Valentine's Day Canvas Painting

Today I am sharing a Valentine's canvas fingerprint painting that my kiddos did earlier in the month. I planned it Valentine's themed and loved it so much that it is now part of our playroom decor!

Materials:

• Canvas size of your choice (I actually planned on doing a smaller one, but had this already so we went with it!)
• Various colors of paint
• Print a heart of your choice in size 

First, I printed a heart and used painters tape to place it in the middle of our canvas. Next, I had my kiddos take turns painting fingerprints all around. This project took several hours since we had to let the paint dry after each kiddo took a turn (to keep the mess contained!). 

It turned out so cute and is the perfect decor for a playroom or a bedroom!

Valentine's Craft

We recently did a Valentine's Day themed craft that I thought I'd share today with you. We now have it displayed in our playroom for decorations and my littles love seeing something they made hanging up!

The printable came from Learning With Letty on TPT and can be found here. I used leftover scrap paper to cut out random pieces of paper in red, pink, and purple. 

It's really a simple and easy craft for Valentine's Day!

Valentine's Play Doh

Happy Friday! Today I am sharing a Valentine's themed Play-Doh set up that I quickly put together! To be honest, I haven't always loved Play-Doh, but it is SO good for fine motor skills so we pull it out fairly often for fine motor work!

For this set up, I used some of the materials I had in sensory bins and pulled the rest from various places around the house (the play kitchen and a wooden peg set). ANY materials will work for Play-Doh and we will use some tools to help roll the Play-Doh out.

Materials used:

• Play-Doh (Wal-Mart)
• Hearts table scatter (Dollar Tree)
• Cookie cutters (Wal-Mart)
• Wooden peg people (Hobby Lobby)
• Clear plastic divider (Hobby Lobby)
• Play food (Wal-Mart)

While the littles were playing with Play-Doh, I got the idea to take the mini hearts and "hide" them in the Play-Doh for them to find. It was great fine motor practice since you can squeeze the Play-Doh to find the hearts OR pull it apart to find the hearts. 

Snowflake Crafts

Happy Monday! Today I am sharing a few snowflake themed activities we did last week! First, I purchased this set of snowflake stamps from Amazon. These are great foam snowflake stamps that we will use in multiple ways! 

Last week we used the stamps with Play-Doh and created pretty snowflakes! Our next goal is to paint with the snowflake stamps! 

To work on our fine motor skills, we used the 3D snowflake stamps and added them to a fun snowflake! Such an easy way to work on fine motor skills and kids always love stickers! 

Snowflake Do-a-Dot

Do-a-Dot markers are one of our favorite activities, especially for one of my little ones! She LOVES, LOVES, LOVES them. Do-a-Dot markers are great for hand-eye coordination and visual scanning, so it's great practice for little ones! 

For an easy and quick craft, you can find seasonal (or non-seasonal) printables for your little ones! This week we decorated snowflakes - even if it was in the upper 60's one day! Ha! Maybe soon we will get to experience real snow. Until then, we can decorate away!

Snowman Bookmark

If you are anything like me, anything with my child's handprint, footprint, or fingerprint is always a FAVORITE. We made these snowman bookmarks back in December and handed a few out to grandparents for Christmas gifts.

Materials:

• blue construction paper
• white paint
• black marker
• orange marker
• laminator (optional)

The first thing we did was cut the bookmarks out. Next, my little ones put their thumb in paint and I guided them to make fingerprints to create snowmen. We added little smudges around the snowman as snow. Once it dried, I went back with a black and orange Sharpie marker to put on the finishing touches! We opted to laminate for durability.

It was such an easy project and it really is the sweetest bookmark! Such a cute craft if you are a reader or are giving them to family members who are readers! 

Snowflake Canvas Painting

Happy January! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas. A few weeks ago my girls enjoyed a fun snowflake painting, so I thought I would share this project with you all. We did this activity as part of occupational therapy, but it would be so cute to do anytime in the winter at home!

