Letter A Sensory Box

This week I've started teaching the alphabet to my son. All week I did different things with A. On the first day, I did a sensory box and kept it around all week for him to play with. I used beans, upper and lower case A's, and toys that begin with a. He absolutely loved it!! I put in some small airplanes, one block with an A on it, a couple of ants, an alligator, three little Army men, three acorns, and some letters. Whenever he found a letter, he would place it on top of the A on the block. It was so cute!

Here's the box. As you can see, I hid most of the things because he loves to dig up stuff. ;-)

So excited!

The best part of this sensory box for Josiah was the alligator! He kept feeding him beans. :-D

He's like oh, wow an army man!!

Hungry alligator...

An ant!

What. A. Cutie!!!

Searching for more stuff.

So silly. :-)

My giggling little boy. :-)

Someone is having FUN!

Sneaky face. :-D

Dumping all the beans out of the alligator!

With this activity I just sang the alphabet song a few times, and the letter song from the Leapfrog alphabet fridge magnets. (You guys know the one, I'm sure!) Actually I did those songs all week... haha Anyway, I did something small every day that incorporated A into it, and after just a couple of days he can recognize that letter! Yay!

As you can tell from the pictures, this was a big hit! I think it's because he hasn't had a bean box in awhile. :-)

Birthday Party Sensory Box

My son turned THREE a few days ago!! I still can hardly believe it.... :-) I had a small party for him and invited the kids he plays with. Most of the kids were able to come, and Josiah had a blast with his friends! But I was left with trying to figure out what activity I should do. The kids are all so young ranging in age from 16 months to 3.5 years old with the majority being 2 years old. At first I though of decorating cupcakes but scratched it when I found a cake donut mix at the store. And then it hit me.... A birthday sensory box!!! And the kids LOVED it! I was hoping they would since it is one of Josiah's favorite things to do. :-)

I went to the Dollar Tree and picked up a bag of bows, candles, and a birthday tablecloth. I really wanted something with cupcakes and was thrilled to find some cupcake candles at the grocery store. Then I just used my sparkly pom poms and cut up two silver pipe cleaners and mixed them all up in the rice. With some help from Josiah, of course. I laid out some bowls, scoops, tongs, and an ice cube tray to encourage play and voila! A birthday sensory box! 

Josiah dug in right away! I was hoping to keep him from playing in it, but he was so excited. :-) Good thing I didn't put it together until 20 minutes beforehand. :-D

I thought it was hysterical that he immediately started separating out the pom poms using the tongs. He's like I've got this. I know what to do.

Doesn't it look like he's making a rice cupcake? 

Filling up the bowls.

Really, Mom? More pictures? :-D

Yay! Some kids are here, and they immediately ran to the rice box. Look at my son's happy face. :-) 

My sweet birthday boy.

I forgot to take pictures when all the kids were playing in the box. Argh. We did eventually move it outside so they could make as much mess as they wanted. :-D Honestly, I couldn't believe how big of a hit it was! If he has a party next year, I want to do another one. 

If you're planning a party for little kids, please think of making a sensory box. It could match the theme of the party, too. Dinosaurs, airplanes, cars, princesses, ponies, you get the idea. Trust me, it will be a huge hit! 

Painting Pumpkins

Josiah and I had a painting afternoon a couple of days ago. Josiah isn't that into crayons or markers, but he loves painting of any kind! So for about an hour we painted different things. What a blast for me, too!!

I love watching him paint! Makes this artist happy. :-)

All done.

Then we moved to the BIG pumpkin. 

First we did do a dot markers.

Then we moved to painting. He was moving the brush too fast, but it's there.... Somewhere. haha

Ta-da! (As Josiah would say.)

Tomorrow I'll post the fall tree we made!