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 🙂

Fun With Bubbles

Hunter enjoyed his first sensory bin today.  I made some bubbles in a shallow bin for him to play in.  I just mixed water and Dawn dish detergent, then I drained the water out of the bin so that only the bubbles were left.

I set it up on the kitchen floor with a towel underneath it.  When I told Hunter to come sit down and see what we were going to do, he surprised me and followed my directions.  Just in the last week he has really started to follow directions (when he wants to, ha!).

At first he wouldn’t touch the bubbles, which surprised me because he loves bubbles in the bath tub.  Hailey had to put her hand in the bin and then put some on his hands before he would play with it.

Checking out the bubbles on his hands.

Ready to dig in on his own.

Since he’s been learning about farm animals I gave him a cow to play with in the bubbles, which actually helped keep him sitting down for a while.

This activity held his attention for a while, but eventually he just wanted to run away with the bin 🙂

With a Cluck Cluck Here…

…and a cluck cluck there…

Continuing with the farm animal theme, we made chicken handprints this week.  I saw this idea at Handprint and Footprint Art.

I painted Hunter’s hand white, which he thought was very funny.  I didn’t expect him to do it, but he clapped his hands together when I did it… resulting in 2 painted hands 🙂  Once the paint from his handprint dried I just added the head, feet, etc.  Hailey was using water colors at the table at the same time so I just used her water colors, but I would probably not recommend that as the colors really faded when the paint dried.

Hailey made a handprint chicken too!

I love handprint and footprint art… it’s really not that messy, especially if you’re prepared with some baby wipes right at the table with you.  Plus it’s such a cute keepsake!

This Little Piggy

I saw this adorable footprint pig over at Handprint and Footprint Art and I knew we had to make it for Hunter’s farm animal theme.

I painted Hunter’s foot, which he thought was pretty funny.  I’m sure he wondered what in the world I was doing to him, but he just smiled and laughed about it.  I had baby wipes at the table ready to clean off his foot, and there was no mess at all.  I added the ears and tail afterwards.  Once the footprint was dry I used a fine tip sharpie to add the rest.

Hailey wanted to make one too- so this is her footprint pig.  She did everything herself and did a great job!!

I think these turned out so cute and since they are their precious little footprints they are crafts I will probably keep.