Birds Need Baths Too

I've been trying to put together a bin of activities for Sawyer. Coloring books, crayons, finger paints, etc. Most of the stuff I found at the dollar store off of Eagle and Fairview in Meridian which puts our dollar store in Kuna to shame (the things at that one are actually MORE than a dollar. How does that work??)

A lot of the ideas I got off of blogs like Counting Coconuts and Chasing Cheerios.  

Below is the sensory tub I made from rocks, rice, little plastic dinosaurs and a few other odds and ends like a thimble, a small truck, etc. I also added the black dish (which is actually the drip catcher from our pancake grill ;) and he liked to put the rocks one by one into the dish and then take them back out again.

Here's a closer look below at what was in it. The mom on Counting Coconuts uses the same tub and changes it's contents out each month to keep it interesting for her son. She always has way cute themes for them too like seasons, holidays, the ocean, bugs.... The idea is to put in a lot of things with different textures for them to sift through and play with. Then depending on the theme you do you can use the tub to teach them different subjects. If you are interested in making one go to the Counting Coconuts blog, she does a way better job at explaining it than me! All I know is that every time I've brought it out it's kept him occupied for quite a while! 

This was another thing that was super easy to make and he loves playing with. It's just one of our glass food containers and I poured some sand and shells in it. He used the measuring spoon to scoop up the sand and pour it into the small red container. 

I just watch him as he scoops and pours, scoops and pours, scoops and pours, and the only time I have to intervene is when I see the scooping going outside the perimeter of the glass container and ready to be poured onto his little table. No, no, no, that's not going to happen. He knows now that any time he plays with the 'sandbox' or the sensory tub that all the contents have to stay IN their container. 

And lastly, I saw this idea on Chasing Cheerios and was looking around our house to see what I could use when I spotted the little bird decorations we have sitting on our mantle. I took one down and told Sawyer it needed a bath. I gave him a bowl with a little bit of water in it and a small paintbrush and Q-tip. He used both and would dip them one at a time in the water and then 'clean' the bird by wiping them on it's little face and body. Lately he's been obsessed with 'poo-poo' and points to the bottom of every stuffed animal he has insisting that the little cloth tag on it's bum (that says where it was manufactured) is actually poo-poo and needs to be cut off. So now all his animals are tag less. Or clean as he would say. Anyway, he spent a significant amount of time brushing water onto the birds tail feather region for that particular reason. Then when he was done I gave him a paper towel, he dried the bird off and we placed him back on the mantle all sparkly and clean.