Kiddos - LIFE OF A BOY-MOM

Sensory Bins Three Ways

10/23/2020

Before having kids, I probably wouldn’t have been able to tell you what a sensory bin was or why they are important/amazing activities to have!

As the years have gone on, we’ve gotten more creative with what we put in them, and it gets more fun as the boys get older!

A sensory bin can really be any sort of container, filled with a substance or object to get your child digging in and exploring! This can be with water and bath toys, beans & beads, craft supplies, kinetic sand, you name it!

This fall and Halloween season I decided to create a few variations for the boys to play with! I usually give them an empty Tupperware or bowl and some measuring cups or spoons to scoop the objects up with. You can also use kids tweezers to practice using pincer fingers (helpful for writing skills) to pick up larger objects!

Here’s a look at the varieties of bins that I put together:

Rice & Skeletons

You can dye rice using vinegar and food coloring to jazz it up (or just leave it plain!) and add in some fun Halloween stuff to bury and dig up! My mom made a bunch of these little plaster skeleton pieces for the boys to paint and play with, so they seemed like the perfect thing to make this bin a little spooky!

PomPoms & Pinecones

This bin has many different textures for the boys hands to explore. You can even talk about differences in size versus weight of objects too to integrate a bit of science! This bin has some craft supplies like pompoms, tissue paper, sequins, colored macaroni and some pinecones for a bit of fall flair!

Pasta & Pumpkins

This is another bin full of some arts & craft supplies like googly eyes, pompoms, colored pasta and a few of my decorative pumpkins thrown in! I also had some extra plaster bats that I added to this one for Halloween. The great part is you can also use these as supplies for creating a fall/Halloween art project where the kids can just pick items from each bin and put them together however they’d like!

So I hope this inspired you to create a sensory bin or two for your little ones! Keep in mind their age and what they might want to explore with their mouth when choosing your items! For the earliest explorers, water or pompoms might be a good place to start!

Have fun!
XOXO, Jamie

Mom-Ing Mondays: E-Learning Tricks

8/31/2020

I have two kids that are doing pre-k virtually until who knows when. I’m grateful for the schedule, teachers and plan--but it is TOUGH getting these kids going in the morning when we don’t have to physically leave the house.

It has been an interesting week and a half of e-learning and I’ve been trying a few things that I’m finding helpful so far in getting the boys to cooperate (for the most part!) It is difficult to have kids sit on zoom calls for such a long time. We luckily only have about two hours being pre-K and a lot of built-in breaks come with that! Still, getting the boys ready and dressed and moving along in the morning has been tricky and with the help of our OT’s we have developed some visuals to help out!

These might be helpful for your younger kiddos too, so feel free to recreate or use any of the visual tools! I will link the GoogleDocs to this post so that you can save a copy and print or adjust it to make it your own!

Visual Daily Schedule

Kids thrive on structure even though they seem resistant to it at first! We have found that showing the boys what to expect really helps get them moving and cooperate. We put some pictures along with the words so that they can understand what they need to do at each step. This is especially helpful for a morning routine when we need to be ready by a certain time! Also, set a timer on your Alexa, put a visual countdown timer on your phone or computer so that they know when the transition is coming!

Come up with your own daily schedule or follow ours!
Daily Schedule

Break Time Activities

Whatever your student’s age, they are going to need a break and need to get away from screens during this time of e-learning! With Pre-K and I’m sure with the majority of elementary school classes, we get built in music and dance breaks, but I think even before and after school the kids will need some movement also to really get them reset and ready to transition to the next activity! Even just looking at some fun books on their own might be a welcomed activity!

We’ve been doing some music and dancing prior to class starting (when we’re not running late) and making sure we play outside (while it's still nice out) to really get them moving and some fresh air! Making sure kids get some time to themselves and away from technology during this e-learning time is going to be super important in the grand scheme of development so break out the dance parties, fun books, art supplies, Playdoh and get outside while you can!

"I am Working For..." Chart

Each of the boys have a chart where they earn a train or PJ Masks picture to put in each of the four empty spaces. Each space represents a different part of our morning:

1) get dressed & ready for school
2) School Segment 1
3) School Segment 2 (usually includes independent work)
4) School Segment 3 (game or specials usually in this part)

If the boys each complete their tasks, they get to put a picture in a square and if all four spaces are filled, they earn the reward they are working for! For us, it has been watching a couple short YouTube videos streamed on the tv or watching an episode of PJ Masks after school is over! But I’m sure it will change into other forms of rewards once the lustre of that wears off!

