Lions at Lunchtime Magic Tree House Themed Bath

My daughter loves the Magic Tree House book series and sometimes we do a bath based on one of the books after we read it. This bath in particular was themed on book #11 Lions at Lunchtime.

There's lions, zebras, giraffes, and wildebeests mentioned in the book and my daughter knew we didn't have any wildebeest toys so she asked me to paint one, so I did my best with washable black tempera paint on the wall. I'm not artist, but she liked it! I also used the black washable tempera paint to put "Lions at Lunchtime" on the wall. Then after painting all that I decided to paint some little lions on the wall too with some brown washable tempera paint and just some grass with green washable tempera paint.

The very first thing I did though was tape up the zebra print crepe paper to the wall, high enough up so it wouldn't get wet cause that stuff gets messy when wet! It's purely decoration!

After all the crepe paper was up there and I was done painting on the wall I started to fill up the tub. Once it was half way full I added several drops of neon green food coloring to the water and mixed it in to color the water, adding more until I got the color I wanted.

Then I set up everything else we'd need for this Lions at Lunchtime book themed bath. For bath paint I made "Jack's Peanut Butter Bath Paint"

In the book Jack has peanut butter with him and it comes in handy! So that's why I chose to make this fun bath paint, it also ended up providing my daughter with a great idea for pretend play in the bath. She painted a peanut butter and honey sandwich on the wall, and made peanut butter and honey smoothies for her bath baby doll with plastic princess cups. Speaking of the honey, it's also in the first picture in the little dish. Honey is important in the book because it is the answer to the riddle they were trying to solve. I put just a bit of honey is a dish (I would have put more, but we're almost out and need it for Teddy Bear Picnic Day sandwiches the 10th) so she could get some sensory play with it in the bath and experience all the messy stickiness all she wanted since that isn't something she can normally do.

There's also obviously some toy animals and a tree sitting there that added to the theme as well!

All in all this has been one of my favorite themed baths lately and it really brought the book to life, and like I said provided good pretend play opportunities for my daughter!

Magic Tree House Dawn of The Dinosaurs Themed Bath

Every evening now I read my daughter a couple chapter books every night and we've started the Magic Tree House series. I decided to make my daughter a bath themed on the first book Dawn of the Dinosaurs. She really enjoyed it and thought it was really cute! The pictures aren't the greatest, the lighting was bad but you'll get the gist. 

I wanted the bath to be like when Jack and Annie are in dinosaur time, and that involves the tree house being in the background. It's also what provided a lot of pretend play for my daughter. So I made some brown bath paint with some shaving cream and washable brown tempera paint and painted the tree house on the wall as closely as I could to how it looked in the book. I also painted some trees around it. I made green bath paint for the tops of the trees with some neon green food coloring and shaving cream. For the ladder to the tree house I just used plain black washable tempera paint and a small paint brush to get them on there over top of the brown bath paint tree house.

I had the water neon green too but like I said the lighting was bad and colors didn't come across very well.

As you can see in the above picture I added a couple plastic dinosaur figures of dinosaurs that are in the book. Tyrannosaurus Rex and Triceratops.

I also wanted to add some more concepts from the book, to make the bath more realistic and give it all that more detail for the pretend play. So with golden craft foam, scissors, and a Sharpie I made the letter "M" medallion that Jack found in dinosaur time, and with a piece of purple craft foam, scissors and a Sharpie I made a little rectangle for "Jack's Journal" where he writes down the information he gathers.

Mulberry Street Playdough

This brilliant idea, like most brilliant ideas, came straight from my daughter herself! I asked her what kind of playdough she wanted to make and told her to keep in mind that St. Patrick's day and Dr. Seuss Day were both coming up. She then said she wanted to make blue playdough so she could make her own Mulberry Street. What an amazing idea! I love it because it brings a book to life.

So we made the blue playdough together, and then flattened it out on her table and added some of the animals and Little People we thought fit the descriptions from the book, and then some of her own ideas as well since she was making it her own after all.

I also made a Mulberry St. sign for it by using a popsicle stick and ripped a Post-It note down to just the size I needed to write that at the top, and stuck it into the playdough.

If you're wondering how we made the blue playdough, here's our recipe:
- 1 cup of all purpose flour
- 1 cup of water
- 1/4 cup of salt
- 1 TBSP lemon juice
- 1 TBSP vegetable oil
- Blue food coloring, as many or as few drops as it takes to get the color you desire

Step 1:
Put all the ingredients into a pot and stir them together with a wooden spoon.

