Fun Things to do with Toddlers - Hammering Water Beads

Recently I have been trying to find more fun things to do with water beads, I think there is more potential out there than just picking them up out of a dish and scooping them, (as fun as that is).

 I had some water beads in the kitchen which were on the turn (read - going mouldy!) so I thought I would just let Boris destroy them, he always tries to anyway and I attempt to stop him from doing it because I feel its wasting them, but thought as he likes it so much I will give him permission to go mad with them!  So I gave him a wooden hammer and put the water beads on a reflective tray and let him go to town squishing and bashing them.

It was really good fun, I actually found it quite hilarious because of course it was nearly impossible to squash them because they kept shooting all over the place! We had water beads bouncing all over the patio, it kept Boris occupied for quite some time, he really concentrated hard on pressing the hammer onto each bead and positioning the beads ready to hammer.

Aren't the colours beautiful? Such a great tool for improving fine motor skills.

Have you any other ideas for uses of water beads?  I am thinking about freezing them, using them with water and sorting colours for starters.  I love these bouncy little thing!

Please excuse the slightly over exposed photographs, it was really hard photographing the reflective surface of the tin, the camera wanted to over compensate for the brightness so the photos were coming out really dark so had to use a bit of trial and error. 

Fun things to do with toddlers - Teddy Bear's Picnic

If you go down to the woods today you're sure of a big surprise,

If you go down to the woods today you'd better go in disguise,

For every bear that ever there was,

Will gather there for certain because,

Today's the day the teddy bears have their picnic.

Today we had a little teddy bear's picnic in the living room, inspired by my friend Vicky.  Boris was sleeping when I set up the picnic.  I put down a plastic mat (in anticipation of spills) with a blanket over the top, and laid it with Boris' toy tea set and several teddies.  I boiled the kettle and made tea (cooled down with cold water) in his tea pot, filled the jug with some watered down almond milk and put a bit of sugar in the sugar pot. I put on a CD with the Teddy Bear's Picnic song on it then woke him up with a whispered "something is happening in the living room!"

He was very excited to see the picnic set up on the living room floor, although we have pretended to make and drink tea with his tea set before he wasn't sure what to do so I made a cup of tea then he had a go pouring the tea from the tea pot through the strainer, adding milk and stirring in sugar.  Of course being a toddler he didn't make tea the "proper" way, he poured tea into the milk jug, poured all the milk into one cup, poured all the sugar into one tea cup, poured the tea from the tea pot via the top rather than the spout and slopped all the tea leaves from the strainer onto the rug.  But he seemed to enjoy it and liked making sure that all the teddies had some tea, I certainly enjoyed the magical feeling of it all and the pleasure on Boris' face. 

This was a useful activity for improving Boris' fine motor skills.  When he is a bit older this will be a great activity for learning about turn taking, sharing and table manners.
Have you ever had a teddy bears picnic with your toddler?  I will definitely be doing this again in future, maybe in the garden next time and maybe with food.

Our tea set is this one from Amazon

Valentines Toddler Activity

I was keen to get Boris involved in Valentines day this year so found a fun activity on Pinterest that I thought he would like, it took a bit of forward planning but I was pretty pleased with it.  It's a sort of Valentines heart lucky dip come family identification game.

I got photos of some members of our family printed then cut heart shapes round the faces and stuck them onto pink card.  I then followed the heart shape of the photo leaving about a cm gap all round.

I then cut a few more hearts out of the card with no photos on and chucked them all in a plastic box.

I added some faux rose petals that I bought off ebay and some heart shaped marshmallows for Boris to dig out and we were ready to go.

He had a good time looking through the photos and we went through naming them all and did this a few times on valentines day and the day after.  I then stuck the photos on the wall and my husband and Boris played with them, pulling them off, naming them, sticking them back on then putting them back in the box.

I think it was worth doing because it got Boris involved and was a fun game (although surprisingly he wasn't fussed by the heart shaped marshmallows).  I am trying to think what I can do with all the bits now, might make a little book with all the photos in it for Boris to identify.

I also made a Valentines day cake for my husband: