Hammer Time!

We've done a couple of really fun activities with hammers!

First, I gave Trip a block of Styrofoam, some nails, and his hammer. He was resistant to this activity, but once he tried it, he was busy for a long time and was determined to get each nail firmly pounded into the block.

Some took lots of concentration :)

Then, he decided to hammer while on his tummy.

Once all the nails were in, we got out his pliers from Bapa and he pulled them all back out.

Our next hammering activity was delicious as well as fun. We had a great time breaking into a coconut! We worked together with Daddy's drill to make two holes so that we could drain out the coconut water.

Then, Trip got to start pounding.

He was excited to break the shell and get to the meat.

Once we got to this point, it was time for a taste! Trip didn't care much for the water, but he did really like the flesh, which we refrigerated and enjoyed for several days. 

Bulldozer Craft

This super simple craft was lots of fun! I printed a bulldozer coloring sheet. Trip colored it a little, then I cut it out and we glued it on a piece of brown paper. That's when the real fun started. I gave Trip a bottle of glue and a bowl of oatmeal.

He had a fantastic time gluing,

sprinkling,

and gluing some more.

Tools Activities

If found a great free printable tool-themed tot pack here from Our Little Monkeys. It's full of good activities and worth a look.

We used the shadow matching cards,

the alphabet (which worked nicely with some letter chips we have),

the shape matching,

 and the pattern pages.

Trip hasn't wanted to use his dry erase markers to complete the next two activities yet, but we'll try it again soon.

Building Words

I put stickers on some blocks for an easy letter matching and word building activity.

Trip had to just explore the blocks first and enjoyed building a tower.

Then, we got down to the actual letter matching and made a tower of words.

He wasn't too thrilled to show off his work, though. :)

Later that day, he got his backpack and went to "school" at his desk where he had a little more fun with the letter blocks, this time coloring the stickers.

Hammering Baked Cotton Balls

I've been excited to try making the baked cotton balls that I saw at Play Create Explore. I used whole wheat flour in hopes that our baked cotton balls would look like rocks. I put a cup of flour and just over a cup of water in a bowl and let Trip mix it up.

At first, he was excited to help me coat the cotton balls, but his fingers soon got messy, 

which lead to this...

He continued to plop the cotton balls in the flour mixture while I did the dirty jobs of making sure they got coated and putting them on the cookie sheet.

Once the cookie sheet was full, it was time to bake our "rocks." They stayed in the oven at 300* for about 45 minutes.

Our cotton ball rocks turned out great. Next time I would coat them a little less so that there wasn't as much of a "puddle" at the bottom. They served their purpose, though so it was just fine.

Trip grabbed his hard hat that Noni found for him and his new hammer from Bapa and we headed outside.

He had a good time pounding on the "rocks."

 He also enjoyed exploring what was inside them.

After some hammering, we decided to try some stomping. That was lots of fun too, but a little hard on the feet. :)

Construction Sensory Tub

Our latest thematic unit is about tools and construction. Our very first activity was to explore the new sensory tub I put together.

I used the rice that we had for our transportation tub as the base and added a variety of materials I had on hand. 

I made a pile of decorative rocks and cut up some paper tubes I had saved from glow sticks.

I also wadded up some packing paper that came in a box we recently got from Amazon. Finally, I added the few construction vehicles, props, and "guys" that Trip has.

He was pretty excited when I took the lid off this tub. 

He put one of the guys right to work driving the truck 

and checking out the building.

The next time that we played with the tub, Trip discovered the wonders of the empty Barrel of Monkeys.

He filled it up with rice and enjoyed pouring the rice out into the dump truck.

He was also very interested in the paper boulders. He liked opening them and then crumpling them back up. 

A little while later, he was all the way in the tub, exploring it to its fullest.