Go Diego Go Animal Rescue Imaginative Play

This last set off, for our learning day I incorporated Bug's beloved TV show character, Diego. Last Christmas, Bug got a rescue pack and a little stuffie of Baby Jaguar. He uses them all of the time for his alone imaginative play. It just seemed fitting to add some more fun moments to his well used Diego toys.

This is Bug and his beloved Baby Jaguar. He was really excited for our activity...even though the picture doesn't show it! A camera is almost always in his face...guilty mommy! He just wanted to start our learning fun; not wait until the perfect picture was taken! haha!

I also added the use of our Melissa and Doug World Puzzle Map into our activity of the day. For those of you who don't know Diego, he is an animal rescuer, rescuing animals from all around the world and bringing them back to their natural habitat. During the episode, the child learns about the animal they are rescuing and the actual habitats these animals reside in. I wanted to try and create an indoor scavenger hunt by getting Bug to put together the puzzle that had missing pieces from it. Baby Jaguar had to help.

I had made little paper animals from some images that I found on the internet (I, of course laminated them so we could reuse them), and each animal was found on a piece of the puzzle that was missing. I placed the animal as well as the corresponding puzzle piece around the house for Bug to go rescue.

In the show, Diego would ask questions about the animals that involved choosing between two options. As an example, if it was a penguin in question, Diego might ask, does the penguin have a beak or a nose? Every time Bug came across one of the "hidden" animals, I would ask him a question structured around a question Diego would ask. It was a good way to teach Bug about the animals as well as help him understand opposites (ie: is an elephant big or small). When he answered the question correctly, Bug got to put his animal and puzzle piece into his rescue pack.

Once all of the animals and pieces were "rescued", we came back to our incomplete puzzle and finished it. I love working on puzzles with Bug, as it's a fun way to teach him about problem solving and patience. When the puzzle was complete, we matched up our animals on their corresponding picture.

Bug, once again loved this activity. It makes me so happy that the games or learning activities I introduce Bug to bring so much joy into his life. Not everything we do has the same enjoyment, but on the most part, Bug is thoroughly entertained. I gauge our level of success by how many times he requests to play it "one more time". He didn't want to stop, so we played it again and this time "Baby Jaguar" did most of the rescuing. Bug adopted this insanely cute animal voice and kept Baby Jaguar in his hand while he rescued all of our animals, as if Baby Jaguar was doing it himself. And then once the animals were brought over to the puzzle, Baby Jaguar used his nose to slide the animals into the corresponding location on the map.

As a side note, I have a Facebook Group where I post updates and the Word Document Link for all my blog posts. If you are interested in following me there, here is the link:

Stories of a Shift Working Mom

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Walking/Don't Walk Game

This post is a quick post about a game I created for Bug. This activity stemmed from the red light/green light game, where you hold up a red or green sign and get your child to either stop or go. I changed it to gear more towards teaching Bug about crossing the street and when it is safe to do so. I made two signs, one the don't walk hand and the other the walking person.

I started out the game with the don't walk hand, talking about when it is solid and not blinking you don't cross the street. Then I would switch the sign to the walking man, and Bug would be all smiles, on his merry way. I made it super fun by changing the length I held up the walking sign for and Bug would get super excited when all of a sudden he had to stop.

After we did that for a while, I changed it up by speaking to him about how sometimes the red hand blinks. I told him that if you are crossing the street and the walking man all of sudden changes to the blinking hand, he needed to finish crossing the street really quickly. He had a lot of fun with this, running around in the house. The action shots sure catch how energetic he got once we got to this part of game.

Bug loved this...to the point where I was done with the game way sooner than he was. He kept asking for just one more. After the game, he gave the red don't walk hand a big high five!

Leaf Print Magnets

Last week, we did another craft that is being turned into little Christmas gifts. The winter here is always fluctuating in temperatures, so on a walk home one day, we found a bunch of big leaves that were still moist due to the recent snow melt. We picked out a few good ones for our craft and headed home. I wanted to do this with Bug in Fall 2014, but this was just prime opportunity...perfect leaves and right before Christmas.

I had purchased some Sculpey clay from Michaels awhile ago when it was on sale, in anticipation of this craft (I originally wanted to do it his fall). I also wanted to add a little sparkle to our leaf magnets, so, with the 40% coupon from Michaels, I bought some gold glitter. Since I'm a crafty person, I already had the sculpey rolling pin; however, you can easily buy a kitchen one from a dollar store that would still work perfectly. I just used our own cookie cutters to cut the shapes. And the magnets were from Dollarama...cheap cheap craft!

I got bug to roll out the Sculpey clay until it was 1/4 of an inch in depth. Then I got him to sprinkle some glitter on the top, before he laid the leaf over our flattened clay to roll out the imprint. Once the leaf was imprinted into the clay, I gave Bug the cookie cutter to cut out our shape. We had 4 different colours, and once there wasn't enough of each colour to make another cut out, we started combining the colours. The marbled ones were my favourite and if we are going to do this again, I think we will just go straight to the multi-coloured ones.

To harden them, I just followed the baking directions on the package. I kept a pretty close eye on them, as I never know how my oven will cook new things. Once they were hardened and cool, I used my glue gun to attach the magnets. Bug thought they were awesome, and then he picked out each one he wanted to give to his loved ones! I have to say, he really does love giving gifts that he has made.

Aren't they pretty?!

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VDV Elf on the Shelf

Everyone...meet Francis. He entered our lives last year as our little Elf on the Shelf to remind Bug (Bear was too little at this time) that Santa is always watching and Francis would report back to Santa every night on his behaviour. We started this earlier than December 1st, as Bug was only 3 at the time, and I figured a little more time would help him grasp the concept. I had so much fun putting finding Francis in precarious situations and loads of mischief. Here's the list of adventures our little Elf had last holiday season.

1. Francis having a bath.

2. Francis performing CPR.

3. Francis taking flight.

4. Francis playing angry birds.

5. Francis scaling the fireplace.

6. Francis being a couch potato.

7. Francis being an artist.

8. Francis doing yoga.

9. Francis hanging out.

10.  Francis being held hostage.

11. Francis having a snowball fight.

12. Francis having a late night snack.

13. Francis window cleaning.

14. Francis feeding the cats.

15. Francis sewing.

16. Francis working out.

17. Francis sledding.

18. Francis planking.

19. Francis building a crazy fort.

20. Francis playing hide 'n seek.

21. Francis going for a swing.

22. Francis having a midnight read.

23. Francis tangled in lights.

24. Francis stuck between windows with a letter from Santa.

25. Francis taking pictures.

26. Francis having some office fun.

27. Francis saying hi to the boys.

28. Francis stuck in a glass.

29. Francis starting a race.

30. Francis under the weather.

31. Francis dancing.

32. Francis jumping on the bed.

33. Francis putting out a fire.

34. Francis peeking around the corner.

35. Francis hanging by some monkeys.

36. Francis playing hockey.

37. Francis spelling his name.

38. Francis off-roading.

39. Francis TP-ing.

40. Francis crocheting.

41. Francis planting next year's Christmas tree.

So there you have it. 41 Elf on the Shelf ideas. The VDV Four loved this last year. Really looking forward for Francis to come again this year!