Play date: Mixing Colors

Well, this is a play group blog, so I think posting a report on a play date would be a great idea!

It was my turn to host, only the 4th time in the past 2 years (the group has grown!). I already hosted a Natural Remedies and Therapeutic Massage playdate, a movie watching playdate, a scavenger hunt playdate (didn't happen due to weather), and now this one!

I stumbled upon this blog post earlier this year, and when the time came to submit my idea for the playdate, I decided to give it a try. This color mixing activity fits the age group and my ability to organize something like that (gotta be simple, in other words).

So, the play date finally took place! I had to cap the event, as I was doing it on my backyard patio, and I wasn't sure how well I could manage a group of toddlers on our unfinished backyard. Both myself and Santino were very excited and couldn't wait for the guests to come and to start mixing colors and playing.

We had 2 boys and 1 girl attending our play date. All 3 boys pretty soon moved to our big sand box of the backyard (unfinished after taking down our pool) to play with diggers, and Kate, Santino's favorite girl, was the only one actually enjoying the activity to the full.

In a few words, the color mixing playdate went well. I did take the idea from the blog post I mentioned before, but I didn't follow it step-by-step.

I set up a "board" with words to use while explaining the activities to the kids. Then I pre-mixed 3 base colors, and set them up in the plastic containers on the floor of the deck. 

I prepped the color refills in advance. I know how impatient toddlers can get, so I wasn't going to let them wait in case the needed more.

I then separated the cornstarch in the bowls and set aside for later. Cornstarch was just an additional substance, which made a pretty cool goop with all the colored water kids created.

 

To refill the water, I filled up a small pool. I also prepared the towels, in case the kids get too wet and dirty.

 

For a party feel, I brought the radio with some kiddie music. They loved it! All and all, we had fun. Moms socialized and kids got messy. And that's what's it all about, isn't it?

Photo by Christine Burton-Boyce

Photo by Christine Burton-Boyce

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Instead of a "Bucket List" - April Activities for Kids

Back in December I suggested to come up with a list of fun activities for winter, a so called "bucket list", and we did! For spring, I am posting a suggested activities calendar for kids. Its fun! (Source: http://kidsactivitiesblog.com/calendar) Grab your ideas for the play dates, moms!

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Staging for Play-Dating

Aud and I are avid play-daters and have been since she was about 3 months old. We thoroughly enjoy meeting up with mummy and baby friends and making an afternoon of it. As I have mentioned in past posts I have a really amazing circle of mums and babes, most of which have gone back to work, but a couple who are still at home.  I live a little out of the way for a lot of them but have come up with creative ways of hosting like meeting up at the park for a picnic, or stroller walks and splash pads in the summer, mall walks in the cooler days. There are times I have hosted at my place and as I was getting ready for our play-date I couldn’t help but giggle to myself about how I ‘stage’ my home for company.

I’m not saying I don’t enjoy a clean house, or that my place is a dirty, frazzled mess all the time. I actually thoroughly enjoy cleaning and organizing but since becoming a mum finding time to do a full out clean or even the daily dusting is few and far between.

So here I go, picking up toys, dusting every shelf, shining the mirrors, scrubbing the bathroom and then it dawned on me. Does my mum friend really believe this is what my place looks like everyday? Am I really fooling her to believe I make our bed every day? That my kitchen looks this immaculate? Not to mention the fresh baked cookies and pumpkin spice candle for smell. If only I was a real estate agent staging homes for a living, I think I would do pretty well.

How funny is that?  Her and I have actually had a good laugh about it before. How we try our best to impress other mums, giving off this façade of a women who keeps it all together, who’s floors are spotless and shelves are dustless. Personally I have never walked into a fellow mum’s home and thought OMG? Why hasn’t she folded the toilet paper ends in her bathroom? Or I see a spot on her mirror, doesn’t she clean? Puh-lease.

 Ready for the truth? I definitely do not make my bed everyday, actually our room usually looks like a clothing bomb went off. I have this bad habit of getting out clothes, changing a million times and never putting them back. Then finally at the end of the week when I can no longer see my dresser I decide to go through it all and put it away.

