Where Play Meets Potential
The weather is cooling off (in my case from 115° F to less than 100° F) and the Pumpkin spice is back. That can only mean one thing…time for all things Fall.
I am a huge fan of Fall. Mostly for the nice weather and beautiful colors. I love pumpkin spice anything too.
Something that I love almost as much as fall is…saving some money. I wanted to do a bunch of Fall/Autumn themed activities with Ruby (14 months), but I didn’t want to spend a ton of money. So, I headed to The Dollar Tree and picked up a bunch of items (I snuck in a few Christmas items too). All of these activities were created with only $31 from the dollar store and items I already had around the house.
Here are some of the items I bought at the Dollar Tree:
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To make, simply combine 2 parts cornstarch and 1 part water. To make it extra fun you can also add orange food coloring or some pumpkin pie spice. I added the pumpkins and some scoops to the mix and let my toddler play.
Oobleck has such a fun texture, it is both liquid and solid depending on how you touch it. This allows for lots of exploration and is a great fine motor workout. It is also taste safe, which was good because Ruby kept trying to eat it.
Just be prepared for the mess. It drips down all over, but is fairly easy to clean. If you let it dry you can sweep up all the dried cornstarch or if you are outside (how we decided to play) you can hose everything off pretty quickly.
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I drew a picture of a blank tree and then taped it to the wall. I added contact paper with the sticky side out over the top of the tree and then put some leaves as a provocation to add to the tree.
I put a couple leaves on the tree so that Ruby would understand how to play and in case she is more interested in taking the leaves off instead of putting them on, but I always leave it open for her creative suggestions as well.
She loved to feel the sticky paper and she is beginning to put the leaves on instead of simply taking them off.
This activity is perfect for vertical play. Vertical play allows for strengthening the muscles necessary for writing. It helps develop great trunk support and arm strength.
Another way to take the concept of leaves on a contact paper tree is to take it to the light table.
This was super simple, I just drew a tree on the contact paper and taped it sticky side up to the light table. Then I added the leaves to the light table for a different way to explore these items. You could also simple add leaves and fall items to the light table itself for some exploration. The light gave a new interest and way to examine the leaves.
If you would like more information on our DIY light table be sure to check out the post “Quick, Easy, and Affordable DIY LIght Table.”
This was so simple and so fun. My toddler loves to put things inside other things and fit lids onto boxes and containers, so that is why I knew this activity would be a success.
I simply added the pumpkin baskets, plastic jars with lids, and some spikey balls on a tray. You could add tongs for an extra challenge.
Right away Ruby went to put the balls in the pumpkin baskets and in the jars. Then she would dump them out and do it again. She also loved to put the lids on the plastic jars and carry around the jars with the balls inside.
This activity could also be added to a sensory base like water, sand, moon sand, oobleck, etc.
We did orange water play multiple ways. Since it is still pretty hot here in Las Vegas in early Autumn, one of our favorite ways to explore orange water play is with some frozen oranges in orange water.
Ruby loved to use the pitchers to pour the water and she also loved gnawing on the frozen oranges. This was a perfect activity for Ruby because she was getting two top teeth so I think the cold oranges helped with the teething pain.
Water play is fun and easy. Add orange coloring and some favorite fall items and it makes for a simple, yet really fun activity. Some fall items you may want to add to your water play include: pumpkins, pinecones, leaves, sticks, bats, spiders, eyeballs, corn, gourds, or anything in the Fall/Halloween section of your local dollar store.
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All you need for this activity is a muffin tin, play spiders, and rubber bands. I had been wanting to try the toy rescue with rubber bands for quite some time and I figured using spooky spiders in a web would be the perfect way to try this out.
We have done a toy rescue similar to this in the past with tape, but at the time Ruby was more interested in pulling off and mouthing the tape. The rubber bands were much better than the tape. She did not try to take them off and they held the muffin tin in place.