Use our chart, or replace the pictures, adjust the number of sections to fit your child’s specific needs and interests!

"I am working for..." Chart

I hope you’ve found these two ideas helpful! Are there any tricks you’ve learned in your e-learning experience so far? Share them in the comments!

Good luck to all that are navigating this, teacher, parent or babysitter! We got this!

Mom-ing Mondays: Scheduling the Week

8/24/2020

As with most families, we are constantly trying to figure out how to best integrate parent & kid schedules to make it easiest on everyone. Todd came to me with an idea a while back about planning out every hour of the day--including meals, chores or weekly tasks we wanted to accomplish. That way, we could take a look at where everyone would (or should) be for the day, I would know when I could get a break or get a work out in, etc.

We actually planned out most of the past few weeks to some degree, but when things got hectic or we got lazy and forgot, we felt it! It feels good to know the plan, especially for kids! It seems daunting when you think about it at first, but once you get a feel for things and even establish some regular items in your daily routine, it really isn’t bad. So here is how we are continuing to try to Schedule the Week:

GET A PLANNER
I found a cheap one on Amazon to make sure that I would really commit to using this strategy before investing in a more expensive and fancy planner that I’m used to! (I’m a huge fan of Erin Condren Teacher Planners and Life Planners!) But this one does the job at a fraction of the cost and just gives me incentive to invest in a nicer one next year!

GET MULTICOLORED PENS
I’ve always been a color-coding type when it comes to planning and organizing. I pick one color for each of us (me = pink, Todd = orange, kids = blue) and other colors for meal plans or whole-family events. My favorite ones to use in planners are the PaperMate Flair pens--they come in so many colors and don't usually bleed through paper!

PLAN THE WHOLE WEEK
Todd and I try to make time each Sunday night to look at the entire week. We do end up adjusting things here and there as new plans arise or different work tasks for him, but for the most part we are able to outline the week all at once and have a good feel for what is ahead! I put each item at the time it begins and drag and arrow down to the time it will be over to give myself a visual to block off that time.

MEAL PLAN -- AVOID DECISION FATIGUE
This one is tough, especially when I never know what I want to eat even until the very moment we are eating, but at least for the kids, we have been planning out the daily meals. We stick to the same items for breakfast and lunch for the most part, but for dinners, it is one less thing to decide or figure out at the end of the day! This has also been helpful in our weekly grocery shopping by figuring out what we will need ahead of time instead of a bunch of random trips (which we have been avoiding doing during the pandemic especially!)

WEEKLY TASKS
Plan in a few tasks that you want to accomplish around the house. Our chores get done pretty sporadically these days--essentially whenever I have a moment, feel the urge to clean or have our babysitter here helping with the boys. But writing down a few tasks that Todd and I can accomplish between the two of us has helped. I of course also write down when I plan to work out, write a blog or Instagram post, or have any work to do with Young Living.

DO YOUR BEST--DON'T STRESS!
As with anything, this is something to get used to and get in the habit of. We did really well with it the first week, not so well the next week, and so on. Now with school back in session and e-learning to manage, I wanted to really get back into the habit of trying this out. I’m never going to get down on myself if something doesn’t get accomplished or if we get lazy and slack off on planning a week here and there, but I am going to try to make this a habit and something that makes life easier!

Mom-ing Mondays: Whining

8/17/2020

It is a myth that raising boys allows you to avoid whining.

I was told “oh you’ll have to deal with rough-housing and wrestling, but at least you won’t have constant whining!”

Wrong. So wrong.

The whining is never-ending around here. And it is whining about everything you could think of! Wanting certain toys, hunger or thirst, not getting their way...the list goes on.

I was listening to a podcast episode about whining on “what Fresh Hell: Laughing in the Face of Motherhood” and Amy mentioned a study that was done that showed whining as being the worst distraction for adults trying to complete a set of math problems—worse than a baby crying or even the screeching of a table saw! That is some power that these kids hold!

It has seemingly been worse the more that we’ve been stuck at home and constantly around each other through the pandemic! I find myself losing it right away before breakfast is even on the table.

So here are a few ideas that I got from the podcast and through others advice that I’m going to try implementing:

Acknowledge Feelings (but don’t necessarily validate them): say “I know you’re frustrated that it isn’t your turn for that toy”. However, don’t coddle or make the whining ok. Just explain that you hear them.

