Birthday "cake"

For daddy's upcoming 40th birthday, we crafted an alternative to the popular diaper cakes you see at baby showers. Using consumable drinks, snacks, and toiletries, we created a 40th birthday "cake" using  40 items on a round tray base and tied with ribbons.  Bath poofs created a fun and colorful cake topper.
We recycled ribbons from a diaper cake we received at my 3 year old's baby shower.  Both kids had fun laying out the items in rows and counting them before we arranged them on the tray.

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Where the Wild Things Are

Story-Yoga

Read or listen to Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are then retell the story using yoga poses.

Tree pose (forest in bedroom)
Boat pose
Dolphin pose (water/waves)
Lion pose (wild things)
Chair pose (King Max on his throne)

With four and five year olds, ask them to draw the different parts of the story they acted out.

Fun vocabulary to learn: rumpus and scepter

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Olympic playdate

Friday July 27 we invited a neighbor friend to help us celebrate the Olympic opening ceremonies. We ate Olympic fruit ring snacks and baby ice cream cones filled with vanilla yogurt and fruit, printed Olympic circles using the ends of paper tube rolls, and made our own torches with paper tubes, foil, and red and orange tissue paper. Then we marched around outside. Simple and super fun!

Ice Painting

There are so many great ideas on so many early childhood blogs it boggles the mind. I would love to give credit to the blog where I first saw this idea but I honestly don't remember what it was. First, we gathered out materials: ice cube trays (we chose stars for easy gripping in tiny hands, especially as they would be cold and slippery), water, watercolors, a baster, and small paintbrushes

First, three year old Owen filled the stars using a baster

Then, he added color by dipping a small brush in a watercolor tray and then into the star several times. (Since the stars are mostly water, the colors will be diluted somewhat.)

The kids had some sensory surprise when they first gripped their colorful ice!

Perfect for a hot summer afternoon!

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