The past two weeks have sped by and we finally seem to be settling into some kind of routine. “Mommy School” has continued although the novelty is definitely wearing off. Griffin is fighting me more on writing and I’ve decided we are just going to do what we can do. One day his writing prompt asked what he would do on the moon. We luckily had an astronaut costume that I suggested he put on to complete the assignment. The costume distraction worked and he wrote his journal entry.
The weather hasn’t been the greatest the past two weeks either. I’ve tried to mix things up for the kiddos (and my) sanity and wanted to share some activities we’ve been doing.
When the weather was chilly, I prepped some water beads for the kids, which are always a hit. I have some ocean creatures that they like to throw in and this usually buys me 30-45 minutes of “me” time because they will play independently. You can put anything in the beads though…farm animals, little people, different measuring cups or spoons, etc.
Just before Easter we did more “potions” with baking soda, food coloring and Easter eggs. This was a hit just because it was presented in a different format. I put baking soda in empty egg cartons and plastic Easter eggs.
All our egg dying adventures were also a hit. I wish we could have colored more eggs but a family of 4 can only eat so many hard boiled eggs! Other activities included hiding eggs with each magnetic letter of the alphabet inside and then having the kids work together to find them and put them all on a cookie sheet. (Credit for this idea should be given to @busytoddler.)
We also made ooblick and went swimming in the bath tub.
Oh, and I also wanted to report that all our caterpillars completed the transformation to butterflies! The kids were so excited as the caterpillars formed each chrysalis and then came out as butterflies. It took several days for all of them to go into chrysalises and then they came out in 3-4 days as well. We are going to release them this week in the warmer weather.
Another easy, fun activity we did was creating a homemade light box with our sensory tub and some white Christmas lights. The kids grabbed their magnatiles and the lightbox made it even more fun to play with them! I also ordered some x-rays from Amazon along with some translucent 3-D shapes because Griffin’s kindergarten curriculum has been addressing the shapes.
Hope you all have been staying busy too! And I hope sharing some of these activities make some of your days go by a little faster or gives you a little reprieve from the monotonous grind of quarantine!
