I will always be a teacher at heart and hope to one day find myself back in the classroom, but for now, I spend my days channeling that energy into fun with my littles. I know that Auggie will be in school before we know it so I am soaking up every moment while I can.
We love sensory play and themed activities. We are also loving fall this year since we missed it while living in Guatemala last year. We have been combining the two this week for some fun fall activities! This week we have been having so much fun with Play-Doh. Truth be told, I normally hate Play-Doh. It gets everywhere and typically turns into him saying “Mommy make…” and pure refusal to play on his own. However, these activities empowered him to play on his own, and have so much fall fun! I am excited to share these ideas with you so that you can enjoy them with your own little tribe.
Halloween Stamps
I recently bought a cheap bag of Halloween favors at Wal-Mart, the kind with plastic spiders and skeletons, and we have been getting so much use out of them. We have used them in a sensory bin, for sorting practice, and now with our Play-Doh. I flattened the Play-Doh for him, and laid out the favors and let him go to town. Simple as it was, he was amazed at the imprints that he was making.
Play-Doh Monsters
This was easily the favorite activity of the day! It is what he went to bed talking about, and woke up talking about the next morning. It is such a fun activity, and so easy. You literally just need Play-Doh and whatever you can find around the house. I gathered some googly eyes that were left over from pumpkin painting, and then just raided the office supplies drawer. We ended up with googly eyes, rubber bands, pipe cleaners, buttons, paper clips, and a couple of other odds and ends, but you can literally use whatever you have.
After collecting materials, I patted out each of his Play-Doh colors for him, showed him what to do, and his creativity took over. After making his monsters, he named them all, and acted out little scenarios with them. This seriously kept him entertained all afternoon!
Fall Foliage Press
The last activity would admitedly be better in a couple of weeks when there are more fresh leaves on the ground, but it still turned out to be fun. We went outside and collected fallen leaves, stones, and other interesting items and brought them inside to press into the Play-Doh. Honestly, when I realized how crunchy our leaves were, I wrote this one off as a fail, but he loved it! He was so intrigued by the imprints that the stones and pine cones would make at different angles. I could tell that his wheels were really turning with this one. I am even more excited to try it with all of the pretty leaves when they fall.
What fun fall activities have you been doing lately? I would love to hear your ideas in the comments!
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