Potty Patrol

I was in absolutely no hurry to potty train my older daughter. I have just grown to accept diapers are what they are, and honestly, diapers give me CONTROL. Seriously - I know when and where my toddler will need a diaper change (the baby, she's a little more sporadic). My friends who are parents of newly-toilet trained children are familiar with just about every public bathroom in town. Ew.

I had started collecting articles on what signs you should look for with regards to readiness, and then what to do once the training began.

Here's what these articles taught me:

1. Kids respond well to bribes. (But we knew that.)
2. There are no guaranteed signs of readiness across the board - all kids are different.
3. There are also no guaranteed methods of potty training. 

And this is how it all shook out for us:

Like I said, no rush for this milestone. It crossed my mind that she might be mature enough to handle this at 2 years old, but as I was about to have another baby, I was not about to throw this variable into our lives until I had a clue how I was going to handle two kids in general. A little after my daughter hit 2 1/2 or so, I started slowly collecting the things I thought we would need for the potty training adventure, once it started to make its appearance.

I decided from the get go we would not be dealing with the kid-size toilet. I hear of all these parents who buy these for their children after their 1st birthday and then keep it in the living room, the bedroom, the back of the car, all so the child can get "comfortable" with the concept of using the mini-potty. It's not a stuffed animal - it's a toilet. Not many of us use a toilet next to our sectional. And on top of that, I had zero interest in cleaning that thing out every time my child was successful.

No matter which route you take, your regular routine is still going to be affected, and for that you need STUFF. You will most likely need a potty training seat, as their little rear end will be liable to fall right in for many more years. Along with that is a stool to reach the toilet. I recommend either multiple stools, or make the one you have lightweight so your toddler can move it between the toilet and the sink. Depending on your bathroom, you might also need a faucet extender, a faucet handle extender, and even a light switch extender. AND depending on your house, you might need this setup in each bathroom your child could use when nature calls.

Basically, you need to think about all the steps your child will need to go through to address a bathroom urgency on their own should you be unable to assist in a split second when they have. to. GO.

So I bought a variety of potty seats (there is no easy way to tell which ones will fit the toilets in your house until you bring them home and put them on the seat) and step stools. As I type this we are a month out from our potty training, and we use one potty seat and two stools in two different bathrooms (the main guest half bath and the bathroom between my daughters' rooms). The wood stools are nice, but they are heavy and make a lot of noise. Since my daughter's toilet is on the other side of the wall from my other daughter's crib, I needed to squash all the stool moving in the middle of the night so that bathroom needed TWO STOOLS.

I also bought a folding travel potty seat (with princesses of course), several packages of underwear with Bugga's favorite characters, and even flushable wipes. Then I waited for the signs. That never really came. Her interest in the whole toileting process ebbed and flowed, and she always woke up soaked in the morning because I didn't have the heart to cut off her liquids in the evenings.

Bugga started school two days a week this year where they do not potty train, but maintain whatever you are doing. What they did start doing is sitting Bugga on a toilet three times a day, which I used as my jumping off point.

I created a chart based on the things that motivate my specific child (in Bugga's case, certain shows, apps, and movies, since she only gets these in special situations). Then I declared Labor Day Weekend as our training weekend. Our plan was to have one parent assigned to be with Bugga all day long at all times. She typically would wander around the house playing on her own but that would not work for this. I also had to be tough with my husband that we couldn't just do this in the living room (ahhh the rug!) and simultaneously watch college football as someone was sure to miss crucial signs of nature calling. 

I set up our master bathroom (it's a little over-the-top spacious, but any bathroom should work as children are little) to be All Things Toddler and put in there her easel, her Lego table, and her little play table and chairs with books, puzzles, and coloring.

Then we dove right in! On the first day (Saturday), Bugga wore nothing but a shirt all day (except training pants for naptime) so she'd have easy access to the toilet. Then we took her to it every 15 minutes with a timer, giving her a chance to go. Every time she'd successfully use the toilet she'd get a sticker on her chart (one sticker for pee, three for poop), an animal cracker, and a lot of congratulations. In between trips to the toilet, we continuously offered beverages and salty snacks to give her plenty of opportunity to learn to recognize the signs of needing to go. Her favorite way to pass the time that day was of course by having tea parties with REAL WATER. She couldn't get enough of this special turn of events and it worked just fine for me! At the end of the day, she had successfully peed on the potty well over 20 times - and with no accidents! (No sign of any poop though. And my kid is typically pretty regular...)

