Activity for toddlers from boxes, or what to do on a rainy day

First of all I would like to ask you to forgive me for my disappearing. I am away from home, travelling with a visit to my family, and unfortunately it was not possible for me to be so often in Internet as I wished.  Right now I am still somewhere but not on sunny Cyprus, and here, where I am staying now, it is raining already for some days. On the one hand it is nice that I can take rest from the heat and enjoy fresh and cool air as I will get the whole portion and "joy" of high temperature in a few days. On the other hand we have to stay at home with my kid and hide from the rain. So, here is a big task for me to keep my darling away from getting bored .

I've noticed how interested Karolina is hiding sth, and searching for this, or how much she likes taking items from one box to another, it keeps her busy rather well. This time simple boxes from frozen food, juice and shoes helped me a lot. 

                                        "Knock, knock, who is there?"

  I took a box from frozen food (yes, yes, and don't laugh about that, all we know that children are sometimes more interested about things from the kitchen than expensive and beautiful toys) which I could find at home, I mean my staying place. Cut out a small "window" of a square form, put there small toys, different objects, and closed it. Karolina was occupied for rather long time with it, taking out the items and putting them back, shaking the box, and what a smile she gave me when took out minnie mouse, which she adores, or Cheburashka , other cartoon character from Russian film, etc.

  "Multifunctional shoe box: Pencils inside of the box game and Ramp for cars"

Later, when it stopped being exciting, Karolina demanded a new entertainment from me. Here I saw a shoe box.  I cut out 3 holes of different sizes in the cover of the box: the biggest one, middle one and the smallest one.

Stand the cover in the middle of the box, the part from Karolina's side filled in with pencils, markers, a toy car, and a lego brick.

Then I asked her to give me through these holes the objects. At the beginning it was working just like a mail, then I gave her a task to give me a marker through the biggest hole or the middle one. I also changed the task for a giving me a car, that she will feel the difference in sizes, the same repeated with a lego.

 

In this was we tried to learn with her the difference what is bigger and what is smaller. I helped her in it with the timbre of my voice: the highest pitch- for the smallest hole and the lowest pitch - for the biggest one. 

After that, Karolina was interested just in painting over this box cover, which kept her rather long as well-))) it was like a board for painting. 

here you can see the result of her painting and then she played herself hiding and taking out the pencils

                                                   "Car ramp"

The last what we did with this poor shoe box is a funny car ramp. I put it upside down, then flattened out one of the ends of the cover over it. Taped it that its fixed strong enough, and here you go - cars are waiting already on the top to slide them down. Karolina likes cars now a lot, she learnt the word "AUTO", which means a car in German, and always repeats it.

To make the game more interesting with different obsticles for the car or may be for the driver Karolina, I cut out gates from juice box and the car must drive through them what also works on motorics of the child. Sliding down the cars is also not so successful at the moment, Ive noticed that Karolina doesn't realise yet where the front of the car is and how to direct it. So, such kind of fun car ramp is not only a game, but a good exercise.

A game for your toddler with a pocket lamp

One day Karolina was going out from bedroom and saw a pocket lamp on the table which we had used for some reasons and forgot to put it back. Karolina paid attention to this yellow-black new item and asked me to give it to her, what I actually did. She was exploring the lamp with great enthusiasm, looking at it from all sides, and THEN SHE FOUND A BUTTON... So, as you can guess I had to switch it on, otherwise Karolina would do it and it could be worse-)

Here Karolina’s face changed and there was a big surprise in her eyes which said: “What’s that? So small and has light?”. About 5 minutes my daughter was occupied not even remembering about me, that I could continue doing my things. Later when she understood how it works, it became already not so exciting and she came to me with a question in her eyes if we can do anything else together. And here came the idea. 

I remembered how much we loved to play in shadows with a pocket lamp in our camp when I was a small girl. It had brought us so much joy. And here I decided to make such kind of experience with my little explorer- professor. I call Karolina sometimes like that: “Ohhh…professor is going to check it now” because she has such a serious face sometimes when she is interested in doing something or watching how someone else is doing this or that thing. It looks really funny when I assemble let’s say a toy for Karolina (kitchen or anything else which demands really mental work) and Karolina stays beside with the same expression of the face like me as if she knows how to help a mummy, only needs time to think-)))

 

So, I showed my toddler how you can play with the lamp, just dropping light on the wall and then simply with a hand in front you make different animals or figures. Karolina was laughing from it and asked for more and more entertainment. Moreover, I made voices for animals, what reminded a movie in black and white colours. It was a nice time spent together.

About 4 months passed since our first experience like that and Karolina still remembers that game. Today she saw a pocket lamp and asked me again to give it to her though she was playing already without my help, trying to make something herself (what was also funny to see because she made it only in front of the light of the lamp but not showing on the wall, plus voicing her favourite animal cat as if she saw it there). This time Karolina needed only audience-)))

something what reminds a dog-)))just don't forget to voice it-)

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Hide-and-seek in sand

  Sun, nice weather, a little bit of wind...perfect conditions for going out with your child to the beach. Karolina loves playing there with the sand, sifting it from one place to another one. And it is a true fact that sand is very good for motorics and calming down the nervous system of children. Moreover it is a new experience for Karolina this year and she really enjoys such kind of actitivity. 
  However, when your child cannot build the castle yet, only ruins it (if you try to build).Or in case you want bring some water in the bucket, thinking your child is grown up enough to play with it...but...this water is always not in the place where it must be - sand, or small pool from the sand- but on your baby???!!!What else can you do with your little one when playing in sand?
  So, the answer is to play HIDE-AND-SEEK! and we were playing hide-and-seek game in the sand with a ball. You know at this age children like to play "peek-a-boo" (My Karolina is 17 months now). They just need to close their eyes with sth like hands or scarf or book and they think that nobody can see them. The same they love getting back towards themselves...let it be just other person or a toy hidden behind sth. It is always a big suprise for them to find the toy after that especially with exclamation "Peek-a-boo".
 My Karolina started doing this since 6 or 7 months and still enjoys it. Much more ineteresting now is to see her reaction and emotions. Absolutely unconsciously I hid the ball in the sand and asked Karolina: "Where is the Ball?" in some seconds she realised that there is a new sand hill in front of her and started digging and then she saw her ball...her delight was so sweet and she screamed "Peek-a-boo" (of course she said it in Russian, which sounds like "Ku-Ku and what is easier for babies to pronounce").

this is when she found the ball already the second time

Karolina is digging out the ball

  Anyway, I didn't think that it would have such a success and it took us so much time to play hide-and-sick because later I started with different variations of the game....I dug 2 holes and hid at first in one hole then in another. Or I asked her to hide the ball (which was interesting to watch since she just put the ball in the hole but didn't realise yet that she must put sand over it)))) It was very cute!!!

this is how she hides the ball