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:
Kitchen Items Sensory Basket: Discovery baskets, or sensory baskets, are a simple way to engage your little one in learning about the senses as well as language learning. When Emma was younger, we had a lot of fun with our ribbon sensory basket, but now that she is older and less apt to put things in her mouth, we are expanding our sensory experiences! In honor of our upcoming Thanksgiving celebration, I put together a kitchen items sensory basket with a variety of bowls, metal and wooden spoons, big and small pots, potholders, whisks, and measuring cups. Let your child touch and explore each object, and try to use many different words to expose your child to language as you describe the texture or appearance of the objects as hard, crunchy, shiny, etc. Let your child move things around, and you can describe objects as they are over, under or beside each other, etc.
Kitchen Items Sensory Basket: Discovery baskets, or sensory baskets, are a simple way to engage your little one in learning about the senses as well as language learning. When Emma was younger, we had a lot of fun with our ribbon sensory basket, but now that she is older and less apt to put things in her mouth, we are expanding our sensory experiences! In honor of our upcoming Thanksgiving celebration, I put together a kitchen items sensory basket with a variety of bowls, metal and wooden spoons, big and small pots, potholders, whisks, and measuring cups. Let your child touch and explore each object, and try to use many different words to expose your child to language as you describe the texture or appearance of the objects as hard, crunchy, shiny, etc. Let your child move things around, and you can describe objects as they are over, under or beside each other, etc.
Cheerio Challenge: I found this idea over at Productive Parenting. The idea is to place a few cheerios inside a plastic bottle without a lid, then let your child figure out how to get the cheerios out of the bottle to eat! I thought Emma might be a little beyond this activity as described, so I ended up using a few plastic containers with various lids for her to problem solve! She enjoyed the challenge and also the reward at the end.
And, of course...
Read: Reading - even in a laundry basket - is one of the best activities you can do with your child at any age!
A few of Emma's current favorites are:
- The Great Dog Wash by Shellie Braeuner
- The Greedy Python by Richard Buckley
- The Great Sheep Shenanigans by Peter Bently
My 3 good things for today are:
- I'm feeling good - no morning sickness!
- No snow yet. Don't get me wrong, I will be very excited when it does finally snow, but I'm not quite ready for that yet.
- Today is Veteran's Day. Thank you to all the brave men and women who have served our country!