On Day Two Bugga got to start wearing her new undies, which she was thrilled with. We also did not confine her to the bathroom all day either and tried to get back into our regular routine. We had a couple accidents that day, which was to be expected at this point. But we still moved successfully through her chart and she spent most of the day in a chair in front of her reward shows anyway. And finally, finally after sitting for a loonnnnngggg time on the toilet on the evening of Day Two, reading books to her and keeping her busy, she finally pooped on her target after avoiding the issue for two days. Okay, and we added the incentive of a new Anna dress-up dress (from Frozen, in case you live under a rock). We did more of the same on Day Three.

The long weekend ended, and we went back to our routine as far as leaving the house for activities, school and errands. Bugga kept on with her chart, having very limited accidents. The poop thing was a bit of a struggle for awhile, as she would clearly need to go but would go back and forth between playing and sitting on the potty...and then eventually have an accident. The good thing is she did not like how this felt, and would cry, so I was optimistic we wouldn't have to deal with too much more of this.

After about a week our process evolved to incorporating "Poop Prizes". At this point, Bugga can pee on the potty successfully whenever she needs to, without any accidents. And if she poops without accident, she gets an animal cracker and to pick from a prize basket filled with more undies, books, Frozen paraphernalia, and puzzles. This method clinched her success and now she goes regularly on her own.

Ugh this was a long post. But potty training requires patience just like reading all of the above. And again, only you know your kid and what motivates him or her. If it doesn't take the first time, you can always wait and try again.

Homeschool-ish

Bugga wearing her backpack around the
house because she is "going to school to
eat pizza and read books".

Since my daughter is on the back end of the calendar as far as school start dates go (she was born in November), she gets "extra" time before she officially needs to be enrolled in school. As it is, she has been a sponge for months and months now, and I feel I really need to start teaching her some school skills since she loves what we've done so far. And maybe along the way she will use her parrot act to regurgitate some cool facts, versus just something I said when I didn't think she was listening. Oops.

As I posted recently, we started surrounding Bugga with All Things Alphabet and she loves it. I want to take advantage of this while I can, so I have been researching ways of creating age-appropriate lessons for her to learn more about what each letter looks and sounds like, and how they work with words. She's not quite ready to start using a writing device to draw the letters, but I have found a way to modify the concept to her abilities and still make it fun and educational.

My thought is to focus on one letter per week, and have 7-8 approaches to learning all about that letter. Each week we then choose 5 or so lessons to learn, allowing for a variety. After a month or two, when we have covered several letters, I hope to have lessons that focus on the combination of the previous letters learned to work on word construction.

By doing it this way, I am able to create a lot of the materials in advance so I can just print out what I need or whatever and run with it. Parenting doesn't give you a lot of time to prep, so I needed the tools for the lessons to be quick and easy. This is also useful for short attention spans - my 2-year-old will only watch me setup a project for so long before she no longer cares and would rather play with her Legos.

With regards to creating the materials, I have gathered ideas from many resources, and then ultimately I decided to create my own version so it fits the idea I have in my head. I plan to share these materials as free downloads wherever applicable, so hopefully they can be of some use to other back-of-the-calendar toddlers. 

I'll post the links to the post with the printables as soon as I get them uploaded!

Happy learning!

Alphabet Big AND Little

My older daughter is about 34 months old (we say 2 around here, don't worry, just perspective if you need it) and she is excellent at recognizing and naming her letters. Starting about a year ago we have been surrounding her with "all things alphabet" and she has just SOAKED it all up! Now that we are back in Houston we are spending a lot more time in the car with longer commutes, so we've started playing "find the letters" while we travel. From doing this, I noticed that while Bugga is EXCELLENT at recognizing her capital letters, not so much with the lower-case.

So I'm putting a lot more focus on the lower case now, simply by presenting the "little" letter next to the "big" version whenever we do things letter-related.

For example, recently we worked on a pre-writing skill by using both stickers and dot markers to make the big and small letters (this post coming soon).

I also made letter flash card packets that show pictures that start with a particular letter, presented with both big and little. These are also fantastic for our car rides - I just grab a letter each morning to bring with us. (this post coming soon too!)

