Bringing The Outdoors In

It has been awhile... ok a long while but summer was too much fun to sit inside and blog and then I got off track.... way off track! 


So here I am blogging again, hopefully more frequently and hopefully about more then just kids activities. For now I have somethings that Baby T and I have been up to that I thought I would share. 


As it colder and sadly wetter in our part of the world I have been trying to bring some of the outdoors inside for us to explore. I also wanted some exploration/play things in the living room that looked like they almost belong there (we have a earthy short of living room). Sidetrack but I remember before I was pregnant and when I was pregnant I was like 'I will never have toys all over my house' yeah right! So there are toys in pretty much every room of our little apartment but I wanted to try and make our living room look a little bit more hmmm how to put it 'calm' without the super colourful crazy stuff that are generally kids toys.  


Here is what we ended up with: 

Basket with pine cones and and natural balls I bought at IKEA

Some rocks which we collected locally

To you and me they may look boring but to a baby or toddler they are very exciting! Baby T is all about putting things in her mouth (will this ever stop!!) so I make sure I am close by to keep an eye on her when she plays with these toys - you know your baby so do what you need to do. I promise you though these free and natural toys  are fun. 

So what does Baby T do with them?? 

We use them with of course the muffin tin! The items get sorted, placed in and out of the tin, mixed, examined. They occasionally get dropped intentionally perhaps Baby T is interested in the noise that makes, maybe she wants to see my reaction? Either way I try to make it safe and not too noisy by having her play with them on a blanket. I suppose she might one day try to throw them and if she does we might have to take it outside to try that out or redirect if we can't do that right away. 

So these are the cheapest toys we have and they have been in out living room for months and Baby T and her friends love them! 

What is she learning with rocks and pine cones??? 

Early math skills! - yep crazy but she is by sorting, pattern making and by exporting a pin cone which in itself is a se-metric mathamatic marvel. 

Early literacy skills and language  - learning the works for the objects. Creating patterns 

Fine motor skills- hand eye coordination, grasping