Activities with Miller

I have been trying to find things to do with Miller lately. I figure that since we are stuck in the house, we need to find some things to do besides watch TV and play on my phone or iPad.

I finally decided to try painting with Miller again. It was mildly successful just a tad messy. It involves lots of supervision but at least he has fun. Here we were painting a birdhouse that is going to be a Christmas present. 

I posted about painting a picture for the baby's room and here are some pictures from that.

I made homemade playdough for us to play with. Miller is still learning how to play with it but he does like pushing the cookie cutters into it. Then he wants the shapes out of them. This evening, him and Ben made bears and Miller walked around with them like this. I swear I thought that he was going to take them to bed.

This has been our favorite. We have whipped up some dish soap bubbles in my mixer. It kind of makes a mess but since it is just soap, it makes everything nice and clean afterward. Miller loves to have car washes.

The last two times we have done the dish soap bubbles, I made a batch, put them in a container and put them and Miller in the bath tub. Both times, Ben and I were trying to do stuff upstairs so Miller played while we got stuff done. After that, it was bath time so easy clean up.

I am not sure how much we will do after the baby is born but at least I have some things  that he can do when I have an extra hand around the house.

Miller's New Activity Area

I blogged about setting up Miller's activity area over at Wives Unscripted but I wanted to show it off over here too. You can go over there for more info on the details though.

We knew that Miller was getting to the age where he would color and need a space to do activities. I had been on Pinterest and Craigslist, looking for the right plan for us. Ultimately we bought some things and reused others from around the house. We decided to use a corner in our dining room since it was somewhere that we had space and we could keep an eye on him.

Dining Room Before

Dining Room After

There is a bookshelf that we painted on the right, with some bins from Dollartree. Next to that, there is a filing cabinet that we painted. As I mentioned in another post, all of these things are empty since we do not exactly trust Miller to leave them contained. The frames on the wall are just some simple Goodwill frames, painted, cork backing and clips so that we can hang Miller's artwork in style. The small table is from Ikea and we painted it the color from Miller's room. The little chairs are also from Ikea. There is a pegboard behind the table that will eventually have hooks and other organizing tools when he is a bit older. Obviously I painted that. Oh and I hung vinyl table cloths on the wall and put down carpet squares to contain any future messes.

For Christmas I made this board for Miller from an oil drip pan. It is chalkboard on one side......

.....and fabric on the other. It is the perfect place to use the quilted alphabet that Miller got for his birthday from the Campbell's.

We put it all together when Miller was napping so we could see his reaction when he woke up to see it. He ran straight to it and was so excited to see the chairs. 

For now, I put his snack and water there and he will sit for a few minutes. It is so cute that he gets excited to sit there. He is getting craft stuff from the Easter Bunny (so it told me) and I am excited to play with him in his new activity area.

Latest Activites

So you might have thought that I have been slacking on my activities with Miller but I promise you that I have not. In late November we got so overloaded with being out of town for Thanksgiving that I just recently emptied my camera from them and I had so many other posts anyways. Since it is no longer really fall, I won't bore you all with those activities.

December is really no different in terms of busyness. Our activity last week was the felt Christmas tree. This week we decorated cookies.

One simple Christmas thing we have done (I would not call it an activity) is that I bought some jingle bells from Dollartree to hang on the doors. I love that we get the sounds of the season when our doors open or close. Miller loved them too. So much he ripped them off the ribbon I had them hanging on. I decided to put them in some containers and he has had so much fun making music with them.He noticed that one sounded different than the other (one had 2 and the other 4). He was playing different rhythms to match what I was doing. It is simple but I still think important and fun.

I am trying to so hard to still do activities the next two weeks in between getting ready for Christmas so you might see a post about them, but I make no promises.

Felt Christmas Tree

I am sure you have a seen a pin or two on pinterest of a felt Christmas Tree that your kids can play with in hopes of leaving your main tree alone. Last year I told myself that I would do it for this year. A couple of weeks ago, I knew it was now or never. I wanted it done so that I could put it up for the whole season so I needed it done ASAP.