I even updated Bug's room design to include the little letters. The way her room is positioned she can stare at her wall alphabet whenever she is awake in her bed (more often than I prefer, but so be it).

This is the "before" room when we still lived in Calgary.

This is the "after" in our Houston home - both letter sizes!

What have you done to help your toddler/preschooler associate both sizes of letters?

Easter Egg-tivities

I had great plans for Easter this year as far as toddler activities go. Then my newborn started sleeping (or rather NOT sleeping) even more horribly, and my husband needed to go out of town for work for the third time in four weeks. So basically most of this past week leading up to the Easter Bunny's visit is now a bit of a blur.

Somewhere in there I managed to put together two brain cells on occasion to find some activities for Bugga to do that were Easter-related. I found some great printable activities online that were both Easter-relevant as well as educational, but not too old for her as a lot of Preschool printables tend to be.

Here's Bugga working on the Egg Matching Activity, which she shocked me by immediately being a whiz at. This explains why her strongest skill with folding laundry is matching her socks!

Here's the Carrot Activity that involves Bugga trying to figure out which big letter matches which little letter. This was a new way of thinking about the letters, as we have not really introduced "little" letters yet. This was our introduction.

These printable activities can be found here.

And of course, I planned to get in some egg decorating. We had a great time last year when Bugga was 15 months old so of course I was optimistic. I saw an adorable idea online that involved rolling the eggs in polenta - I had planned on using colored coconut - but that was a massive fail. The "egg wash glue" was not at all a glue so it was just a big mess. Apparently I forgot the sugar, which, logically is the sticky part. Oops.

While we were waiting for the eggs to dry to see if the coconut would stick, my toddler got impatient with the waiting, so I improvised with some plastic eggs and a glue gun.

Once I knew that the textured eggs weren't happening this year, I washed off the remaining coconut, and just went with the infamous drop-in-the-colored-water coloring. Then I just used my glue gun to attach the googly eyes and bunny/chick appendages. What I learned: If you use a glue gun on an egg that just came out of the refrigerator, the glue will be chilled and dry before you attach whatever it is you're trying to glue to the egg. Another oops. So here is the motley crew of eggs that we ended up with.

Let's just say I am looking forward to making egg salad tomorrow.

I hope everyone had a nice Easter!

Toddler Learning: The Alphabet

Bugga is currently just shy of 2.5 years old (that's 30 months, for those of you who do the months thing) and right now she is a sponge for just about any information we give her. At this point she "reads" all her books to us because she has them memorized, so it has been obvious to us for awhile that we need to help her get to the point where she can truly read. So we started with the alphabet.

We have given her exposure to the alphabet in many ways:

1. Alphabet decals on Bugga's bedroom wall over her changing table that is the object of discussion any time she lies underneath them.
2. Fabric alphabet magnets that she plays with almost every day.
3. Her own personalized Alphabet Book.
4. We have sung the Alphabet song three times while we brush her teeth since we started brushing teeth (I brush for two rounds, she brushes herself for the last round).
5. This great book called AlphaBlock
6. Alphabet puzzles - we have a great one from Melissa & Doug which I think is an earlier version of this.

At this point, she is building Lego "microphones", setting up her stuffed animals as an "audience" and singing her "A B Cs" to the crowd. I guess it's working. 

Baby Data

It's probably no surprise that I am motivated by statistics (the core of my undergraduate degree in Industrial Engineering). I really find data fascinating and eye-opening...and baby data is no different.

A lot of people will tell new moms not to "watch the clock" when feeding a newborn, stressing over naps, or counting the minutes of what seems like endless crying. Well that doesn't work for me. I NEED the data. I need to see trending to find some hope of optimism in what is a very challenging period in my life with a newborn.

There are a lot of methods out there, but I think the easiest way to track the baby data is through an app (I use Total Baby), since nowadays your phone is always within arm's reach. Most programs will keep track of when and how long your baby eats, sleeps, and needs a diaper change, along with doctor visits, milestones, and even pictures.

Here's where I've noticed the big advantage of tracking: when you use it for more than one kid. I used the app with Bugga, and I'm now using it with Bella. As I go through the daily and weekly challenges with Bella, I am finding that I very much forget exactly how things went down with Bugga. Did Bugga wake up this many times at this age? When did we move Bugga to the crib compared to Bella? And I can just look it up in seconds. There's nothing like an instant point of reference when going through all these stressful moments where you feel like you will NEVER come out the other side because this moment is just the WORST...only to see that your first child acted the same way at this age and you lived to tell the tale...or at least the data did.

