I’m currently on a blogging break while I take care of the newest little man in my life. I am so excited that I have some good blogging buddies who are willing to step in and help me keep the blog going in my absence. Today I bring you the wonderful Gina from Connecting Family & Seoul. Our boys are close in age and I think would be great friends, if we lived closer together. She is all about creating family traditions, playing outside, and learning through play. She has some amazingly fun, and simple ideas that you must go check out. By the way, her Facebook page is amazing, so make sure you head over there too!
Hi! I’m Gina from Connecting Family & Seoul! I’m so excited to have the opportunity to stop by Dirt and Boogers and share a post with you all. Right now, my two year old is totally enamored by his car collection (and by that I mean any type of moving vehicle). Each morning he gets up and asks Mommy to “play cars!” Well, I don’t know about you, but after zooming them around the living room once or twice or 30 times, it gets a tad bit old for Mommy. Lately, we’ve been trying out some easy, creative ways to play with our cars, while helping my little one explore what they can actually do.
The easiest way to have some fun with them is to pull out the playdough. We’ve driven our cars around in it to see what type of tracks they make, made impressions of the vehicles’ roof and underside, and also built little obstacles for them to drive around. Whether the playdough is homemade or store bought, it’s perfect for molding tunnels and mountains for your cars to play on!
If you’re willing to get a little messy one day, my son just loved painting with cars on a rainy afternoon. I spread out the newspaper, got a large piece of drawing paper, and let him drive them around in the paint. Again, you can see the different sets of tire tracks that the cars and trucks make, but you can also do a little color mixing as well. A bonus to this activity is now you have a lovely piece of artwork to display on the fridge!
One day, when you run out of paper towels or toilet paper, why not use the roll to make a few tunnels for your cars? All I did was tape the tubes to an old folder I found lying around the house added some painter’s tape to create roads on the surface and Ta-da! Instant tunnels. After he got tired of driving them through on the floor, we clipped the folder up on the easel and he was able to drop them in one at a time for some fast-paced fun!
Make sure to leave your painter’s tape out to create some roadways for your cars and buses to travel on for another day! Grab a marker to draw the lines on the tape and while you’re at it, don’t forget to add the people and buildings so that you have your own little community right in your kitchen!
I don’t know what it is with Bob the Builder, but my son adores him. Any time he sees a construction vehicle out and about he shouts out “Bob!” One evening, I poured a bunch of aquarium rock (you could also use black beans or coffee beans) onto a tray and set his construction vehicles on the floor for him to find in the morning. He had so much fun loading and dumping the rock that he played with this little scene for hours.
If it’s a warm day outside, we love taking a tub full of water out to the lawn so we can have a car washing station. This is also great for a bit of fun in the bathtub! For this activity, I simply added some bubble bath while filling the tub and dropped a Bath Fizzy in to turn the water blue. These cars sure were clean when he finished up for the day!
My son just loves mimicking what his Daddy does, no matter what he’s getting into at the time. So, while Daddy was out fixing a problem with his car, Grady decided to take his tools out and give his ride a tune-up as well! You could always supply a bucket of soapy water and a towel so this car can get freshened up, too!
Last but not least, is snack time! I love jazzing up meals as often as possible, so this afternoon I decided to cut up a few peanut butter sandwiches into car shapes using cookie cutters. I added a few car shaped graham crackers and his matching dishware and dinner was served!
Gina is a former elementary school teacher, turned stay-at-home mom to an adventurous 2 year old. She and her husband strive to create an atmosphere in the home that fosters strong family connections through guidance and inspiration. You can read more about their family fun at her blog, Connecting Family & Seoul or by visiting her on Facebook.
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