I added tongs and a jar for added interest. She really loved to get the spiders and then add them to the jar. Hey, I would probably want to trap the spiders too. Be sure not to leave spiders on the floor because they could give you quite the scare later.
For this activity you need sealable clear bags, hair gel, Fall items, and a light table (see how to make an affordable one on your own HERE). Some other options for this activity are to add pumpkin innards and seeds, orange food coloring, crunchy fall leaves, or anything that gives a Fall sensory vibe.
Sensory play is so important for babies, toddlers, and preschoolers. They are young and still beginning to understand the world around them. They use their senses to explore and learn. Providing rich experiences for this type of learning can give context to things they read or hear about. Read more about why sensory play is important HERE.
Ingredients:
Add in some pumpkins (we used fake so they could be reused for longer, but plan to use some real pumpkins too) and scoops or cookie cutters and you have a fun sensory activity.
I tried to make mine orange by adding orange food coloring to the oil, but it didn’t turn out super vibrant. I would suggest powdered food coloring if you would like the orange color for this moon sand.
Either way the moon sand had a great texture. It crumbles and sticks together a bit. It’s soft and smells great. Made the whole house smell like fall when I baked the flour and pumpkin pie spice. My husband even tasted it and said it tasted disgusting, but you would assume otherwise with the way Ruby kept trying to eat it. This is also pretty messy so I would suggest doing it outside or on a hard surface easy to sweep up. See more edible or taste-safe sensory play ideas HERE.
A simple transferring activity using Dollar Tree bats, scoops, and water. I simply added two containers of water next to each other (the Flisat table from Ikea is on my wishlist, but for now our Sprout Kids Weaning Table is the perfect height for Ruby) then added colored water in the bins and bats to one bin with scoops and some containers in the other bin.
Sometimes keeping the activity set up super simple creates more space for engagement and creativity for toddlers. The more complex set ups are better for preschool age and older.
Transferring activities like this are great for crossing the midline. Crossing the midline has so many benefits for learning and development. Crossing the midline is basically when we move one part of our body (arms, legs, etc.) across the imaginary line down the middle of our body. Crossing over this imaginary line can help develop bilateral coordination (using both sides of our body and brain), which helps with learning and especially with reading.
Stickers are so fun, easy, and versatile. The Dollar Tree has a variety of Halloween stickers, so this was an easy fun activity to get and set up. I covered our weaning table from Sprout Kids with paper (larger paper is better to work with for toddlers) and then added the stickers. A couple tips for making stickers more independent for toddlers and preschoolers is to:
We just started using stickers with Ruby (14 months) because she often is more interested in mouthing the stickers rather than putting them on anything. I consider this a more supervised rather than independent play activity for young toddlers for this reason. When she does try to put the stickers in her mouth I simply use redirection and say, “Not in your mouth, put them on the paper.” If I have to say that too many times, I know she isn’t quite ready and we put the activity away to try again at another time.
You could very well find some cool leaves outside on the ground to do some leaf rubbings, but we don’t currently have falling leaves or many large leaves around our house (mostly palm trees in our backyard), so I got these tracing mats at the Dollar Tree. I thought they would give some variety to the leaves we could rub and they can be reused.
Since most of what Ruby does with drawing utensils is scribble, I thought a leaf rubbing activity might work out great. I simply taped the leaf rubbing mats to our Sprout Kids Weaning Table and then covered with paper. I modeled how to rub on top and then let Ruby go free.
Ruby has this sink that actually runs like a fountain. She LOVES this sink! So, I thought a perfect way to utilize something she already loves with something new is to add some pumpkin washing.
To set up I simply added her sink with a scrubbing brush, pumpkins and gourds, and a towel. If you do not have one of these sinks you can also set up with two separate bins. One bin with soapy water and the other with plain water.
The real pumpkins and gourds offer lots of great colors, weight and texture to explore. They don’t have much of a smell to them, but that does not stop Ruby from smelling them and asking us to smell them.
This activity is also a great way to practice crossing the midline since she has to scrub the pumpkins and then set them aside on the towel to dry.
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