Little J 15 months activities

Phew finally midway through September and I am just now able to catch my breath!  Where did the end of the summer go?  It seems like August just started and the next thing you know L is in school and the leaves are changing!

Here is a catch up post on what Little J was up to in August at 15 months.

 

Scrubbing apples.  We have a wonderful apple tree in our yard.  Both L and Little J enjoyed eating the apples from the ground as well as helping to make blackberry and apple sauce.  This picture looks so civilised but it quickly turned into chaos as Little J decided it would be way more fun to tip out all of the water and roll the apples off the side of the deck!

 Painting al fresco.

 

On the shelves.  We didn't really have any strict "works" over the summer.  I found it way too hard with L around as she always wants to interfere with what ever Little J is doing. 

From the top left we have:

The shoe basket.  LJ is still obsessed with shoes and dressing himself.  We also have worked on sorting the shoes into pairs.

Stacking boxes, shape sorter and then the ever popular open and shut basket.  I keep rotating different containers in this basket.

Bottom left is a emergency vehicle puzzle with little knobs to develop the pincer grip.  An etch-a sketch type drawing board which we had when L was little.  It is great fun to draw and then push the lever across to erase all of your work! 

Melissa and Doug tool box.  Hammering is the number one favourite at the moment.  Little tow truck with wooden sorting shapes.  The tow truck has a magnet on it to attach the shapes to.  This is from Ikea.

 

These are just a few of the things that Little J got up to this summer.  What is not shown is LJ's love of climbing.  He will climb anything and everything.  The number of times I've been out of the room for two seconds and when I come back he is actually on the kitchen table searching for scraps!!  He certainly keeps me on my toes!

Outdoor Play

The weather here has been amazing the last week and it's looking like it's going to stay a while.  We have been taking full advantage.  We have a huge deck which is perfect for playing outside.  We have been having snack outside as well as playing with balls, pushing strollers and ride on bumble bees!

Here are some other activities.

Water play.  This is always a hit with all children.  Just a combo of bowls, cups, spoons and a whisk and you can just sit back and watch while the littles go to town!

While Baby J was napping I set up this rice transferring activity for Sweetpea.  The aim of this activity was not actually to practise transferring per say but to really develop her focus and concentration.  It worked like a charm.  Not only did she transfer with her hands from bowl to bowl she also experimented with pouring.  Sweetpea ended up focusing and manipulating the rice for 25 minutes which is a record for her!!

 There is major excitement at our house at the moment as we are having our backyard landscaped.  This morning there were diggers and dump trucks working.  The littles were fascinated and the noise for any vehicle right now is "brrm brrm" so we had a chorus of brrm brrms all day long!

 

Another popular activity as you can see by the brush in Sweetpea's hand is scrubbing the deck!  Too funny.



Salt dough handprints

We finally got around to making salt dough hand prints.  I have to say this was much easier than baking!  I quickly mixed up the dough using 1 cup flour, 1 cup salt and about 1/2 cup water and then let the littles play with it.  Baby J seems to love salt and kept trying to eat the dough.  Sweetpea had more sense and after one taste she concentrated on other things.

 

 

 Having the baking treasure basket on the shelves has really made a difference since the last time we baked.  Sweetpea can now use the rolling pin properly after repeated experimentation on the carpet!

 

 "Oh look there's our hand prints cooking!"

 

The final product.  Super cute!