planting a flag garden

My mom ordered dozens of these American flags from Oriental Trading Company for the Fourth of July celebration at their lake house. J got a hold of some and decided to plant them in the raised garden bed.

Happy 4th everyone! 

Sorting flowers

I bought this egg holder at a garage sale and thought we'd use it as a sorting tray. So I gathered up different flowers and offered them to J on a plate along with the tray.

He got busy and we talked about the different colors and textures of the flowers as we went.

The end!

bricks and sticks

This is my first attempt to blog via my mobile and let me tell you, I'm being outsmarted by my smartphone.

Anyhoo, J and I are spending the holiday with my family up at my parent's lake house. It's the perfect opportunity for some activities that involve nature.

After the mega-storm system that ran down Lake Michigan yesterday, the ground was littered with sticks. J was gathering some up so I offered him this brick with holes in it.

He immediately got the idea and began placing the sticks in the holes (very Montessori -ish, no?)

It's a good thing I didn't wait until the end to take a picture because immediately after he placed the last stick he knocked them all down.

Oh well!

Ok I'm about to publish. Lets see if the photos end up in the right spot. I'm not convinced.

blowing out the candle

Ok, this wasn't really J's birthday but he so enjoyed blowing out his candles on his birthday cake (he is really attracted to fire in all shapes and forms) I decided to recreate the event for him with one of Grandma's cupcakes. 


At first he wanted to blow the candle out without waiting for me to sing Happy Birthday, which was fine with me. 

But after I kept relighting the candle and he was assured he'd get as many turns as he would like he waited until the end of the song. Then he experimented with blowing from different distances (of course in between takes he took a little bite of the cupcake).

Happy 2nd birthday, my little angel! 

Touch a Truck

The other day we took a field trip to our local Touch a Truck event. It's pretty neat. They park a whole bunch of trucks in a parking lot and the children get a hands on feel for the different kinds vehicles. They got to sit in the drivers seat, honk the horns and fiddle with all the buttons. J loves anything with a motor, so this event caused him to be in heaven!
He got to experience a front end loader:

A tractor along with a school bus, a fire engine, a police car, a tow truck, and an ambulance among others:

It was a fantastic day:

rocks in a wooden display case

I bought this wooden display case at a city-wide garage sale (and wow does it need a dusting). 

The owner told me it came with his wife from England when she moved into the area. I wondered why she felt it was so important that she would bring it all the way across the ocean only to later sell it out of the garage, but I didn't ask. Anyway, I was in the market for such a thing, and thought it was good luck I should come across one for $2. 


At first J and I used this to sort his vintage cars from his father's old collection. This was in May, right before his 2nd birthday and he showed a brief interest in the activity.

This was about as far as he got, so I snapped a photo but I couldn't help completing the set. 
I love to organize things like this and as a child I would have spend hours rearranging some collection or another. 


Anyway, I cleaned up and tucked the wooden display case under the couch until yesterday when I wondered if J would like to sort another type of collection so I brought out my jar of black river rocks. 


This time he was eager. 

He filled up all the spaces as we talked about little, big, long & short, skinny & fat. 

When we were done we cleaned up and J enjoyed the sound the rocks made when they clattered to the bottom of the glass vase. 

Then he dumped them out so he could feel them under his feet. I love how children learn about the world with their whole bodies. 

I had pretty much chalked this activity up as being over when on a whim I set the case upright. J thought the new perspective was pretty cool and began adding rocks again (again I thought I should really dust but I didn't want to stop):

He did't last quite as long this time, but I was happy he was interested at all:

I like how he chose to pile some rocks on top of each other. It was so fun for me to watch this process!

making noodles

J loves to eat noodles and watches intently when I am cooking them. A small empty pasta box inspired me to create a dramatic play activity for J's kitchen. 


I filled the box with dried pasta and put it in J's pantry. It was a perfect fit. I told J there was a surprise in his cabinet and to go and see. He squealed when he saw the pasta box! He said, "Noodles!". 

I reviewed the process of cooking noodles with J step by step. First we put the noodles in the pot to boil. J said "Cook."

He spontaneously took a spoon out to stir:

Then I reminded him to strain the noodles in the sink(this photo didn't turn out for some reason). Next we put the noodles on the plate and pretend to eat:

After we cleaned up our kitchen and put the noodles back into the box and on the shelf:

J really enjoyed this activity and has cooked noodles a couple more times since! 


The end!