St. Patty's Day Sensory Box

Inspired by our Valentine's Day sensory box from Pink and Green Mama today I decided to create a St. Patty's Day sensory box for Bea.

I used our bin from Home Depot (I really need a larger one but haven't gotten around to buying one), colored rice from this tutorial, green pom poms from a pack I found at Target's dollar spot (there are also pink, blue, and purple in the pack), a coffee scoop, and the gems, shamrocks, and Easter eggs all came from the Dollar Tree.  When I picked ours up a few weeks ago the St. Patty's Day items were almost gone, but I have a feeling that's more about our Dollar Tree location than anything else.  I'm sure you would still be able to find some.

Bea has such a great time with these sensory boxes that I'm definitely planning on more.  I've saved a few ideas of others on my Pinterest page, if you're interested.  

Valentine's Day Sensory Box

For awhile now I've wanted to make a sensory box for Bea.  I've seen tons of great ideas online and decided to finally do it this weekend.

I went with a Valentine's Day theme after seeing this cute image on Pinterest.  The idea came from a blog called Pink and Green Mama.  We did a lot of the same things, dyed the rice pink using gel food coloring and alcohol (although next time I will absolutely add essential oils, the alcohol smell was overwhelming) and I also ran across the heart and lip containers in the dollar spot at Target.  In addition to those things I added some foam heart stickers (which Bea didn't want anywhere near her containers), a coffee scoop for scooping rice, a set of measuring spoons that I found at the Dollar Tree, some clear "gems" I found at the Dollar Tree, and a purple Easter egg container (this one Bea found and added, guess she didn't get the memo about it being a Valentine's Day box!).

I can't even tell you how excited she was to play with this.  I had it on her table when she woke up from her nap and just let her find it.  I think within 10 seconds of coming down the stairs she had it spotted and went straight to it and started scooping.  It did take a lot of "the rice goes in the bin, not on the floor" but part of that is also my fault, I think we need a bigger bin for her.  After playing with it about 30 minutes or so she wanted to do something else so we put it away, but she asked several times over the weekend to bring it back out, which we did.

    

Heather

Taking Flight

Friday is a big day for our family.  The first time we're flying with both kids.  Up until I was about 5 months pregnant we flew quite a bit with Bea.  Her first trip was at 4 months to San Diego followed by an 8 hour drive up to the Bay Area a few days later.  She's always been a pretty good flier.  It was definitely easier before she could crawl and then walk, but she still surprised me at how well she handled it all.

Bea's first flight

It's been awhile since our last flight so this time I'm going in prepared (at least I hope so).  I've been doing my research online and have come up with several things to (fingers crossed) keep her occupied.  The first thing I'm doing are making several toddler activity bags.  This is another project I found on the blogs Chasing Cheerios and The Rigney's through Pinterest.  For this trip I'm doing felt boards, matching color shades, stickers, crayons/markers and paper.  

Shapes Felt Board 

 Face Felt Board

Matching Colors

Stickers

We're also adding in some downloaded episodes of Sesame Street, an Aquadoodle that Bea received for her second birthday (thank you Isabel and Theo!), and plenty of snacks.  This should be enough to take us through the two flights and one layover that we have.  

Heather