We spent an afternoon this weekend at my niece’s second birthday party, where drums, noise, and general kid awesomeness was going on. I HAD to share all of the fun details that went into this party. Picture overload here…
Drum Themed Food…
The cake was a Costco cake that my Sister-In-Law decorated into a drum. Pretzel rods made drumsticks and Animal from the Muppets made the cake!
Little drum details were everywhere…including in the veggie tray.
The Drum Themed Party Favors…
were little buckets, drumsticks, drum notepads, and candy. The kids got to take home real drumsticks too. Little Guy was (and still is) in Heaven beating those drum sticks around!!
Drum Party Activities…
The backyard was loaded with steel drums, garbage cans, tire rims, anything that would make NOISE.
And these kids had a BLAST!
The neighbors were warned 🙂
In the basement were drum sets made from 5 gallon buckets, tons and tons of recycled plastic bins, metal cans, plastic tubs, tins… This was a little drummer’s dream!
I LOVE the Mickey Mouse Gong! And so did the kids 🙂
Makin’ Music Party Activities…
The kids could make rain sticks with plastic bottles and toothpicks/chopsticks, rubber band guitars with recycled tissue boxes, fun noises with paper tubes, and a shaky noise with a bowl of plastic beads.
And what toddler does not love banging on pots and pans??
The washboard was an awesome touch! My Baby Girl loved that one. There was a CASE of drumsticks near by for all of the little drummers to go crazy with.
Kids could use plastic eggs (or fun shaped plastic bottles) to make shakers with corn.
I love the Animal detail on this set of drums!
This party was a BLAST for every age. The Animal shirt the Birthday girl wore was perfect…and her baby sister was rocking along to the music theme in her cute little music note onesie 🙂
We had so much fun watching the kids go crazy with noise and energy…and some of us moms and dads got in on the music making, too 🙂
What a great way to celebrate our little niece’s/cousin’s 2nd birthday.
We have a shape sorter toddler toy that was perfect for making some shapes in the snow.
Working on patterns…
Push the shapes all the way down and you get some “snow brownies” 🙂
They are good enough to eat!
This would be fun with cookie cutters too…You could do any theme, colors, shapes, patterns, sorting…Maybe we’ll do those next time we get some snow on the ground!
Did you ever make a snow kitchen when playing outside in the snow? We did just that one winter day! Making a snow kitchen is a great way to pretend while playing outside and kids develop many fine motor skills through scooping and pouring the snow into pretend food! This is a great winter fine motor activity for kids!
While we set up a snow kitchen in the outdoors, you could definitely bring this activity inside using a large bin or container to hold the snow. Add this idea to your list of Winter sensory bin ideas!
Snow Kitchen
When you think of a snow kitchen, you might think of a wintery ice restaurant in a cold climate where tourists eat inside a restaurant made of ice. However, in our situation, we simply headed outside one winter day to play in the new snow!
We had an old play kitchen set ready to go to a donation bin. However, before we sent the play kitchen set off, we used it to make a pretend snow kitchen!
You can make this pretend play even more fun with painted snow. Here’s how to paint snow to use in pretend snow food.
Use old containers to make an outdoor snow kitchen.
Just a few days ago, we had tons of snow in our yard…Today, it’s 60 degrees and all that’s left of our snowman is a pile of sticks, stones, and a carrot! The kids and I headed outside to play in the warm weather a few days ago as the warm spell was beginning to melt away the snow. I wanted to get the kids outside to enjoy the last of the snow before it was gone (for now…)
This is the invitation to play I set up…I pulled out our little kitchen set…with no battery operated parts or stickers on it to worry about getting wet.
I brought out a couple of spoons, ladles, and the ice cream scoop from my kitchen, and added a few plastic containers from the recycle bin.
Perfect outdoor restaurant!
Big Sister had so much fun with this! She got busy being the “chef”.
How to make a snow kitchen
If you want to make a snow kitchen, you don’t need to use a pretend kitchen set outside. You can actually bring snow inside in a big bin or even just play outside with freshly fallen snow by taking your kitchen toys outside.
Gather a few items:
Scoops, spoons, ladles, bowls
Recycled containers
Bin of snow (if playing inside)
Or snow outside
Then get started cooking up some snow recipes!
Snow Food
Scoop snow into bowls and containers to make mounds of snow. Work on scooping and pouring as an eye-hand coordination task.
Mound snow into recycled containers and bowls.
You can even sprinkle toppings onto snow ice cream using sticks, rocks, and pieces of twigs.
If you work with freshly fallen snow, it would be fun to explore different sensory food textures by trying real snow food:
Maple Taffy- Squirt a drizzle of maple syrup on the snow. Let it harden in the cold temperature and then try the chewy maple taffy.
Sno Cones- Scoop some snow into a clean cup. Mix together a lemonade mixture (or other flavored liquid) and pour it over the snow to make real snow sno cones!
Snow Ice Cream- Place clean snow in a plastic baggie. Add sugar and vanilla flavoring. Add ice and salt to a larger baggie. Place the small snow baggie inside the ice bag. Make sure both bags are sealed tightly. Shake the bags to mix the ice cubes and salt. Keep shaking until the snow ice cream begins to solidify. Remove the small bag from the larger bag. Scoop the snow ice cream into a bowl and enjoy.