The Evolution of a Play Kitchen

When Bugga was around 11 months old, I started to notice that every time I picked her up from the gym daycare she was happily "cooking" in the daycare's miniature kitchen. Because I spend my days with my children, Bugga is in the kitchen for every one of her meals, and can watch the preparation from her learning tower. As children love to mimic what they see, my little monkey naturally wanted to "cook" in a kitchen.

I found this fantastic kitchen made my KidKraft at Costco. I am starting to like this brand for the creative designs, and they offer alternatives to all that kid plastic. Anyway, once I put it together (hear the pride in that, as it took awhile, but was worth it) Bugga has pretty much been playing with it ever since.

There are also about 7 billion kitchen accessories that are on the market for play kitchens. Between what we've bought for Bugga and what she's been gifted from others (pretty much the perfect gift for a 2-3 year old of any gender), here are some thoughts on what we have:

27 Piece Cookware Set - This is another KidKraft item (yes, it is plastic). My parents gifted this to Bugga this past Christmas. She uses it every time she plays in the kitchen, and the cups get dragged all over the house. This kid loves cups. To an obsessive level. Anyway...

Green Toys Tea Set - This is what started our home collection of dishes. I'm pretty sure most of the spoons have vanished at this point, but every single other piece is still in regular rotation. And it's GREEN - BONUS.

Just Like Home Toaster from Toys R Us - Not even going to give you the link for this piece of junk. We use a toaster every morning for Bugga's waffle breakfast so of COURSE she needs one for her kitchen. This one is great in concept but is terrible. An adult needs to push down the lever and it works 1 time out of 10. And the noise is horrendous. Don't buy this.

Pop-Up Toaster by Hape Toys - I bought this as a replacement for the first one. It's made of wood instead of plastic so even better. Plus, it has this cute stick of butter that can be "sliced" - I thought this would be a great way for Bugga to safely practice using a knife.

Duktig Fruit Basket and Duktig Vegetable Basket from IKEA - So many play food sets you see in toy stores include junk food, which is not what I want Bugga to be too used to. These fruits and vegetables are soft, healthy, and they've been very helpful for helping us talk about things like what goes into a salad, onto a sandwich, etc.

Just Like Home Everyday Cookware Set - This is a great all-inclusive set of pots, pans and accessories (despite the review of the toaster from the same toy line above).

Melissa & Doug Food Groups - Last week I noticed Bugga was serving less of her "imaginary" pasta and more "butter" as a meal. Yeah, so that had to stop. So I ordered this food group set to give her some common healthy proteins that she can learn more about without limiting herself to a bland butter-only pretend diet. Ha.

The final touch: the other day I quickly made some felt bow pasta for Bugga to put into her pots and she loves it. As I expected: she eats pasta several times a week, so this is a no-brainer for a toy. And SO east to make. Let me know if you need the instructions.

Project: Homemade Valentine Picture Frame

I've been chomping at the bit waiting for Bugga to be old enough to do arts and crafts. Yes, I know, even babies can start pretty much from the womb with the art projects. We even tackled finger (body!) painting last year when Bugga was 10 months old; I'm sure many moms jump on it far earlier than that.

Another point to note: I am not a huge fan of messiness on purpose. Let's be honest, kids are a lot of work and mess without TRYING to make a mess. So painting with a toddler kind of scared me.

With Bella still so small at 7 weeks, she still hasn't had her vaccinations yet so we aren't leaving the house for much more than Bugga's once-a-week gymnastics class. And a bored kid is hard on everyone (all you parents on the East Coast know exactly what I'm talking about right now since you've all been stuck inside for days due to the snow with school cancelled). So I bit the bullet and pulled out the paint.

Grandma had gifted Bugga some fingerpaints and a smock for Christmas, so this was as good a time as any to try them out. Plus with Valentine's Day fast approaching Bugga could make a homemade gift for Daddy on behalf of her and her sister. I even managed to stretch this into a TWO DAY PROJECT which is always good.

So I dressed Bugga in clothes I don't like (we all get those gifts) and her new smock, and taped down some newspaper to our kitchen counter. She climbed up into her learning tower (best invention ever) and we proceeded to go to work. 