Don’t Yell “Stop Whining”--(it accomplishes nothing): While it feels really good for the few seconds it takes to yell, usually this only fuels the fire. I need to try to stop letting my own frustration get the better of me and go to the other options of responding listed here.

Positive Reinforcement: recognize when they don’t whine and say “I love how you just asked me in your own, strong voice!”

As frustrating as listening to the sound of whining is, I am really going to try to focus on doing these three things. I’ll keep you posted each week on how my efforts fared!

Do you have any tips on dealing with whiny kids? Share them in the comments!

Putting together a Pre-K Theme

7/7/2020

After staying at home for a couple of years, and especially going into full-on stay at home during quarantine, some creativity and new ideas are definitely required to keep toddlers entertained and engaged!

Enter weekly themes!

Most preschool teachers have expertly put together themes and integrate activities, crafts and stories to tie it all together through the weeks! So you can absolutely do the same thing (on a smaller scale) for your kids at home! There are a few key elements to build from, and after that, only slight changes need to be made with each different theme.

Here’s how to put it together!

Choose a Theme

You can really have fun with this starting point! What are some topics or areas of interest for your little ones? Are there any seasonal or holiday topics that you can incorporate? The possibilities are really endless. For example, in summer, you can do weather, beach, ocean, bugs, etc.

Last week, we focused on the ocean and I found some activities, books, stickers, etc. to go along with it.

Choose an Art Project

These crafts can be as simple or elaborate as you want! Remember to choose something that is at an appropriate age level for your kiddos. You can also differentiate the same activity if you have an older school-aged child and a toddler. If you are painting, let the older child use some different materials to paint with. For the toddler, maybe just fingerpaints.

For our project, I put some blue and yellow finger paints on large paper for the boys to smear around. This lasted a pretty decent amount of time until they got bored. We let those dry and then followed up the next day by adding some ocean-themed stickers to their “oceans”. Again, this lasted longer than you might think!

For your art projects, think simple, cheap & engaging!

Choose a Science/sensory Activity

I always try to integrate science into our themes because it is truly what I know! There are so many resources and ideas online for simple experiments and activities to do with kids! I usually go to Pinterest as my first stop, but also have a few books to pull ideas from.

For this theme, though, I decided to go more of the sensory route and had the boys play with some ocean-themed water beads! These things can get a little messy, especially if you don't have a large area for them to be contained in, but the boys love digging their hands in and filling up little containers with them. This set was a gift and happened to come with some little ocean toys like sharks, seaweed and fish, so they also played with those.

Some more sensory play ideas could be homemade playdough, foam, beads, beans, rocks--really anything that they can dig their hands into!

Choose a Literacy/Math Activity

Activities with learning letters and numbers can, again, be as elaborate or simplistic as you would like! This part could even be as simple as reading a book that goes along with the theme that you have chosen!

Letter matching, letter recognition, letter tracing are all places to start for literacy. There are typically a variety of themed handouts that you can print from Pinterest, blogs or Teachers Pay Teachers! For numbers, you can do similar activities and obviously add in some simple counting!

I made some easy name puzzles (just using a marker, construction paper & scissors) and some number cards (construction paper, stickers, marker & mini clothespins) for the boys and it was a nice, quick breakfast time activity to start the day!

Optional: Cooking, Outdoor Activity, movie or show

Adding in some other activities to your theme never hurts! See if you can find a fun recipe that uses colors or ingredients associated with the theme! Find an outdoor game, scavenger hunt or even take a field trip! At the end of the day or when you’re ready to start settling down, find a show or movie that also fits in!

The idea behind this isn’t perfection! Do your best with the materials you have and be creative! If you have kids that are on the older side, have them help you prep activities for the little ones or even come up with their own activity to run! What are some of the themes you can come up with? I’m always looking for new ideas so be sure to share them!

Enjoy!
XOXO

OT Activities

5/20/2020

Guest Blogger: Ariel Walukonis, MS, OTR/L

Hi there… my name is Ariel! I am Jamie’s sister and also a pediatric occupational therapist. Leo, Xander, and Taso are lucky enough to have a “fun aunt” who likes to wrestle, make obstacle courses, and take them for piggy back rides, but let’s be honest, I’m doing therapy with them and they don’t even know it! That’s why I got into the career to begin with- I loved knowing I could help children of all abilities without them even knowing that they are working!

