Polar Play

I was excited to take out the polar play set I made last winter now hat Ana was a little older and more able to appreciate it. 

 

This week, I told the story "The Polar Bear", from  "Tell Me a Story".  I had the perfect props for this - and Ana loved it.  She asked to hear it over and over.

 Baking day - I made banana penguins for everyone for dessert.  Ana and I made polar bear cupcakes.  She put on all the eyes - they were very expressive!

Penguins sure are tasty! 

 

Several of our polar bear cupcake looked more like white pigs to me, but hey, they were adorable, and very yummy! 

Painting day - simply white paint for snow on blue sky paper.  Ana actually spent several minutes painting the paper, and not herself.  This is new! 

Sensory day - The perfect theme for snow dough! Simple method - add enough oil to white flour to make it clump together a little, bu not form an actual dough.  This was a great sensory experience - I kneaded and played with the snow for quite a while, too!

 

I've been picking up those tubes of animals for our themes when I can find them.  While I prefer wooden, wool, or other natural toys, those toys can't really go into our sensory bins without being ruined, so these are wonderful for that.  This is the Arctic Toob

 

 Craft day - Inspired by the polar bear story I've been telling all week, we made ice wreaths.  I don't have a bundt pan, but I do have small vintage donut pans, so those worked for mini ice wreaths.  And added citrus and cranberries first, then we poured in water and let them freeze.  These will also go on the bird tree.  

 

 

We had a snowstorm this weekend, so we had a lot of snow play, in and outside.  It has been a remarkably snow-less winter here in CT this year. 

 

Snowstorms mean fires in the fireplace; fires in the fireplace mean s'mores!