Lacing Tubes

I had intended for this to be a blanket time activity for Ella to do by herself, but after introducing it to her, I realized she still needs a little help with it.  First I helped her (by holding the tube so she could pull the string through), then big sister Arin did the helping, so it became a family activity and those are good too!

For this project, cut several toilet paper tubes into four pieces.  Tie a shoelace around one piece so the others won't fall off.  Then lace the other pieces of tube onto the string one by one.  Ella did enjoy this, even though she needed a little help this first time!

Boggle

I was given a Boggle game about twenty years ago!  I still enjoy playing this game, but we have now found a second use for it!  Ella loves putting the lettered dice into the playing board.  This is great for hand-eye coordination and also for keeping her entertained for a few minutes!

She is her own best cheerleader!

Where's the Ball?

This idea came from here.  I took three different sized cans and a small ball.  I hid the ball under one of the cans and asked Ella to find it.  No problem.  Then, I put the ball under the same can, but changed the cans position.  Again, no problem to find the ball.  We repeated this step again and again she found the ball on the first try.  So I put it under a different can and tried the game again.  This game never tricked Ella.  I was surprised that no matter how much mixing I did, she still picked the right can on the first try everytime!  She did have a lot of fun with this game though.

A Shoebox & Playing Cards

This idea came from my friend, Melissa, at Chasing Cheerios.  Ella really seemed to enjoy this simple game.  We cut a slit in the top of a shoe box.  Then, I handed her a pack of playing cards.  She slipped the cards through the slot and into the box. 

Blanket Time and Clothespin Drop

Today, I am thankful for the simple things that keep my little Ella entertained.  We have recently started training Ella to stay quiet during Blanket Time.  This is an idea that I learned after reading the book The Duggars: 20 and Counting.  The concept is that you train your child to sit on a small blanket and quietly entertain himself with a toy or book for a duration of time.  We started this training last week.  The first time, Ella sat on the blanket for two minutes, while I sat beside her and trained her - meaning, if she started to get up, I would coach her to sit back down, etc.  The second time she sat for five minutes, which seemed like a long time for my busy little baby.  I sat beside her and encouraged her to stay quiet and stay on the blanket.  The rest of the week was hectic and I didn't think about it on the weekend.  This morning, I decided to pull out the blanket again.  I spread the blanket on the floor and to my surprise (remember this is only the third time of introducing this concept) Ella sat right down on the blanket and quietly waited, while sitting still, for me to get a toy ready for her to play with. 

Today's toy was a jar and a pile of dollpin clothespins.  Ella loved this.  She would put the pins in the jar, first one at a time, and eventually getting much more efficient and picking up several at a time to put in the jar.  Then, she'd empty the jar and start all over.  She was so cute, knowing that she was not to get up, she'd stretch as far as she could when a pin would get out of her reach.  I did not talk to her today because it wasn't necessary. I still sat beside her the whole time and occassionally had to pick up the jar which would roll off the blanket.  Basically, my interaction was next to none today.  I let the timer run down the five minutes, but did not let it ring.  Instead, I stopped it and started it counting up just to see how long this activity would keep her entertained.  An additional four minutes went by before she ever tried to stand up.  My goal was five minutes today, but I was delighted to see that she was able to sit-down and quietly entertain herself for nine minutes!  After that time, I folded the blanket and put it and the jar of clothespins away for another time.

Painting with Water

When I do school with Arin, Ella always wants to be a part of it.  So yesterday, when Arin was painting her tic-tac-toe rocks, Ella was begging to paint to.  I grabbed a paper plate and a bowl of water and a paint brush and let Ella "paint" the plate.  She thought this was very awesome.  

First Coloring Book and Sorting Crayons

Uncle Pat and Aunt Julie recently bought Ella her first coloring book. She tried it out yesterday, along with the giant box of crayons that they gave both of the girls. Ella seemed to enjoy herself very much.

I always loved getting a new box of crayons when I was little and obviously my girls share this excitement. I was especially excited that they gave the girls the big box of crayons because up til now, we have only purchased the 24 count boxes. Since we now so many more crayons, I thought it was time to share one of my childhood hobbies with Arin. Crayon sorting! (yes, I might have been a bit of a nerd!) Turns out though that she thought this was as great as I used to when I was little :) Ahhh, the memories! Thanks Uncle Pat and Aunt Julie!

Ella's Games

Ella has been enjoying a little more structure in her play lately. She really likes to take legos apart, as well as take caps off of markers and even unscrew her sippy cup lids, which she has done on more than one occassion with more than one cup!

Today, her games of choice were putting legos into an empty Gerber Puffs container.

She also really enjoyed doing a toy transfer. This means that I gave her a container with a few toys in it and an empty container. She put all of the toys into the empty container and then started over again.

She also liked wearing the bucket as a hat!

Egg Carton Game

Tonight, I gave Arin an empty egg carton and some wooden skewers (which she randomly poked through the egg carton). Once she was done poking the skewers into the carton, I gave her several wooden spools, wooden wheels, and wooden beads (all purchased from Hobby Lobby). She entertained herself for a long time by stacking the wooden objects onto the skewers.

Flower Painting

Last week, Andy and I celebrated our sixth wedding anniversary. He brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers for me. I could kick myself for not taking a picture of these flowers. It was a mixed bouquet with small roses and several different flowers. Very, very pretty. But, like always, the flowers wilted and died too soon. There are still a few going strong, but the majority need to be thrown away. Before throwing them away, Arin and I painted with them. We really had fun and it's nice to know that the flowers were able to serve more than one purpose.

Lacing, Tracing, Pouring, and Pasting

Today's school lessons included four things: Lacing, Tracing, Pouring & Pasting.

Arin loves anything lacing. It doesn't matter if it is beading a necklace or using a sewing card. She loves it all. So I printed off this picture of a truck, punched some holes in it and gave it to Arin to lace with a shoelace.

A couple of weeks ago, Arin did some book work. One of the activities was tracing. She did well at it for her first attempt, so I thought we'd try it again today. Considering she's only two, she did pretty well on the circle and the square - needs some more practice with the star though!

For our pouring activity, I gave Arin three empty, identical, plastic cups and a fourth cup with water in it. I drew lines around the three cups and told Arin to fill them with water up to the line. In theory this seemed like a good idea, but in actuality, it was just too much fun pouring the water to have to stop at the line! So she spent a long time pouring the water back and forth between the four cups. Lots of water was spilt in the process, but I'm sure my kitchen floor needed to be mopped anyways! So all-in-all, this was the favorite activity for the day.

A couple of months ago, I had cut some animals out of magazines for an activity that I wanted to do with Arin. We never got to that project. Arin's had a lot of fun gluing for the past couple of days, so I knew we had to do more of it today. I printed out a picture of a barn. Arin colored it and then she glued animals to the picture. We sang "Old McDonald Had a Farm" and named the animals and their sound as she was gluing them on the paper.