Halloween Activity Bins

I wanted to give "Baby" O some Halloween activities, but finding things for a 1 year old can be a little tough.  Then I thought back to when I create her sensory bowl, which she stills plays with.  I looked through my Halloween bin from when I taught Pre-K and found lots of things that I could use in one way or another. 

This is the main idea of what items I used to create fun, entertaining and educational activities for"Baby" O.

First, I added a 2 sets of Halloween cups.  We stack them and knock them down, put items into the cup and nest the cups.

The second activity was a pumpkin basket filled with spiders and a scoop.  We scoop the spiders, put them into the cups or the basket, count them and so on.

Of course "Baby" O is never without books.  We have both board books (pictured) and what we call "Mommy's Books" which are paper back and she is not aloud to play with yet since she has ripped a few already.  She loves to just sit and look at the books and sometimes reads them to us.

Another activity was a little felt basket filled with cookie cutters in Halloween shapes.  We talk aboutthe different shapes, sort them, stack them, make patterns and so on.

This activity was another pumpkin basket filled with mini stuffed pumpkins.  The pumpkins are 2 different sizes so we sort them by size, make patterns, stack or attempt to stack them, throw them into the basket and so on.

There is not much, but this is the start of our Halloween dress up stuff. We will have to add to this activity over the years.

This is just a large furry spider that we play with.  It's legs are bendable so we create different positions for him.

Our last activity is Halloween stuffed animals.  We don't do much with these as far as sorting or anything, but we make them talk and dance.

"Baby" O has enjoyed all of her Halloween activities.  Sometimes I let her choose which she wants to play with or I give her a single basket for more quiet individual play.  Something that I did not take a picture of are her musical balloons.  I filled orange balloons with things such as beads, rice, pasta and so on.  After I blew them up I drew faces of them to make jack-o-lanterns and strung them up with green ribbon.  When she hits them they make different noises and she has a blast with these. 

With Halloween here in just a few days I need to come up with some fall/Thanksgiving activities for "Baby" O.  I gave away a bunch of items for Thanksgiving last year that I am know wishing I didn't because she could play with them, but oh well.  We can just start from scratch. 

Happy Halloween!! 

Sensory Bowl for Babies

I have seen so many great ideas for sensory bins which of course I am going to do, but Baby O is still a little too young since they usually contain small parts.  Lately she has been really studying items - how they feel, look and yes, taste.  Because of this curiosity I decided that I wanted to make a baby friendly sensory bin.  While at Target I looked through the dollar bin for items with various textures and shapes.  I noticed after a few items that I kept grabbing pink so I decided to make everything in this bin have at least some pink.  I usually try not to make things gender specific, but I guess one all pink thing is ok.  Anyway, I ended up getting a bowl from the dollar bin as well.  When I got home I took the tags off of everything and took any safety precautions needed for any items.  Everything in the bowl looked so cute and I was excited to let Baby O try it out.

In her sensory bowl I included a foam drink cozie (did I spell that correctly?), flower loufa, bumpy squishy ball, microfiber towel, long cotton polka dot fabric ribbon, slinky (the ends are clipped down so no worries about being poked), plastic/rubber necklace, compact flower mirror which I kept open, curled ribbon attachment for presents (I took the tags used to attach it off and then put masking tape over the staple).

 I later added a few of the balls from Baby O's ball pit.  They were red not pink, but close enough.  The balls allow for even more opportunities to learn and explore.  She can put all the balls (we can take more from the ball pit if needed) into the bowl.  Baby O can also put 1-2 balls in the cozie and then dump them out.

While playing with the items I realized that Baby O can beat on the upside down bowl like a drum.  She also put the bowl on her head like a hat.  I was actually surprised at how much Baby O seemed to like her sensory bowl and the items in it.  She played for quite some time and we got it out a few times during the evening.

Everything in Baby O's sensory is either items from the dollar bin at Target or things that we already had at home.  So for $10 we have multiple items that she can explore and occupy her attention for some time.  As I find other items I will add to her sensory bowl and eventually make it a bin for all of the additional items.  I would definitely recommend creating something like this if you have a baby.  It is fun and educational for them, plus all of the items can grow with them to be used separately.

Baby O Gets a Ball Pit!

Baby O is going to be 8 months soon (I can't believe it!).  She is at the stage where she wants to touch everything and move around or in her case roll around.  We wanted to get her something that she could play with that is much different than anything she has now.  Something that can be used outside on a nice day, but inside when it is not so nice out.  Something that doesn't cost a ton of money.  After thinking a little and doing a little research we decided on a ball pit.  We already had a very small blow up pool that we got for the warm summer weather.  We decided to make the pool do double duty since it isn't going to be pool time, or for a 8-9 months old splash in about an inch of water time, for a little while now.  We went to Target this past Friday and bought a bag of ball pit balls for under $15.  So round up a bit and say $15, plus the $5 for the pool and Baby O has her own ball pit for about $20.
 

 Saturday afternoon we blew the pool up and added the balls while Baby O was napping.  I like this pool because if she starts to fall over the pool sides act like bumpers.

Now all that was left was to add Baby O.  She wasn't sure at first, but after a minute or two she began grabbing the balls, inspecting them and the different colors, and moving her feet around to see how they felt in the balls.

I would say that Baby O's ball pit is a success.  I'm sure that as time goes on she will learn to like it more and more.  It will be nice when we can start to mix items in with the balls for her to look for and play with.  The ball pit is almost like a giant sensory bin!