Materials:

• canvas
• blue paint
• painters tape 

First, make a snowflake on the blank canvas using painters tape. Next, have your child either paint with a paintbrush or for more sensory fun, use their HANDS! We opted for painting with our hands and it was such a FUN activity! I love the added sensory element with using hands. For children who don't enjoy this, you could easily use a paintbrush.

Once the painting dries, take off the painters tape and voila! You now have a snowflake painting! We displayed ours in the playroom for the a decorative piece during winter. 

Homemade Christmas Ornaments

I don't know about you, but homemade Christmas ornaments are my VERY FAVORITE ornaments. We have a colored lights tree with multiple homemade ornaments (both from previous students and my own children) and each one is so special. Anything with a handprint or a footprint is a BONUS for me!


Reindeer handprint:

These reindeer ornaments are oh so cute and probably my favorite ornament of all! I made several of these six years ago with my son and it is still in perfect condition! We use brown construction paper or cardstock paper as a background. Use dark brown paint for the handprint and allow time to dry. We have a personal laminator at home (BEST purchase ever!) so I laminated them once they were dry. Use hot glue to add google eyes and a red pom pom for a nose!

Ornament kits:

I also like to pick up ornament kits from the Dollar Tree. This set came with 12 foam trees and 3D stickers. The ornaments and stars were GREAT for working on fine motor skills!

Create your own ornament:

I picked up these plastic ornaments at the Dollar Tree, as well as the snow and pom poms. I put the snow in the ornaments and then let my littles put whatever they wanted inside!

Grinch handprint:

How the Grinch Stole Christmas is my favorite Christmas movie, so we just had to create a Grinch handprint ornament! This was so easy to make. We just did a handprint on white cardstock paper and allowed it to dry. Once it was dry we drew a Grinch face on and I added red cardstock to the back. We laminated it once it was put together! 

Plain handprint & footprint:

There are so many fun ways to decorate a handprint or footprint ornament, but it's also cute to just let it be a plain handprint and/or footprint! I love to see how much my kids hands and/or feet have grown year to year. It's bittersweet!

Reindeer ornament:

My son made this in preschool years ago and it's still a favorite. Paint popsicle sticks, let them dry, and then hot glue them together and add your finishing touches! 

Reindeer thumbprint ornament:

This is another ornament made in preschool and it is oh so cute! Add thumbprints all around the ornament and allow to dry. Then draw on antlers and faces! 

Jingle bell painting:

Last year my girls made this ornament in occupational therapy! It was such a cute activity. We laid a piece of white paper flat in a box, added some paint, and threw in some jingle bells. They held each side of the box and shook it back and forth, allowing the jingle bells to move freely in and out of the paint. Once it was finished, I let the paper dry and cut out circles to make ornaments! 

What are your favorite homemade ornaments?

Decorate a Christmas tree with dot stickers

Susie over at the Busy Toddler always shares fun ways to use dot stickers. We love dot stickers and use them often. I even purchased a large pack for stocking stuffers this year for my littles.

I used craft paper from our easel and taped it to the wall. I drew a Christmas tree and made yellow, orange, and green dots (those were the only color dot stickers I had at the time). 

Our goal was to decorate the tree by placing dot stickers over the coordinating colors. This was a great fine motor and visual scanning activity.

We had a beautifully decorated tree at the end! I love activities that are quick to put together and you get the most bang for your buck with skills being addressed!

Gift Guide for Toddlers (Ages 1-3)

It's the most wonderful time of the year! Christmas is my very favorite holiday. It's time to start thinking of the perfect gift for your children. First, I am sharing a gift guide for toddlers ages 1-3. Be on the lookout for my next post, which is geared for older boys ages 8-9.

This gift guide will be divided into a few categories:

• Experiences
• Outdoor
• Indoor/Multi Use

Let's start with EXPERIENCES. 

I love the idea of experience gifts. Last year we purchased tickets for my son to see his favorite wrestler, AJ Styles, at an event in a neighboring state. Not only did he get to experience the show, but he and his daddy made it an overnight trip, which was exciting all in itself. Some experience gifts I would recommend are:

• Zoo - Purchase a family membership to your local zoo for year-round fun! We have found this to pay for itself after only a few trips to the zoo and is well worth the price! Plus, everyone in the family gets to enjoy!
  
