30 Day Challenge: Playing With Junk

Check out this post to read all about the 30 Day to Hands on Play Challenge.

Day 15:

Playing With Junk

Did you read my post about Day 14's Challenge? It was to act out a story (we did shadow puppets) we had so much fun that I promised the girls we'd make a shadow puppet theater. I had no idea that Day 15 would be playing with junk! It's a two for one! The idea for the shadow puppet theater came from a fabulous blog called Red Ted Art, if you haven't taken the time to check out Red Ted Art, you are seriously missing out!

The main component of the theater is a cereal box, luckily we had just finished a box of cereal that morning!

 While the glue on the cereal box was drying I brought out all the "junk" so we could start making the puppets.

 We decided we would make puppets for two stories

The Billy Goats Gruff

and

and underwater theme

 The girls had a blast telling stories with it

 Daddy even got in on the story telling

(not his strong suit)

and was able to relax and enjoy it

more so than reading out of a book

What have you made out of junk? 

Are you following along with the challenge? It's not too late!

30 Day Challenge: Act Out A Story

Read this post to learn all about this amazing challenge!

We took a small break with the challenge but I'm planning on catching up at the end with these activities:

Mixing Concoctions

Outside Adventure

Field Trip

Sticky Art

Day 14:

Act Out A Story

Day 14 was Charlotte's birthday so we spent most of the day doing whatever her little heart desired. We did spend about an hour before bedtime telling our favorite stories from memory and acting them out as shadow puppets with our hands. Most of our favorite stories to tell orally are fairytales/folktales, for example: The Little Red Hen, The Billy Goats Gruff, The Elves and the Shoemaker, Little Red Riding Hood, Chicken Little, The Gingerbread Man, Cinderella, Rumplestiltskin, Goldilocks and the Three Bears and many others, they're just so easy to remember! We then started to tell made up stories with the toys around us. Charlotte had so much fun turning pretty much every story she told into a birthday story. We had so much fun with shadow puppets I promised the girls we could do them the next day too.

Have you joined in on the challenge? It's not to late to start!!

30 Day Challenge: Sensory Tub Play

Read all about the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge I'm participating in here!!

Today's challenge is brought to us from Anna at The Imagination Tree

Day 9:

Sensory Tub Play

I've never really made a sensory bin for the girls, I don't have many tubs that I could use for a sensory bin. The one I do have happens to have cloud dough in it that I didn't want to take out. So, I kinda improvised, after all it's about the sensory aspect of the play right!? 

For our sensory play, I wanted to try something new, so I decided to try water beads. Have you heard of them? They are teeny tiny little beads that you add to water and they plump up into wet squishy bouncy fun!

(they take at least 3 hours to plump up with water)

I drained out the excess water and poured them into a tray

and we all stuck our hands in

I was surprised by the texture, I thought they'd have a hard outer shell

but they are completely squishy

and feel wet all the time

I set out measuring cups and spoons, a bowl and a colander 

along with the tray of water beads for the girls 

Charlotte brought out a toy that is used for balls

like a gumball machine

drop them in the top and they pop out the bottom

I found a bottle for the girls and they had a lot of fun putting the beads in and blowing on the top to try and make music 

and then pouring the beads out into the bowl, they bounced all over the place!

 We did a lot of pouring, scooping, squishing, bouncing, and even sorting.

In the end we put all our sorted colors into the glass bottle and now we are marking the bottle every few  hours as the beads shrink back down to put away for next time

and next time,

I'll probably only bring them out for Charlotte to play with.

Alexis (she's two) was squishing the dickens out of the poor beads

 and there were quite a few casualties

 What kind of sensory bins have you made? Have you joined the challenge?

It's not too late!

30 Day Challenge: Water Play

Read this post to learn all about the amazing play ideas that Jamie from hands on : as we grow and Anna from The Imagination Tree have challenged us with.

Day 8:

Water Play

Oh man, when I woke up this morning and saw water play, my heart sank. This was a challenge I did NOT want to do. It sounded messy and I really did not want to clean up a huge watery mess. Luckily, the weather was gorgeous outside so, I brought the water outside and the girls had a blast.

I brought out one huge bowl of water, one big empty bowl and a few little empty bowls

We mixed some food coloring but that lasted only a few seconds

The girls were having more fun just pouring the water from bowl to bowl

and 

pouring it all over the table

All the water on top of the table made a little waterfall!

Some sidewalk chalk was thrown into the mix

and

suddenly, we were art-eests!

If you soak the chalk in the water

then rub it on the ground

it will make a nice paste that's perfect for painting with

We poured water all over our chalk paintings

and

started all over again!

Thank goodness I put play clothes on them

they were soaked

and

 I guess I wasn't wet enough

when I was bending over to draw on the ground

Alexis slapped me on the back with a super soaked washcloth

then she laughed and laughed and laughed

(stinker)

Did you play with water today!? Join the challenge, it's not too late!