I squirted some of the paint into paper cups left over from her 1st birthday (we are slowly and finally getting through those) in Valentine colors. Since the Crayola Fingerpaints only come in red, blue, yellow, and green I had to incorporate some white from my collection to make pink. Oh, and trying to make purple with the red and the blue was a bust so nevermind that. 

I used several sponge brushes (yep, still not in the mood to handle more painting with our hands) I had left over from another project of mine, and we went to work.

I purchased a simple wood heart frame from Michael's for barely $1.00 and Bugga had a blast painting it with the various colors. 

She also seemed to love the different effects she could make with the brushes, taking advantage of the sponginess (huh, that's actually a word). 

Once she was done we let it dry overnight. in the meantime, the other colors had grabbed her attention so I found some paper and let her create another masterpiece. 

She had a blast and it wasn't too difficult to clean up. 

Oh, and meanwhile, the baby hung out in the bouncer next to us and watched.

The next day I pulled out a bag of foam heart stickers and the frame so we could decorate. Bugga quickly figured out how to use her fingernails to peel of the backings, and we were in business. I had a giant flat foam heart she could also decorate as well.

Seriously, she decorated this all by herself with no guidance from me whatsoever. Such style.

And here is the final result, all ready for Daddy!

Project: Personalized Alphabet Book

If you've read a couple other posts, you know I am trying to expose Bugga to the alphabet as much as possible. Right before her 2nd birthday I thought it would be a great occasion to gift her with her very own Alphabet Book! Since I knew she loved her books so much and read them over and over, combined with knowing that she loves looking at our pictures of her on our phones, an Alphabet book using pictures of HER would be perfect.

I used Blurb.com, which is my go-to company for making photo books. You can pretty much set the layout to ANY design you want, versus the other companies that have very rigid templates that I used to get so frustrated with.

Some examples I saw online used just one word for each letter, but I noticed Bugga latching on to that one example and not letting go. (For example, "H is for Horse" is what she calls "H".) Therefore, I used several examples wherever I could (there are some very difficult letters to find photos for) so she knew that MANY words started with that letter.

Here is an example of 4 of our pages from the book:

To help you out, here are the words we used for each letter:

A - Airplane, Art, Asleep

B - Ball, Beans, Beam, Bath, Bunnies, Bucket, Beach

C - Chicks,Climb, Cuddle, Crying

D - Dig, Dress, Dog

E - Eggs, Eye, Elephant

F - Family, Fingers

G - Giraffe

H - Hat, Helmet, Hiking, Horse, Happy

I - Ice

J - Jeans

K - Kicking, Kiss, Kitchen, Kitty

L - Laugh, Letters

M - Messy, Mommy, Mirror, Motorcycle

N - Naptime, Nose

O - Ocean

P - Phone, Play, Puzzle

Q - Quack

R - Read, Relax, Ring

S - Shoes, Slide, Stripes, Sunglasses

T - Toes, Tongue, Toys, Tunnel, Tutu

U - Up

V - Valentine

W - Water, Window, Watermelon

X - Xylophone

Y - Yogurt

Z - Zipper

Listmania: 12 Days of Christmas Books

As our oldest child has reached her second birthday, she is very into her books. Since Christmas 2013 rolled around right after her birthday, I thought it would be a perfect time to start a 12 Days of Christmas Book tradition.

Each year, wrap up 12 holiday-themed books and have your children open one each night leading up to Christmas. This is a fun bedtime activity that incorporates the excitement of unwrapping, with the routine of bedtime. For our first year, I didn't have 12 Christmas books for our collection yet, but since I planned on gifting Bugga some other books for Christmas, I just used those for some of the nights. Each year I plan to add in and rotate more books out, keeping the stories age-appropriate for both kids. Also, 12 books can be an investment (especially in Canada! Whoa!) so don't be afraid to wrap up some library books too!

How did I pick the books below? I thought of some classics that I remember enjoying as a kid. I also looked into Bugga's favorite characters (Duck & Goose, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Llama Llama) to see if the authors wrote a Christmas story, and I was surprised to find that MOST do! Reading about the same characters really helps with holding a toddler's attention.

