Three Year Old Thursday - Obstacle Course

This was one of my favourite things I've done with Leah. I had such a great time designing the course and it was fun seeing her use it, deciding what to do at each station, especially the teddy pick up/drop off station.

Leah got her new trike and scooter for her most recent birthday, she's had her smaller push along style bike for a while and still likes to use it (although she's getting a bit tall). She liked using all the 'vehicles' on the course and I would love to make a bigger one in future, perhaps with some input from her of what to have from the course, as with this one I set it up before she arrived home.

This is what she arrived home to:

Here are the features...

And here's some shots of the action.

Three Year Old Thursday - Reading Picnic

My girl loves to read and she adores her teddies. We bought these things together (and threw in some snacks and a lovely sunny afternoon for good measure).

We took our friends on a wee reading picnic in our backyard. Mummy read, Leah read, Jake rolled around a bit and gave us puppy dog eyes trying to steal our snacks. We had a great time, and what an easy way to get a bit of sun and enjoy books together. A great idea for all the sunny days we're going to be having over summer.

Our friends and our snacks

Three year old Thursday - Decoration Station

I wrote a few weeks ago about how my little one loves to bake. Every night I have a little helper helping me to get dinner ready. She wants to get her hands on everything.

Today I wanted to share another quick activity we did with food that was relatively expensive and that she loved (both the doing and the eating) - decorating biscuits.

I enjoy having an activity completely set up before I get Leah so that we're able to talk about how and what we're going to do before we do it. It makes for a much smoother fun time. We all know that the listening skills of a three year old when they're engrossed in something is very fleeting - this helps to counter this. 

So for this activity I set up a container of icing with a knife, a plate of plain biscuits and 4 sprinkle pots. As you can see - the results were one very happy little lady.

I'd love to hear about what kinds of cooking you do with your little one!

Leave a comment.
xox

Three Year Old Thursday - Make believe tea party

 I have a little lady with a huuuuuge imagination. Give her teddies and they're acting out a play (sometimes a role play of mummy telling someone off....wonder where the inspiration for that comes from?), play dress up and one minute she's a princess and the next she's a pirate or a witch, or leave her with a pile of books and she'll be reading them to an imaginary friend shortly after. Her mind is always going. 

Because of this I like to engage her awesome imagination. In the first 'Three Year old Thursday' I showed you the ER Room I set up for Leah so she could make believe being a doctor, today I bring to you Leah, the teddy bears and the....

We have two tea sets at home. One is plastic and the other is ceramic (just like one I used to have when I was a little girl). They both cost around $15, the plastic one in particular really good value for money. I think we picked it up at Kmart. They consist of saucers, tea cups, jugs, spoons, cakes and trays.

I set this little party up for Leah while she was at daycare and on her arrival home she got stuck in, set up the tea party for her 'guests' then announced that she needed to get into her Tea Party dress. You can see in the photos that at one stage this also consisted of Tea Party wings.

What sort of make believe does your wee one do? Is there anything you do to encourage this?

Leave a comment.
xox

Three Year Old Thursday - Glue sticking

When I was a wee tike I loved crafty things - paper craft, colouring, drawing - but Leah doesn't seem to want to do much of this at home. At daycare, she evidently loves it! I have a whole cupboard full of all kinds of art projects, but at home there's other things she'd rather do I guess...unless I bring out the glue stick.

We make plenty of mixed media art at home. Getting cheap supplies from the $2 shop and shops like it and using them in a variety of ways. I also keep old cards etc to be cut up and pasted onto card to make new cards of our own.

Learning to use the glue stick is tough! Is there something your little one likes to do that I might like to try with Leah?

Leave a comment.
xox

Three Year Old Thursday - Cooking and baking

Icing and decorating cookies or cupcake is such an easy little activity and it yields some yummy bits and pieces after the fact. I really like the 'Mrs Rogers Sprinkles' style range of decorations as there's some variety in what you get.

