18 Months: Fall

Check out our week celebrating the arrival of fall! We focused mostly on leaves.

Books
Fall Leaves by Liesbet Slegers
Baby Loves Fall! by Karen Katz
I Love Fall! by Alison Inches
Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson
Let It Fall by Maryann Cocca-Leffler

Activities

I printed out a picture of a tree from 3 Dinosaurs and leaves from Carson Dellosa to glue onto the branches. This was our first time using a glue stick, so I didn't know how Little Cutie would do with it. I showed her what to do and she mostly understood. The biggest problem was that she didn't put enough glue on it so sometimes the leaves didn't stick, but we just went over it again. She really enjoyed this.

Little Cutie really enjoyed this activity. She didn't fully grasp the scooping concept though. She held the scoop in one hand and put the pom in the scoop with the other hand. Then she carried the scoop and poms all over the house and dumped the poms from one container into the other. She actually lasted about 3 days before she started putting the poms in her mouth. We are really looking forward to the end of that phase!

Once the leaves started falling, we headed outside to check them out. Little Cutie loved crunching around on them and picking them up.

Follow Lauren at Our Little Ducklings's board Seasons: Fall on Pinterest.

15 Months: Summer

Summer is officially here! We exposed Little Cutie to a lot of seashells and water for our summer theme. Here were our shelves:

Books
A Day at the Beach (Dora)
Bunny at the Beach (Usborne)
Bebe Goes to the Beach by Susan Middleton Elya
Let's Look at Summer by Sarah Schuette
Signs of Summer by Colleen Dolphin
The Seasons
Baby Loves Summer! by Karen Katz
Seaside by Roger Priddy
At the Beach by Anne Rockwell

Activities

Watering Flowers

This one was more of a challenge for Little Cutie than I thought it would be. I think it was because there wasn't a good place for her to hold her little watering can. I showed her how to pour the water onto the flowers. I think she watered more of the sidewalk than the flowers, but that's okay. She was giggling the whole time.

Paint with Water

Because Little Cutie is still putting things in her mouth, I wanted to expose her to some painting, minus the mess of the paint. These paint with water books are great, but I have not been able to find them in the stores. I just tore out a page of a book that I had when I was little. She loved using a new utensil and dipping the paintbrush in the water. I wish I had a smaller brush for her little hands, but we used what we had.

Shells in a Wipes Container

Little Cutie loved putting the shells into the wipes container. She loved to hear the "clink" sound they made when they went in and hit the other shells. And of course, she started to put the shells in her mouth.

Craft Foam Ice Cream

This one was just for fun. Little Cutie had never touched craft foam before so I cut out some ice cream and cone shaped pieces for her to play with. No real agenda here, just open ended play. I made 2 cones and 6 scoops of ice cream. She liked to pick them up one at a time and carried them all over the house. At one point, I saw her putting them inside her watering can. She also liked to chew on the craft foam (will this stage of putting everything in her mouth ever end?!).

Seashell Discovery Bottles

I want to expose Little Cutie to so many new things, but I feel limited in what I can do because she still puts things in her mouth. I found the idea for discovery bottles on Pinterest and decided to make some with the shells this week. I put three shells in two bottles and filled them with water. She thought they were sooo cool! The shells clinked together when she shook them.

She Sells Seashells Tongue Twister

We have been trying to incorporate a nursery rhyme or song with each week's theme. This week the tongue twister She Sells Sea Shells seemed appropriate. I couldn't find a book with the words at the library, so I just created my own and printed it out. You can get a copy HERE. (it folds into quarters)

Big Bath Tub
We have been using the infant/toddler tub for bath time with Little Cutie since she was born. But in keeping with our summer theme, we decided to fill up the big tub and let her explore in the water with about 5 times the amount of toys we usually have in the tub. She played with rubber ducks, Alex Quacky Cups, a watering can, and even the craft foam ice cream made its way into the tub. She may have been a little wrinkly when she got out.