Earth Day Recap

Happy Earth Day!  Today we celebrated with a few Earth Day themed activities and I thought I'd share!  There's a lot of pictures in this post so get ready!

Our first activity of the day was a nature walk.  We went to check out the flowers that are blooming and see what kind of animals we could find.  We happened upon a toad!  Natty thought he was so neat hopping along.

Our azaleas are really blooming right now and are so beautiful!  Our cedar pine is also getting new buds and we thought that looked really cool.  While we were on our walk we also found a few pine cones for our next activity!

Next we came inside and made some pine cone bird feeders!  I'm sure most of us did this when we were young.  You just spread some peanut butter on the pine cones and then sprinkle them with bird seed.  Add some ribbon to hang them up and you're good to go!

If you have a little helper, like I do, I really recommend doing this on a sheet or something so clean up is easy!  She also got a little upset that this part of the activity was over so quickly.  She really enjoyed playing with the bird seed.

Ta-da! Once your ribbon is tied on you have a yummy treat that your feathered friends are sure to enjoy.  So now it was time to head outside and find a good place to hang our feeders.

We hung our feeders on a dogwood tree that's close to the house and can be seen from the front windows.  We're hoping to maybe see some birds go after this treat tomorrow!

We also played with bubbles while we were outside hanging these up, which is an activity Natty really enjoys!

Since we're talking about Earth Day, I wanted to share one of Natty's Easter gifts.  She got this super cool Green Toys Tea Set .  I love Green Toys! They are so well made, they're colorful and super fun. Plus they are made in the USA from recycled materials.  You can't get much better than that! Natty has several of their toys.  She has a My First Tugboat for the bath (this gets played with every bath), a Pink and Purple Dump Truck and a pink race car !

Our last activity for the day was to watch an episode from the Planet Earth series.  I love this series.  The scenery and animals are all so beautifully shot.  Natty loves watching shows with animals so I thought she'd enjoy this.  I picked the Jungles episode.  Unfortunately, she has been teething pretty badly and this didn't hold her attention very well and she ended up having a bit of a tantrum.  Overall though she did really good today and enjoyed our Earth Day activities!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Earth Day!  Did you do any fun activities or crafts with your little ones?  I'd love for you to share!

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Feb/March Photo Challenge

Since I missed posting last month this will be for both February and March for the photo challenge.  If you missed my post on my 2014 photo challenge, you can view it here.

For February, the challenge was "sweet".  I took this super sweet picture at one of our favorite places, The Virginia Living Museum.  My daughter loved this frog statue and hugged and kissed it.  So sweet!

For march, the challenge was "together". We had a few nice days in March where we were able to get out so this together selfie was taken at the beach!

Picking these photos has been fun!  April's challenge is "Rainbow".  I'm excited about that!  I really need to put some thought into that one.  Have you taken any pictures for the challenge?  Please share if you have!

Under The Sea Sensory Bin

I wanted to start sharing some of the sensory activities I'm doing with my little girl.  I haven't been very crafty lately but I have been doing a lot of activities with her.  So here's the first one.  We do a lot of sensory bins.  These are so fun and easy to put together!

Yesterday was a super rainy day and we were cooped up inside.  So I thought we'd make water a theme for the day.  We had lunch with goldfish crackers included and watched The Little Mermaid .  Then we played with this super cool Under The Sea sensory bin.

Here's what I put in the bin:  glass rocks and aquarium gravel as the base, aquarium plants, gems found in fish section, an aquarium castle, some decorate sea shells and various plastic fish/water creatures. Then I added a pitcher full of luke warm water. There was a bunch to explore.  It might have been a bit too much for my 18 month old.  I think next time I will limit it a little more until she's a bit older.

There were lots of textures for her to explore in this bin! She really loved the feel of the plants and their bright colors.

She's in a very loving stage right now! Everything gets hugs and kisses.  So the plants were hugged.  Naturally.

This starfish came with the decorative seashells I had bought.  It was a little basket with a bunch of shells for $2 at Rite-Aid. The only issue was the coloring on the starfish started to come off in the water.  I didn't think about how it was dyed.

She picked up everything and turned it over in her hands. She had a great time playing with all the different elements.

This bin was overall a success.  At the end she did pick up a few of the glass rocks and put them in her mouth which I immediately removed and told her no.  She tried two more times while laughing as I took the stones out of her mouth (3 strikes you're out) and I took the bin away.  She was done with it anyway so she didn't seem to care.

I think this bin will be much better for her when she over 2.  I do think this was a bit ambitious for her at this age, even though she enjoyed it.  I do have some more appropriate activities I'll be posting about later this month though!  So please come back and visit!

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