Step 2:
Put the pot on the stove over medium heat and stir CONSTANTLY with the wooden spoon. Once a ball forms gather up all the playdough out of the pot and put it into a bowl. Once it cools down a little bit knead it until it's not sticky anymore.

Little Mermaid Sensory Small World

Does your little one love the book or movie Little Mermaid? If so this sensory small world will be perfect for them. I'm always looking for ways to bring books and movies to life in fun ways, and I'm always looking for more and more ways to use our Little People. This bin is the best of both worlds for that.

To recreate this sensory small world you will need:
- Blue playdough
- Corn meal
- Some seashells
- Little People Little Mermaid figures. You can get Ariel as a mermaid and her 3 friends here and you can get Ariel as a person on land with Prince Eric here.
- We also added a little Sebastian figure we had and an aquarium toy

To set it up use the blue playdough to make an ocean by pushing it down to cover half or a little over half of the surface of the bin. Add the corn meal to the rest of the surface of the bin. Add in the Little People where they belong (mermaid in the ocean, others on the sand). Add in the extras, seashells either place, and aquarium toy in the ocean.

Very Hungry Caterpillar Flashcards

I know almost every mom and baby is a fan of the book "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle. When I found stickers from the book I just knew I had to get some. I got a few packs, some for my daughter to use in her sticker book (which delighted her) and some to make these flashcards with.

So, the stickers can be purchased from Dollar Deals. The only other things you'll need are index cards, a Sharpie, clear contact paper, and scissors. I'm currently out of contact paper so ours don't have that on them in the picture. It's not mandatory, but it definitely makes them more durable. It serves as a laminate.
I placed one sticker per index card and then used the Sharpie to write the word or phrase I wanted the card to convey.

We've got:
- Apple
- Pear
- Plum
- Orange
- Watermelon
- Lollipop
- Pie
- Cake
- Caterpillar ON muffin
- Caterpillar IN strawberry
- BIG caterpillar
- Little caterpillar
- Butterfly

I just adore these flashcards! They help to teach what on, in, big, and little are andto how they're opposites. They also just help with sight word recognition and of course are a fun addition to your Eric Carle collection.

Now all it takes to use the contact paper to laminate them is to cut pieces for the front and back down to size, sandwich the card in between, and then cut off the excess with scissors.

Balancing Banana on Head. Fun Game From Book

This fun and FUNNY game will surely get any little girl or boy up and moving! And all you need is a banana!

Here at our house, we love Fancy Nancy books and my daughter was just recently given a new one called "Fancy Nancy and the Fabulous Fashion Boutique".

It really is a cute little story, I highly recommend it. Now, in this book Nancy and her friends walk around balancing bananas on their head to help them walk like models. My daughter thought it was so funny I knew we just had to try it out for ourselves.

So we did!

You just place the banana on the child's head and help them try to balance it while they walk around. I tried it too, and it really does make you walk straighter! I might starting practicing this at home! So not only is it silly and sure to get some laughs, bring a beloved story to life, and get the kids up and moving, it's actually beneficial! Best of all worlds!

"Are You My Mother?" Tabletop Activity

I love to bring books to life for my daughter. It's easy to bring the "Are You My Mother?" book from Dr. Seuss to life with a few toys and animal figures! Having an activity on a tabletop puts more focus on it rather than just having it sprawled out across the floor, but gives you more room than a tot tray.

I set out the book, and then I set up everything in the order that it went in the book. In case you're not familiar with the book, there's a baby bird who can't find his mother and he asks several things along the way if they are his mother. He asks a cat, a hen, a dog, a cow, a car, a boat, a plane, and a construction vehicle. He eventually ends up back in the nest in the tree with his mother. 

Our baby and mother birds came in a pack from Dollar Tree

The big cat is a ball baby toy that was donated to us

The chick that we used for the hen is from Dollar Tree

The dog, cow, and airplane are all Little People toys

The car is a police car stress reliever from Walgreens

The boat is a sandbox toy

The construction vehicle was donated to us, but it is Fisher Price

The tree/nest for the birds is just a recycled paper towel tube.

So the point is for the child to take the baby bird and move it all around the table, trying to find it's mother. It may help if you read the story during play, but reading it once before may be sufficient enough.