We Play: Pumpkin Spice Playdough

I finally got to making up a new batch of playdough for E last week.  We had been using the crumbs leftover from E's birthday party, um, 10 months ago.  Pathetic?  Yes.  And it was just the storebought stuff.  I made up a batch using my favorite playdough recipe, colored it orange, and added a little pumpkin pie spice.  Mmmmmm!  This stuff smells amazing!  I set out the playdough in a plastic container, along with a couple of pumpkin cookie cutters.  The first day I put it out, E played with it for an hour straight!  Ahhh, the peace of a child playing contentedly!  :)

We Play: Little People

I recently re-organized our toys and ended up bringing some of E's Little People up to our living room.  This has ended up making them her most-played-with toys.  And the best part about it is that she is starting to play with them independantly.  I still get constantly baraged with "Mommy, play with you [me]" requests, but now when I tell her to go play on her own for a little while, she will usually pull out some Little People.  Or sit and pout on the couch.  It's not all roses around here!  :)

She likes to line them up and create scenes with the Little People.  I thought that was only something little boys did with their trucks.  Nope, little girls get in on the action with doll figures!  It's that "sensitive period for order" I keep reading about in my Montessori books.

The other day she got out Noah's Ark and had a grand time pretending that Noah and Mrs. Noah were the Mommy and Daddy and they went on vacation in their boat with all their animal children.  The great part about this was that it was all initiated by E.  I loved how she got out a playsilk and used that for the water! 

Happy Playing!

We Play: Outside

We had some outdoor fun last week with my sister.  She has a wildlife biology degree, and had a good time teaching E about some of the plants in our area.  E learned about gumweed, wild onions, gullys, and got to smell a ponderosa pine tree.  (What - you've never done this?  It smells like butterscotch!)  She got pretty good at spotting the onions and gumweed!

Off we go on the trail! 
Don't ask me why she's wearing
stickers as bandaids, though.

Looking at some plants with Auntie

Smelling a Ponderosa

E the hiker!

We Play: Building a City

Have I mentioned before how much I love thrift stores??  Oh, let me sing the praises of thrift stores!  I buy most of my clothes there, much of E's clothes as well.  And toys.  Well, toys can be tricky.  Because, usually, if a toy has been donated to the thrift stores around me, it's all loved up.  Dirty, sticky, broken.  And not to mention PLASTIC.  But sometimes I hit the jackpot.  This week, I found the neatest nesting blocks!  They are a city!!  Each block is a building in the town, from the large train station and garden center to the tiny ice cream parlor and phone booth.

E and I had fun this week putting together our city.  We used some of the cars from our train track and some wooden people and trees and put a whole town together.

I have noticed, at least for E at this age, that the process of building the city is much more fun than the play with it once it is built.  We had a grand time deciding where buildings should go and "planting" trees, but after that, she laid all the people on top of their houses, put them to sleep, and went off to other activities.

Happy Playing!

We Play: Trains

Hey, girls can play trains, too! 

I try to rotate E's toys regularly so that she doesn't have too much out at once.  I had her train set put away for quite a while.  I even had picked up some more track and extra pieces and had never put them out.  Today, we pulled out everything train we had and set up a huge city!

E had fun figuring out how the magnets worked to hook up the trains, then running them over and under the bridges.

not sure why this picture is showing up sideways . . . hmmm . . . .anyways . . . .

Usually, in our house at least, the simpler toys are the best!  No batteries, noise, or flashing lights.  Just some imaginations and good old "chugga chugga choo choo!" noises.  Happy playing!

We Play: Playsilks

E has been playing a lot of dress-up lately!  We don't really have a dress-up wardrobe, though.  I'm working on it, gathering hats and accessories on my garage sale and thrift store days.  We do have several playsilks that I dyed for E for her birthday last year.  Honestly, I think I like these better than dress-up.  Every morning, E brings me a silk and asks for a swimming suit, underwear, a skirt, a dress, a hat, whatever.  I tie it on for her in the appropriate place, and she's off for the morning, happy as a clam!

This outfit consisted of a red dress, purple shawl, and yellow head kerchief

She loves these so much, I am considering dying several more to play with, and maybe even some really long ones to cover the unfinished ceiling in our basement playroom.  I'd love to learn how to tie dye them!  *hint, hint, Missy!*

We Play: Blocks!

E loves to play with two things: blocks and her little animal figurines.  She loves stacking and lining up all the blocks, and then putting her little animals in just the right places.  She lines everything up and puts all the "baby" animals with their "mamas."  I recently came across a set of cardboard bricks - the same kind I had when I was growing up - at a garage sale.  E has been building and building with them.  I love how big they are, we can build animal apartments, walls, and towers.  I remember building the walls to houses with them when I was little.  The possibilities are endless!

These pictures remind me so much of my brother, sister, and myself when we were kids!