Whipped Topping Paint

We are getting ready for a cross country move in less than two weeks, so I've been trying to use up the various foods in our fridge, freezer, and pantry. I came across a container of Trader Joe's House Whip in the freezer and knew that Zel would love to play with it (and eat it, of course!). 

All I did was scoop out the whipped topping into a muffin tin and add food coloring. I let Zel use a silicone basting pastry brush as a paint brush. Instead of regular paper, we used freezer paper so that it wouldn't get mushy and would be easy to clean up. I laid a plastic mat on the ground, taped the freezer paper smooth side down and showed Zel that he could use the brush to paint on it. He liked pointing out the different colors and using the brush to mix the different colors together.

 After painting for a few minutes, he dipped his brush in and asked, "eat?" I gave him the OK and he proceeded to alternate between painting and eating the whipped topping. He thought it was really funny to stick his finger in the whipped topping and lick it off. At first he wanted me to lick the whipped topping off his finger. I showed him that he could use his fingers to paint too. While he was finger painting, I used the brush to write his name and make some shapes. He then took the brush and tried to paint on the shapes while saying the names of the shapes. 

 

 This was a fun, easy activity and a cool, tasty treat!

Pretend Play: Washing Fruit

Zel has recently become OBSESSED with apples. I can't open the refrigerator door without Zel swooping in, opening the fruit drawer, and grabbing an apple. I often end up finding several apples with tiny little bites taken out of them. I have been trying to teach him that we need to wash the apples before we eat them. Sometimes he remembers, but most of the time the excitement about eating the apples wins out. I decided to let Zel practice with some pretend play. I put a towel down in the kitchen and filled a pot with soapy water. Zel picked some fruits and veggies that he wanted to wash. I gave him a wash cloth and showed him how to clean the food.

Zel examined the wash cloth and tried dipping it in the water and squeezing the water out a few times. Then he tried scrubbing the fruit with the cloth, but even more exciting than that was to stick his arms all the way into the water and touching all the play food.

Then Zel thought that we should wash his pots and pans too. He added in some fish and mixed everything together in order to make some soup.

Most fun of all was when Zel decided that he should clean his feet, so he got in the pot! He thought this was so funny. He kept giggling and did a little jig.

Pretend play is a great way for your toddler to learn about the world, and it's fun too!

Colored Ice Play

This has been a very hot summer for many places, luckily for us, the pacific northwest was not one of those places. We have had a very mild summer, gloomier and rainier than usual. We have had some hot days, and on those days it is hard to escape the heat because we don't have air conditioning! In fact, most people around here don't. I was dreading the weather on our trip to the southeast (it was over 100 degrees some days during our visit) but the miracle of a/c made it more bearable than our mild northwest summer. On the hot days, I have tried to do activities to help keep us cool. One item that Zel had a lot of fun with was colored ice cubes. This is a super easy activity to prep. Just drop some food coloring into ice cube trays and add water then freeze. After the cubes were frozen, I put them in a bag so that I could reuse the ice trays. If you don't like to use food coloring you could also use juice, but your colors won't be as bright.


For our first experience, we did colored ice art. I gave Zel a piece of construction paper to draw on using the ice. He tried this at first but then experimented with the ice in many different ways.

We talked about how cold the ice was and how it melted from our warm hands. He said the word "ice" over and over then started morphing it into the word "eyes." So he put the ice on his eyes and on mommy's eyes. Then he tried the ice on as a hat too.

I told Zel that I hid an M&M inside one of the ice cubes. Then of course he tasted all of the ice cubes to try to find it!

Zel put all the ice cubes back in the bowl and started shaking it. Since he was using a metal bowl, it made a loud clanging noise which he absolutely loved.

I brought out a towel so that Zel didn't slip on any water and he used it to play peek-a-boo with the ice. Then he thought it was hilarious to hide the ice with his face.

Zel wanted to move out of the kitchen and began carrying the ice cubes into the living room by balancing them on his spoon. I loved this impromptu motor skills practice. I was very impressed about how few times he dropped the ice.

I had some colored ice left over, so I brought them out another day to entertain Zel while I exercised. I laid out a blanket in the living room and gave him some kitchen tools, a cup, bowl, baking sheet, and muffin tin.

Zel had a lot of fun moving the ice between the various containers. He filled the little cup, then placed one ice cube in each spot of the muffin tin.

While I was on vacation in South Carolina, I helped my mom with some babysitting. It was very hot there, so I thought the ice would be a perfect activity. My mother didn't have food coloring so we used apple juice, cranberry juice, blackberry juice, and coconut milk to make different colors. We set out a bunch of metal bowls, muffin tins, spoons, and tongs. The kids had a blast! They loved trying to use the tongs and of course sucking the juice out of the ice cubes. I gave the older kids some eye droppers and warm water and showed them that they could use it to melt the ice. 

Colored Ice is a great way to beat the heat and have fun learning about colors, numbers, and temperature!

L is for Links: 4th Week of July

Here are my favorite ideas from the past week:

3 Craft Stick Busy Bags from Making Boys Men
A great way to use all those popsicle sticks.

Toddler Pool Party with Paint from Small Potatoes

Toddlers will love getting messy with the paint and moms will love the easy clean up!

Toddler Shopping List from Atkinson Drive

This is such a great activity to keep your toddler entertained at the grocery store. I love that she had her son feel the food items to turn it into a sensory exploration as well. Plus she even has a downloadable shopping list at the end!

Remember to scroll to the bottom of the blog and link up your new ideas this week!

