#4 Give them an eye dropper

Letting your preschooler transfer water with an eye dropper is an excellent way to develop muscles in the fingers and hands. These are fine motor skills.

I found this awesome pop up sponge paper and knew right away how I wanted to use it.

First, I cut out different shapes.

 Then I showed him how to squeeze the eye dropper to get water. It didn't take him long to figure it out. 

The coolest thing about this paper is that when it gets wet, it turns into a sponge!! 

He was quite delighted in the transformation and he carefully squeezed water onto every part of each shape.

We talked about the names of the shapes,

the colors, 

 and the textures (puffy, soft, squishy).

 This turned out to be a really fun activity that worked on fine motor skills, shapes, colors and language. And now we have some cool sponge toys for the bath!

What other types of activities can you think of to do with an eye dropper?

#3 Make Playdough

Have you ever made playdough? 

Would you believe me if I told you it was easy? Or that I was able to make 4 different colors of playdough with ONE pot in only 12 minutes?

Its true!!  There are SO many different types of recipes out there but this one is my all time favorite. It never comes out wet and sticky and the dough is so smooth just like the store bought brands, and because it's made with food ingredients, it's completely edible.

First you need a large bowl to hold all your ingredients. 

Add 1 cup of white flour. 

Next, add in 1/2 cup of salt. 

Then add two teaspoons of Cream of Tartar. 

What the heck is cream of tartar? Well, it's white powder that you find in the spice isle and it's most commonly used for making meringues (like meringue pie). 

The reason it is added into the playdough is because it is what will help make the dough smooth and have some elasticity. It also serves as a preservative so that it will last longer.

You don't HAVE to use it. But I think it does make help make a nicer playdough. Try it with and without and see if you can tell a difference. 

Next add your wet ingredients: one tablespoon of oil and one cup of water.

Now, just stir it.  Stir it up well so that all the ingredients are mixed well and it is the consistency of pancake batter. 

At this point, if you just wanted to make one color, you could add food coloring and mix it in.
(You could also add in kool-aid powder to add not only color but also a delicious smell! That really adds to the sensory experience). 

I wanted to make FOUR different colors, so I decided that I would wait to add my food coloring until the batter was cooking.

I used a small pot and set the heat to medium, I only added about 1/4 of my playdough batter to the pot because I was going to make four different colors.

You have to work fast because the playdough cooks quickly. (Like I said, this entire process only took me 12 minutes!). Add the food coloring of your choice and mix, mix, mix. 

As the batter heats up, it will turn to playdough right before your eyes. Just keep squishing it back and forth until all the batter has cooked (with no wet parts left).  This will take between 1-3 minutes depending on how much you are making at a time.

Scrape out as much of the dough as you can and leave it on your counter. You can just leave it as you finish cooking the rest of the batter. If you are only making one color, you can move right to kneading your dough - just be careful because it will be HOT! 

I didn't bother to clean out my pot before starting the next color. I did however plan out my colors so that IF they did seem to run together, it wouldn't be a big deal. (the colors did not mix).

I chose to start with yellow and then moved to pink, purple and lastly green. (The green I actually used was called avocado; and it's supposed to be that dark).

Here is what all my dough looked like right out of the pot. 

As you can see, when you start it might still have some white spots.

I took one piece at a time and I smashed it and folded it on top of itself until the color was even and the texture was smooth.

And here is the finished product! The only mess I had was the colorful turned pot I cooked everything in and the original bowl I mixed my ingredients in.  

Store your fresh playdough in an air-tight container (I use zip lock bags) and keep in the fridge. 

It should keep for a couple of weeks.

Jen's Favorite Cooked Playdough: 

1 cup of flour

1/2 cup of salt

2 teaspoons of cream of tartar

1 cup of water

1 tablespoon of oil

food coloring

1. Add all ingredients together and mix well. (Leave out the food coloring if you want to make this batch into several colors).