I do have a habit of vacuuming a couple times a week but only because Audrina will find the smallest of smallest fluff or crumbs and eat it, (ok-do babies have x-ray vision or something?) Aud has also figured out that if she keeps her bottle tilted upside down she can paint a beautiful of milk drops and smears all over the floors…try keeping up with that 45 times a day.

Fresh baked cookies? Ok I might of gone to Tim Horton’s and bought a half dozen of cookies to put out…although I really do bake a mean batch of uh-mazing CCC’s, but who has the time? Let me know if you want my recipe…one tip melt the butter.

So why do I do it? Why do I insist on spending all evening and even during her nap cleaning and getting prepped for a play date that will only result in toys and food everywhere? I guess it’s because I really do have a feeling of satisfaction when it’s over. The feeling of knowing when they walk in they will think, wow her place smells great, or being comfortable putting their babies on my floor not worrying about them eating last nights dinner. Even though the women I am friends with are probably the least judgmental mum’s I have met, I still have this need to impress them.

So I am giving myself a challenge, the next play-date I host I will not go on a cleaning spree, I will not “bake” cookies or light a candle, and I will not pick up Aud’s toys all morning or make my bed. Do you think they will notice? Probably not…because the truth is the only one’s us mum’s need to worry about making an impression on is our kids and to be honest I think Aud would love it way better if I didn’t spend the time putting away her blocks only to have her have to find them and spill them out onto the floor for the 3^rd time today thinking, ‘I wonder how many times she wants to play this game?”

To read more of my blog please visit http://newmumontheblog.wordpress.com sharing experiences, insights, and advice from one mum to another

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Birthday party for a 2 year old. Fire truck theme.

It's been a challenge for me, but I think I did it. I had a few ideas on what to do for Santino's 2nd birthday party, I followed through on most of them. Here's what I did.

I knew I wanted to do a small playdate-like party for Santino, just with a few of his friends. I wanted to make it a theme party, just for fun and also to give me a better direction for my ideas. I am a kind of person who can't just create something something. I need a theme, a direction, some kind of constraint. Then it becomes easier somehow, just because so many options that otherwise overwhelm me, get cut off and I can stay on track.

A few months ago I thought I would do a Bob-the-Builder theme, but Santino's recent new obsession with fire trucks gave me a new direction.

To make a theme birthday party for a 2 year old, you don't need much. Here's the checklist:

1. Invitations
2. Snacks
3. Entertainment
4. Cake
5. Favors

And that pretty much covers the basics. You can also add decorations here, but I didn't go as far as purchasing fire truck balloons or banner flags, and decided to keep it simple.

So here is a play-by-play of my planning and executing.

Invitations

I opted for a simple and free invitations, so I used email to send them out. I made a digital photo, wrote an invite and gave it a little design in photoshop. And here it is, my own fire truck theme invite!

I specified the date, the time and the length (I made it early morning, more suitable for toddlers), and I also mentioned that second hand gifts are welcome: we welcome the Reduce-Reuse-Recycle idea in our house. Plus, I realize that all these toddlers' moms are stay-at-home, the incomes are limited, and I didn't want to obligate them to buy expensive gifts. Santino doesn't care if its new. He will appreciate any truck or a book about trucks, and that's what I said on the invite.

Snacks

I didn't want to have a bunch of unmanageable toddlers high on sugar running around and bumping in each other, plus I don't promote sugar snacks in our home, so I arranged various fruit slices on pretty plates on a small table. I added toddlers' favorite fish crackers and home made mini carrot cakes. My original idea of "design your own topping" didn't come to life due to various reasons, but toddlers were happy with just the bite size cupcakes. I put lots of carrots, also added butternut squash, nuts and raisins, and put only half the sugar as it is required by the recipe.


Entertainment

I did think of a few fire-truck-themed games, but they all involved water, so required being outside. I realized that would have been too much of a mess, and decided to keep it simple, just playing downstairs in Santino's toy room. It was not that well organized, but toddlers didn't care. Whatever toys they had to play with, they spread all over the room, making such a mess, that I thought I would never be able to clean it. It did take me a few days after the party to finally sort everything through properly.

I turned on some nursery rhymes music, hoping they would dance and sing, but they were too busy. One mom said, in reply to my concern that I didn't have any special games for them, "them just playing like that is fine; I actually wish this how it would be the whole time". And she was right about that.

