One of the challenges of being a stay at home mom is finding activities
for your little one to keep them entertained throughout the day. These
are a few of our current favorite activities:
Magnets: If I am only going to be in the kitchen for a few minutes, and subsequently don't want to set up Highchair Peekaboo, Emma gets play with the magnets on the fridge. We have a set of magnets with letters and numbers that I bought at a garage sale for $1, as well as a few picture magnets I made from some unframed photos we had around the house. Emma loves to pull down pictures of Auntie, Mommy, Daddy, and "Baby" to look at and rearrange.
Edible Finger Painting: One of Emma's favorite books at the moment is Mouse Paint, in which three little mice climb into jars of red, yellow, and blue paint. Then they mix the different paints to create orange, green and purple. As a spin-off to the book, I wanted Emma to do some finger painting and explore colors. She still likes to put things in her mouth, and I knew this would be no exception, so our paints were made by adding a few drops of food coloring to Greek yogurt. (You could also use vanilla pudding.) WARNING: This was very messy, but a lot of fun!
Body Stickers: With this simple activity, your baby can learn about their body. All you need is a sheet of small stickers. Take an individual sticker and place it on your child's belly button and say, "Belly button!" If your child is old enough to point, ask them to point to the body part before you place the sticker. Your baby may not be able to identify any body parts when you start out, but this is a good way to track learning as you continue this activity over time. As your baby learns, go ahead and add new body parts that your baby doesn't know.
Mapping Daddy: Derek is in San Diego, CA this week on business - a long way from home. So I got out a map of the United States to show Emma where Daddy is working. I taped a picture of Derek over San Diego and a picture of me and Emma over the Twin Cities. Each day this past week, we spent some time looking at the map. I pointed to the photos and told Emma that we were here in Minnesota and Daddy was there in California. When Derek is back, I think I will replace the picture of us in Minnesota with a family picture, and will add pictures of Emma's great-grandparents (who live all over the U.S.) to the map so she can learn their names and locations.
And, as always...
Read! Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age! A few of Emma's current favorites are:
My 3 good things for today are:
Magnets: If I am only going to be in the kitchen for a few minutes, and subsequently don't want to set up Highchair Peekaboo, Emma gets play with the magnets on the fridge. We have a set of magnets with letters and numbers that I bought at a garage sale for $1, as well as a few picture magnets I made from some unframed photos we had around the house. Emma loves to pull down pictures of Auntie, Mommy, Daddy, and "Baby" to look at and rearrange.
Edible Finger Painting: One of Emma's favorite books at the moment is Mouse Paint, in which three little mice climb into jars of red, yellow, and blue paint. Then they mix the different paints to create orange, green and purple. As a spin-off to the book, I wanted Emma to do some finger painting and explore colors. She still likes to put things in her mouth, and I knew this would be no exception, so our paints were made by adding a few drops of food coloring to Greek yogurt. (You could also use vanilla pudding.) WARNING: This was very messy, but a lot of fun!
Body Stickers: With this simple activity, your baby can learn about their body. All you need is a sheet of small stickers. Take an individual sticker and place it on your child's belly button and say, "Belly button!" If your child is old enough to point, ask them to point to the body part before you place the sticker. Your baby may not be able to identify any body parts when you start out, but this is a good way to track learning as you continue this activity over time. As your baby learns, go ahead and add new body parts that your baby doesn't know.
Mapping Daddy: Derek is in San Diego, CA this week on business - a long way from home. So I got out a map of the United States to show Emma where Daddy is working. I taped a picture of Derek over San Diego and a picture of me and Emma over the Twin Cities. Each day this past week, we spent some time looking at the map. I pointed to the photos and told Emma that we were here in Minnesota and Daddy was there in California. When Derek is back, I think I will replace the picture of us in Minnesota with a family picture, and will add pictures of Emma's great-grandparents (who live all over the U.S.) to the map so she can learn their names and locations.
Read! Reading is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age! A few of Emma's current favorites are:
- Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
- The Clumsy Cowboy by Jean Bethell
- Won't You Be My Kissaroo? by Joanne Ryder
- Avocados were on sale at the grocery store today. Yum!
- I finally got around to my big pile of mending during Emma's nap. It's as if Derek and I each have a brand new wardrobe!
- We got a load of new books from the library!
What are your three good things today?
The boy who cried ninja is hilarious! Your daughter will enjoy it!
ReplyDeletePamela, she did enjoy it! I might have enjoyed it even more! Definitely a fun read!
ReplyDelete