What are the Places in Your Neighborhood?

Create a Town

YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY!

• Does it offer an educational experience? Yes
• What does it teach? Urban planning (ok, this might be over reaching)
• Is it age (i.e., 2 - 3 year old) appropriate? Yes

What You’ll Need:

• Coloring and construction paper
• Tape
• Scissors
• Washable markers
• Toy cars

Adult Prep Work:

1. Cut pieces of paper to create roads in a town
2. Tape them together on a table (I just taped them to our wood floors) so you create the basic outline for your town
3. Cut square pieces of construction paper (I used different colors to make each section unique) and place them around your town
4. Place some toy cars on the road

What Your Child Will Do:

1. Talk with you about what makes up a town
2. Color the construction paper to match the different places (e.g., school, housing development, church, grocery store, fire station)
3. Play with and color their town (just let their imagination run wild)

We saw this on an episode of "Curious George" and sort of made it our own. It was really fun to talk with him about what makes up a town. At first he wasn't that into it, and I thought this was going to be a total dud. But once we started talking about the different places we go, he had a lot of fun with it. And he loved coloring the road and driving his cars through his town.

Domo Arigato, Mr. Roboto

C&A Robot Factory

Address: 326 Peterson Road, Libertyville

Hours: Monday - Thursday: 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.; Friday: 10:00 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

Admission: $5 per child; free for infants

YAY! YAY!

• Offers hands-on learning? Yes
• Engages an active toddler in play? For a bit
• Provides interaction with other children? No
• Allows children room to play without long waits? No
• Is clean? Yes

The C & A Robot Factory is brand spanking new. But it is a bit of a misnomer as kids don’t really get to play with or build robots. They can play with legos, and toddlers can play in a walled off area that has a train table, a workbench, and a little tikes kitchen (kind of like home).

It was just us so we had a lovely chat with the owner. She opened about two months ago, and it feels like she is focused more on lego play & education for the older set (K - 3rd grade). She offers some great classes for elementary school children using the Lego Education curriculum, which actually looks quite good. She also offers summer camp. But again for a slightly older set.

After about an hour, my son happily climbed back in the car to head home. While a non-meltdown departure was great for me, it is usually not a ringing endorsement for the venue.

I wish her all the luck in her new venture. And look forward to returning in a few years.

Huevo de Art

Three Fun Easter Egg Activities

YAY! YAY! YAY!

• Does it offer an educational experience? Yes
• What does it teach? Holiday, colors, patterns, sizes, shapes, music
• Is it age (i.e., 2 - 3 year old) appropriate? Yes

What You’ll Need:

• A set of colored, plastic easter eggs
• Paper plates
• Washable markers
• Washable paint
• Large rectangular cake pan
• Tape
• Scissors
• Small toys, rocks, rice (anything that will fit into the eggs and make a noise)

Activity 1: Rolling eggs in paint

Adult Prep Work:

1. Tape white paper to the bottom of your cake pan (make sure the sides are high enough so the eggs can roll around without falling out)
2. Squeeze out 2 or 3 paint colors

What Your Child Will Do:

1. Roll each egg in a separate color (we only used three eggs & again chose spring colors)
2. Shake the eggs in the cake dish to make colorful patterns on the paper

I thought this would be a fun activity because it is both messy & loud! But I was surprised by the pretty final product. It ended up looking like three jellyfish!

Activity 2: Making music shakers

What Your Child Will Do:

1. Find toys, rice, blocks that fit into the eggs
2. Shake them up & make some music

This turned into a fun scavenger hunt around the house in which my son had to figure out what fit inside the egg. Some items were too big and didn't fit so we learned about different sizes.

If you use rice or beans, you might want to put tape around the eggs so you don't end up with a huge mess.

Activity 3: Matching colors

Adult Prep Work:

1. Color or paint three or more plates to match each of your eggs

What Your Child Will Do:

1. Put each egg on the plate with the matching color

We are having a little trouble learning our colors so this was a fun, learning activity!

Take These Painted WIngs & Learn to Fly

Painting Butterflies II

YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY!

• Does it offer an educational experience? Yes
• What does it teach? Nature, colors, patterns
• Is it age (i.e., 2 - 3 year old) appropriate? Yes

What You’ll Need:

• White construction paper (large)
• Paper plates
• Scissors
• Washable paint
• Glue
• Colored markers
• Pipe cleaners

Adult Prep Work:

1. Cut a large butterfly shape out of the construction paper (make sure it is thick enough to handle a lot of paint)
2. Pour different colors of paint onto separate plates (we used cool, spring colors)

What Your Child Will Do:

1. Swirl the paint around with his/her hands (or use small wooden blocks as stamps)
2. Fold the butterfly in half and rub the unpainted side with his/her hands
3. Unfold the butterfly and check out the cool patterns

Once the paint dried, I glued our pipe cleaners to the head, and colored a face using our markers. You could also cut a body out of green construction paper and glue it over the top, but I didn't want to cover up any of our design.

The Butterfly Art Effect

Paint Colorful Butterflies

YAY! YAY! YAY! YAY!

• Does it offer an educational experience? Yes
• What does it teach? Nature, colors
• Is it age (i.e., 2 - 3 year old) appropriate? Yes

What You’ll Need:

• Gallon size ziploc bags
• Packing tape
• Washable paint
• Pipe cleaners (you can probably use twist ties, too)

Adult Prep Work:

1. Drop some paint in the bag (we used blue and yellow for one butterfly & pink and orange for the other)

What Your Child Will Do:

Swirl the paint around with his/her hands (you can do this inside or outside the bag)

Then, you seal the bag with packing tape (we used clear, but you can use something more colorful if you prefer), and twist the pipe cleaner around the middle to make the body and antenna. We used pink pipe cleaners, but obviously you can customize this craft any way you wish.

It is a wonderful activity for toddlers; a perfect balance of tasks for children and adults. And the final product is really cool. My son points them out and says, "Oh wow!"

There's an Aquarium in My Jello

Create an Aquarium in Jello

YAY!

• Does it offer an educational experience? No
• What does it teach? Nothing
• Is it age (i.e., 2 - 3 year old) appropriate? No

This is a terrible activity for toddlers. And the jello aquarium just looks creepy! But if you want to give it a try, here's how...

What You’ll Need:

• Blue jello
• Colorful gummy fish
• Blue food coloring

Adult Prep Work:

1. Make the jello, following the directions on the box
2. When the jello is almost set, add the gummy fish and squirt the blue food coloring over the top

What Your Child Will Do:

Push the gummy fish through the jello

You basically need to complete this entire activity, which I never like. And the end product is not cute at all. It kinda gave me the heebie jeebies!

Thank You, Easter Bunny! Bawk! Bawk!

Paint with Easter Eggs

YAY! YAY! YAY!

• Does it offer an educational experience? Yes
• What does it teach? Patterns, colors, following directions, holiday
• Is it age (i.e., 2 - 3 year old) appropriate? Yes

What You’ll Need:

• Large piece of white paper
• Plastic eggs
• Washable colored paint

Adult Prep Work:

1. Open the plastic eggs and give your child one half
2. Pour the paint

What Your Child Will Do:

1. Dip the egg in paint
2. Stamp it on the paper

This was a fun alternative to painting with our hands. My son loved stamping the egg on the paper and seeing the colorful circles it made.

We also read some of our favorite Easter books to round out the activity!