Farm Yard and Dino Land Play Sets

I’ve been on a mission lately to increase M’s interest in non-battery-operated toys.  It’s been a tough job.  I’m not sure how it happened that he became so addicted to toys that “do something”, I only know that it was a turn for the worse.  After receiving several hand-me-down toys from cousins in January, all of which are battery operated, he just hasn’t been as interested in expending any energy or imagination when playing.  He will push buttons and watch toys light up, make sounds, and move, and somehow being entertained has become more pleasant than actually playing.

I could go on and on about this topic, but I will save it for another post, another time.

In an effort to engage his imagination and creativity in play again, I (very)  quickly put together some play sets for him using fabric I’ve had lying around in my sewing cart for ages. 

I’ve mentioned in other posts that I’ve been trying to have something interesting waiting for him when he wakes in the mornings so I don’t have to hear any whining before my first cup of coffee. ;)  Often, it’s something like playdough or a new sensory bin, but one evening I made a farm playland for him and had it ready the following morning.  I included his farm animals and barn (Target) and some Duplo blocks.

It started off like this:

Then became this:

And eventually ended up like this: He had gotten out more blocks, a zoo, a truck, and some books and was sitting in the middle of his farm, reading books to a little plastic duck.  Hello, imagination! :)  And I realized something a bit bigger might be better.  So, off we went to the fabric store.

I purchased a yard of green fleece, and put it on the floor when we got home.  He spent 45 minutes, I kid you not, mowing the green fleece grass with a little toy tractor.

I cut a larger pond out of some blue fabric from my stash, and we used the other pieces I’d had for the smaller version to make more hills ( by putting fabric over an upside down bowl, or over large blocks), and a chicken yard.   

I wish I had a better picture than this… in fact I think M may have taken this picture: but you get the idea.  He loves his new farm yard! 

I should mention that none of the fabric has been hemmed or sewn together.  I simply grabbed what I wanted and cut it to roughly the size and shape I needed for a pond or hill or dirt field.  I’m not worried about pieces unraveling - fleece doesn’t unravel, and the other pieces were just leftover scraps from old projects.  This way he can rearrange the layout of his farm if he wants to.

This was such an enormous success that the following week I used the same green fleece, added some new pieces, and made a dino land for him:

There’s a cave (a small crate from Dollar Tree turned on its side with brown fabric on the floor and covered with some other green fleece):

And a volcano (note the dino skeleton at the base of the mountain, hee hee): 

This was a huge success too, and M had a lot of fun playing with it.  It was definitely worth the 15 minutes it took me to cut fabric and put it all together for him. 

I won’t say it cured him of his preference for toys that “do something”, but it did help him see how much fun a little imagination can be!  Baby steps, right? ;)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up – 5/14/10

M is 3.5 years old

We had a fun week, with no particular theme.  I am trying to have 1 to 2 weeks of theme-based activities, followed by at least 1 week of non-themed activities while I prepare for the next theme.  I’m hoping to get in a bug unit, then we will be DONE.  The plan is to enjoy a nice long break, get some much-needed things done around the house and just spend time having fun as a family.  :)

We started our week with a scavenger hunt.   This was so much fun.  M and his cousin, S, had a blast with this.  In fact, we had to do the whole thing again one evening with Daddy. :)  I created a chart for the kids, with pictures of 12 things for them to find in our backyard.  They took their little charts, a couple of crayons, and some plastic containers outside and began hunting:

My niece was the first to find everything pictured, and was quite proud of herself:

A close up of her treasures, which she insisted on bringing home with her (much to my brother’s delight, heh):I uploaded our scavenger hunt chart and you can find it here, if you think you’d like to use the same one.  It was a big hit!

The weather was awful, so we did a lot of indoor activities the rest of the week…

Fine Motor Skills:
A little fishing game where you try to catch the fish as they go in a circle and open and close their mouths:   
M’s Lite Brite made its way onto his shelves, and he really had fun with it – all closed up in his room with the shades drawn. :)
His little wooden dress-the-bear puzzle was out for him also; he played with it once and never bothered with it again:
Literacy Skills:
I made a little name train for M, and he connected the train cars in order to spell his name.  I used velcro dots so they could stick to each other:
He did his Bob the Builder Name puzzles (For these I use large flat marbles and write the letters on them with a sharpie):
Colors / Sorting:
We’ve had this file folder game forever, and M always enjoys it.  I used Jolanthe’s color cards, and created pockets with the color name cards.  M goes through the stack and places each picture in the correct pocket.  He just loves pockets. :)
Math Skills:
I found these at a thrift store and at first glance I thought they were Cuisenaire rods.  However, once I got them home and took a look at them… well, I’m not sure what they are or what to do with them.  Each single block unit is 1/2 inch.  The rods go from 1 unit up to 12 units, and apparently we don’t have a full set.  There’s only 2 8-unit rods, and only 1 10-unit rod.  Sigh.  Any ideas how we can use these?  Or, does anyone know what they are?  They are not the traditional Cuisenaire rod colors either.  I let M just play with them and explore them the first time I set them out.  I showed him how to create some designs, like a house and a stair (the stair was useful for showing the relation between the rods from shortest to longest).
I hope everyone had great weeks!  I’m linking this up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up.  Be sure to go check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

The Preschool Corner – April 4, 2010

M is 3.5 years old.

This is my first post for Preschool Corner; how weird is it that I’m totally excited about that? :)

This past week we had unbelievably gorgeous spring weather, and had a relaxed week just spending time outside and enjoying being together. M was still recovering from his pneumonia, but by the end of the week he was totally back to himself, which made for a very relieved mama!

We’ve been doing a lot of dinosaur-themed activities lately, and I hope to put all of it in a single post sometime soon. For today though, here are some of the other things we’ve been up to…

PLAY:

We had such beautiful weather this week, and our first picnic in the backyard!

M has been able to spend time outside each day, and has spent a lot of it doing this: Ack, the photo is horribly blurry, but he keeps pulling extremely heavy logs off our woodpile, dragging them to the patio and then chopping the bark off of them with his little plastic axe. :) All our wood looks naked. :)

FINE MOTOR SKILLS:

This was on M’s activity shelves and he got it out every day… it’s the hammering shapes set from Oriental Trading. This is a “castle at night with the moon in the sky, but the sun is coming up because it’s almost morning”:

The beloved Spiderman slippers were washed and came out full of lint. This bothered M to no end, so I gave him the lint roller and he learned how to use it!

LITERACY:

He cut these Letter N pictures out and made a collage with them.
On our recent car trip I brought some workbooks along with us to give him something to do in the car. I’m not a huge fan of worksheets, but M loved them and can’t get enough. Here he is cutting out rhyming pictures and using tape (his new love) to put the rhyming pairs next to each other.
He did almost every letter in his homemade Build-a-Letter kit (also out on his shelves all week):
SENSORY:
I put together a sensory bin full of only soft things for M this week. It had squares of fleece, feathers, pom-poms, cotton balls, and squares of velvet. I added in some plastic eggs to use for scoops and some plastic salad tongs, a new thing for M (the kind that have a fork and spoon that move together). Here he is first taking a look at it:
The salad tongs were a big hit! He started using them right away:

The next time I looked, this is what I saw:
This was a lot of fun for him. He found that he could blow the pom poms and feathers around the room and he did so for close to 30 minutes! He said “I’m just like the wind, Mommy!” :) He spent time tossing the feathers in the air and watching them float down from various heights. He also just sat and examined each soft thing, occasionally rubbing it on his cheek (so sweet!).

For more Preschool Corner posts, go here!

Have a beautiful day! :)