My girl loves baking. If she so much as hears a slight sound in the kitchen she rushes in from whatever she's doing and asks, 'Are you making mumma? I can help you'. Mostly helping just comes in the form of her sitting on her chair or the bench and chatting to us about what we're doing, but give her half a chance and she's getting amongst the action too. She loves mixing and whisking and she digs trying new things out.

I grew up helping my mum out in the kitchen and I know that that's where my love of cooking and baking came from. Leah loves helping out in the kitchen so naturally that I have to foster it. I'm hoping that in a few years I'll be able to kick back with a good book while she makes us dinner every night!

A month or so ago I came across this little gem on Pinterest. Little Miss 3 is working her way through mastering the 2-5 list and even likes to do some of the things in the 'Young Cook'.

When I came across the list Leah was already doing many of the things on the 'Preschool' section but I just hadn't thought about letting her do any cutting. I then came across this cute little set on Amazon and am having to keep myself from buying anything else made by the same label.

We've cut up lots of things with them so far - potatoes, apples, cheese, butter - they're great! When they arrived I wondered how something that didn't seem very sharp could cut things very well - but they're awesome.

So I implore you - let your little ones into the kitchen. It's not as scary as you might think and there's so much learning going on when you're chugging away at the bench - think maths and measurement, vocabulary building (steam, heat, chill, hotter, colder, mix, whisk...the list goes on) and of course the all important learning of how to make you dinner in a few years time!

Three Year Old Thursday - Finger Paint

The weather around here has been crazy this week - windy and raining one minute, sunshine the next. Spring! I have a few outdoor activities, one of which that I was wanting to do at the last week so that I could share with you today, but our moons have not aligned and either the weather has been rubbish or something else has come up (like a dire need to do the giant Sesame Street floor puzzle every afternoon when we get home from daycare).

With outside being so temperamental I planned for a fun indoor activity on Sunday so that we could actually get something exciting done. I have had a magazine page pull-out for making finger paint stashed away in my office for probably over a year now collecting dust, this week I finally used it!

We had a blast not only painting with the goods but also in the making of it. Leah had a friend over to visit on Sunday and we enjoyed making the Finger Paint together.

Whisking...

Stirring to make colour...

Painting....

And Here's how you make it:

You'll need:
1 cup of flour
1t salt
1 1/4 cups of cold water
1 cup boiling water
Food Colouring

Combine the flour and salt. Add the cold water and stir until smooth. Gradually add this mixture to the cup of boiling water in a saucepan. Boil until the mixture becomes smooth and thick. Add as much food colouring as you need until you get the desired colours. It's a good idea to divide the paint up and create a variety of colours like we did. 

3 Year old Thursday - Screen Time and Balloon Paddles

With me being at home on maternity leave, Leah is leaving home later in the morning to go to daycare and getting home earlier in the afternoon. This could have potentially meant that she was watching more TV (and if it was Dad that was at home, it probably would have!).

I've never been terribly worried about Leah watching TV. She's very busy at daycare doing a variety of rich activities, so I wasn't bothered that she watched TV when she got home as hey, that's all I want to do when I get home from a full day's work! I've read a tonne about what is advised for screen time, but it never seemed to be an issue with Leah. She has great language and vocabulary, her imagination is great and she loves books as well as stories on the iPad or programmes on the television. If anything it seemed to stimulate her imagination and vocabulary - I never talked to her about the red light meaning stop and the green meaning go, but the teacher fish in Bubble Guppies did and now I get a lecture every time we stop at the lights!

In saying all this, I have limited what we're currently watching for a few reasons. Leah has a plethora of toys and although they get a good playing with in the weekends, we need to put more time into this. I also wanted to provide some more rich 'Mummy and Leah' activities - for this series, for some bonding time now that the new baby is here as well as some time away from the screen. Mr. Man and I also wanted to reclaim our TV in the evenings. It's coming along nicely... and the lure of these fun activities here and there have sure helped.

So what do we have in store this week?

When looking for fun things to do with my little tyke I gravitate towards ideas that use every day items. This is because it's more likely that we'll continue to do it if the things are easily accessible at home. Even better is when we can make something to use again and again. This activity brought those two ideals together.

