As I said in my earlier post, we are canning raspberries around here. So naturally, today’s toddler activity, fittingly, is playing with canning rings! they make a big clanking sound that my toddlers love, and it’s keeping them distracted while I’m helping my preschooler (aka my preschooler is helping me) turn raspberries into puree. They also make good bracelets and are easy for toddlers to hold. That’s totally educational, right?
I know there’s more than canning rings in my ring box, but they’re “hand-me-downs” from my grandmother, and that means that although they’re not as useful, I just can’t get rid of them! I’ll use them for something crafty eventually.
Honestly, the toddlers enjoyed it. And although they could damage them, I don’t think they’ll do any harm. And *bonus* it doesn’t take much mom involvement while they play!
I’ve had a longstanding date with my friend’s raspberry patch set for about once a year. She only calls me when it gets desperate in her patch and she’s struggling to catch up; her main goal is to fulfill all the demand that others have for berries from her patch and I usually take about half of the berries I pick. This year has been a great year for raspberries and she said she had more than she could handle, so I bought extra from her. That meant I’ve been busy working raspberries for the past few days. Since my preschooler helped me pick the berries, I figured she would also be interested in helping me process them, as well.
Obviously, this activity would have to be tweaked if you don’t have a food strainer, but you could easily mash berries with a potato masher! It just doesn’t involve a cool crank, too. My food strainer is called a Victorio, but based on the internet search dive I just took, they must have changed their name? either way, it looks like this. My preschooler could both turn the crank handle and mash the berries, and it was kinda fun watching her get so excited at something that is really technically a chore. She loved making “squished berry juice” and I loved both the help and the time with her. All in all, she lasted quite a while! Equal to about 4 quarts of raspberry juice/pulp. We added a little sugar and canned it that way.
I’m adding the activity scales here even though it’s not the end of the post because if you’re only reading for the activity, the rest of this is a little dry, but since this blog is also a chronicle of my gardening/canning adventures, I need to include the following information (mostly for me…)
All in all we had 6 gallons of berries (6 large clam shells) and it made:
2 batches of jam with lemon peel pectin (aka 8 cups of berries, 6 cups of sugar, an entire bag of my homemade lemon pectin – about 10 tablespoon cubes but they were old and nearly impossible to separate from the bag, hence the large batch, and 4 T lemon juice (it just needed the lemon). It set pretty well, but I understand why they tell you to do it in small batches. Some of the jars are extra firm gel and some are barely set).
2 gallon ziplocks of whole frozen berries (filled 2 xl cookie sheets and 3 regular sized (they’re Pampered Chef large size)
3 1/2 quarts of raspberry juice (it required a whole cup of sugar to make it not so tart) and then I went to the store and bought a regular sized clamshell of strawberries, a large clamshell of blueberries, a whole bag of grapes, and a small clamshell of blackberries and that plus the remaining raspberry juice (and half a cup of sugar) made another 2 1/2 quarts so I processed it all together – 5 quarts, 2 pints – and although the canning guides said 1/4″ headspace, I think I really needed a whole inch of headspace because they bubbled out everywhere and 3 didn’t seal (2 ended up in my fridge but I didn’t notice the 3rd until I didn’t wanna trust it),
pulp for fruit leather (filled a quart bag but its currently still in my fridge. I’ll update when it’s leather). I used the strainer and only ran it through once, so it’s really just pulp and seeds without any liquid. The liquid was bottled in the quarts above).
My oldest has been struggling making the different letters. Her occupational therapist suggested to have her make the letters in different ways. Today’s activity was tracing the letters with glue.
This activity is pretty self explanatory. All you need to do is write the letters you want your child to trace on a piece of paper. Then you give them a glue container and tell them to trace the letters.
I will admit that I went a little extra and colored my glue, but you don’t have to. I just knew that my children would fight over the glue if I didn’t differentiate them.
This is an activity you will want to monitor, unless you want glue all over everything that is. My children loved this activity and did pretty well at tracing. Make sure you have a lot of letters to trace if you want this activity to last longer than a few seconds though. My child finished in under a minute and was asking for more.
My children love playing in water. If they could they would be in water at least once a day. Every once in a while I try to spice it up a little and do something different with the water. Today I decided to try Water Beads.
Water beads are a simple sensory activity. When added to a bath it seems like it would be lots of fun. This was my first foray into the water beads, and perhaps I should have tried something else first. I didn’t realize that they squish so easily.