2. Cook playdough in a pot on medium heat. Stir constantly. (add food coloring now if you haven't already added it).

3. As the dough gets hot, it will cook and start to turn into dough.  Keep stirring and expose all the wet areas to the pot so it will cook. 

4. Remove from heat and place on a flat surface. 

5. Let the dough cool before kneading. 

6. Store in an air-tight container.

#2 Make Cookies

First of all, who doesn't love cookies?  Here is a super simple and healthy recipe for breakfast cookies that are vegan and gluten free. But don't let that scare you, they are delicious! Plus, you can eat all the batter without worrying about getting salmonella. <------ That's the part I like the best!!

I altered my recipe from a blog I found called Sallys Baking Addiction.

Trying new foods can sometimes be a challenge for preschool aged children. It isn't uncommon for them to be picky and turn their nose up to new foods. However, many parents find that kids are more likely to try new foods if they get to help prepare them. So give it a try!

Peanut Butter-Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies
(**makes about 12 large cookies - double the recipe to make more)

1 1/4 cups of quick oats
1/2 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 cup of peanut butter
2 tablespoons of maple syrup
1 ripe banana
1/4 cup of shredded coconut
1/4 cup of chocolate chip cookies (we didn't have any this time)

First you have to mash up the banana. This is a fun and easy job for your preschooler. As they watch it transform from a solid to mush, they are learning about transformations. This concept also carries over when they watch you mix all the wet ingredients up with the dry ingredients and then again when when you bake the cookies in the oven and they go in raw but come out cooked! The idea that something can change, yet remain the same thing is pretty amazing to little ones.

Add all your ingredients into a large bowl and let your preschooler stir it up. Don't forget to show them that you are reading a recipe and measuring out the ingredients. When you talk about numbers and order, your preschooler is learning math skills!

The batter should be wet but not runny. He can help you scoop large spoonfuls onto a cookie sheet. (I like to put them on parchment paper).

Bake them at 325 degrees for about 15 minutes. You want to make sure you don't bake them too long, they will seem a little gooey when they come out but as they cool, they will firm up.

Want to do some more things that encourage your preschooler to think about transformations? Try these: 

• Put several ice cubes into a bowl and leave it out until it melts. Then you can put the water back into the freezer and come back and see how it turned back into ice!
• pop popcorn with an air popper. 
• put some powdered instant pudding into a jar or baby bottle and add milk. Let your child shake up the jar until the pudding has formed. 

What other activity ideas have you tried? 

#1 Get a Balance Bike

Have you heard of the new balance bike craze? Balance bikes are these amazing little bikes for toddlers that teach them how to ride a bike without ever needing training wheels! "No way" you say? Yes way! Totally true.  I wasn't too sure when I first heard about it either but I was willing to give it a try.

Balance bikes are just like regular bikes except they don't have pedals. Or training wheels. And they're really small so even a two year old can ride one.

The idea is that the kid is able to teach themselves to balance without trying to pedal at the same time. Then, once they have the balance part mastered, you put them on a real bike. Amazing, right? 

When you first introduce a balance bike, expect your child to mostly walk with the bike. It's going to look awkward and you might wonder why you even spent your money on this thing. But trust me, it gets better.

The more they practice, the better they will become. And before you know it, they will be riding down your driveway with their legs up in the air and you'll be like, "OMG he is balancing on a two wheeler and he's only three years old!"

The next step is to introduce a bike with pedals. If your kid has never used pedals in his life, you might have to show him how to pedal on a tricycle or something first to learn how to do it. Then, you can try the bike.

We took a trip to our local bike shop, found a bike that was his size and sat him on top. Dad held on to the back and ran along side of him at first but it only took a few minutes for him to figure it out. I was so surprised that my three year old was riding a bike ALL BY HIMSELF!!

If you don't want to go out and buy a balance bike, I've heard that you can just take the pedals off a regular bike.  I have no idea how you would do that but there's probably a way.  Check out YouTube. We bought our balance bike for about half the retail price on Zulily. I see balance bikes for sale on there all the time. You should go check it out and let me how it goes.