Sweet Snow- Scoop some clean snow into a bowl. Sprinkle sugar onto the snow. You could also use sprinkles, a cinnamon and sugar mixture, or ice cream toppings. Sugar on snow is a huge hit at a snow restaurant!
Order’s Up!
What if you had themed, NO-PREP activities designed to collect data and can help kids build essential fine motor skills?
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The Winter Fine Motor Kit includes reproducible activity pages include: pencil control strips, scissor skills strips, simple and complex cutting shapes, lacing cards, toothpick precision art, crumble hand strengthening crafts, memory cards, coloring activities, and so much more.
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We had a break from the rain and clouds this afternoon and went outside for a little while, along with scissors and a bowl. We went on a hunt around the yard for Christmas-y smelling branches to add to an easy potpourri.
The big kids of course, had no idea what potpourri means…but when we started smelling the pine needles and adding them and pine cones to a bowl, they got the picture a little bit.
Plus, it was just really fun to snip the bushes 🙂
Baby Girl just had fun throwing pine cones into the bowl.
She looooooves to do what the big kids do, so carrying the bowl around the yard was pretty special too 🙂
We took a little break for some balance beam work in the woods…
Then we went inside to add some orange peels to our potpourri (and have an orange snack…)
I have to say that this smells pretty amazing and definitely Christmas-y! I am going to add a couple of cinnamon sticks and throw it in the mini-crock with some water tomorrow. Check our Facebook page for an update on the scent in the house 😉
Enjoy today!
UPDATE: I put this potpourri (along with a few cinnamon sticks) in a pan of water on the stove. I let it simmer over low heat for a few hours and the house smelled AMAZING! You could even smell the scent from outside our front door. So Christmas-y! This would totally work in a small crock pot with water. Try this! You won’t be disappointed!
Every little girl I know loves to play dress-up princess…I was taking a trip down memory lane and came across these pictures of my daughter at her second birthday party. This was a princess tutu I put together…it is so simple…and I still have it in her dress-up bin for play.
I went on youtube to find out how to make a no sew tutu. Then, I added a few embellishments…glued on rhinestones, little flowers, a big pink birthday bow, and whola! I had a princess!
I found the shirt (with matching little shorts!) at Marshalls for $9 (they sell the same brand at Nordstrom’s for $50). I ironed-on a princess crown that I found at Walmart. I made a bow out of the same ribbon and glued it to an alligator hair clip.
Fall is here! I love this time of year…the leaves changing color…the cool breeze…the smell of pumpkin latte 🙂
We went to the local pumpkin farm last weekend and had so much fun I had to share some pictures. My little guy is looking so big! He is so funny making animal sounds at every animal. I think his favorite sound is “moo” at the moment.
Warning…this is a picture overload!
Jacob was a little excited (as if you couldn’t tell, lol)
He thought this goat was HILARIOUS!
So did Gwen. My kids love kids, what can I say!
This little donkey didn’t move the whole time..Jacob was very interested.
I got my husband to take all of one photo. He is not into taking pictures, I gotta work on getting him used to using my new camera.
Me and my little man.
When did he get so big? I love it when babies stand on their tip toes.
The following week we checked out another pumpkin patch (can’t get enough!!!). Check out this “corn box”. The kids loved this…a huge box of dried corn with cups, shovels, rakes, and pails. This was a hit.
Such concentration! He was pushing the corn all around, shoveling, pouring, just having a blast.
Thanks for letting me share! Happy pumpkin picking!
The Dirt will wash away, but the Memories will last!
We spend a TON of time outside. Lately, we’ve been playing a lot in our “mud pit” as Little Guy calls this part of our yard. We pull out the shovels, construction vehicles, and add in all kinds of extra things.
It is so fun to see them explore and learn through sensory play. Kids learn not only about their senses, but learn about their world, all through sensory exploration. Getting messy adds great tactile integration.
We started with a little section of the yard with hard dirt and rocks and added some left over potting soil from planting earlier this year. The big kids took turns scooping dirt and adding acorns.
Nothing says “summer” like bare toes in the dirt…
…School may be back in session, but we are still enjoying summer while this warm weather lasts 🙂
A little pattern learning with rocks and acorns…
My poor parsley plant needs a little love! It didn’t work out indoors, so it can’t hurt to try outside. We watered it and got some great mud to scoop…more sensory processing!
Playing on hands and knees with an extended wrist and tripod grasp to move those little rocks and trucks. All are important precursors to handwriting.
Little Guy said “Mom, this is my favorite thing ever to do”! How cool is it to hear that from such a simple play activity?!!?
An 11 month old can explore seashells. As always, keep close supervision to be sure none go in the mouth. Baby Girl played for a looong time with the seashells!
We finished with some sorting play with the big kids. Baby Girl loves putting things into containers and taking them back out. This is such a great tool for language learning!
Sorting, Patterns, Exploring, Language, Fine Motor work, Pre-Handwriting, Planting, Sensory Exploration…so many cool accomplishments today!