I had purchased 3 "tunnels" for the kids on a garage sale. They loved playing with those.

I prepared some puzzles and some stacking toys, but they were not in demand. Morning party for the 2 year olds was filled with more active games.

A few nights before, I put together a playlist of fire truck videos and had it playing continuously in another room. I figured, that at some point the kids will get tired of each other, and some will want to calm down and would love to watch some videos. Santino can watch fire trucks on TV for hours, so it was more interesting for him, that for other kids.

I also painted a fire truck mock up with a cut out for the kids to stick their face in and take pictures. We kinda skipped this, not everybody was ready to play with this cut out the way I thought they would. Santino loved it though.

Cake

An hour after the start of the party, we brought the cake, made by Connie of the Perfectly Planned Parties.

I looked great, complimenting the fire truck theme, and the simple vanilla taste pleased the kids. Everybody loved the cake.

Santino loved the fire truck, that came with it, but didn't like the happy birthday song, started crying for some reason.

Party favors.

This project was a mind twister for me. I didn't know what to give the kids as a "thank you" for coming. Buying fire trucks for everybody seemed too expensive. I got the stickers, which is a great bribing tool at this age. And what else? I finally came up with an idea: fire truck cookies!

I didn't think it would be too hard to bake such cookies, but the decoration part was going to be a tricky one.

I found a cookie-cutter recipe online. This one. It worked great for me, who was baking such cookies for the first time! I'm sure it will work great for everybody.

I didn't have the fire truck cookie cutters, so I made one. I drew a simple shape on a card stock, cut it out, and used to trace on the dough! So simple. I found, that this will work great only on the almost frozen dough. If you start cutting soft dough, the edges will be very rugged, not clean.

For decoration, I mixed up some icing sugar (just regular sugar, blended in a small blender, the "Baby Bullet" one; if you don't have Baby Bullet, you can use coffee grinder) with water and some red and yellow icing food coloring. That made the red color of the cookies. To paint the details, I made some merengue icing, and then I just popped the cookies in a warm (not hot) oven for about half an hour, to harden the icing. The oven shouldn't be too hot, as the whites can change the color to brown, and you wouldn't want the cookies to become too hard.

 

For the "thank you" cards, I decided to give Santino an opportunity to participate in making this project. I mixed up some red food coloring with water and added sugar to thicken the mixture, and gave it to Santino. I also cut out a fire truck shape in a potato, in an attempt to make a stamp. The stamp would have worked, if he didn't start slamming that stamp on the cards so hard, that the shape disappeared quickly. Here's what we achieved as a "thank you" card, signed by Santino. 

So, here is a little report on Santino's 2nd birthday party. I already wrote it once, and it got erased by Santino himself. It took me a while to find the time to sit down and write it all over again.

I enjoyed preparing this party for Santino! I wish I knew what I was doing better, but I will try again the next year! After all, there are many more Santino's birthday parties to come!

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Homemade Musical Instruments In Motion

Last Wednesday we met up on a beautiful September morning for one of our playdates. I just wanted to share some photos (Photo credit goes to Nataliya) for those of you who were there, those of you that couldn't make it, and those of you who are thinking of joining our group.

 

During this playdate, our toddlers got to make rain sticks from filling paper towel rolls with rice, pasta and buttons, and of course decorating them.

 

It was nice to see everyone, and hope you all had fun!

 

 

 

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Summer outdoor activities: parks

One of the main reasons we moved to Newmarket was the beautiful scenery and lots of parks. I would like to share a few of our favorite places to enjoy outdoors. They all are located within walking distance for us, which is great, and they are also all different and mostly very well taken care of.

The park on Wayne st., near the Glen Cedar secondary school. We like that it is located very close to our house, there are several slides of various heights, a sliding pole (this is important for a fire-truck-obsessed toddler), and a huge field to run around, a "forest" with a river and bridges, hiking tracks and even an apple tree. We used to love coming to this park back in the spring and the beginning of summer, but when it got too hot we switched for other parks, that have more shade. I am also not a big fan of the little stones that cover the playground in this park. I noticed that all babies and toddlers keep trying to either eat or throw them; they also make clothes very dirty.

