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.

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.

Magnetic Board Options

After my recent project creating Fabric Alphabet Magnets for my daughter, I of course needed to find a magnetic space for her to use her new magnets.

I saw this great idea on Pinterest to use an inexpensive oil drip pan that can be purchased for a low price at a local Home Depot or Lowe's. Perfect.

Except apparently in Canada they don't believe in these particular style of oil drip pans, so I hit a dead end immediately.

Then I thought, well, I'll just get a board cut to my specifications, and then use a couple various products on the market (specifically Chalk Board Paint and Magnetic Paint) and make my daughter her own customized chalkboard-magnet-board combo space. Genius.

Thankfully I did a little online researching before investing in any of the supplies needed. I found this and this which taught me two things: 1) There is a certain guy posting on every internet thread about his magnetic paint additive that is overall a pretty grouchy guy, and 2) Magnetic paint is a waste of time and energy.

OK so now what? I could buy a kid-specific magnetic board, but I really wanted something BIG and most kid magnetic boards I could find are somewhat teeny.

In the end, I went with a magnetic dry erase board (Michael's, ~$20). I will be no means be giving my 21-month-old dry erase markers anytime soon, but it works great as a clean magnetic space for her new magnets, and down the road she'll have fun with the markers.

Project: Fabric Alphabet Magnets

I just finished a very easy project that I'm already pretty proud of, as it turned out better than I expected- fabric alphabet magnets! Right now Bugga is 21 months old, and we are focusing on her learning her letters. This project was perfect. I found a couple links to blogs via Pinterest for some DIY magnet letters using felt and even to links on Etsy that were selling a similar style. I decided to use regular fabric for mine - see below for the directions!

Fabric Alphabet Magnets

What You Will Need:

• Fabric that you like (I used part of a Hobby Lobby pack of whimsical quilting squares that I picked up a year ago with the primary intention to stuff them into a tissue box for Bugga to pull out over and over again. She still enjoys this; fortunately this project only used about a third of the fabric squares.)
• Coordinating cross-stitch thread
• Needle
• Scissors
• Quilt batting, cut into 1" strips, and then lengths relevant to your letter sizes (by some miracle I had some lying around from my one attempt at making a quilt)
• Computer with a printer/paper
• Magnets (I picked up a pack of 50 from Michael's)
• Elmer's (or any basic) glue
• Pencil

How to Make the Letters:

1. Determine what you want your letters to look like by finding a font in any basic program (Word, Publisher, etc.). Size the letters in your software program so they are big enough for your liking, then print out each letter you would like to create. I did the entire alphabet, but you could also make numbers, extra vowels, etc. Tip: When thinking about what size you want your letters, consider the size of your magnets. Depending on where they are placed inside your fabric, the letters need to be big enough for the fabric to be sewn around them. Print all of the letters/numbers and cut out each one.
2. Trace the letters using a pencil onto the back side of the fabric. You will need two of each letter/number to serve as the front and back. If your fabric is the same on both sides, then this is not as important. Mine was not, so I was careful to just leave pencil marks on what would serve as the inside of the letter. Tip: To save cutting time, and to help with lining everything up when you sew, you can fold the fabric in half and cut the fabric along the folded edge so you don't need to have two separate pieces.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Lay out your fabric letters and divide the magnets up between each one. Because fabric is not as thick as felt, not as much magnetic strength is needed, so I used 1-2 magnets for each letter, depending on the size (I only used 1 magnet for letters like "I", "J" and "Y"). Use the glue to affix the magnets to the fabric letters, being careful to glue the magnets to the inside of the back piece of the fabric. Let the glue dry.
   
4. Start sewing! I used half of each piece of cross-stitch thread (3 of the 6 pieces) to do my sewing. I found that I have zero skill in guestimating how long my thread should be for each letter, but due to how they are sewn, it doesn't matter if you run out and need to start up with new thread. As advised on the blog mentioned above, I also used the Blanket stitch, which worked great, and was very easy for me (and I don't sew all that much). Personally, if a letter had an inner area (like "A", "B", "R", etc.) I would stitch this first, which helped keep the two pieces of fabric aligned. I also stitched all the way around the letters for consistency, even if one of the edges was part of the original fold of the fabric.
   
   
   
   
5. As each part of the letter being stitched is enclosed, use a pencil to stuff the strips of quilt batting inside the letter. Be careful to work around the magnets.
6. That's it! Start the fun! For more info on the process I went through to decide on a magnetic board for these magnets, click here!
   
   
   

   

   Fabric Alphabet Magnets in Action!

Activity: Coloring Eggs

"Hey Mom, I think this might
actually be fun."

My husband is currently out of the country on business, so I've been busy planning activities and trips around town to keep Bugga and I busy while he's gone. He left early Easter weekend, so we were unable to officially celebrate. Sad face. Perhaps she wasn't old enough for that egg hunt anyway...

However, I still thought we should color some eggs, because I was curious to see what my toddler would think about it all. Well, it was pretty hilarious for starters.

