Magnetic Christmas Tree Busy Bag with Scotch® Expressions Tapes

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. I hope you and your kids enjoy this fun magnetic Christmas tree busy bag over the holidays. #CraftAmazing #CollectiveBias Lets face it...Holidays are a busy time for Mom! Trying to tackle all the prep for the holiday all while keeping the kids busy and entertained during the day can be a daunting task. On those days that my to-do list is longer than I can imagine, I love to set out a variety of busy bags that my preschooler can play with while I'm busily working. This gives me some free time to get things done and crossed off my list. Last week I used Scotch® Expressions Tapes to help me create this stunning Magnetic Christmas Tree Busy Bag. Although it's intended for kids to play with, I have to admit I've already had quite a bit of fun with it also. 

Emotions Puppet Show with Disney's Inside Out Characters

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and it's advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. I hope you enjoy exploring emotions with your children with this fun Emotions Puppet Show Activity. #InsideOutEmotions #CollectiveBias

My children and I saw Disney's Inside Out on opening night in theaters and we loved it! In fact, immediately after the movie was over my 4 year old daughter asked me when we could come back and watch it again. We spent the entire drive home talking about all of the darling emotion characters and it sparked an idea in my head for a great way to explore emotions with my children by having an Emotions Puppet Show.

Fun with DohVinci + Enter to see your own Design on TV at KCA!

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of DohVinci for IZEA. All opinions are 100% mine.

Two things my kids can’t seem to get enough of lately is Play-Doh and Nickelodeon. Lucky for them, they have been getting a mixture of both with our new DohVinci Color Mixer. Right now you can submit your own DohVinci art design on their contest page for a chance to see it featured on TV at the 2015 Kids’ Choice Awards.

Fox Tale Soup Storytelling Bin

My daughter and I have been having lots of fun this past week reading Fox Tale Soup. It's a retelling of the classic tale, Stone Soup. The animal characters in it make it very appealing to preschool age children. It's been quite a long time since we made a sensory bin, so since my daughter enjoyed this story so much, I decided to put together a Fox Tale Soup Storytelling Bin for her to have fun re-telling the story and have free play with all of the materials.

Snowman Salt Dough Magnets

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough. This month is all about Salt Dough. In the winter months, we love reading the "Snowman at Night" book series. We had our first bit of snow this week. Not too much snow, but it made us excited to pull out our snowman book and inspired us to make Snowman Magnets. 

Glow in the Dark Play Dough

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough. This month is all about Glowing Dough. This past week as I've dropped my boys off at school we've been able to see the moon off in the distance in the sky in front of us. The other day it was so big and seemed so close and my daughter leaned over to one of my son's and said, "I'm going to ask Mommy to get a big, big ladder and climb up and get the Moon for me." True story! It was pretty adorable! As I thought about our Glowing Dough challenge and our recent excitement over seeing the moon in the sky each morning, I decided to make Glow in the Dark Play Dough and combine it with moon and star cookie cutters to make our own pretend night sky.

Pumpkin Play Dough Invitation to Play

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough. This month is all about No Cook Play Dough. With the fall season upon us, we took the opportunity to read some of our favorite pumpkin books this week and set up a Pumpkin Play Dough Invitation to Play. Using No Cook Play Dough made the set up for this activity such a breeze!

Monster Slime

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. This month is all about Slime. I took a traditional twist this month and since slime tends to remind me and my kids so much of monsters, that is exactly what we created. 

Fizzy Dough Alphabet Ocean Hunt

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. This month is all about Fizzy Dough. Do I dare say this has been our most favorite month so far? Gasp! We seriously loved it! We combined a fabulous Small World Fizzy Dough activity found at Fun at Home with Kids together with an alphabet hunt and had such a great afternoon of fun and learning! 

Ice Cream Dough---Make a Banana Split Invitation to Play

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. This month is all about Ice Cream Dough. To keep in true form with the dough and to go along with the book we read to go along with our activity, I created an invitation to play station for my daughter to make herself a pretend Banana Split. 

Small Crab World Invitation to Play with DIY Moon Sand

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. This month is all about Moon Sand. It was our first experience making moon sand and my kids loved it! We made our moon sand into a small crab world invitation to play to go along with a book we have been reading from the library. 

Making Lemon Trees with Lemon Scented Playdough

Welcome to another edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. This month is all about Scented Dough. We discovered a fun book at the library this past week and it inspired our lemon scented playdough activity!  

Easter Egg Sensory Play and Learning

I put together an Easter Egg Sensory Bin for my daughter last week and it was a hit! We are still working on recognizing our numbers so I decided to incorporate some learning in the bin with number and color matching.  

Coffee Beans "Space" Sensory Bin + 40 Days of Sensory Bin Fillers

I love the smell of coffee beans! Their rich, deep, flavorful scent makes them such a perfect sensory material. Something about their dark brown color reminded me of the darkness of Outer Space so I rolled with that idea and as my contribution to the 40 Days of Sensory Bins Series at Little Bins for Little Hands I made this Coffee Beans Space Sensory Bin.  

Ladybug Playdough

Welcome to the third edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. This month is all about Edible Play Dough. We have been anxious for spring to arrive and have been reading all about ladybugs this week. As a special treat, I made a batch of edible playdough and we used some sweet things to create ladybugs.

St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin

We have been doing all things rainbows and St. Patrick's Day this past week so it was perfect timing to get our bin out and put together a St. Patrick's Day Sensory Bin for my daughter.  

Create a Leprechaun Playdough (Invitation to Play)

I have been itching for the end of February to roll around because I had this idea about a month ago to create an invitation to play station for my daughter with Play Dough for her to create her own Leprechaun for St. Patrick's Day. My son had a friend over this afternoon so my daughter was needing some special one-on-one attention to avoid ruining their playtime so it was the perfect opportunity to put my plan into action.    

Cocoa Scented Cloud Dough...Digging for Worms Play!

Welcome to the second edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series, all about Cloud Dough. If you missed last month's post about Foam Dough, you can check it out HERE. This week we have been having a ball learning all about Earthworms.  My daughter is pretty fearless and loves hands on learning so I decided what better way to explore worms than to let her dig for them in Cocoa Scented Cloud Dough.

Foam Dough Cupcake Making Station (Invitation to Play)

Welcome to the first edition of the 12 Months of Sensory Dough Series. Each month 12 Bloggers will bring you their own unique spin on a popular sensory dough. Go HERE to read more about the series and to meet the Co-hosts and read about the spin they will be sharing each month. I intend on setting up our dough experience each month as an "Invitation to Play" and will couple our play with a children's book.

The Day It Rained Hearts Sensory Bin

I put together this Sensory Bin for my daughter to go along with our favorite Valentine's Day book, "The Day It Rained Hearts" by Felicia Bond.  I wanted the hearts to lay on the ground as if they had rained just like in the story but also wanted them displayed on trees like in the end of the story. I am happy with how the sensory bin turned out.