Family Garden

It has been a whole since I last posted. We have been busy and I hope to get back to posting more regularly. We are having fun celebrating Valentine's Day in lots of different ways. Valentine's Day is so much fun to play, create and learn with. Little Bit loves making cards and reading Valentine's Day books.

As we talked about cousins and who we would send cards to I decided to create a family garden. Creating each family "flower" was simple. I printed family pictures then added each picture to a stick along with hearts stickers.Since Valentine's Day is coming I used hearts to tie into our theme. A bowl with beans holds our family garden in place.

Little Bit loved finding all our family members. We matched up her cousins with their family and talked about each person remembering things we have done with them. Most of our family lives within a few hours and we are able to see them pretty often. We do have a a few family members that we do not see very often, this was a great chance to remember who they are.

Slime Pie ~ Invitation to Play

Slime, who doesn't like slime?? Little Bit LOVES slime! The slime I made will last for several months so we will use it in lots of ways but for now we are using it to bake. Using the slime for pretend baking was Little Bits idea. She started making pies so I ran with it and quickly pulled together a few play cooking items. She has not tired of slime pies yet.

 I made a batch using the recipe found on Growing a Jeweled Rose. The recipe is very simple but I do want to add a disclaimer: when I made the slime it DID NOT look right, it looked like a hot mess. I made it for a play date that we were having at my house. I let the kids play with the not so great slime because kids do not care it looks right or not they just like to play with yucky stuff ;) After about 5 minutes of play it was perfect! Do not give up on the slime if it does not mix together at first, just play with it to get it to the right consistently.

 Little Bit loved making the slime into eggs. Slime does not hold its form the way play-dough does but that doesn't matter to Little Bit. The slime is easy to move, cut and pull apart which is why I think she loves it so much. After making eggs she used the eggs to make pies and cookies.

We used several different baking accessories: 

• egg carton
• fork, knife, spatula
• play pie pans
• play cookie sheet
• real microwave (Little Bit pretends this is her oven)
• cookie cutters

Slime baking has been a hit at our house. When I am cooking she loves to play with her slime and bake. I love that the slime is easy to clean up and doesn't easily dry out. Do you play with slime? What are your favorite slime activities?

Shell Pets

We had a lot of fun playing with shells this week. The book Marcel the Shell with Shoes on Things About Me was a great way to introduce our shell pet activity. Marcel has a very unique look and the book is funny to read as he explains what he does around the house. After reading the book Little Bit painted her shells. Originally I planned to paint 2 but she wanted to paint more. That night while we were out on a date she talked the babysitter into painting even more! So we have a several painted shells.

The shells turned out great! Little Bit only wanted two of the shells to have eyes. Little Bits babysitter showed her how to add sand to the shells after painting them, which added a fun texture. I love our babysitter! We also have a box that Little Bit decorated as a house for our shell pets.

 Painting our shells was Little Bits favorite thing we did all week. What fun things have your done with shells?