I’ve done a guest blog post before focusing on fine motor and sensory activities to do at home, but I thought I would target some fun activities to do at home that are working on some more “non-traditional” occupational therapy skills (it’s actually what we do ALL the time but might not be something you’d think about if you hear “occupational therapy”).

Animal Walks
Animal walks are an easy and fun way to work on upper body strength, core strength, postural control, and coordination. Bear walks, crab walks, wheelbarrow walks are just a few staples that most kids are familiar with, but think outside the box! Slither like a snake, army crawl, bunny hop.. Or even let your kids try to come up with their own! I like to use animal walks to transition throughout the house or as relays with siblings!

Obstacle Courses
Obstacle courses are great “catch all” activities to target a wide variety of skills! Motor planning, body awareness, upper body and core strength, ideation.. the list of skills could go on and on. I love to start building an obstacle course with the boys and then let them help use their imagination to finish putting it together. Some staple components we put in our obstacle courses are:

Stepping stones (you can use pillows!)
Crawling on the couch
Jumping off the couch
Animal walks (see above)
Crawling through tunnels
Fold a blanket long ways to make a balance beam

I like to end these high energy obstacle courses by rolling them up in a blanket or smooshing them in pillows to give their body deep input for a calming way to end the activity!

Scavenger Hunts
You can make a scavenger hunt as easy or difficult as you want to tailor it to the age of your kids! Scavenger hunts are a great choice to work on visual scanning, attention, and executive functioning. Coming up with a theme can help you get started when creating a scavenger hunt! Some fun ideas are:

Sensory (find items of different textures)
Colors (find items of certain colors)
Shapes (flat or 3D)
Backyard (find 3 rocks, something that grows, etc)
Nature (get outside and go on a walk!)
Senses (smell, touch, sounds)

Baking
This is by far my FAVORITE activity to do in an OT session with kids-- the kids like to help out in the kitchen and when you let them choose the food, they are highly motivated and engaged throughout the activity! Baking is another one of those “catch all” activities when it comes to working on a variety of skills. Just to name a few: bilateral coordination to manage packaging and stabilize a bowl while mixing, visual motor skills to scoop and pour ingredients, strength as they mix ingredients by hands, executive functioning skills to develop a plan and follow directions throughout. Sure, baking can get messy with kids, but there’s no better way to incorporate some sensory fun and enjoy a tasty treat at the end!

If you have any questions about how to modify activities for a specific age or “what the heck is motor planning?”, feel free to email me at apontikes@gmail.com! I’m happy to answer any questions you might have about your child’s development or how occupational therapy might help your child and family!

Homeschooling Help

3/24/2020

There are so many parents out there that have instantaneously become their child’s teacher! I honestly can’t imagine what I would feel like if I had to suddenly take on a role that I had no experience in! It is overwhelming. Teaching and creating activities to keep your kids interested might seem a bit daunting to you. But not to worry. You don’t have to do it all. You do not have to structure every minute of the day! (In fact, I urge you NOT to do that...for everyone’s sake!)

Before I began staying at home with the boys, I taught high school Biology and Human Anatomy. Quite a different scene to switch to teaching toddlers! While I have a background in how to plan out a lesson, I am NOT an expert or certified for early childhood or elementary teaching. I will tell you that I let Pinterest guide a great deal of the activities that I implemented and also just for inspiration in creating my own activities! (I also had a couple of years of experience being a teacher assistant in a Pre-K classroom to help me out!)

With all of this, I thought I’d share just a few ideas and subject areas to help guide you in a direction for homeschooling (mainly for preschoolers). I will also leave links to websites or names of apps that will take you even further for each subject or just for a good source for miscellaneous activities to do at home!

Create a Plan/Schedule
Listen, I know that it is hard to stick to a schedule or plan with little ones. It is stressful! It is even irritating sometimes! But trust me when I say that kids of ALL ages, especially preschoolers, function better when there is a routine in place. Of course there will be things that come up to prevent all going according to plan, but having a basic flow of activities can help your child’s mindset and even ease some anxieties they may have of a “new normal”. It might even be helpful to make a big version of a schedule for them to see and to know what is coming next using pictures.

This is a look at what we’re doing this week. Notice that I only planned out the mornings (when my older boys would normally be at preschool) so that it keeps in step with their normal routines. Also make note that the time slots are definitely not set in stone--some activities will not take as long as anticipated or hold their interest, so I always have a few back up options to fill the time if that is the case!

