Indoor Mini Construction Site

One of D's favorite things at the moment is TRACTORS! He loves construction sites. We live in a community where homes are being built around us, so we have lots of opportunities to watch the giant tractors at work. He could sit and watch them for hours if I let  him.

I've seen several pins about creating construction theme sensory boxes such as....

from pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com

from in lieuofpreschool.com and

from one of my favorite mommy bloggers dirtandboogers.com

I knew D would love this. Dirt, tractors, rocks...what more could a boy ask for? 

I put my spin on it and made moon sand (or cloud dough) to use as the sand. We spread out a giant beach towel to contain the mess but quickly realized we didn't need it. The "sand" somehow made it off the towel and all over my floor. I have hardwood and the sand is easy to vacuum so it wasn't a big deal. 

I poured the "sand" mixture into a big tub, added small rocks and miniature toy tractors, and he was good to go. (I'm about 9 months pregnant right now, so on days we don't leave the house, D ends up staying in his pjs.)

A bit later we added some miniature sea animals....

He liked the feel of the sand.

Then we added some blocks.

Took a break to color. 

Made a hat out of some pipe cleaners.

And then played with it some more....

I kept the moon sand for a couple of weeks and occasionally pulled it out again. My bag of sand got smaller with each use. It was easy to make and loads of fun, so I'm sure we'll be doing this again soon.

Under the Sea Paper Mosaic

When I stumbled across this Pin from toddlerapproved.com, I instantly knew I wanted to try this with D. 

First I cut out shapes of fish and placed them on top of the sticky side of contact paper. D helped me tear up some construction paper and we decorated the fish. Next, I taped a large piece of contact paper (sticky side out) to the wall. With large pieces of torn construction paper, we created seaweed and water. We placed the fish that we had created earlier on top of the water and wah-lah! Under the Sea Mosaic. 

Of course, nothing can be done without his toy trains these days.