How to Survive a Flight Alone with a Toddler

We are finally back from all of our vacations, but not totally back to normal. My husband and I have decided to move back to where we grew up in order to be closer to our family. I really treasure all the time I spent with my family as a child and want Zel to have the same experience. Right now we live on the complete opposite side of the country, so spending time with relatives doesn't happen very often. Our recent trip home really showed me that it will be the right decision. Zel will be surrounded by so many people who love him and who he loves too. I am really excited for this new change. In the mean time, I haven't really had much time for blog posts, but I wanted to publish this airplane travel post now that we are back.

Take an Overnight Flight. We took the red-eye flight on the way there and Zel slept most of the way. Even though I wasn't really able to sleep, this was so much easier than trying to keep him entertained on the airplane for 5 hours. If it is late, your child is bound to fall asleep sooner or later.

Choose the Right Bag. I recommend bringing a backpack as a carry-on. Don't bring a small, rolling suitcase because if your flight is full, they will make you check it at the gate. I chose to bring a duffle bag, thinking that it would be easier, but the reality of carrying it got quite annoying. A backpack is much easier to carry, leaving your hands totally free. Even if you use a baby carrier like I did, you can still carry a backpack on the opposite side of your body. You may look a little ridiculous, but who cares!

Pom-Pom Matching Game

Activities.  Bring several small busy boxes/bags and only bring out one item at a time. This makes the fun last a lot longer. Here are the items that Zel had in our carry-on:

• Pom-pom color/shape matching
• Sesame Street flashcards (from Dollar Tree)
• Stickers
• Crayons and paper
• Bag of little dinosaurs (from Dollar Tree)
• Play wallet (I bought a wallet that looked just like Daddy's from Goodwill for $2 and filled it with old gift cards, coupons, receipts, and fake money)

Books. Bring some old favorites and new ones that your child hasn't read yet (we picked some up from Value Village for a few dollars). I only packed small board books so that they didn't take up much room.

DVDs. It's ok to let him watch DVDs. Try the other activities first, but just remember that you aren't a bad parent if your kid watches movies for most of the trip. It is worth the peace and quiet. Just think about it from the perspective of the other passengers (and it gives you a little break too!). We brought our own portable DVD player and packed two DVDs: WordWorld and Ponyo. Depeding on your airline or type of airplane you may be able to watch movies for free or for a fee on a small tv on the seat in front of you. We didn't watch any of those, but they also had free music available to listen to. Zel loved using mommy's headphones to listen to some Yo Gabba Gabba and Kermit music (don't worry, I checked the volume first).

The Stroller. To bring or not to bring, that is the question. I chose not to bring the stroller for a few reasons: I only have one child and one bag to carry on the plane, so I didn't really need the help of the stroller. I used my ERGObaby carrier while we were checking in and walking through the airport. Zel has never been a huge stroller fan, and feels more comforted when he is in the carrier. Since it was late, I think using the carrier saved me (and everyone else at the airport) from having to hear a lot of screaming. Also, we were visiting my parents who had a stroller for us to use during our trip. However, if I had more than one young child, then the stroller would be the way to go.


Carseat. I chose not to bring the carseat because my mother had an extra one for us to use at our destination. That way, I had one less thing to carry through the airport or worry about checking it (the first time we flew with Zel they lost our carseat for a few days!). Since Zel is under 2, I did not get him his own seat and chose to have him sit in my lap. While it was cramped, I don't think it was worth spending an extra $600 dollars for him to have his own seat. Also, he would not have been happy sitting in a carseat on the plane the entire way (some airlines require kids under two to sit in a carseat on the plane). I think the way we did it involved the least amount of screaming.


Find the play area at the airport. We left from the SeaTac Airport which has a cute kids' play area and there are lots of other airports that have one. We went at night so Zel was too tired to play but I know this would have been great if he had a little more energy. Simply finding a big window and watching airplanes come and go is great entertainment for toddlers too. Zel must have said the word "airplane" about 500 times!


Snacks. Bring a few of your favorite snacks plus some special ones for those emergency moments. We packed larabars, a lollipop, trail mix, goldfish, an apple, fruit snacks, and cookies. Snacks were probably one of the most entertaining items for Zel on this trip. He really like picking the chocolate pieces out of the trail mix.

Bring an empty water bottle. This way you don't have to deal with extra time at security and you have a water bottle that your child knows how to drink out of (and you're not wasting plastic on a disposable one!).


Phone/ipad Apps. Zel has been loving the MeMeTales App on my Android phone. He just reads the Fruits, Vegetables, and Body Parts books over and over. If you have an ipad, load it up with kid-friendly apps before your trip.

Here are some other great posts about traveling with a toddler:

• Traveling with Infants from Being a Conscious Parent
• 20 Tips for Traveling with Kids from Dirt and Boogers
• Busy Bags from The Good Long Road
• Airplane Traveling with Toddlers from Toddler Approved
• Toddler Travel Tips from Inspiration Laboratories
• Travel Tips Pinterest Board from The Iowa Farmer's Wife

L is for Links: 2nd Week of July

Sorry I haven't been posting much these past few weeks. I've been on vacation and making plans for our cross-country move. I got a chance to look at the great ideas linked-up this week during Zel's nap.

Night and Day Sensory Bins from Train Up a Child
A great sensory bin idea. Zel would love the stars and smelling the coffee grounds. He's been smelling everything these days.

Don't forget to link up your new ideas!

L is for Links: 1st Week of July

We had 225 activities on the Kid's Co-op Link Up this week! Here were my favorites:

Spice Jar Fine Motor Activity from Mummy Musings and Mayhem

Plus lots of other great fine motor activities for toddlers.

Six Shape Activities That Involve Movement from Stay At Home Educator

Lots of great ideas to learn shapes and get your kids moving!

A Homemade Friendship Book from Playdough to Plato

A sweet, homemade book from sticky labels and a photo album. You could use this ideas for lots of different types of books.

Thanks for linking up. Check out all the new ideas next week and add your own!