This week I decided to bring back one of our favorite Mommy and Me School activities, the contact paper collage. We had so much fun with this activity last time that we just had to play again. This time I used fall colored foam leaves I found at the dollar store.

I taped the contact paper to our back door again and gave Sweet Girl the foam leaves. As she added them to our collage we talked about the different colors and about fall.

She loves to stick her entire hand onto the contact paper and then peel it off.

Lately Sweet Girl has been really into putting things down her shirt. I'm not really sure why. Here she is putting a whole bunch of leaves down her shirt. She is so funny!

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 Our raking leaves activity yesterday based on the book Red Leaf Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert was so much fun that I followed it up with another fall activity. I am just so excited about fall! I love the colors. I love the leaves. So I put them together in a fall sensory bin.

I used the popcorn kernels I saved from our popcorn sensory bin. I threw in some foam gourds I bought at the dollar store, and some fake leaves I had on hand. To top it off I threw in an orange spoon for stirring and an apple bean bag.

Sweet Girl stirred and scooped and poured popcorn kernels all afternoon. It was a little messy. Kernels went flying a few times.We talked about all the fall colors and the names of the items in the sensory bin. I still could not get her to say leaves. It kind of sounds like fleas when she says it.

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Today was our first really cool day in months. As we were driving back from our errands this morning in the rain I was in the mood to celebrate fall. I just wanted to relax, watch a chick flick and craft. So while Sweet Girl napped I watched While You Were Sleeping and worked on my fall wreath, post coming soon. It was a lovely afternoon.

When Sweet Girl woke up the fall celebration continued with an activity inspired by the book Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Elhert. While she was sleeping I spread some fake fall leaves on the living room floor and set out a toy rake.

Together we played in the leaves, and raked them into a pile. Well, I raked them into a pile and Sweet Girl just raked them around in different directions. I couldn't quite convince her that they were leaves and not flowers. In the end she compromised by calling them fleaves.

We still have to wait a couple of months for the leaves here to start falling, but for now we can have fun playing with our own red and yellow leaves in our living room.

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We have had so much fun this week celebrating Mo Willem's book Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator. Be sure to check out our other activities. This was our final activity for the week. We usually do one every day, but preschool started this week and it took up some of our play time.

One of my favorite parts in the story is at the end. Alligator is waiting for Amanda to come home from the zoo so he can play dress up with her and sing songs and make discoveries. When she comes home she has brought a brand new fancy stuffed panda. Alligator is not happy about a new toy, but after Amanda leaves again Alligator finds out that Panda also likes to play dress up, sing silly songs and make discoveries. In the end they become great friends as they play together.

So, we decided to play dress up. I have been collecting dress up clothes all summer and it was finally time to pull them out and play with them. We had so much fun.

Sweet Girl has learned how to use her stethoscope. She holds the end over her heart and says "dubba dubba dubba." I think she'll make a great doctor someday.

She has a major obsession with glasses!

This was the best picture I could get of her wearing the clown nose. She loved to put it on, but didn't like the way it felt once it was on, so it always came off really fast.

We had so much fun with this book this week! I'm excited to more activities like this in the future and help Sweet Girl develop a love of reading.

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We are continuing our celebration of Mo Willem's fantastic book Hooray For Amanda and Her Alligator. Again, this is such a cute story, if you haven't read it you definitely should! Today we focused on the alligator. Because alligators are green we had an all green sensory bin. (I know the alligator in the story is kind of a bluish color, but we decided to go with a green alligator.)

For the bottom of the sensory bin I used colored rice. I mixed 2 cups of rice with 2 teaspoons vinegar and about 20 drops of green coloring in a ziploc bag.

Then I just searched through Sweet Girl's toys and gathered a few green items to add to the sensory bin. This was a fun activity for Sweet Girl. She scooped and raked and dug in the rice. She was so fascinated by the rice that at the very end she grabbed a handful and shoved it in her mouth. She quickly realized it didn't taste good and she let me scrape it all out of her mouth. That girl is quick!

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This week Sweet Girl and I are celebrating the book Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator by Mo Willems. He is one of my favorite authors. He has written  the Knuffle Bunny books, the pigeon books, the piggie and elephant books and many others. His books just crack me up. His characters are so funny. The pigeon books are definitely my favorite. Hooray for Amanda and Her Alligator is a nominee for Utah's Beehive Book Award. This story is so funny. Amanda's stuffed alligator is alive and they play together and surprise each other.

For our first activity we made a thinking cap. In this story Amanda's stuffed alligator needs to think about different things, so he puts on his thinking cap. I folded our thinking cap out of brown paper that I got at the dollar store for another project. I pulled out crayons and a pack or sparkly stickers to decorate with.

Playing with stickers was a great activity for developing fine motor skills. I really had to hold myself back when the stickers got stuck in Sweet Girl's fingers. I did help out a few times, but mostly I let her figure it out. Because the stickers were textured we got to talk about bumpy and smooth, as well as talking about what the pictures were.

Sweet Girl had so much fun decorating her hat, but she was not about to wear it. Every time I put it on her head she immediately pulled it off. This is the best picture I got of her "wearing" her hat. Oh well.

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We have been taking a little break from Mommy and Me School as I work to get everything ready for preschool, but we are still making sure to have fun playing together. I recently made a new batch of play dough. I love making homemade play dough. It just feels nice to squish fresh warm play dough.

I have been reading about invitation to play activities where you just put items out and allow your child to decide how they will play with the. For this activity I set out our fresh play dough, some pick up sticks, measuring cups and green BINGO tokens.

 

Sweet Girl worked on her sculpture for a good 20 minutes. It was so interesting to watch her work. When I though she was finished I started cleaning up and pulled out all of her sticks. She was not happy with me. She had to get back up on the chair and start all over.

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This is our last paint week activity. It has been a fun week. We will still do painting projects in the future, and maybe even another paint week, but for now here is our grand finale! I saw this post for Bubble Bath Paint just a couple days ago on Just Another Day in Paradise, and I knew we had to fit it in this week. Sweet Girl loves playing in the tub. It is probably her favorite time of the day.

Here is what you need:
1 C Clear Baby Shampoo
3 1/2 T Cornstarch
Food Coloring

Mix shampoo and cornstarch together. Separate into however many colors you want and add food coloring. Super easy!

I gave Sweet Girl a sponge brush to paint with.

 

 She was so excited about her new bathtub toy. 

After awhile she was finished painting and wanted to clean up. She emptied what was left of the paint into the bath water. It got very bubbly and very murky looking. She had a great time playing in the bubbles and scooping and pouring water. I think this bath lasted almost 45 minutes. I love watching her have so much fun exploring.

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