Some ideas for Christmas Books:

1. Fa La La by Leslie Patricelli 
2. Nativity Touchy-Feely Board Book by Fiona Watt
3. 'Twas the Night Before Christmas by Clement Clarke Moore
4. Frosty the Snowman by Diane Muldrow
5. Duck & Goose, It's Time for Christmas by Tad Hills
6. Merry Christmas, Mouse! by Laura Numeroff
7. The Hat by Jan Brett
8. Bear Stays Up For Christmas by Karma Wilson
9. How the Grinch Stole Christmas by Dr. Seuss
10. Mr. Willowby's Christmas Tree by Robert Barry
11. Llama Llama Holiday Drama by Anna Dewdney
12. Clubhouse Christmas by Susan Amerikaner

Family Christmas Traditions

My husband and I have been thinking a lot about what sort of family traditions and lessons we want to pass down to our daughters. We also want to teach our children about religion, but leave room for them to discover it themselves and follow it where they allow it to lead them. Since Bugga is just freshly 2 years old, it's hard to really give her too much information that she can truly comprehend, but she is definitely at the age of understanding some things.

What we want for sure is that our daughters recognize the lessons and morals that can be learned as we expose them to more and more information.

We know that it is very easy for kids to think of Christmas as a "gimme gimme!" sort of holiday, and that makes me cringe. So I proposed that we find away to put the fun into giving (since my 2-year-old can't quite shop on her own yet, let alone create too many homemade gifts that allow her to grasp the concept of giving). I thought she'd enjoy handing out the presents under the tree on Christmas morning, but since she can't read yet, I created these visual labels as a toddler-friendly gift tag. She loved "playing elf" and finding gifts for everyone and passing them out all by herself.

I also found a toddler-friendly board book about the Christmas Nativity story, which she really enjoyed. I plan to add this to our 12 Days of Christmas Books tradition that we also started this year.

What tools are you using to teach your toddler about holidays, religions, or traditions?

Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book Page Idea - Stop, Slow, Go!

Quiet Books for Toddlers are truly genius ideas and are sure to be well worth your time! I created a no-sew version for my daughter that you can find here. Below is one of my page ideas. For other ideas, scroll to the list at the bottom of the post!

Stop, Slow, Go! Page

I got the idea for this page from Playing House and Intentional By Grace. This is a very basic stoplight page that teaches what each of the colors mean - pretty self-explanatory!

Other Quiet Book Page Ideas:

My Name Is 

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Drive to School

Go Team!
Match Shapes

Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book Page Idea - Drive to School

Quiet Books for Toddlers are truly genius ideas and are sure to be well worth your time! I created a no-sew version for my daughter that you can find here. Below is one of my page ideas. For other ideas, scroll to the list at the bottom of the post!

Drive to School Page

The idea for the Drive to School page was inspired by a Car/Truck page I found at the blogs Teacher Mode and Intentional By Grace. In my version, your child can drive a car or a school bus from the house to school. I also included a little laminated "pocket" to tuck the vehicles in when they aren't in use so the don't get lost. You could also use a Matchbox-size car or something similar to have a more 3-D effect.

Other Quiet Book Page Ideas:

My Name Is 

Stop, Slow, Go

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Go Team!

Match Shapes

Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book Page Idea - Match Shapes

Quiet Books for Toddlers are truly genius ideas and are sure to be well worth your time! I created a no-sew version for my daughter that you can find here. Below is one of my page ideas. For other ideas, scroll to the list at the bottom of the post!

Match Shapes Page

I got the idea for this page from the blogs Playing House, Intentional By Grace and Teacher Mode. What I made a point to do for each shape is that the pieces are identical in shape only, so that should be the easiest way to match them up. I labeled the shapes as well, which is irrelevant for my 2-year-old, but will come in handy when she's older.

Other Quiet Book Page Ideas:

My Name Is 

Stop, Slow, Go

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Drive to School

Go Team!

Project: No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book

We have a bad habit of not getting around to taking a family vacation until it's really cold just about everywhere. And I like a WARM weather vacation. Which means we have to travel pretty far to find warm temperatures. We have gotten in the "habit" (I love this habit) of going to Hawaii for the past three years, starting with my Babymoon for Bugga. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Hawaii, every part of it. But getting there via long airplane flights, while crossing over several time zones with my toddler, can be worse than a root canal.

This time I was determined to stress about the flight as little as possible. I typically travel with a certain collection of things to entertain my daughter during the flight, hope that we don't run out of ideas - and this time was no different. I did some searching and came across the idea of making a Quiet Book. I was not in the mood to lug out the sewing machine right before my trip, so I looked for some no-sew ideas that could be made faster. I took a couple ideas from various blogs, and then made them my own. I was also then inspired to create some other various pages that I thought my daughter would enjoy.

