses.

The main reason I have avoided sensory bins is that Luath explores the world by mouthing.  This has lessened slightly recently but I prefer not to give her something that I would constantly be needing to stop her putting in her mouth (from a safety viewpoint but also I prefer to try and give her freedom to explore without me needing to remove/redirect, so I try to make her environment a Luath safe zone). I decided this week to try out a slight combination of a sensory bin and a treasure basket.  I called this hybrid a treasure tub.

This week's theme is chicken so I stuck with that for the tub.  I ripped up some thick packing paper for straw and then added some chicken related items:

wooden eggs
wooden egg cups
duplo chicken
soft chicken (that cheeps)
wooden egg shaped shakers

So far Luath has pretty much ignored the paper - she pulled one piece out - but has removed and played/explored with all the contents.

update - Luath discovered the paper one afternoon and enjoyed taking it out of the basket.  I'll bag the paper up and keep it for a future tub

(tiny) tot school - rabbit theme

14 months

This week and next week we are having a break from our nursery rhyme theme and doing Easter animal themes.  This week is rabbit (or bunny).

Learning Basket

Our rabbit books.

Our rabbit toys.

Activity File

The main thing we did for the rabbit theme was to  read the books and play with the toys.

Baby sign for rabbit - Luath can sign for rabbit, but like most of her signs it is very much her own version.  Tried this week to sign frequently for rabbit, she still does her own sign.  Never mind daddy and I know what she means.

Joined in a virtual book club reading a story about a rabbit, Easter Egg by Jan Brett and having a lunch inspired by the book.  My post about it.
                                                                                   

 

Nesting cups - Luath has grasped stacking the cups.  She still needs some help but she enjoyed us building the tower.  She also liked stacking other things on top of the pots and seeing if she could still place another cup on top.

Peg puzzles - some pieces are too difficult for Luath to put in but she enjoys taking them all out

People and animals - A while ago I gathered any small people, animal or objects from Luath's toys and put them in a bag so we could play with them easier and more often.  We sometimes play "hand me" where I ask Luath for something in particular.  She loves this game and this week she has almost got all the characters.  I was surprised when I asked her for knight that she knew him as we don't use that word often.  She didn't understand farmer but when I changed it to Old MacDonald, she knew immediately who he was. 

Other things this week

We had a few of our usual and some extra outings this week - twice to the swimming pool, a wee worship session and a birthday party.

We have had more dry and at times warm weather so we have spent a lot of time outside.

helping with the gardening

exploring every corner of the garden

Luath especially loves playing with pine cones.  Finding them, putting them in/out of her bucket, giving them to the dog (who loves them too!).  She can say pine cone now, which I just think is brilliant.

Find out what others were up to this week at 1+1+1=1

Virtual Book Club - Easter Egg by Jan Brett

I saw this month's virtual book club for kids post on Toddler Approved and decided to join in. We don't have the book so we watched/listened to it here.  We only watched it once, it is a lovely story, beautifully illustrated, but I didn't like the way the book was read.  I will keep by eyes out for the book as it would be a lovely story to bring out each Spring.

I had a few ideas of things we could do but in the end I decided to keep it simple and we would have a lunch inspired by the book.  Our first muffin tin type meal.

I cut some bread using a bunny cookie cutter.  One bunny sat with a blueish egg to match the robin's egg.  I used food colouring but only a little as not sure either Luath or I would really want to eat a bright blue egg!  The other bunny sat on a nest of grated carrot, surround by a bush of broccoli and was sitting on a cheese egg (made by using an apple corer).    I put some more cheese eggs in a case.  The rest of the lunch was some sweetcorn, some apples slices and some raisins (these made be giggle as I thought they could be rabbit droppings!).

It was another lovely day so we ate our lunch outside with a bunny friend.  It was so sunny that I needed to put the parasol up.  Luath and I loved our lunch.  Daddy was very jealous when he saw the pictures,  He wants lunches like this.

As a treat we shared a bunny biscuit and two eggs that I had made earlier in the week.

We enjoyed our first book club, hopefully next time Luath will get to know the book a little better so our linked activity will have more meaning to her.