30 Day Challenge: Mega Floor Doodles

Read all about this awesome challenge here!

We're already to Day 7 on this Challenge!? It's flying by!
Day 7:

Mega Floor Doodles

Well ours are more Mega Wall Doodles. Our floors are all carpet, so today, while Daddy took the little ladies to the playground, I taped and taped and taped paper all over the walls!

I was so excited to see the girls' faces when they came home from the playground. Here is the exact conversation Charlotte and I had about it.

"Momma, what did you do to the walls?"

"Oh nothing, I just taped paper all over them so you can draw."

"Well what are we waiting for!? LET'S DRAW!"

and 

she did!

She started off with a story about meeting a new friend at the playground.

 I brought out some stickers that were included with some balloons we had from Lexi's first birthday.

We made a lot of faces and some aliens too

By the afternoon the girls had drawn all over the biggest wall

After dinner they wanted to give paint a go.

I thought it would be nice and relaxing for them to do before bed

They really had fun painting all over their drawings 

Charlotte said she was putting mud on the faces

I thought for sure that drawing would be the first thing the girls would want to do when they woke the next day

Turns out they wanted to be ballerinas first

 and draw second

 All of the paper is still up because there is still a lot of paper they haven't used yet

 These two walls are near the kitchen, 

I was hoping they would feel inspired to draw while I was doing dishes or cooking

instead, they still would rather help me in the kitchen

which is A-OK with me!

(I'm still keeping the paper up just in case)

 Are you playing along with the challenge?! It's not too late to join in on the fun!!

30 Day Challenge: Family Time

Read this post to learn all about the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge I'm participating in!

Day 6 Challenge:

Family Time

If you are looking for pictures in this post you will not find them. Though it seems like I blog about every little thing in my life, what you see is only the tip of the iceberg. When it comes to spending time together as a family, our favorite part is having the memories that only OUR family (Daddy, Mommy, Charlotte, and Alexis) remembers.
Sunday is traditionally our family day every week. We start off every Sunday with pancakes and then see where the rest of the day takes us. It's usually lazy days snuggling together on the couch, playing games, reading books, and eating snacks. If it's nice outside you'll usually find us at the playground.

Trust that we were able to get the most out of family time for the Challenge on Day 6 and I hope you were able to as well!

PS is it cheating to clean the house IF we were playing Cinderella?

Are you partaking in the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge? I'd love to follow along with you! It's not too late to join!

30 Day Challenge: Play Dough {and Day 4 update}

Read this post to learn all about the challenge and to read my mission statement.

The challenge from Day 4 was

Pretend Islands

but after two failed attempts to initiate play on day 4 and a failed attempt on day 5 I decided that pretend islands was a lost cause (at least for now). I'm not really sure what happened with that because pretending to be in shark infested waters is one of their favorite things to play at the playground and lava ground is popular for the grocery store. I'm sure soon enough the girls will be hopping from pillow to pillow and I'll never be able to get anywhere in the house that I need to because all the islands will be too far apart to jump to. Day 5 went much better.

Day 5 Challenge:

Play Dough!

We all love play dough and especially making our own. Making it is half the fun! We've been out of play dough for a little while (SHAME!) so I knew the girls would be really happy to have some around the house again. It is definitely the go to activity for them and I like it because it's not super messy but keeps them super occupied.

We used the play dough recipe that Anna from The Imagination Tree posted here.

It's mostly a no-cook recipe but, the water is supposed to be boiling so I added it in and Charlotte stirred it all together.

You can find a ton of other play dough recipes here.

Everyone helping make the play dough

So here's what we did for the challenge:

Plunk the play dough in front of the girls

Plunk some doodads in front of the girls

watch them go to town

 At first is was a bit chaotic, the girls were just squishing the dough and adding everything they could get their hands on

A birthday cake for my birthday coming up soon!

 Then they finally started slowing down, taking their time and creating things

A nice smile for a little blue man

Lexi practicing cutting 

 A Lego man garden with a little blue pond filled with pebbles

 Finally toward the end of play we had a nice jewelry shop up and running. We were creating rings, bracelets, and necklaces as fast as we could. We had very demanding customers...ourselves!

 Hey Anna! You said it's not really messy!!

As a surprise for Charlotte, I let her make some Cloud Dough after Alexis went down for her nap. You can find Cloud Dough play here at The Imagination Tree and here at Tinkerlab. It was nice to get some special one on one time with her. We spent a lot of time rubbing the cloud dough in our hands, the texture is really nice. It's so hard to describe, you just have to make it! It was fun to make big clumps of it and then rub it in our hands to "snow" down into the bin at one point it was also parmesan cheese being grated into the bin. The cloud dough turned into a bakery, filling up silicone cupcake cups, measuring spoons and cups. When we were done, we put the lid on the bin and set it aside to be able to pull out again for some fast fun!

Don't forget, it's not too late to join in on the challenge!