Below are the general directions for how to create your No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book, with links to separate posts about each of the pages I created so you can see them in detail if you want.

This ended up being a fun treat for Bugga on the plane, and it bought us about 30 minutes of entertainment. Now that we are back from our trip, I plan on keeping this book in the nursery to only be brought out when I am home alone with Bugga and my newborn (3 weeks to go!) and I need some toddler quiet time.

No-Sew Toddler Quiet Book

Materials Needed:

• 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" Mini Binder
• Various craft paper in a variety of colors and patterns
• Laminating machine and laminating sheets
• glue dots
• paper trimmer
• scissors
• Velcro dots
• hole punch
• computer/printer/printer paper as needed

Instructions:

1. Pick a page to start with. The nice thing about the 3-ring Mini Binder is that you can always add and remove pages, so you can tailor your books to different children, focus on seasons for holiday-related pages, etc.
2. Determine if you need one or two pages for each page's theme.
3. Cut one or two background pages depending on Step 2 using the paper trimmer. Trim them to 5 1/2" by 8 1/2" using the craft paper. Cut out colored shapes, letters, decorations, people, etc. - whatever is relevant to your theme. If you do not have the right color paper, or want a specific design, a quick internet search for free images can provide you with great icons that you can then print and cut out for your pages. You can also use a basic drawing software program to create your own.
4. Separate pieces between those that are part of the scene/background, and those that will be the interactive components.
5. For the pieces that are part of the scene/background, put together the scene using the glue dots. Once finished, laminate the pages(s).
6. For the pieces that will be interactive (separate from the background) laminate them and then cut out each piece with scissors, careful to leave a slight amount of clear laminate around the edges of each piece.
7. Attach Velcro dots to the back of each interactive piece. Place matching Velcro dots on the background scene where applicable. You might need more scene Velcro dots than you have interactive pieces based on your design. Be careful to use the same type of Velcro across the scene so all the interactive pieces can be used all over the page.
8. Align the page with the three rings in the binder to mark where the holes should be. Use a hole puncher to add 3 holes to the top/bottom of the pages as applicable. Place the page into the binder.
9. Create the rest of your pages. Don't forget a cover page that can slip into the binder plastic (no laminating necessary).
10. Extra step: I added Velcro to the back outside corners of each page when in the binder to attach the back of each page to the back of the next. This keeps my kiddo from landing on a bunch of backside pages that have no activities. The Velcro allows you to constantly change around the order of the pages, no problem!

Looking for some ideas on what to do for each page? Here are mine:

My Name Is 

Stop, Slow, Go

Match Colors

Let's Get Dressed

Match Big & Small

Grocery Shopping

Happy Halloween!

Match Shapes

Counting Train

Merry Christmas!

Apple Picking

Make a Face

Drive to School

Go Team!

Activity: Winter Playdough Development Fun! (With Printables!)

I have been swamped lately with all the crafts I am doing for both Bugga's Big Girl Room and the nursery for #2 (posts to come, I promise!), but in the midst of it all (and while currently 35 weeks pregnant), I am hosting a playdate this coming week for our little group of kiddos. I racked my brain to come up with something easy, and landed on PLAYDOUGH!!!! Who doesn't love playdough? Even the little ones can have fun squishing it in their hands!

I have a great recipe for homemade playdough that Bugga and I have used ALL THE TIME and lasts forever. I will post that soon too.

This post is about activities you can do WITH the playdough!

Now obviously, the kiddos are free to build whatever they want with the dough. For the playdate specifically, I am not about to run out and buy (like I have the time anyway) all the play-do accessories they have in stores that "help" kids play. Instead, I plan on using playdough mats!

These are a GREAT idea! 

The problem I found is that I didn't like the ones I was finding on the web, so I just made my own! And I included the links below so you don't have to do the fruitless searching either! Now, so you are aware, these are winter-themed, since we are in Canada and it is currently dumping snow on us every weekend. I will likely have posts in the future with other themes.

All you need to do is print out the PDF files, laminate the pages, and tape them down to a table - let the fun begin!

Download the Snowflake Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Snowman Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Snowy Hill Playdough Worksheet here.

Download the Tree Playdough Worksheet here.