The main pin that I see all of the time, the mom simply cut the tree out of green felt and adhered it to her wall. I wanted to be able to hang mine so I decided to have a background to it but I had to make it sturdy. Hopefully Miller will not attempt to pull it down.  I used a light grey background that was 36" x 36". I bought two wooden dowels that were 36" with a 1/2" diameter. I rolled the fabric over it and pinned it down. Then I sewed a seam on both the top and the bottom. The dowel can slide in and out if necessary.

I wanted to make a few more accessories than the original pin (mainly for me). I really wanted strings of lights. I cut out three 36" long, thin strings from black felt. Then I cut out a ton of small black rectangles that "attach" the bulb to the string. Of course I cut out the bulbs. I stuck with the main 4 colors because whenever I thought of classic Christmas lights, that is what I saw.

I laid out the string and spaced out the lights every 4 inches. Then I hot glued them in place. 

I went back over them each with a small black rectangle. After doing the first step, I realized that this was totally unnecessary, but I liked the way they looked.

I made three so the tree, and surroundings could be decorated. 

I glued the trunk down and then the tree, except for the bottom corners so that the presents can be placed behind them for more tree decorating space. 

As for the presents, I debated about leaving the bows and ribbon separate from the box but that would just be a lot of scraps to deal with. They can be removed and moved around, as well as the star. I thought Miller could play around with other toppers possibly down the road. 

Ta- Da! Here is the finished product. I sketched out some basic ornament shapes and used that as a template. I had a couple of each color in each shape. You can always use cookie cutters as a template as well. Maybe when Miller, and hopefully other  little Trusty's, are older, we can make more and different ornaments and presents.

I am excited for him to play with it but I fear that this year will just be mostly pulling all the ornaments off and carrying them all over the house. Maybe Miller will surprise me (I know better than to think this).

Autumn Sensory Bottles

Sometimes I wonder if I am doing these activities in vain, which I still think is true. I love themes and love holidays but I think Miller is a little young to understand it all. Then it occurred to me, he is at least getting exposure to the elements of these seasons.  He has seen so many pumpkins that I think he gets them. Same for leaves. It is small step but something.

The great thing about this activity is that this just goes out with the rest of his toys for a few weeks. We have one bottle with leaves, one with dried pumpkin seeds and one with acorns (which he likes to chew on she good thing they are contained).

They were sitting on the table and he spied them at lunch time (yes we are still in our PJs at lunch). I handed them to him one at a time so he could get the feel for them individually. He would shake one, then another, then try to grab the third. I helped him out and would man the third. 

 

He immediately understood that they each made a different sound and felt different. Then we started making music with them. Once he was done with lunch, he kicked them around the kitchen.

We will definitely be doing this for other seasons and just some basic ones during the boring parts of the year.

Momma Mar's Activity Corner Link Up

If you have been looking at my posts of activities with Miller you should check out this link up that I have been participating in. It is hosted by my good friend Mar and has some great ideas for things to do with all your little ones. We would love for  you to share if you have any fun stuff that you have done with your children. Here are the details below.

host Mar @ Raising Bean  

co-host Trusty Gal @ Tales of a Trusty Family  

Rules:

1. I would love for you to follow your host and co-host! So we can keep in touch, but it's not mandatory.

2. Link up any post that talks about something you've done with, or for, your child. It can be recipes, DIY, arts&crafts, sensory activities, if you did it (or attempted it), you can link it! *Don't link directly to your blog, it must be a specific post* Feel free to link more than one post.

3. Check out some other ideas. Don't be a stranger, go see what other families have been up to, and leave them some love in the form of a comment.

4. Head over to Two In Diapers and visit the Sister Link Up, "Thursday's Mommy-Brain Mixer"! She wants your mommy stories, thoughts, and funny moments.

5.Tweet about it! Let people know how cool you are by linking up here :) Please grab a button and put it somewhere on your blog, preferably the post you're linking up. So others can find it and share, and steal, some great activities!

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If you're interested in co-hosting please email me at margaret@raisingbean.com, I'd love to have you!

