Entertaining Toddler’s a la Green
Yesterday was a busy day here. With what seems like longer days we’ve found ourselves trying to keep busy. You know me, as a green mom I like to entertain my son in green style- here’s what’s we did yesterday in a nutshell.Even though it’s cold out I try to find ways to get my son outdoors and enjoy nature.
It’s a known fact that kids these days aren’t getting enough fresh air. Instead they are stuck inside playing video games and watching t.v. rather than being outside and using nature as a stage. I know some of you live where it snows quite frequently in the winter. Even a 5 minute snowball fight or even just a tromp through the snow- kids need nature! Nature nutures…and besides- we need to teach our kids to appreciate nature before we try to instill sustainable values upon them. Anyway…
We started out the morning making mud pies and decorating them with nature’s finest- weeds! Then we collected leaves, sticks, and rocks and created a scene around the mud pies- or cakes whichever. My son would call them cakes but would say were making pies. After spending some time outdoors, feeding chickens and watering our winter garden we brought the leaves we collected and used them to do leaf rubbings.
Who knew, leaf rubbings could be so relaxing and memorizing. We were really enjoying it! A simple yet effective craft. After leaf rubbings we went for a walk and fed the Billy goat. He’s so dang cute. He loves that we bring him fresh leaves to munch on. Today, on our walk we’re going to collect different leaves so he can see the different textures, shapes, and sizes for leaf rubbings. Of course, we will gather a few leaves for the Billy goat. 
T passed out on our walk – I heart our Peg Perego AT4 stroller! It’s awesome- reclines all the way back so he can sleep peacefully….and he did! When he woke up we ate lunch and made play doh! He didn’t want me to color any of the dough like I’ve done in the past because he was too impatient. I scented the 2 dough balls with pumpkin spice and the other 2 with tangerine essential oil. It didn’t matter whether it was scented or colored he played with it to his hearts content. Once play doh fun was over we went outside for more playtime, books and then Daddy came home. We had a good day!
Here’s some colored doh we made a couple weeks back. I used food coloring.
Maybe, next time my son will allow me to do some natural food coloring next time!
What have you been up to?
