This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #BackToPlay #CollectiveBias Thank you Back to Nature Macaroni & Cheese for sponsoring this post. Try the new Back to Nature Made with Organic Macaroni & Cheese Dinners!
With the warmer weather finally settling in, we’re planning to take more of our activities outside. Whether that’s just getting outside to play or taking some of our sensory and learning activities outdoors; we want to make the most of these sunny days. It also helps to get outside because it means longer nap-times for her.
Squeaker enjoys being outdoors, probably more than I do, but that’s because I have seasonal allergies to deal with. Still, I don’t want that to stop me from enjoying the outdoors and warm weather with her. We try to get in one good walk every day, but we’re also taking more of our indoor activities outside.
Overview of what we did:
- sensory bin with uncooked pasta and ocean animal puzzle shapes (I think we’ll use the sea life next time)
- counting and sorting uncooked silly sea life pasta
- matching animals to our mini pack + other fun activities (download our Under the Sea Mini Pack)
The Under the Sea Tot Pack!
Squeaker is becoming more willing to do tot packs with me. Granted, I still pick and choose what we do and I don’t want her just sitting at the table with a worksheet.
One thing that she loves to do is outline letters. Either with crayons, colored pencils, or uncooked macaroni noodles:
And while she’s not an expert at counting just yet, it’s another skill that we’re working on:
Wondering what else is in this pack?
- Coloring pages (octopus, seahorse, crab, dolphin, fish, jellyfish, whale)
- Tracing pages (O is for Octopus, S is for Seahorse, C is for Crab, D is for Dolphin, F is for Fish, J is for Jellyfish, W is for Whale)
- Letter pages (O, S, C, D, F, J, W)
- 6 or 9 piece puzzles (one of my favorite features of past packs is back!)
- Counting cards (1 through 10)
- Matching cards (just print out two copies of the set)
- Miss the download above? You can grab that printable pack right here —> Under the Sea Mini Pack
She has been picky about her sensory bins lately. I’ve tried non-food material as a filler, but she’s just not having it. So we tried uncooked pasta from a Back to Nature Mac & Cheese dinner. I also realized that it would make for a fun learning activity after looking over the box and what we had on hand at home.
I also added in some puzzle pieces from one of her puzzles and gave her a few measuring cups.
We loved using the Silly Sea Life shapes for a sorting and counting activity! I helped her at first with getting the shapes into groups of two. Squeaker caught on quickly enough. And then we counted them together.
Squeaker had a lot more fun with this than she did with the sensory bin. Maybe we’ll try cooked pasta next time for textural differences. That could be fun!
We did take a brief break from our outdoor play and learning session to have lunch.
Overall, we had a lot of fun with this! Squeaker always has fun playing outside and when I can sneak in some learning, it’s a win-win situation all around.
Have you seen the new Back to Nature Mac & Cheese? We found ours at our local ShopRite, and you can also find them at Publix, Target, Kroger, or Ahold. It was definitely easy to get inspired to create some fun activities just by the box designs.
How will Back to Nature Mac & Cheese inspire you?
Kori
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