Halloween Sensory Bath

This weeks activity was a sensory bath. The advantage of this is that Miller likes baths, so he is contained and so is  the mess. It is easier to hold his attention if he is happy. I used some foam cutouts on the walls along with his foam bath letters he already had. Then I made little shaving cream "islands" to put some toys on (these were supposed to be ghosts but I could not get the shape right). I threw in some orange foam cubes  and toy bones as well.

 

I also made some colored ice cubes in a pumpkin ice cube mold. Again, he just wanted to eat them. 

 

He really enjoyed it and played in it twice as long as a normal bath. 

We will definitely be doing these for other occasions.

Halloween Jello Sensory Bin

If you are keeping up, you might have thought I slacked on our weekly activity last week. You would be wrong! I actually did it, I just did not have time to post it with the preparations for his birthday party this past weekend.

 This one was super easy that I really do not think I need to narrate it.

Refrigerate. 

I hate jello because of the texture but I figured Miller might like playing with it. He did actually dig in it a bit but then just wanted to carry around the bin. I kept it in the fridge all week and kept bringing it out to the same results. Finally, this Wednesday I got it out with the intention of throwing it away. Miller started playing with it and got a kick out of pulling all of the jello up (and onto my kitchen floor). After about 30 minutes his was done so I got out a spoon and started scraping it all up so I could put it into the trash. Oh no! He got that spoon and started scooping all of the jello out (again, onto my floor). I was so proud that he was starting to get the hang of using a spoon. It provided about an hour and a half of total fun so we will try it again in the future.

I will try to get on posting this weeks activity this weekend or early next week, along with Miller's party here in Georgia.

Pumpkin Sensory Bag

This activity was even simpler than the one I posted on Monday, and it was a bigger hit with Miller. I am noticing a cycle of activities I have planned with him, they are all just themed differently for the time of year. Obviously, we are into Halloween and fall things right now. One of the great activities to do with kids are sensory bags. We have already made some with paint and some small toys for Miller and he seemed to like them.

*By the way, almost everything came from Dollartree. I love my child but there is no reason to spend a fortune on these things when I do not have to.

With this sensory bag, I squirted some hair gel into a baggie that I had drawn on, and added some food coloring, red and yellow again (now what color does that make?).

I added in some of the spaghetti from the day before, and some pumpkin seeds. Then I use packing tape around all 4 sides to adhere it to our window. I love it because it really does look like pumpkin guts, which is my favorite part of carving a pumpkin.

Miller was napping when I did this. After he woke up, I carried him into the kitchen to get something and he leapt out of my arms to get at it. He loved it! (Sorry, I could not catch him actually playing with it for a picture).

It is not a toy he will sit and play with for hours at a time, but one he will revisit over and over again. Our past sensory bags we have left up for a few weeks but I am not sure the spaghetti will last that long.

It looks like the activities I have for the rest of the month are following the cycle I was mentioning. I am excited to see how Miller does with next weeks.

BTW, This was my due date last year. I feel like after 8.5 months of that number being burned in my brain, it will be stuck in there forever with Miller's birthday.

Halloween Spaghetti

 

This weeks activity, witches brew. Yes, I made a boiling concoction with my almost 1 year old. Yeah right! I actually have two activities to post about this week, even though we did them both last week. They tie into each other so more bang for your buck.

I kept seeing blogs with kids playing with spaghetti. That is perfect because my child puts everything in his mouth. I need activities that are either okay that he puts in his mouth, or impossible for him to even try.

I put some water in a pot and added my food coloring. I think I did 10 drops of yellow and two of red. A little bit of red goes a long way!

I put it in a tub and sat that on a mat in our kitchen.  I was hoping Miller would come sit down and play in it, but that is not my child. He came over, grabbed the tub, dumped it out and marched off. He likes containers (and annoying his mother). 

He did end up grabbing some of it and trailing it across my kitchen.

I stuck it on his head trying to get him interested but it just made him mad. 

The aftermath. Thank goodness that we are easy going and this was not hard to clean up.

As I mentioned above, I have another activity to post about this week. Stay tuned!