George Richardson park, just at the end of Elgin st. This is one of our favorite parks. It is not as close as the previous one, but still just a 15 minute walk. It has lots of shade from big trees, benches to rest on, a picnic table, a baseball field with the seats for spectators, and even a practice cage. There is a huge field divided into 2 smaller soccer fields, a river with a beautiful bridge, and a Tom Taylor Trail right across the street. The playground is covered with wood chips, which is much better, as they are softer and not as inviting for toddlers to put in their mouth. I also find that even though there are always kids at this park, they are more contained and better supervised, as they come with parents, whereas at the previous park there are lots of school kids playing "grounders" and making the play difficult for toddlers.

 

 

Then there is our favorite for the summer time, the "Dinosaur" park. It is located at the end of the Tom Taylor Trail, on the other side of the railway from the water feature and Newmarket Community Center. I like the separate areas of this playground, I like that there are areas with sand, with wood chips, and even with a soft rubber flooring, like in a gym. I also love the fact that it is so close to the water feature, and after an hour of play in the sand, we would go straight to the water and run around there. It was beautiful back in the hot summer days.
 (I somehow didn't take a good photo of this park, but I do have a distant view snapshot).

We also love the  beautiful walking trail that leads to this park, a river, the ducks and the "dinosaur" bones that you can find in the sand.

 
We visited a small park on Queen st, behind the Southlake hospital. It is way too small, and the climbing wall was a bit too advance for Santino at his 22 months back then. We will try again next year.


There are other beautiful parks just a few steps away, like a huge playground near the Fairy Lake, and many others. Its hard to visit them all, but please do join in the conversation and share your photos of the beautiful parks in Newmarket and the area!

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Ideas For Setting Up A Play Room / "School" Room

When Jonathan turned 6 months old and started to crawl, I really started to feel the "need" for some sort of "play room" for him.  I was tired of my entire house being a play zone.  Tired all the nicks on the walls, things getting damaged, baby-proofing to the 9's and mostly not having a space for him to be a KID and not always have to tidy up cause people may come to the door and see a demolition zone!  We had bins in every room of toys.  What was once our "new home"; professionally decorated to our likes; had now turned into a child's den. It was time to move to renovate!

Now, I totally understand that everyone's situation is different and not everyone has the ability to just randomly create a new "space" in their home.  For us, we had an unfinished basement with some ideas in the back of our mind to someday renovate it.  Apparently now was the time! If you are considering renovating your basement too or another room in your home to create a play room, or for my homeschooling friends - if you are looking for "school" room ideas OR if you even just want to make your regular home space a little more "kid friendly"; here are some things that we did that we are finding is working great!  In fact, I am writing this article as a response to a request from others parents who have been to our home for play dates :)

THE ZONES:    our new play area consists of different areas or "zones" as I call them.

The Kitchen

When Jonathan first took a liking to "kitchen play"; we just didn't have the space or money to invest in one of those really neat / large kitchen play seats.  So instead we just got this little table top mini kitchen :)    I like how it takes up less space and is easily portable / removable.    We have a ton of "play food" and kitchen items.  I took a bunch of plastic kids tableware out of our own kitchen and gave jonathan his own shopping bag, chef's hat and apron to finish off the look

**beware -- the play kitchen food is a huge mess-maker :)  Although its lots of fun, be prepared to be picking it up off the floor all the time :)   (http://www.toysrus.ca/product/index.jsp?productId=11651726)

 

jonathan cooks in his "kitchen".  This particular table top one was from Costco.

Jonathan sets the table for baby and puppy.  This table couples as as art table.

The Chalk Wall

These are hugely popular.  You can buy chalk board paint at most big box building stores today.  We got this one from Home Depot (http://www.homedepot.ca/product/chalkboard-paint-black-887ml/980042).  Note that it doesn't have to be black!  you can get it made in any colour you choose.  Also -- there is a magnetic base that you can put on as well if you'd like to also have a huge magnet board *although I hear it doesn't work too great.   **be sure your walls are smooth or sand them.  And great ready to do at least 3 coats :)  To clean our board / wall, we just use a wet microfiber cleaning cloth.  If you are worried about "chalk dust", there is really cool new dustless chalk (Crayola) and chalk paint.   But, once again, remember that this is a kids room so a little chalk mess is not a problem in a designated kids play area.  Id caution more about doing something like this in a bedroom.....

