I crafted this fun activity board on Monday of this week and it has continued to keep K entertained all week! The idea came from my Bright and Beyond, Age 1 card deck.
We chose to do pictures of our family for Kellan, since he has many family members he doesn't get to see on a regular basis. I used a black foam board, photographs and adhesive felt. I would recommend just using thin fabric and a very sturdy glue rather than the adhesive felt because K was easily able to completely pull off the flaps as you can see in the pics below.
He had a great time looking at everyone and listening to me talk about who was in each picture. The foam poster board also can be turned upside-down (so pictures are facing down) and propped on a chair to be used for a quick and easy ramp for toy cars!
A few weeks ago I moseyed down the craft aisle at WalMart looking for some arts and crafts activities to do with K. I saw finger paints and noticed there was no minimum age so I decide to pick them up. I did a little internet research and found that as long as nontoxic paints were used, babies as young as one year could finger paint! I was sure my seventeen-month-old would love them!
I debated on how I could do this and create the least amount of mess. I considered the bathtub, but thought, if things went well, I would like to commemorate this first experience and have proof of it on paper. So, I taped a few large coloring pages onto the kitchen table, and put K in his high chair. Then I squirted a dollop of each color onto a plastic plate.
As the yellow blob on his lip indicates, the first thing he did was try to eat some yellow paint. I told him it was yucky and not for eating. He definitely agreed it was yucky and for a few moments didn't try to taste it again. He began to realize that he could actually paint on the paper with this goo and was intrigued.
Unfortunately, things deteriorated pretty quickly from here.
As you can see in this last picture, some more paint made it's way into his mouth and he is pretty displeased with the taste of it. There are no pictures after this point because I ran over the sink to get a wet rag to start wiping his mouth out. While I was at the sink he started trying to wipe out his mouth with his hand - which was still covered in paint - and before I could get to him he had thrown up. :-(
Now, I don't know if it was the paint or if he gagged himself or what, but it wasn't pretty. It didn't seem to bother him at all, though. He continued to paint, but I decided it was time to end our arts and crafts experience for the day. I may wait a few months before attempting this again...
K got to enjoy a mid-morning bath after all of this, which he loved. I don't have a picture of his bath that day, but I do have a super cute one of him in the bath from about a year ago that is probably one of my favorite pics of him...
I saw some great ideas on Pinterest for motor skill activities with pipe cleaners. After I did the laundry, K spent some time crawling in and out of the laundry basket, then we started putting pipe cleaners through the holes in the basket. I think he liked the texture and different colors of the pipe cleaners, so that was a new sensory experience, too. Fun activity!
K has been very interested in a tub of bird seed out in Nana's backyard. Nana (my mom), decided to let him play in it and he is obsessed. This morning I brought out measuring cups and Tupperware bowls and he scooped seeds from the big tubs to the bowls. He dumped seeds all over the patio, too.
I've been trying to do structured activities with K once or twice a day. I know that the idea of doing a "structured" activity with a sixteen-month-old is somewhat laughable, but I figure I have to start somewhere. In the book, "The Happiest Toddler on the Block", Harvey Karp, M.D., teaches parents "The Gentle Art of Civilizing a Toddler," and points out that
"Toddlers aren't mini-adults, or even mini-big kids. They're more like uncivilized little cave-kids."
Really? That hasn't been my experience at all.
Yes, "cave-kid," seems to be spot on. Though in our family we prefer the less P.C. "belligerent, drunk midget" during times like these. Of course, seconds before the photo above, he was happy as can be. He is the sweetest little monster on the block.
One of the ways in which I am attempting to civilize my cave-kid is through structured activities. We did an activity called "Cars and Colors" yesterday from The Toddler's Busy Book. This is one activity out of one of a few great books I have with lots of ideas for keeping these sweet little monsters entertained. This particular one was entertaining for all parties involved.
