Tot School Mr. Potato Head

Xander is 21 months

This week we played a lot with the Halloween Mr. Potato Head. Xander saw him in the store and we couldn't resist. I am amazed at how much Xander loves playing with him. And taking those parts off and getting them back into the holes really works his small motor skills! We're also reinforcing vocabulary of body parts while playing with it. That was my educational spiel for what really is a fun toy!

On Wednesday my Mom came over and we made apple strudel with apples that Xander and Ryan had picked from our orchard. Xander helped roll out the puff pastry, put the apple mixture on it, and then coat the roll with egg. His help was quite limited but he did try. He however did not try any of the strudel, not even one bite. He would eat the apple by itself.

While my Mom was here we did an art project with Xander. We were making autumn trees by painting our arm and hand to make a print for the trunk and branches, then tearing up tissue paper, and gluing it on to make leaves. At first it seemed like this whole project was going to be a bust but eventually it worked out. First I got the paint ready but when I went to paint Xander's arm he completely freaked out. After I painted Grandma's arm he was okay with it but we weren't able to make to great a print as he wouldn't keep his arm still.

While the paint was drying we got out orange, red, and yellow tissue paper and tore up little pieces to make the leaves. I was sure Xander would love this part as he loves to tear paper but he wouldn't help at all. Then when we went to glue the leaves on I was sure Xander would want to help squeeze the glue but nope, he didn't want anything to do with it. So Mom and I worked on ours while he watched and then we asked him what colors he wanted where on his and he wasn't really participating.

Momma, Xander, and Grandma Housley's handprint trees.

So I was feeling that this project was pretty much a bust. Then later that evening Xander climbed up into a chair and was playing around with the paper leaves and I asked if he wanted  to make a tree. He nodded his head yes (not talking) and thankfully I had made to prints of his arm earlier in the day so we just had to do the glue and leaves. He helped squeeze the glue out and he wasn't interested in scrunching up the tissue paper to make the leaves but he had fun throwing them on the paper and banging it down. Well, he had fun UNTIL he got glue on his hands and the tissue paper stuck to him and then he had a meltdown but we did finish the project.

Xander's Autumn Tree 2010

Another craft I did this week was to make a magnetic pumpkin with magnetic face pieces to make jack-o'-lantern. I got the idea from Disney's Family Fun. So this would be a great project for a slightly older kid, Xander had fun with it but he isn't well behaved with the smaller magnetic pieces so now we just have a pumpkin decoration on our front door (conveniently metal so magnets work on it!). I think I'll make a magnet Christmas tree with decorations too-- maybe as an advent tree. If you do a project like this use thin paper so the magnets work better and for the shapes that are going on the other magnetic sheet make them small, if they are too big they weigh too much and don't stick very well.

We had a great week and can't wait for next week, Grandma and Grandpa Williams are here for a visit and we're off to the zoo! To see what other tots are doing visit 1+1+1=1.