http://www.crayola.com/browse-products/12-ct-anduseptic-antidust-chalk-sticks.aspx

The Arts & Crafts Area

Arts and crafts were always hugely important to me!  So we have designated bins and bins of craft supplies alone.  Everything has its own place and is labelled.  I find if everything has a proper spot and you teach your kids to respect their toys, it's not a problem to have it all out like this.  Jonathan is especially good at knowing that colouring happens only on the paper and that markers need their lids back on them.   Only 1 or 2 play doh colours are allowed to be opened at a time (even though I think we have a lifetime supply of play doh in our house!)

http://www.staples.ca/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?CatIds=&webid=682538&affixedcode=WW                                                                                    

A Dymo Labeller is my best friend :)  Beware the label tape is pricey :(

http://www.canadiantire.ca/AST/browse/3/HouseHome/StorageOrganization/ContainersBinsTotes/PRD~0680449P/12+Bin+Organizer.jsp?locale=en   

**These go on sale all the time.   Reg $69.99 but I only paid $35 for mine :)

The Play Area

Really this is everywhere, but I do have those foam mats on the floor in designated areas for "floor play."  Once again; every toy has a spot or bin that it goes it.

You'll notice in our home (as part of our homeschooling philosophy); we try to have as little "noisy" toys as possible.  In addition, where possible I try to get wood or cloth toys.  The less plastic the better!

Some of our favourite toys include:

1) lacing beads

Primary Lacing Beads   http://www.setonbooks.com/viewone.php?ToView=P-MDPK-37

2) Melissa and Doug wood puzzles

Numbers and letters sound puzzles http://www.setonbooks.com/viewone.php?ToView=P-MDPK-16

3) stacking toys

http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/60061967/

4) books  *note that we actually have a children's library in our home that could rival a public library :)  it is not located in our new basement play area as I find too many books in one place at any time leads to less appreciation and inattentiveness.  Instead, we have 1 bin of books in the play area and 1 in our bedroom (that I pre-select based on age appropriateness, the time of year i.e. if a holiday is around the corner, what we are learning i.e. colours, numbers, etc., our interests at the time i.e. trains, etc.)

The Reading Nook

Further to above, we have what I like to call a reading nook under our staircase.  It was an odd shape / space to fill so I thought it would make a great place to throw a bunch of pillows down for quiet time and reading.  This can easily be done anywhere with some foam floor mats and random pillows.  **I have future plans to add a curtain around this area to also couple this as a hide-out / fort area some day.

The Media Area

Yes - this basically means that we have a TV in our play room. But before I get ahead of myself let's just say that this TV is actually not really for the kids :)    We figured if we were going to finish the basement, we should at least put a sofa down there and a TV in case mom and dad ever wanted to hide out down there :)   I can see this being of more use in the years to come.  We have video games hooked up to this tv so we can do our Wii Fit in this space, etc.  jonathan also has age appropriate video games that he is allowed to play on occasion

Some of our favourite DVDs

1) Brother Francis Series

http://www.catholicchapterhouse.com/catalogsearch/result/?order=relevance&dir=desc&s=brother+francis&q=brother+francis&searchSelect=store

2) Character Builders DVD Series

http://www.aophomeschooling.com/product/prm100/

The Homeschool Area

As a homeschooling family, our needs may be a little different in terms of organizing our day.  Where possible, I try to not "model" a school classroom environment as this is not really what I want to create.  Instead, I model it around functionality and organization; mainly for my sake as the "teacher".

~ The Week Wall

These are little pockets attached to the wall of what we are going to be doing "school wise" each day of the week.  This could be worksheets from our curriculum as well as a multitude of supplemental resources I use

~ The Word Wall

This is what Jonathan is currently working on.  Right now its letter recognition, number recognition, name recognition and his colours.  Right now he knows his letters A-Z, numbers 1-20 and all his primary colours. My goal for this year is for him to recognise each of them at random, know his letter sounds and be able to write his name.  Wish us luck!

~ Mommy's Desk

This is my "cube" of resources and materials for homeschooling.  Jonathan really doesn't touch or play with these items (unless he chooses to grab his flash cards off the shelf for some extra practise of course;)

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