make a mess Mondays: best toddler activity ever

This is the kind of mess I really like: no stains on the carpet.

A friend of mine with a daughter just 5 weeks older than Lorelei gave us this for L's 1st birthday (container decorated by her little toddler), and it has been a go-to activity for us ever since. The puff balls can be purchased at your local craft store, and their uses are endless! Cut a hole in a piece of cardboard or in the top of an oatmeal container and let her stuff them in; practice throwing accuracy by tossing them into a box a few feet away; have a "snowball fight" that doesn't hurt anyone; group them by color to work on categories; toss them around the room and have fun putting them away (really - I didn't invent that game, but L thinks it's the best!).

If you're looking for a cute, cheap gift you and your kiddo can make/assemble together to give at toddler birthday parties, I'd highly recommend this one!

make a mess mondays | easy cake recipes for toddlers

It's been a while since I've posted one of our sensory play activities -- here's something we've been doing a lot around here lately: baking!

Lorelei is fascinated with making cakes -- when we see one in a book, she runs to the kitchen to point out her apron (actually one my grandmother made for me 30 years ago!). I had also forgotten how amazing it is to get to lick the batter off the spoon. Such pure delight every single time. So I've taken precautions to make sure we always bake cakes that are egg-free so my little taste-tester can sample as much as she wants.

I know in Bringing Up Bebe  (how do you do accent marks in Blogger? le sigh.) Pamela Druckerman talks about the classic French yogurt cake that even young toddlers can make, since it's all measured with a 6 oz. yogurt container (read one mom's experience here). I do something similar with Lorelei; during her nap, I get all the ingredients ready to go so she doesn't have to sit around waiting for me to use the can opener.

Easy Toddler Cake, Two Versions

version one:
one can pumpkin puree
one box Hodgson Mill Whole Wheat Gingerbread mix*
1/2 cup raisins, craisins, chopped cranberries, currants, etc.

version two:
one can pumpkin puree
one box Ghirardelli Double Chocolate Brownie mix*
1/2 cup chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350. Dump all of the ingredients into a large bowl and stir until everything is mixed in. Spread into a prepared 8x8 pan and bake according to box directions (note: the gingerbread doesn't seem to need to go quite as long as it says -- start checking at 20 min.).

That's it! Lorelei would like you to know that periodically turning on the oven light to check on your cake is half of the fun.

*technically, you could do this with any boxed mix; I recommend these two because they are both trans-fat free, which is hard to find in prepared mixes.

Make a Mess Mondays: make your own fingerpaints

I'm back with a Make a Mess Monday post! This time, Lorelei and I painted the town red -- and blue, and green, and purple...

I was able to whip up the paint pretty easily during her naptime. To make it, I combined 3 cups of water, 1 cup of cornstarch, 5 Tbsp of sugar, and a tsp of salt in a saucepan and stirred (and stirred and stirred and stirred!) over low heat until it got really thick and paint-like. (I actually intended to follow this recipe, but then wasn't paying any attention and dumped in 3 cups of water so had to modify. Maybe it would have gone faster the original way -- it took quite a while for it to thicken.) Then I put a few drops of food coloring into each cup of a 6-cup jumbo muffin tin, added the paint base, and voila!

I wish we had a giant roll of butcher paper, but newspaper taped to the bricks on our patio ended up working pretty well. Next time, I'll tape even more down -- Lorelei wanted to have lots of room to spread out, and I ended up with a few baby footprints that I had to hose down later (it came off really easily, in case you were wondering). I gave her some sponge paintbrushes to try, and she seemed to love dipping them in the paint and then touching them to the paper.

I know from the pictures it looks like she ate more than she painted, but she really only put the brushes near her mouth a few times -- and since the ingredients are safe, I didn't worry too much about it (though of course redirected so she doesn't get in the habit!).

Not bad for a lazy afternoon activity. [p.s. did you see Margaux's post about her own cornstarch + baby fun recently?]

make a mess Mondays: rice sensory play

Happy Monday, all!

So it seems like I'm not the only mom out there looking for interesting new play activities to try with a rambunctious toddler. I decided to start a semi-regular series called Make a Mess Mondays where I'll post an idea for something messy and entertaining Lorelei and I tried recently. I'm not guaranteeing success -- I plan to post failed ideas, too, with thoughts for how to improve it next time. Just hoping it might spark some possibilities for you, too!

Is there a linky party out there already dedicated to this? (There must be, right?) Otherwise, I'm thinking about starting one -- any thoughts?

Okay, on to the actual post:

After our success with making a mess with flour last week, I decided to try rice this time. I had read that it's fun for kids to "discover" objects hidden in the rice, so I buried a few small toys in the bowl.

Turns out I should have used a bigger bowl and more rice. Oh -- and though finding buried objects was fun, it was a lot more fun to fling the rice all over the kitchen instead. That garbage bag idea was a good thought but not even close to sufficing for clean-up purposes. Next time maybe we'll try this outside! Though it did get me to clean the kitchen floor better than I otherwise would have. Dual purpose playtime?

Oh, and I was worried Lorelei would try to eat the rice, and she did put a few grains in her mouth. But mostly she seemed more interested in exploring the texture through her fingers than in trying to taste it -- and she has quite the oral fixation, so rest assured that your little one can't be any worse!

When we attempt this again, I'm also planning to introduce some empty jars and containers for her to use for scooping and pouring the rice -- if it works in the sandbox, it should work for this, too.

Looking forward to trying more of these activities and sharing them with you -- and I would love to get ideas from you, too, so please post your links in the comments below!