  
• Children's Museum - We love our children's museum and go often! It was well worth the price for a family membership so we could go as often as we wanted. This is great for those cold months that we are indoors the majority of the day.
  
  
• Other museums - If you have other museums in your area, whether history museums or science museums, family memberships are great for experience gifts. 

Let's move on to OUTDOOR gift ideas.

• Water table - Water play is so much fun for kiddos and even if they have to wait a few months for warmer weather, a water table makes the perfect gift. We have this one from Step 2 and love it. 

• Tricycles - As your little one gets older, it's time to begin introducing tricycles! We have both (or are getting both from family) the Schwinn and Radio Flyer. 

  

• Picnic table - My little ones love having picnic lunches outside during the summer. This picnic table by Little Tikes is perfect for that. 

• Basketball goal - This basketball goal by Little Tikes is the perfect starter set for a young basketball player. My girls watch their older brother play basketball, so I know they'll love getting to play it themselves. 

• Little Tikes Cozy Coupe - This is a classic and it is so much fun for little ones! We were gifted this princess edition, but the traditional red/yellow is just as sweet. 

• Little Tikes T-Ball set - This is another cute beginner athlete set. My son loved this when he was young. To this day, baseball is his favorite sport!

Now let's move on to INDOOR/MULTI USE gift ideas. 

• Little Tikes Mini Trampoline - We recently received this gift and my two year olds LOVE it. 

• Play kitchen - Our little ones will soon receive a kitchen and I cannot wait! A play kitchen was one of my most loved toys as a child and I cannot wait for my littles to enjoy one. We decided on this Kidcraft play kitchen. We decided on a corner kitchen since our space allows it and it looks big enough for 2 to comfortably play. 

• Play food - If you go with a play kitchen, you'll need accessories like play food. We debated on wooden vs. plastic play food. In the end, we decided to go with plastic, but we knew all plastic play food isn't made the same. I loved the durability of the play food at our local children's museum. It is from Lakeshore Learning, so we invested in it. 
  
  
• IKEA Flisat table - This table is PERFECT for sensory play, which is what we plan on doing with it! We purchased the white Trofast baskets to go down inside the Flisat table. 

• Mega Blocks Lego set - This is a classic beginner Lego set. They come in primary colors, pinks, and they even have a stack and learn set. 

•  Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Sink Toy - This has been a favorite toy of my littles for well over a year! It is great to teach the very beginning stages of brushing teeth, combing hair, and washing hands.

• Melissa & Doug Geometric Stacker - I originally was looking for a simple circular stacker, but found this set from Melissa & Doug and grabbed it. It is great for hand/eye coordination and fine motor skills.

• Toy animals - We bought a ton of animal figures from Hobby Lobby when my son was two years old. Six years later, they are still in GREAT condition and have proven to be WELL WORTH the investment. I recommend a high quality set that will last for years. 

 

• Puzzles - My favorite puzzles are from Melissa & Doug. They are such good quality that lasts. This farm animal puzzle is a favorite of ours.
  
  
• Kinetic sand - Kinetic sand is so great for sensory play. We use it often! 

• Do-A-Dot markers - These markers are great for crafts! We use them with printable Do-A-Dot sheets online. Great for hand/eye coordination!

• Dress up - Superhero capes, princess dresses, etc. What's not to love?! We are dedicating a spot in our playroom just for dress up. We have a Minnie Mouse dress up set, a Riverbanks Zoo vest, a superhero cape, and a veterinarian vest. 

• Play Doh - I know, it's messy. Little pieces of it get everywhere no matter how careful your children are. I like to throw down a sheet before we play so that (hopefully) all of the remnants stay on the sheet. Play Doh is GREAT for sensory play. We also like the Play Doh tools. 

There you have it! LOTS of gift ideas for toddlers ages 1-3! I hope this was helpful to you. What items are on your list for your little ones?

Be on the lookout for my next gift guide --> boys ages 8-9!