My toddler did have fun playing with them, for a while. After a while though they started “following” her in the currents she created. This child is afraid of things following her, terrified actually. It doesn’t matter what it is, she will freak out. Once that happened she was done.
This activity does require some preparation before hand, the beads need to sit in the water for 6 hours before they are ready to be used. Once they are expanded you can use them at your convenience. When you are ready just add them to the tub and let them play.
If you decide to do this activity I would suggest a hair catcher in the drain so that no beads go down the drain.
I confess, I totally stole this idea from Pinterest; and I confess, that as most things stolen from Pinterest, it didn’t go as planned. I saw the idea for sticking toys to painter’s tape and making a toy web and I thought, “oh! this should be fun.” What I didn’t account for is that I should have done it during naptime, because I barely got it set up before the toddlers had to get involved. I think I will do this activity again but I will take my own advice and set it up during naptime. If I do it again, I’ll update!
I had my preschooler fetch toys to stick to the web (she loved that!). Finding just the right toys is harder than you’d think. Painter’s tape isn’t really all that strong, so it doesn’t hold a lot of weight. And I didn’t want anything furry/fabricky because I was worried about how well they’d stick (although as I think about it after the fact, they’d probably have been fine). Fisher Price Little People are a great option, if you have any. They’re hollow and small, easy to grab with little fingers, and stick well to the painter’s tape. The preschooler actually grabbed an eclectic variety, but what did I care?
the “game” lasted all of 5 minutes in reality, but had I had time to set it up better (aka, not been bombarded with toddlers), I think it would definitely last longer. And they did come back over and over, to get more tape off of more toys. One toddler enjoyed crawling under the tape (ironically, she’s the one eager to walk more, and almost runs), and the other enjoyed freeing the toys and would sit and pull the tape off each one.
It was pretty fun, even though it was quick. And watching them try to get the tape off was pretty entertaining. And now I have a whole roll of painter’s tape (I know we have some somewhere, but I couldn’t find it when I went looking, and it cost me all of a dollar ninety-eight to go buy a roll) to do it again. But this time I’m setting it up during naptime!
When we decided to come up with one purposeful activity per day with our preschoolers, it caused me to look at daily tasks in a whole new light. Suddenly, berry picking isn’t just a task to be done, it’s a chance to teach my preschooler a new skill; and instead of approaching it as a chore, it’s a time to spend in the wonder that is the preschooler mind.
When my friend invited me to come pick berries with her, I used that new paradigm and got excited about the chance to take my preschooler. Not only is it outside (her favorite place in the whole world), and involving food (she actually did pretty well at not eating all of the berries she picked. But toward the end, she did eat quite a bit and shared the wealth with her little sisters), but its also a chance to step out of our normal routine. And, as I said before, it’s a chance to teach a life skill to a preschooler. She caught on pretty quickly as to which berries to pick, reaching for less and less unripe berries as we went.
I think she had a pretty fun time! And I am a firm believer in the happy chemical boosts involved in working together. Not to mention the boost in Vitamin D by being outside in the sunlight.
I mean, I guess I should have been worried that my wild child would have ravaged my friend’s patch, but I decided that a little trust an expectation would go a long way. And it worked. She didn’t get bored before her sisters were just plain done. She actually worked really hard! and when she didn’t work, she thoroughly enjoyed herself talking the ears off of a new audience. And then there were butterflies, and that was fascinating. All in all, I’m soooo happy we went. If you’re ever on the fence as to whether your kid would be a benefit or a hindrance to the work that needs done, take them! Even if they’re a hindrance, they’re learning work ethic! They’re learning that the task can be fun. They’re watching you and learning life skills. And it might just go better than you fear.
Kids love sensory activities, and today our rice trace was a winner. All the kids wanted to join in, so it made quite a mess. It may have been better had I had a tray for each child though.
This activity is one that was suggested by my child’s therapist and teachers. It helps them get a tactile feel for what they are learning, say letters or shapes.
All you need for this activity is rice (or sugar, or some other substance) and a tray. I used a small cookie tray I had, but you could use a bigger one or something similar.
Place your rice in the tray and spread it out evenly. Help your child learn the shape you want them to trace, then let them start tracing.
