January activities in detail

•  This month he was more into crayons than stickers so we did a lot of coloring. We also had some sick days towards end of month and crayons and bubbles were the only things he was interested in at that time.
• Banana bread: I just used a recipe off the internet. Added some chocolate chips to make him happy! I always find having the ingredients measured and laid out before he joins in is always easier for my mental stress and the mess!
• Sensory bins:
• Kinetic sand was store bought. We used tractors, dump trucks and some other vehicles to play with it.
• Garden: I used cocoa powder and oil together to make some mud. I had some pebbles, small plastic pots and artificial flowers to "plant". He had more fun playing with the rocks though. 
• Cloud playdoh: I was supposed to search for a recipe on the internet but I couldn't find one that i had ingredients for so ended up using just rice powder and water. It is nothing like clouds but he played with it anyway!
• Things that fly: I set up a blue yoga mat draped over a chair and cello-taped pictures of clouds and sun on it. Had pictures of birds attached to strings that I held so that when he said fly I could make the birds fly up and down, near the clouds and sun. 
• Opposites song: I found on Instagram (goes like "you say big and I say small, you say short and I say tall, you say none and I say all, these are opposites").
• Hop and kick: We have one big dice. So throw the dice and hop/kick the number of times the dice displays.
• Road maze: I used painters tape on the floor to create a maze for cars to go in. Honestly this did not interest him and he was more interested in removing the painter’s tape and feeling its stickiness. So I just wrapped all his cars in painter’s tape and let him dis-entangle the whole thing. Kept him busy for 10 minutes!
• The next week we used the same maze to hop inside and outside (maze hop).

• Pillow play: Used a bunch of pillows on his toddler bed but he enjoyed it much better when we moved the game to the bigger bed in the bedroom. So the larger the space the more the enjoyment I guess!
• Freeze song: Party Freeze song by Kiboomers.
• Simon says: We play this game with him on the bed and me standing at the foot of the bed pretending to be Simon, a giant. There is exaggerated twirling and growling before Simon says what to do and once he copies Simon will fly him like an airplane and throw him on the bed. He loves this version!
• Letters: I fill a pillowcase with objects related to the letter and let him pull them out to play with it. I also have a cut out of the letter and some stickers for him to stick.
• Letter A: Apple- real one. But can be avoided if they love the fruit. Mine got distracted so had to wait for him to finish eating to continue with it. But tried to talk about apple- red, juicy, yummy, love, fruit.
• Airplane song (3 little airplanes flying around, zoom zoom zoom zoom) (while flying him like an airplane)
• Letter B: Pictures of bus, butterfly and bunny, a bat, ball and block. Tried talking about color, movements and songs on butterfly and school bus. Also wrote 'B' on a balloon and stuck stickers on it.
• Letter C: Cup, real carrot, coins, crayons, car. We spoke about colors, movements and counted coins.
• Letter D: Pictures of dinosaur and many ducks. We counted ducks and placed them on a blue coloring paper (pond). We also had a pretend doctor set to play with.
• Letter G: pictures of guitar, Granma, goat and garden, some real garlic (he was really interested in peeling them). We also played Go (run) and Stop.
• Letter T: real tomato, tiger, tree, table, turtle, train, truck.
• Body parts: Got him to lie down on a large cardboard piece and traced his outline on it. We labelled parts of the body and drew out eyes/ears/nose/mouth/hair/fingers/arms/t-shirt/pants. This then dissolved into a coloring/scribbling activity!
• Bat and ball: activities such as hitting/kicking/bouncing/rolling. Used bubbles as reward to keep him motivated! Also got him to blow some bubbles for me to pop!
• Frozen cars: I washed an empty milk carton, filled it with some water and froze it for a few hours, Then placed a tiny Hot wheels car in it, filled it with more water and froze it again. When you tear off the carton you then get a large ice cube with the car inside. We 'rescued' the car by chipping at the ice and squirting water on it. To finish the activity before patience wears off, try pour as little water as possible and have the car jutting out!
• Obstacle course: I tried placing cushions and cardboard boxes in the hallway for him to jump over and run around. He wasn't very interested and this quickly turned into him moving things away and me placing them back!
•  Preparing own snack- he loves peeling oranges so we did that and he helped spread peanut butter on a slice of bread. We tried cutting apples with a plastic knife but he wasn't very interested.
• Action songs: The popular wheels on the bus and the animal dance.