She had a lot of fun piling as many eggs as possible into one bowl at a time, and then only using the next bowl when she ran out of space. And then she'd start again, piling the eggs into the next container, including the ones that were already bathing in a different color. Amazingly, the eggs still came out beautiful (and delicious, as I am in the process of consuming them).


She had a lot of fun with the spoons, but used them more as musical instruments against each other, versus to scoop out any of the eggs. Why would you use a spoon for scooping when you can just reach right in there? And hey look! Your hand is purple! And your legs are multicolored! How cool! Ha.

I think she made an attempt at tasting some of the colored water (apparently the yellow looked tasty?) but didn't do that twice. (Thank you, vinegar taste.)

All in all, this was a ton of fun, and I can't wait to do this each year and see how her creativity evolves.

Want to try it with your toddler? Here are my recommendations:

1. Prepare everything ahead of time before your toddler comes on the scene. I set everything up on the back patio and she watched me from just inside the windows.
2. Oh yeah - you're going to need to do this outside. I supposed you could do it inside, but at this age (~16 months) - don't say I didn't warn you!

   

   My original setup.
   Not recommended! (See #3)

3. Set up the activity with the bowls very close together. Nope, that's not what I did to begin with (see photo). I saw very quickly that once we started with one bowl, Bugga wasn't getting up but instead was just going to stretch as far as she could - which ended up with some cracked eggs and spilled colored water.
4. Use old dishes. This is perfect for the takeout containers that I currently have stashed in a bottom cabinet for Bugga to play with in the kitchen.
5. Don't overwhelm with too many colors. I stuck to 4 basics, and honestly she just took the eggs in and out of each dish, so after awhile, all 4 colors were strikingly similar. Go figure.
6. Premix the colors. I used a tablespoon of vinegar in each dish, along with a LOT of coloring to make the colors sharp. I used the old-school drops as well as some gels, and both worked fine.

   

   "AND I get to use a spoon? YES!"

   
7. Dress your child in clothing you aren't worried about. I stuck Bugga in a dark-colored $10 Carter's outfit, and it didn't stain at all! (Those white dots are painted on so the color didn't adhere whatsoever!)
8. Decide how you feel about spoons. I know this sounds funny. But to me, spoons + toddler = catapult. Bugga was very intrigued that I let her use spoons for this activity, and they really stole the show for awhile there until I pointed other things out. I think if we did this again (at least at this age) I would leave the spoons in the drawer. She has plenty of plastic ones to play with during meals and with her tea set.
   
9. Have fun! AKA, don't expect to have any control over how the eggs get colored, as your toddler is not interested in the LEAST about your creative opinion. Point out the colors, what happens when you mix them, etc. - they won't understand a lot of it, but they will see that it is fun.
10. Don't worry, the rainbow child isn't permanent. We went straight into the bathtub when we were finished, and it probably took two baths until the dye under her fingernails disappeared. But it was worth it!

The finished product! AMAZING!

Activity: Bubble Wrap

I am a closet "green" person hiding inside a parent's body. What I mean by that is before I became a mom, I cringed at the concept of waste and excess. However, since birthing my daughter I have at times let a lot of things go (we use a LOT of baby wipes in this house) and had to cope with the ridiculous amounts of product packaging that now enter our house wrapped children's goods.

I recently purchased a giant vase that the store wrapped in matching giant bubble wrap so I could get it home safely. Not the throw-in-your-recycling-bin kind that Crate & Barrel would give you (darn right I provided that link - they have great stuff and you can recycle ALL of their shipping materials), but the awful landfill-clogging kind.

So we were at least going to use it again after my vase safely made it to my house. Enter my toddler!!

Once she figured out where the crazy popping noise was coming from, she was hooked. Her little fingers and lack of upper body strength prevented her from being able to pop each bubble on her own, but that didn't stop her from trying. She was fascinated with touching each one as I popped it for her. And then she quickly ran away so she could bring back some of her little dishes, and before I knew it we were having a bubble wrap picnic. And her little heels and tailbone would surprise us here and there by popping bubbles on their own, which made her giggle. 

Anything to make my kid giggle!

Obviously, this is a supervised activity - but have fun with it if you have some bubble wrap crammed in a corner somewhere!

Activity: Rainbow Rice Sensory Box

After creating a rainbow's worth of colored rice, we had a lot of fun putting it into action. I purchased a large plastic bin (don't forget the lid - this is very important!) that would allow for enough space for my daughter to literally sit inside of it, but not too big for my living room. We added a plastic scoop, some measuring cups and spoons, and a couple toys, and we had a great time.

Yes, there were times when Bugga would try to stuff a handful of rice in her mouth. This is a safe way to teach her not to do this; if she happens to eat some of the rice then there is minimal harm. I'm hoping this is great practice before we head to the beach and have to play this game with sand - blechhh.

When we are done, we can just snap the lid on and put the bin away until next time. (Or leave it closed on the floor - my kiddo likes to bang on the top of the bin when she's playing nearby.)

Here are some pictures from our activity - let me know if you decide to try this!