Our afternoons consist of nap time for Taso, quiet/movie time for Leo and Xander, sometimes educational tablet time, outside time (weather permitting) or free choice until dinnertime.

Literacy
Since my boys are just learning to write their names and identify letters, our literacy activities usually involve just that! My mom and I have created several “file folder games” that we’ve laminated and I have also just created my own or found different letter tracing activities on Pinterest! There is so much out there that is available for free! There’s no need to reinvent the wheel (unless you want to--its fun sometimes!)

We also have book time where I read a couple of books aloud to grab their interest and then they each end up picking out their own books to look at--even Taso! Having books around is one of the best things for preschoolers! Get into the habit of reading a few a day! Let’s be real--you probably have a little more time to do that right now!

Activity Ideas:
- Playdoh Letter Mats
- Dry Erase Boards
- Line & Name Tracing on Paper
- File Folder Letter Matching
- Book time

Math
Math for preschoolers is a little different from what comes to mind when you hear “math”. Number recognition, counting [outloud, pointing while counting (one-to-one)], tracing numbers, matching can all be math activities. Similar to literacy, we have some laminated activities that we can reuse each day for practice, we do calendar time and count the days, and usually try to come up with a themed activity to incorporate during the week.

You really don’t need anything fancy in terms of supplies! Make your own calendar on paper, use different toys to incorporate into your math activities.

Science
There are so many opportunities to bring science into your home, especially in the spring months! It also doesn’t always need to be messy!

We already started a few seeds (kits from Target dollar spot made it super easy and convenient) and plan on monitoring their growth. We expanded on that activity by learning about the parts of the plant through a YouTube video and then used Dot Dot markers to paint flowers and labeled the parts. Later in the week we will review the parts of a plant using pieces that I’ve cut out of construction paper.

Just like the example above, there is an opportunity to create multiple activities from one science topic or experiment! Also, include playtime into your STEM activities like building structures with blocks or magnet tiles!

Here are some other science activities to try:

Baking soda & vinegar with food coloring (chemical reaction)
Rain clouds (shaving cream, water & blue food coloring)
Density (layer different liquids like water, oil, honey, & rubbing alcohol)
Water Properties (flowers in water with food coloring, drops of water onto a penny)
Insects
Weather

Arts & Crafts
This is where you can get really creative and have some messy (or messy-ish) fun! My mom is a crafter so we grew up always having a plethora of art supplies. I’ve created the same type of household for the boys being somewhat artistic myself! We love using paint, Dot Dot markers, markers, crayons and so many other items! Once again, I try to come up with some themed crafts and projects but sometimes, I just let them create whatever they want. Here are a few ideas:

Watercolor paints
Washable paint on windows (flowers, spring theme)
Glue & Tissuepaper Decor: Easter eggs, chicks, bunnies
Dot Dot marker activities
Fingerpainting
Stickers & Paper

Fine/Gross Motor & Sensory Play
Your kiddos will definitely need some movement breaks throughout the day! Even when you’re giving them free choice, carve out some time for intentional movement like yoga, playing instruments, having a dance party or just playing outside! Fine motor can be incorporated into your other activities, especially art, but can also be addressed through an activity such as playing with play dough.

Sensory play is super easy and usually ends up being an activity that keeps the kids engaged for longer than anticipated! For this you can fill a bin or Tupperware with beans, rice, beads or even just water and let them go for it! If you’re not interested in a large mess in your kitchen or living room, try the bathtub! Some other ideas might be playing with shaving cream (trace letters & shapes in it on a cookie sheet) or water beads (amazon). Another great idea is bringing outside in especially when weather isn’t agreeing with outside play! We’ve brought snow inside, small rocks to put their trucks and cars in, sand, etc.

Overall, if you can incorporate any of these things into your child’s day, you’ll be stimulating those little minds and keeping them entertained! Also, when they have their free choice, use that time for your own activity! Since I can’t get to the gym anymore, I can do a quick at home workout or some days just get the dishes done or laundry put away!

With all of the uncertainty of what the coming weeks will bring, all we can do is take things one day at a time and do the best that we can! You’ve got this! If you need any more ideas for activities, lessons, or weekly schedules, leave me a comment or send me an email! I’d love to share other things that I have with you!

Stay positive, friends!

