Well, I tried :)

This past week I discovered pinterest: a fun website where you can collect all sorts of recipes, home decor ideas and ideas for kids. I was super excited about some Christmas crafts to do and also some fun things to do with Ryan. Now that I am back to full-time mommy-hood, I have been loving being with Ryan and looking for new and fun activities to try with him. I have found that I struggle with not trying to plan our every minute and also having fun exploratory play. I think that from being a teacher, I am so used to lesson plans, and having a 'lesson-focus' every day, it's hard to not still focus on that. I love to teach and am having fun teaching Ryan his ABC's, numbers and colors. But I am continually reminding myself that he is 20 months old, and that he learns by play. ;) He cannot do color by number yet, and that is OK! :) Anyways, I came across some fun things on pinterest, and wanted to share my findings.

The first was just taking a colander and putting pipe-cleaners through the holes. I thought this would be a great activity for fine-motor skills. And...it was...for about 3.5 minutes. Ryan was interested, but not for too long. But, that was ok. I gave it a shot. He had fun pulling out the pipe cleaners and playing with the colander, but that was about it. Here he is 'experimenting':

The second activity I tried was freezing some ice with food coloring in it. The activity was for bath time...that he would chase the ice around and try to grab it before it melted. Well, pretty much...as soon as Ry touched the ice, he looked at me and said, "no no." I think he didn't like that it was cold...so that was a flop....but I tried! :) 

So, here's to trying to merge my loves of being a mom and teaching: knowing that it may not always work out just like my amazing lessons didn't always work out. :) But, hey...at least I tried. :)