Project: Rainbow Rice

I have recently learned about the fantastic concept of sensory boxes. These are portable boxes filled with all sorts of random things that help babies and toddlers learn about colors, shapes, textures and other random details about the world around them.

A great way to introduce the sensory box is essentially by building an indoor sandbox.  As we are still living in Alaska until November before we move back to Texas, anything we can do indoors is a bonus!

There are many things you can use as the sand. I am starting with Rainbow Rice! Across Pinterest (and the rest of the internet, I'm assuming ha) there are various ways to make this rice. The instructions below are my version, as I wanted to make sure that should any of this rice make its way into the baby's mouth, it would not be toxic.

Items you will need:

• several bags of white rice (I used 8 bags which turned out to be plenty. Oh, by the way, I actually bought 4 bags of brown rice first, thinking if I never got to the project that at least I could cook with the rice since I prefer brown. Then I bought 4 white bags. The white definitely allows the colors to be brighter, but the brown does take the color differently so you have more color options.)
• food coloring (I used the gels)
• dark-colored mixing bowl (just in case!)
• spoon
• water
• baking sheets
• paper towels
• ziplock bags for storage (I used one per color)

Instructions:

1. Add several drops of one color to your mixing bowl. Add about 4 Tablespoons of water and mix well with your spoon. The more color you use the brighter/darker the rice will be, so feel free to experiment.
2. Once the color is mixed to your satisfaction, add a bag of rice. Mix thoroughly until the color is evenly distributed and all the rice has been colored.
3. Lay a paper towel down on a baking sheet. Pour the rice onto the paper towel and use the spoon to spread it as flat as possible to dry. Drying time is pretty quick - I let each color sit for about 20-30 minutes. Your rice might get hard and crunchy, and even stick as it dries. Just use your spoon to break it up again.
4. Once the rice is dry, pour into a ziplock bag to store/transport. You might need some extra hands to keep the rice from getting everywhere as you pour (I used a big pot and sat the bag in it.)
5. Repeat with the rest of your rice until you have the amount you want.
6. Use your rice! This stuff is great for sensory boxes, arts & craft projects - you can even just eat* it to make for a fun meal! Have fun!

*If you are planning to eat this rice, please use my instructions versus some other web recipes. I have seen some direct you to use rubbing alcohol when coloring the rice and that is obviously dangerous to consume!

And as a final comment, I saw that rice hit the news today as having trace amounts of arsenic in most brands, which is obviously not good. Authorities are recommending that everyone limit feeding their babies rice to one time a week. One more reason to avoid eating it and instead use it for crafts!

The Trick to Toys

Like all parents, I want to give my child everything she needs to be the best little person she can be. I want her to have the best education and opportunity that I can possibly provide. Somewhere during pregnancy, I started doing my version of extensive research on all sorts of toys that are on the market. I have bought books, I have read Consumer Reports and Amazon product reviews like it is my job, and I have questioned my parenting friends at every turn about the different brands they have invested in.

Something I hadn't thought too much about until lately are active versus passive toys. Nowadays, everything (almost) requires batteries, and then provides a child with musical entertainment, the alphabet, farm animal names, the colors...and all spoken in English, Spanish, and even in French. I think these toys are all great, and work that word-association thing pretty well.

However, electronic toys teach children how to play passively. They push a button, then they wait for something to happen. So yes, they are learning cause and effect, but they aren't actually DOING anything.

So now I try to balance these passive toys with active toys. You will see a lot of classic-style toy lines offering this type of play. Melissa & Doug and Plan Toys have a lot of beautiful wood items that are colorful and interactive, so I always check these brands out when I am looking for something new.

On a personal level, I find it interesting to see what is floating to the top as one of Bugga's favorites. We bought her the Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Fun with Friends Musical Table (requires batteries). This thing is amazing! It has over 50 different songs, English and Spanish, a laptop, a phone, a piano, and a book. My daughter quickly became more comfortable with pulling to a stand soon after we got her this. But most surprisingly, her favorite part of it is the purple phone rattle that comes with this table. This phone now goes everywhere with us - perfect travel size!

Activity: Plastic Soda Bottle

My husband is addicted to Coke. Not the drug (whoa that would be a whole different level of issues for sure), but the soda. I have tried to wean him off but he will not have it. So we always have several 2L plastic bottles in our recycling bin.

Well today, Bugga and I had a great time playing with three of them. Here are some of the great games and learning points we were able to find with just this "toy":

1. Bang two together - they make a very satisfying sound.
2. Bang them against the floor - see how different the sound is?
3. Roll them back and forth.
4. Set one up and use the other like a bat to knock it down.
5. Fake sword fighting like Star Wars!
6. Compare the colors - we had three so two had red labels (the Coke) and one had a silver label (OK, yes I drink Caffeine-Free Diet Coke from time to time) - learn how to compare and see how things can be different.

I'm definitely not a child development specialist, but I am a mom, which gives me an appreciation for the moments when my daughter is learning something. And when it is from regular things we can find around the house (and free ones, at that), even better!