Valentine’s Day Fun for Toddlers

Here are a couple of super easy and fun ideas to do with your toddlers.

I cut out a piece of contact paper in the shape of a heart and taped it down to the table.  Hunter thought it was very interesting that his hands were sticking to it.

Then he added some red tissue paper to it.  He eventually lost interest and since he was sitting at the table he decided he should have a snack instead and started signing “more eat.”  So while he had some fruit I finished the heart 🙂

Once it was done I put contact paper on the other side of the tissue paper and hung it up on our deck door.

Hunter loves going over and looking at it!  He has tried a few times to take it down, but I told him to leave it there and he has been listening.

We also made a Valentine’s Day Discovery bottle:

I used pink shampoo and some purple hearts.  The purple hearts are something I found in the dollar bins at Target a couple of years ago, but you could use anything.  Don’t forget to use a hot glue gun to secure the top on the bottle.

Hunter loves watching it.

He waits for it to get to the other end then flips it back over to do it again.

Both activities were easy and there was no mess… that’s my kind of fun 🙂

Discovery Bottles

One of Hunter’s favorite things to play with is a water bottle.  I don’t know why babies love them so much, but the usually do.  So I thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of his interest in water bottles and make some discovery bottles.  First I made one with water and glitter.

Hunter loved it!

When Hailey got home from school I had her help make some more.

Hailey decided she wanted one too.  She put some sequence, water and oil in each bottle.

She added blue food coloring to one and pink to the other.  I would recommend only using a tiny bit of food coloring.  Ours ended up so dark we can hardly see the sequence inside, especially the blue one.  Hailey had fun making them though!

We also made one with just sequence in it, no liquid.  That one seems to be Hunter’s favorite, probably because it makes noise.

I used a hot glue gun to secure the tops of the water bottles.

Our completed discovery bottles.

Hunter’s First Week of Tot School

Hunter is 12.5 Months

This is Hunter’s first week of Tot School!  He turned 1 back in December and now that the holidays are over we are ready to settle into a nice routine.  Hailey starred in many Tot School posts but I didn’t start with her when she was this young.  So, I’ve been busy searching for ideas to use with a 12 month old.  Here is how our first week went:

The things I am focusing on this week (and for however long Hunter stays interested) are: body parts and farm animals.

I put this picture up for Hunter to look at so we can practice body parts.  He was trying to point to “eyes.”  Mostly he just wanted to pull it off the wall.

He gave himself a little hug and said, “awwww.”

Hunter LOVES this book about farm animals.  He points to an animal and then waits for me to make the animal noise.  When I ask him what noise an animal makes he smiles and either says “baaa” or “mooo” no matter which animal it is.

Hunter had fun playing with the animals in his barn.

This next activity was pretty simple. I put some shaving cream in a Ziploc bag, pushed most of the air out, and sealed it shut.

Hunter checked out the bag: he squeezed it, felt it, used it as a phone and held it up to his ear to talk, smelled it, etc. When he was done doing that, I added some farm animals.

I pushed the animals on to the bag to show Hunter how it left an indentation, so he did the same thing.

This kept Hunter busy for a while (well, a while for a 1 year old!) and he seemed to really enjoy it!

This was Hailey’s when she was younger and Hunter had never seen it before- he thought it was great!!

We also made some Discovery Bottles this week:

Hailey helped make the bottles, and decided she should make one for herself too.

The one on the left is water and glitter.  Next is water, vegetable oil, blue food coloring (we used too much, we probably only needed a few drops) and sequence.  The next one also has water, vegetable oil, and sequence, but Hailey added pink food coloring to this one.  The last one has just sequence in it- this one seems to be Hunter’s favorite, probably because it makes noise.

He loves the discovery bottles!

I think Hunter’s first week of Tot School was a success!  Stop by 1+1+1=1 to see some more Tot School Posts.