Fun with Plastic Eggs

There are loads of ideas for how you can use plastic Easter eggs before you cram them full of candy, stickers, and bouncy balls on Easter Day. Here are a few ways we've used them this week:

Capital & lower case letter matching. Charlotte loves the Leap Frog movies Phonics Farm and Amazing Alphabet Adventure (on Netflix). She can identify all capital letters, but not all lower case, and this is good practice. If I make the matches again, I'll only use two colors of eggs - one color will go on top, one on bottom. 

Memory.

Hide small objects under egg halves (we used 12 (six pairs). This is pretty tricky for Charlotte, as she doesn't quite understand how beneficial it is to look under new eggs each turn - she keeps going back to the same ones. She does very well as a team, though, getting most matches immediately if someone else picks up the first egg. Again, it could be easier if I only used two colors of eggs. 

Circles Painting

Charlotte loves the show Peg + Cat on PBS & Cat loves circles "cuz they're round!" Charlotte was excited to use the eggs as stamps to create some circle art. I think it's lovely & Cat would be proud! 

:-)

Natalie likes looking at all the eggs, too! She likes to pick them up, wave them around, and of course - taste them!! :-)

Mess-Free Toddler Art

A few days ago, Charlotte & I made this no-mess Easter egg "sun catcher." 

I squeezed globs of a few colors of finger paint on top of a piece of wax paper. Then Charlotte helped drizzle glitter glue (the most exciting part, if you ask her) all over the wax paper. 

Next, I put another piece of wax paper on top of the paint/glue & Charlotte squished & smeared & pressed & patted until she was satisfied with how the colors swirled together. 

We let it dry overnight, then I cut it out into egg shape & added a pink construction paper frame (all freehand, so please no nit-picking on the imperfections!). I used tape to put it up on the playroom window so we all can enjoy her lovely work of art. :-)

No mess, no cleanup, and lots of fun! 

http://www.twokidscooking.com/2013/03/kids-easter-crafts-easter-egg-sun-catcher/

Egg Shaker Listening Game

I've been cruising Pinterest for fun Easter crafts & games for Charlotte - there are SO MANY good ideas! 

Today I filled some plastic eggs with different objects. Each egg had a match with the same object inside. 

I used white beans, dry rice, snap cubes, pennies, Kix cereal, and oatmeal (bad idea, it flaked out of the eggs - I'm replacing with buttons). 

Charlotte shook an egg & tried to find it's match by sound alone. She really wanted to open the eggs to see what was inside right away, but got the hang of it. 

Big hit! 

^^ I love this face!!! ^^ 

I love that this activity engages multiple senses, and opens discussion about weight, estimation, descriptive words & opposites (heavy, light, loud, soft, jingle, rattle, rustle, etc.). Lots of fun! :-) 

http://livingmontessorinow.com/2011/04/11/montessori-inspired-easter-activities/

Units of Measure

Charlotte stepped onto the scale in the bathroom today & said, "I'm just gonna see if my feet are growing, Mommy." 

She stood there for a moment (backwards), waited for the numbers to appear, and proclaimed, "My feet grew one pound, Mommy!!!!!"

I suppose to a 2-year-old, it does look like we're measuring our feet each time we step on the scale! :-) 

Natalie Faith - 9 Months

This picture... This picture sums up life with our sweet Natalie at 9 months old. She is smiley and happy and cuddly and active and full of life. Her lovely smile is accompanied by an adorable baby giggle, most often brought out while playing with her big sister. Those two are best friends! Natalie wants to be a part of everything Charlotte does. She follows her around, gets into her stuff, and always wants to know what Charlotte's doing.

Natalie is eating 3 meals of solid foods each day - sometimes more. She still nurses at night, and takes a bottle each day, too. While I try to get her to eat fruit and vegetable purees, she is way more interested in feeding herself. She will eat just about everything we offer her, and squeals at us if we allow her tray to be empty for even a small portion of mealtime. It's hard to tell what her favorite foods are, since she really likes everything! 

She has just one bottom tooth, but it's next door neighbor is about to break through any day now. Oh boy, the teething! She makes some super cute faces trying to ease her gums, but mostly she just likes to chew, chew, chew!

At her 9 month checkup, Natalie weighed 17 pounds 2 ounces (32nd percentile) and was 27.5 inches tall (46th percentile). I'm so glad that she's gaining weight and growing appropriately - especially with her love of solids even though "food before one is just for fun." She has met every milestone early or on time so far. She is crawling, pulling to stand, inching her way around furniture, passing objects from one hand to the other, playing peek-a-boo, clapping, waving, starting to identify Ben as "dada" with some consistency, and babbles quite a bit. 

She now takes 2 naps each day - one around 9:45 and another around 2:00. She sleeps about 11 hours overnight with 2 wakes typically. We're working on a new routine right now and are hoping to get her night wakes down to 1... or even none! It's been about 3 years since I've had decent sleep, so I'm ready for that!

We're so in love with you, Natalie! You have such a gentle nature, curious mind, and sweet heart. I can't wait to see what the next month holds! 

Teething

I'm so glad I don't remember cutting teeth. It must be so painful! I can tell that the new little toothie in Natalie's mouth is giving her grief, too. She is "fussy" (by her sweet, mild standard), can't sleep well at night, and chews on EVERYTHING. It's the bottom left front tooth & it came a week or two ago. 

She must be preparing for its next-door buddy's arrival, soon. She will chew on just about anything! 

But it's also coming in handy since she loves to eat what we're eating. And she's getting pretty good - chomping on small veggies, cheese, meat, fruit, bread, basically anything! 

Sister Love

I hope they're best friends forever and ever.