A friend gave me an idea to make simple dominos out of foam as a Christmas gift for Meo. I love how they turned out so I thought I'd share how to make them here. You will need:
Large sheets of white foam (or whatever color you want your dominos. The sheets I found were 12 x 18 inches and I used two of them. You can vary the size of your dominos depending on what size stickers you put on them, but these sized sheets worked out perfectly for a complete set of 2 x 6 inch dominos.
Foam stickers. You can use any design you want obviously, mine were 6 types of dinosaurs for a total of 36 dominos.
scissors
pencil
sharpie to draw in the center line
ruler
Step 1: Draw out the outline of all the dominos using a pencil and ruler. If you are making the same sized dominos that I made, I fit exactly 18 dominos on each foam sheet. Each domino was 2 inches high, and 6 inches wide.
Step 2: Draw in the center line for all the dominos using a dark sharpie. I found it was easier to draw this line now before the dominos get cut out and then having to draw each line individually. If you are using the same dinmensions as me, this center line will be 3 inches in.
Step 3: Apply your foam stickers. I found it easiest to place down 6 of one type of dinosaur on the left of the dark line, followed by one of each of the dinosaurs to the right of the line. I repeated this process for all 6 types of dinosaurs.
Step 4: Cut them out.
And that's it really; pretty easy right? I also made a special box to store all of the dominos in. I found a small shoe box that would fit all of the dominos in and painted it using acrylic paints.
Here is one way to play dominos with a toddler:
Make a big pile of all the dominos face down, or put them in a bag so you can't see them. Each person draws seven. Then take turns lining the dominos up so that one dinosaur out on the table/floor matches up with one dinosaur in your hand. If you don't have one that matches, draw another domino. The next player goes after a domino is placed on the table/floor or a domino is drawn from the pile. The first person to run out of dominos wins.
I've found that so far with Meo it has just been fun to practice matching up the dominos together on the floor without any rules though. Just have fun with it!
For Mattimeo's second birthday, I made hand-sewed him a "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" kitchen apron using fabric we had at his first birthday party. I thought I'd write a quick post explaining how I made it. First off, here is a couple pictures of Meo wearing his apron:
To make the apron, first I took a few measurements from Meo. I wanted to make sure it would be something that would fit him for a couple years so I made it wide and long. I took three measurements:
1: Length from where I wanted the apron to start on his chest to where I wanted it to end just past his knees
2: Width across his body for how wide I wanted the apron to be (I allowed it to wrap around his back a bit)
3. Length that the strap needed to go around his neck, beginning from chest height
Using a larger ruler, and a triangle, I cut out a basic apron shape, making it about two inches longer and two inches wider than I wanted it to allow for a inch wide hem. As you can see, I tapered the apron towards his neck about 2/3 of the way up the apron. Once the apron was cut, I pinned down the inch wide hem.
Hem pinned down- front view
Hem pinned down- sewing side
Next, I sewed the hem. To make sure the apron would be durable for my active little toddler I stiched first very close to the outside border, then again around the inside border.
Outside border
Inside border
Next, I made the pieces I would be attaching to the apron. I wanted a nice, deep pocket where he could store his little utensils, so I cut a rectangular piece of fabric as large as I wanted the pocket to be, adding an extra couple inches for the hem. Then I sewed a hem on the top of the pocket just like I did for the base of the apron (an outside and inside border hem).
Hem along the top of the pocket
To attach the pocket, I laid the fabric down where I wanted it to fall on the apron. I made a couple marks with pencil where the bottom should start. Then I took the pocket off, flipped it upside down, and pinned the bottom along those guide-marks, making sure to leave a little room along the edge so that you don't see the rough edge of the pocket when you're done. Then I stitched along the pins.
To fasten on the sides of the pockets, I flipped the pocket up. Then I turned the edges over so that they had a clean look, and pinned the now double thick edges down to the apron. I then stitched along the pins.
To make the straps, including the neck strap, I cut out long strips of fabric a little more than twice as wide as I ultimately wanted them to be. For the neck strap, I actually made it several inches longer than it needed to be because I wanted it to be able to stretch around his head (with the aid of an elastic).
I sewed the nice sides together (wrong side facing out) than flipped it inside out so that the nice side was facing out and you could no longer see the seem.
Sewing with the wrong sides facing out
For the two straps, I next ironed them flat.
Then I neatly sewed one of the ends closed. To do this, I folded the end over a tiny bit, then folded it again and stitched across several layers. This made it so the rough edges were hidden.
For the neck strap, I put a flat elastic strip inside the neck
piece. That elastic strip was as long as I wanted the actual neck strap to be. I sewed it securely into the neck piece on both ends, so that the excess fabric bunched around the elastic. This allowed the next strap to be pulled to a much longer length, but then fall back in place, making it easy to pull over his head.
Finally, I securely sewed on all the straps onto the base of the apron, making sure to tuck in any rough edges so that the final product looked clean and wouldn't have runs later on. I ironed the apron as a final touch.
We have found that having the elastic neck strap is wonderful because it make it simple for my son to put the apron on and off himself. My personal kitchen apron has a ring fastener, but that would much to complicated for a toddler to figure out. The apron itself is very durable, and has been placed in the washer and dryer on numerous occasions without any fraying (he wears it when we actually cook together in addition to play cooking). We are very happy with the design and function of the apron!
