Have a Teddy-Bear and Monkey Toast Picnic

Snack time is extra fun when you turn it into a little picnic and take the mess outside. I used an idea I saw online and made my own version of this cute snack. All you need is toast, peanut-butter, bananas, and chocolate-chips. My twins are a little too young to appreciate faces on their food–mostly they are just interested in the chocolate chips as chocolate chips, since chocolate chips are a rare treat. They dig them out with little fingers and do not care that they are supposed to be teddy bear eyes. But even if they don’t appreciate the cuteness factor, I do.

Cardboard Box Art

I used to do this with our foster son–I would take one of the cardboard boxes that dwell in our house with great multiplicity and open it up and lay it flat on the floor. It becomes the perfect canvas for all kinds of mediums: watercolors, crayons, pencil crayons, and pens. One day recently, Teddy dug his cardboard out from behind the toy box and walked over and fussed loudly under a mug of pens on a shelf high above him. It pleased me to see this becoming his choice of activity and not just mine.

Rice

This is another one I did with our former foster son and now do with my twins. Dump rice in a big bowl or on a sheet pan and give them spoons and measuring cups and little dishes to scoop it around. If your little people are older than mine are, they might enjoy driving little cars and diggers around through the rice on the sheet pan and making roads. Mine mostly just enjoy dumping it. Everywhere. And then I sweep it up and let them do it again. This activity might be better done outside, if you don’t enjoy messes all over your floor, but it’s easier to sweep up and start over if it’s on the kitchen floor.

Edible Finger Paints

Here is another activity that might be better done outside or in moments of desperation. Take vanilla yogurt, or plain yogurt, and spoon it into a muffin tin. Add one to two drops of food coloring into each compartment. I combined red and yellow to make orange, and blue and red for purple. Your toddler or preschooler can use their fingers and draw on cardboard or paper.

Mine are a little young for this activity too–Ellie quickly discovered that vanilla yogurt tastes just as good when it is colored and didn’t bother to use it to paint before she ate it. And the kitchen and babies quickly became a disaster zone. The fun was all over when Teddy started slipping around in the “paint” on the floor and wailing.

You will notice I took their clothes off before letting them dig in–for obvious reasons. So when they both started trying to climb me with their painty little selves, I carried them outside and set them in their kiddy pool and washed them off.

I tried this again today, but I stuck them in their high-chairs and gave them bibs and only one color of paint each. It was not as exciting, but some kinds of excitement are only for very special occasions.

Go to the Park

We live within less than a mile of two very nice parks, and I know this is not the case for everyone. But even if you have to drive a little to get to a park, I encourage you to do it with your little people sometimes. It is good for moms and for little ones to get out of the house and spend time playing outside. What is not good? The high, open places where little ones could fall off the play equipment. I am scared of heights to begin with, and I’m even more up tight when it’s my toddlers precariously walking near those open areas… But swings are great for watching two little ones at once!

Go to the Library

We visited our local library for the first time recently. Teddy and Ellie enjoyed playing with the toys in the children’s library, and I borrowed five new carboard books. We brought them home, and I keep them separate from the rest of their books and occasionally pull them out for something special. I am delighted that they love books already, and it is a love I want to continue encouraging.