All you need is a couple of plastic plates (or cardboard ones would work also), some kind of 'handle'; we used plastic knives but you could use pens or pencils, a ruler or anything strong enough really, and a balloon. If you're a bit nerdy like me and have a vivid lying around you could also draw some snazzy faces like we have.

Attach the handle to the back of the plate with sticky tape, and do your cool doodling if you're as rad as me...and voila!

Leah loves it. It's easy for her to hit the 'ball' and it's a great little gross motor skill activity.  She likes that she can play the game both by herself and with others.

I hope your little one enjoys Balloon Paddles as much as mine.

Three Year Old Thursday

I like alliteration, can you tell? At Following Moonshadows we have Silent Sunday, Tasty Tuesday and Wordless (or words for) Wednesday.

It's only fitting that I keep the tradition going with any new series I have right? So I introduce to you '3 Year old Thursday'. A series of activities and fun things for toddlers to do. Now I stress,  these activities are great for kids aged between 2 and 6 (in saying that, I enjoy a lot of them too!) so the '3 year old' part is just to appease my love for alliteration, and because the test subject is now three.

It is really important for me that I give my children good experiences. I love blogs like 'Be a Fun mum' and ideas boards on pinterest of this kind also. Leah has loved it too, which is really encouraging. It's fulfilling to see her so excited about the activities that I have set up for her - the conversation and learning that comes along with it is just a bonus.

I often write about the things that Leah and I have done together, or share photos, but I wanted to make it more deliberate and really showcase the things we've done so to inspire others the way that I've been inspired by other blogs and pinterest boards. And here it starts with a hiss and a roar! Four activities from last week, enjoy.

Fireworks in a dish experiment
All you need for this is milk, a shallow dish, food colouring, dishwash liquid and cotton buds. Everything you potentially already have around the house - my favourite type of ingredient list!

An explanation of what to do is here at About.com. The link also has an explanation of why it does what it does, which is great for talking about it with your little one while you go. We used it as more of a vocabulary building activity, as well as pure fun and getting Leah interested in some more 'scienfitificie' stuff. We love 'speriments now.

Pine cone and Cheerio String feeders for birds
A few months ago Leah and I painted a wooden birdhouse that we bought at a Mitre 10 Mega (A Hardware store here in NZ). We have been checking it now and again, but there were no birdies to be seen. We wanted to make the birdhouse more inviting, so we made them some yummy treats.

For the pine cone feeder we were lucky to be able to find some pine cones in our backyard, but much of the fun is in the finding and it would be a great little excursion to find some on a little bush walk. The other things you need are peanut butter, birdseed and string. Tie the string securely around the pine cone. Using a butter knife cover your pine cone in peanut butter. Pour the birdseed into a bowl or onto a plate and roll the peanut butter covered pine cone in them. Voila! You're ready to hang your pine cone feeder in a tree. It's a good idea to move a wee bit away from the tree to spy on any birds using your feeder.

Cheerio string feeders are another simple activity for toddlers that uses their fine motor skills with threading the cheerios on the string. I think the photos say it all (:

Doctors Emergency Room
Setting up a make believe area for your toddler is a great way to get them thinking about different roles people have. The conversation you have with your little guy while their playing is sometimes the most important part of the learning.

Things you might have in your emergency room:
Patients, including dolls and soft toys (rookie mistake, allowing plasters on soft toys)
A small cot for your patients
Bandages and plasters
A doctors bag - ours is a Doc McStuffins one but I've seen others at dollar stores which look just as good.
A doctors outfit
Clipboards and patient records
Medicine bottles - making these could be a fun activity in itself.

Scissors and Stickers
I'm a sucker for dollar stores, and the day we did this activity, it wasn't planned. I found a cool pair of scissors and cheap stickers with sticker book and away we went.  Easy peasy.

Phew! I don't think I'll be looking to do four activities every week, but it was sure a great way to start. I'd love to hear if anyone does any of these activities, or if you have any ideas for future ones for us.