Meo playing with his felt fishing game; our contribution to the busy bag exchange (18 months)
Our friend Sharon had a fantastic idea: to have interested moms choose a project for a toddler busy bag, make enough bags for each participant and then to get together to exchange all of our bags so that each mom gets one of each project. What is a busy bag, you may be wondering? A busy bag is just a small activity that helps sharpen certain skills (such as motor, senses, colors, shapes, patterns, numbers, matching, etc.) that can be easily taken out to entertain a toddler. Busy bags are especially useful because they are small enough to fit in a diaper bag/backpack pocket so they are readily accessible when you are out and your toddler needs entertainment...such as in a waiting room or a friends house that is not toddler proofed. They are also wonderful activities to simply enjoy at home. The beauty of having a busy bag exchange is that you are able to acquire all sorts of busy bags while not having to go out and buy all the various materials and make them yourself. Thus, you have an assortment of fun activities to rotate through ensuring endless toddler fun.
For this particular exchange, there was 13 participants, which means we each had to make 13 bags of whatever project we chose. I chose to make a felt fishing game. Before I go on to tell you about the exchange and what other people made, I would like to share how we made our felt fishing game.
Felt Fishing Game
Completed Felt Fishing Game
Materials Needed:
Various colored sheets of felt
a small piece of cardboard
scissors
hot glue gun
3D Fabric Paint
small washers
magnets (strong enough to attract a washer through felt, but not strong enough to be dangerous)
wooden dowels (whatever length you want for your fishing rod)
a drill
Hemp/yarn/string for the fishing rod
Fish Directions:
1. Draw or trace a fish silhouette onto a piece of cardboard to use as a stencil. Use this stencil to draw fish onto the sheets of felt.
2. Line up two pieces of felt together, and cut out the fish. By cutting two pieces at the same time you are creating the front and back of the fish simultaneously.
3. Hot glue the tails together, to ensure the fish are lined up properly.
4. Place a washer on one side of the fish, towards the mouth.
5. Hot glue the rest of the fish together.
6. Using 3D Fabric paint, decorate one side of your fish. I included, eyes, a mouth and fins. Allow the first side to dry for at least four hours (or follow the direction on your paint) before flipping them over to do the other side.
Fishing Rod Directions:
1. Drill a small hole towards one end of the wooden dowel (large enough for your string to be threaded through).
2. Thread your string through the dowel and cut the string to the desired length. Then wrap some of the string around the pole and tie a knot so the string is secure on the pole. I chose to make my string long so that I can adjust it as Meo gets taller. To adjust the string to be shorter, you just have to wrap it around the pole several times before knotting it.
3. Hot glue the magnet to the end of the string.
4. We chose to decorate our magnet so that it looked like a bobber. To do this we cut out red and white felt circles the same size as the magnets. We made half as many white circles and cut them in half. Then we first glued on the red circle onto the magnet (covering and further securing the string), followed by gluing on the white semi-circle to the top half.
I chose to make one fishing rod and ten different colored fish for each bag so we had to make 13 poles and 130 fish (I actually decided to make one for my nephew as well, so I made 140 fish). I also wrote up a set of instructions and fishing game suggestions to include in each bag.
I must say, I think I chose one of the more involved projects (much to Robbie's dismay). This was a lot of work! Boy was I thankful that I have a sweet husband who volunteered to help me with all the tedious cutting and gluing. Robbie was very entertaining throughout the process and at one point commented, "Did your mom friends decide, 'hey wouldn't it be great fun to see what it's like to be Chinese factory workers and make a million toys for each other?'" Overall, this was a simple project to do, but because we had to make sooooo, so many, it took a lot of time and patience. It was worth it though because they turned out great, and Mattimeo seems to really enjoy playing with it. This particular busy bag aids with motor skills, color recognition and imagination.
Going after a fish
Got one!
The cats love this game too. They especially enjoy attacking the string and pouncing on the fish.
Caught another one!
Here's a video of Meo felt fishing for the very first time (18 months):
Yesterday, we got together to exchange all of our busy bags. Sharon was so sweet and made each of us a tote with our last names printed on them to store all of our busy bags together. It was so exciting to see all the bags filled up on the table, waiting for us to take home and explore.
The exchange doubled as a play date, and the little ones had fun playing together for a few hours and even got to test out some of their new treasures.
Charlie and Greyson
Christina and Braden checking out one of the busy bags
Meo (19 months)
Braden and Quinn exploring one of the busy bags
Greyson came and took the toy from them...Quinn was NOT impressed
Ella
Hilary and Ryker
Our hosts, Sharon and Braden
You are now probably curious about what the other mamas made for the busy bag exchange. Well I just so happened to look through our tote just now and took photos to share our little treasures with you.
The tote Sharon made for us
Lacing Card (motor skills):
Button Snake (motor skills, you can button the felt onto the ends and thread the felt squares onto the ribbon):
Activity to push pom poms through a hole into a container:
Velcro Shape Sticks (motor skills, learn about shapes and colors):
Popsicle Stick Puzzle :
Popsicle Matching Game (match the sticks with the correct color):
Clothesline (tie the clothesline onto two chairs and use mother skills to pin the "clothing" on the line):
Rainbow Rice (sensory and color learning):
Alphabet Egg Match (match upper and lower case letters together to form the eggs):
Egg Carton Color Match (match the pom-poms and eggs with the appropriate spot in the carton):
Rainbow pasta in a couple different shapes (sorting and learning colors):
Constellations (for putting against a flashlight and shining against a wall/ceiling):
Thank you again for opening your home to all of us Sharon and coming up with this fantastic idea! It was well worth the effort, and we are so excited to play with our new toys!