We will get through this together!

Additional Links & Resources:

Khan Academy Kids App

St. Patrick's Day FUn

3/11/2020

In the Haley family, we take some pride in our heritage! While I am not Irish, (well, ok, possibly like 5% on my grandma’s side) my husband Todd comes from a very large Irish family and so St. Patrick’s day has always been a fun holiday around here!

This year we came up with a couple of activities to get the kids involved in celebrating before we go to the little parade in town on Saturday and we eat our corned beef and cabbage! Take a look at a few things we did to celebrate!

Rainbow Color Match
This was a pretty easy project to get set up and we actually ended up tying in a few bonus activities as it played out! I first drew a simple rainbow using markers on a white piece of paper. (As a science teacher, I really wanted to go with ROY G BIV, but figured we’d better stick to just purple for now at Xander’s age).

I then gave the boys our favorite craft supply--Dot Dot markers-- to stamp on each of the colored rainbow lines. I then had them dig through our bin of beans & beads to find a colored bead or object to match each color of their rainbow.

Leo wanted to do something with the beads, so we practiced stringing the beads on a pipe cleaner which is a good fine motor activity! Taso enjoyed just coloring with his crayons as usual, but I let him experiment with the Dot Dots as well!

Calming Homemade Grain-Free Play Dough
I’ve always liked the idea of making our own play dough but could never really find a recipe that I liked. While browsing through my friend Krista’s blog (www.happyhealthycasa.com) and Instagram (@happyhealthycasa), I found that she had tried out a fellow bloggers’ (Danielle Walker) clean & natural play dough recipe awhile back as a valentine's day activity. You can see her post here. I decided to try out the grain-free recipe--mainly because it required less ingredients! Leo was a great helper by dumping the ingredients into a bowl. He loves helping with projects or in the kitchen. Here’s a link to Danielle’s recipe!

I wanted to add in some essential oils to make it an aromatherapy play dough! I chose Peace & Calming and Valor from Young Living since those are oils that I use in our tantrum tamer rollerball! The combination smells wonderful and the boys really enjoyed it! Rather than adding a certain food dye to this batch (didn’t have anything on hand...oops) I decided to just add in some green beads to keep it festive and on theme! This is another good fine motor activity to have the boys try to pick out all of the beads from the play dough.

St. Patrick's Day Books
We found some new St. Patrick’s Day books to add to our collection while on a little trip to the mall with my sisters! They had quite a few to pick from so we selected one that was more geared towards Taso’s level (board book) and then a few other titles to potentially inspire building some leprechaun traps in the future! They might be slightly too young this year, but I think Leo will be at the perfect trap-building age next March!

Here were the books that we chose:
Elmo’s Lucky Day
Jamie O’Rourke and the Big Potato
Pete the Cat The Great Leprechaun Chase
Three Ways to Trap a Leprechaun

We had a lot of fun reading these books over and over! It's fun to be able to take out holiday-themed books when their time of year comes around (or just keep them out all year!)

Finger-paint Shamrock & Clover Decorations
Yiayia was over yesterday so you know that means the boys get to finger-paint! We used blue and yellow and had the boys guess what color they would make by mixing them! They of course love any chance to finger-paint and get their hands dirty. (Taso was still skeptical)

Once they had sufficiently mixed the colors into the perfect St. Patrick’s day green, we let their papers dry. I then cut out a few shamrocks and clovers that we will use to decorate the kitchen on St. Patrick’s day.

I hope you enjoyed our simple ways of helping the boys begin to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day!
Does your family have any special traditions from your heritage? Share them in the comments!

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Valentines Crafts: Messy Vs. Mess-Free

2/5/2020

There are two levels of kids crafts in this household...easy and extremely difficult to manage! Usually I veer towards the former, but when my mom (Yiayia) is around, it gets a little messier...which of course is the favorite type of activity for the boys! Here is a look at two Valentine's Day craft options...one for the more adventurous and one for a quick, easy clean-up!

Messy Option
Since Yiayia was over, the boys wanted to paint. We used this opportunity to only use red & white paint (which the boys also mixed to make pink!) We used a variety of household items to use rather than paint brushes! Makeup triangle sponges, pompoms in clothespins and even a scrubber! The boys loved having the freedom to paint whatever and however they wanted on plain white paper. I tried to show them how to create hearts using the triangle sponges, but they weren’t very interested, so we just went with it!
After we let their papers dry, I cut out a bunch of different sized hearts from their pink, red & white paintings! I then gave the older boys a marker to practice writing their names on some of the hearts. Then, I used those hearts and some that I wrote on to create Valentines cards for Papa & Grammy! I love being able to give family members items that the boys actually did most of the work on. It's a great memento to have and the boys had fun as well!

