light the way

Sometimes I feel like there just aren't that many differences between puppies and toddlers. They drool, eat unusual things in the yard, sleep in uncomfortable positions. They also both love laser pointers.
We livened our evening routine of picking up toys by using a laser pointer to show them which toys need to be put away. It took twenty minutes for a clean room - significantly faster than non-laser-pointer-clean-ups! After a week of that, we switched it up. They wore capes, and the laser pointer showed Superman and She-Ra which toys were in danger, and needed to go back to the cave.
I'm telling you, laser is the way to keep kids attention and clean up. Woof.

More Indoor Ideas

Staying indoors with toddlers is probably a form of torture in some countries. It has necessitated some creativity on my part. I've had two great ideas lately, that would probably work with preschoolers everywhere:
1. Lentils: squishing them through fingers and toes is a neat sensation. I filled several different sized containers with them, and gave the girls some spoons. Pleased their senses. On the mess scale, I am still finding lentils in the corners of the carpet five days later, but whatev.
2. I lined a corner of the kitchen with bath towels, and gave each girl a 3-inch cake pan filled with suds and warm water. Armed with washcloths, I gave them several toys in need of bathing. They played the entire time it took to make dinner. The mess was perfect, because I just tossed the soaking towels in the wash.

mirror drawing

Mirror drawing - one of my girls favorite activities. I'm also convinced this will help them learn to write, because they can see their own hands moving the marker. The mirrors are acrylic, light and handy! I use window markers, and while they're a little more expensive than regular markers, they last a long time. Give it a try, its fun!

Lightbox

I've been dying to get my girls a lightbox for months and months now. I've been trawling the internet to find a good bargain, and when I finally found something that would work, I scraped all my Christmas and birthday money to buy it. In the meantime, I've been collecting interesting objects to play with on the lightbox. So far we've got colorful feathers, iridescent glass pebbles, glass stars, suncatchers...

They enjoyed it on this dark cold day, and were even more careful than I imagined they would be.

What surprised me was how much Hazel loved it. I've never seen her enjoy any activity so much, not even her bath. Wow. Something about it just 'lit' her up!

Go, Jo! Make those star lines...

toes are to wiggle

A Hole is to Dig, by Ruth Krauss and illustrated by legendary Maurice Sendak, is our current new love from the library. It may just find its way onto our bookshelves.

The Red Balloon

My girls loved watching this old French film with me. I remembered it from one of my many, many French classes, and the twins loved it. I recommend it for its language-building opportunities and its beautiful cinematography!

mud pie kitchen

We are definitely ready for some summer fun around here. One of our summer projects? A mudpie kitchen.