As I said earlier the kids loved it, but be prepared for a mess. They weren’t very good at keeping all the rice in the tray.
Today we made Bubble Snakes. My kids have always loved bubbles. I think most kids do. Most kids seem to be fascinated with them from an early age, which is why this is a good activity for all toddlers and older.
My youngest toddler did not get to experience this yet, but to be fair he is only just in the toddler stage. We did this while baby was napping.
All you need is an old sock, water, soap, a bowl, and some sort of bottle top. The original place I saw this had water bottles that they cut up, but I don’t have those plastic water bottles lying around. I did however have water bottle lids from a kids water bottle (I also wonder if a sippy-cup lid would work. If you try it out, let us know how it works for you!).
One recommendation I have is to make sure the sock’s heel is all the way on your lid. The bubble snake came out like a blob when I let the heel be off the lid… but it worked like a charm when it was on.
So, once you get the sock situated all that is left is making your bubble solution. Put dish soap in a bowl (I didn’t measure, I just poured a little in) and add water. Mix up your solution and then take it and your kids outside.
While my toddler loved this, it was definitely over her head on the blowing part. Since she is just barely figuring out how to blow regular bubbles I guess this shouldn’t be too much a surprise. She did however love the bubble snakes and would giggle with glee every time.
As your kids get older you will have to be less involved and be able to let them enjoy themselves, but even after they figure out how to blow the bubbles you may want to be the bubble station if you want it to last more than 5 minutes. My kiddos always end up tipping the bowl.
I know, I know. Another classic activity. But I don’t know how you can really go wrong (in your kids’ eyes) by letting them bang on pans… I say that, but all the noise totally made one of my toddlers cry. One more reason I think the poor girl has another ear infection (she doesn’t always get fevers with them, but she does get them a lot). Eventually, she did get in on the fun, so who knows, maybe it just startled her.
As far as prep, well it’s as easy as grabbing some pans (preferably not the ones you’ll need for dinner that night, because I don’t consider toddlers all that sanitary and if you don’t need the pan for dinner it gives you the ability to wash the pan on your terms) and some kitchen spoons and showing them a time or two that it’s okay to bang on the pans. personally, I wasn’t worried about denting my pans because I don’t figure toddlers are really all that strong, and because I figured that either my pans could handle it, or they weren’t really good pans, anyway. And I have to say that even my weak pans are dent free. Not that I don’t think there’s some risk involved (please don’t blame me, do this activity at your own risk), but that I figured the activity would be fun enough without much damage.
the girls all loved it, including big sister! And she was great at showing them what to do.
I’d say the activity was a success as it kept them all entertained long enough to get dinner started (another reason to use pans you won’t need for dinner)! You’d figure the noise would be a nuisance but it didn’t actually bother me that bad. Maybe because I expected it, though. And doing the activity on carpet definitely helped. And, bonus! It cost me nothing.
Even greater, when you let imagination take charge, your older daughter will make a delicious toy soup for you! haha. Who knew you were signing up for dinner and a serenade!
toy soup, compliments of my preschooler.
We won’t mention how creepy it is to “eat soup” with a humanoid figure in it…
I know this activity is an oldie, and let’s be honest, all the pictures you see of it involve happy faces that are much more… shall we say, photogenic? But, my preschooler has a mind of her own. And I love that about her. She was so excited to get to use glue, though. When I set up the noodles and the plate, she was excited; we could have been doing about anything and it would have been a hit.
setting up for making macaroni faces
Naturally, knowing that I would be taking a picture, I wanted to show off some cute happy face that I can proudly instagram. But I’m not raising an instagram kid. I am raising a real kid. One who will understand that all emotions are good and serve a purpose. So when she chose a sad face, and I quote, “because she likes sad faces,” I didn’t try to change her mind. Its her plate. So, it’s not your typical, “look at what my kid did!” post. But we had fun.
She made hair, eyebrows, eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I put the glue on for her. Eventually, I’ll trust her to do it herself, but not yet. It went way faster than I expected. I asked her if she wanted to add more hair or if she wanted to make another, and my little busy girly was ready to move on, so we saved the rest of the noodles for another activity and moved on. I’m sure it’ll be a good boredom buster, but it was so fast, that I feel like it didn’t entertain her for very long. Maybe it seems to take so long because it’s usually an activity done with more than 1 kid? If we do it again, maybe I can convince her to do a happy face, eh?
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