Mess-Free Option
Not everyone is ready to let their toddlers paint at home, which is totally understandable! As I previously stated, I usually wait for Yiayia to be around for that fun activity & clean up when there’s an extra adult to help monitor things! The (practically) mess-free option involved decorating some construction paper hearts using dot-dot markers and regular markers and crayons. Giving the boys some supplies to decorate and create as they wish is one of the easiest activities to come up with and when you give it a theme, you can use it as home decor or as gifts (in this case, Valentines cards) for others!

Other Ideas

Heart Stamps - buy some stamps or even cookie cutters and let the kids decorate a piece of paper or paper bags to create their own gift wrapping!

Fingerprint Hearts - rather than paint, use an ink pad to make some tiny hearts on paper using their fingers!

Stickers on Paper - probably the least messy option, but my kids are obsessed with new stickers!

Hope you & your kiddos try and enjoy some or all of these ideas! Leave pictures of any activities you've been inspired to try on my Facebook page @lifeofaboymama or tag me on Instagram @jamiepontikeshaley

January Favorite Toys

1/21/2020

In this house, there is definitely no shortage of kids' activities! With a December birthday and Christmas, we had a pretty big influx in toys & games over the past couple of few months! It can be tough to decide what activities would be appropriate for the age range we have (1-4 years), but I’ve found that there are quite a few things that all three boys can enjoy! Here are a few of our recent favorite go-to activities:

Play Doh Sets
Growing up, we always were able to play with Play Doh at my grandma’s house and it was our FAVORITE! (I still get nostalgic when I smell it!) The Play doh itself is great entertainment and also great for hand strength and practicing with Play doh scissors. There are also many ways to turn this into an educational activity with practicing making letters, shapes, etc. The older boys have really been enjoying the sets that are available such as the cookie baking set, haircutting set and more. The boys' little imaginations go to work with each of the sets. I even started letting Taso (16 months) start dabbling in it! I mean, he mostly plays with it correctly and keeps it out of his mouth...for awhile at least.

Games
We are getting to the ages with the boys, mainly Leo, where we can sit down and focus on an actual board game! Leo has loved games for awhile, but never really had the attention to do it the right way. We received a few of the classic kid-games for the holidays: Chutes & Ladders, Hi Ho Cherry-O, Hungry Hungry Hippos, etc. We also got a new one called Seek-a-Boo from a local teacher & toy store called Brainstorm that has been a hit! We also love Candy Land and can actually get through the full game on occasion.

Games are a great way to practice taking turns, following simple directions, and learn how to lose. We have been really enjoying this new branch of playtime that makes it a little more interactive with us!
Magnatiles
These toys have single-handedly taken over independent play in this house! Leo and Xander absolutely love building creations on their own and now even creating structures together! Seeing them working together and truly letting their imaginations take over is just incredibly heartwarming! Who knew a toy could bring out all of this joy?!
Magnatiles (or Picasso Tiles is the brand that we have) are perfect for learning shapes and how they fit together. They can also learn a bit about engineering a structure, creating stability and even introducing the idea of how magnets work. While these toys are a bit on the pricey side, they are 100% worth it, and even more so, worth getting more than one set! The possibilities seem endless!

Costumes
Dress up is some of the boys favorite imaginative play these days! After spending the holidays with their big cousins and putting on a “talent show” while wearing hats and costumes, they have been hooked on putting on some of their own shows for us at home or just simply playing cars while wearing a Batman costume. Pretty normal! It is fun to see all three of the boys interact while they are in costume. Xander is usually the ring leader yelling “let’s go guys!” as they run their laps around the house.
We have also been playing a lot of pretend doctor after the multitude of doctor appointments we’ve had in the last month or so. This is actually very interesting, especially with Leo who tends to get anxiety around doctor visits. He uses much of the same terminology that he hears the doctor and Todd and I using as he pretends, which just show me how closely he is paying attention!

So those are our current playtime favorites! I hope you explore some of these options if you haven’t yet with your kiddos! What are some of the favorites in your house? Let me know in the comments!