I have to admit - I was a little lax this week with planning activities. We had so many toys that go and so many opportunities for outings to explore things that go, I didn't plan much in terms of sensory activities or crafts. But the things we did do are described below. More to follow (in another post) on our fun outings this week.
Toys that Go
While I try to keep a nice balance of toy types on our house, if there is one gender stereotype that my son's toy collection seems to follow it's having copious amounts of "things that go." Fire trucks, airplanes, rockets, trains, race cars, boats, submarines...he has a little of each and loves making them go. We made a special effort to break out these toys this week, especially when we were explore each type of transport through books, songs and outings. I try not to make specific toys a big part of what we do for our activities, but this week it was just too easy to include these toys!
Water Play with Boats
We were lucky to finally have some beautiful weather this week! We had a few days that were warm enough to break out the water table for the backyard. Ours was a hand me down, but I can honestly say that this is one outdoor toy I would spend the money on if it wasn't given to us. We used the water table this week to play with toy boats and a submarine. I don't think they make our specific version anymore, but we have one that is both a sand and water table. I just filled both sides with water for now and T had a blast splashing away and playing with his boats (it was his first time playing with it).
We continued our water play with some ice cube boats, inspired by Learning4Kids. I simply froze colored water in small rectangular containers. When the water was partially frozen I inserted a "flag" made from a straw with a piece of triangular paper.
We did ours in the bathtub - I filled a small plastic bin with some water and floated the boats inside it, then floated the whole thing inside the tub. Eventually they made their way to the tub water, but this kept them from making it too cold. It was really cool to see the blue and yellow boats melting and creating green water in the tub.
This would definitely be fun to do outside in a bigger container as well!
This would definitely be fun to do outside in a bigger container as well!
Roads and Ramps
After we read Number One Sam, which is about race cars, we built our own ramp for cars to race down and tracks for them to drive on.
For our ramp, I simply propped the lid to my son's toy box on various surfaces (a chair, bookshelf, container of baby wipes. We watched the cars roll down and saw how different ramp heights impact the cars' speed. We also tried different types of cars and talked about their relative sizes and colors and listened for the different sounds they made as they went down our "ramp."
We then built "roads" out of blocks. Lining up the blocks and "driving" the cars on top was good fine motor work!
For our ramp, I simply propped the lid to my son's toy box on various surfaces (a chair, bookshelf, container of baby wipes. We watched the cars roll down and saw how different ramp heights impact the cars' speed. We also tried different types of cars and talked about their relative sizes and colors and listened for the different sounds they made as they went down our "ramp."
We then built "roads" out of blocks. Lining up the blocks and "driving" the cars on top was good fine motor work!
"Things That Go" Felt Board
This week I found some old flannel and felt lying around in a craft box. I thought that making a felt/flannel board would be a great way to use it productively. Making the board itself was really easy. I used the tutorial at Teach Preschool and made mine with a small canvas and white flannel.
Where things fell apart a bit for me was making the actual objects for the board. I was in too much of a rush and my scissors were dull. So I ended up just sort of throwing things together. I cut a light blue piece of flannel as a "sky," some dark blue felt for water and made a "bridge" (it doesn't really look like a bridge). I then cut out a car, plane, sail boat and cloud.
Where things fell apart a bit for me was making the actual objects for the board. I was in too much of a rush and my scissors were dull. So I ended up just sort of throwing things together. I cut a light blue piece of flannel as a "sky," some dark blue felt for water and made a "bridge" (it doesn't really look like a bridge). I then cut out a car, plane, sail boat and cloud.
Even though it wasn't as pretty as I hoped, T still had fun moving around the pieces. And I ultimately have a nice flannel board that I can use with future themes. I'll just be sure to think further in advance and take my time to generate better props for the next one!