Monthly Archives: April 2018

Thomas the Train and Dinosaurs Third Birthday Party

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Buddy turned three a couple weeks ago, and we had a big party to celebrate. I have always loved planning themed birthday parties, so I like to start planning early. Buddy and I talked for months about potential themes for his party. He still loves Thomas the Train, so he really wanted another Thomas the Train party. (Read about his Thomas the Train 2nd birthday party here.) And then two weeks before the party, he decided he wanted dinosaurs too. Fortunately, there is a dinosaur park in the show, so we were able to do both Thomas the train and dinosaurs without going too far from our original theme.

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I decided to do the Thomas the train things on our main floor and to create the dinosaur park in our downstairs family room. Most of the Thomas the train parts were the same as last year. I did stations again, because it worked really well last year. The kids could do whatever they wanted, and there were lots of choices. The Thomas stations were pretty much the same as last year. They were a Photo Booth, train tracks, books and puzzles, playdoh, crafts and coloring, and a toss the coal in the hole game. (I go into detail about these in my blog about last year’s party, so please follow this link to read more.)

This year we got a Instax Mini for Christmas, so we added it to the photo booth. It was a lot of fun to have pictures right away. I also added decorating picture frames for the Instax photos to our coloring/stickers table. I made the frames with popsicle sticks from the dollar store, hot glue, and magnetic tape. I found sticker gems similar to these and I set them out with Thomas stickers and star stickers. Then we used tape to keep the photo in the frame.

Frame decorating in progress

Here is the finished frame on our fridge.

I made more frames with mini clothespins and washi tape and set them out for our adult guests. We also had candy coated pretzels as favors for our adult guests. 

I added three new stations for our dinosaur park. They were a triceratops toss game (Tricera-toss!), a dinosaur world bin, and a dinosaur Duplo challenge activity.

I saw the idea for the Tricera-toss game on Mom Trend’s blog. It was made from foam board, party hats, and glow in the dark bracelets, which were all bought from the dollar store. I painted the picture of a tricertops, and used hot glue to attach three party hats as the horns. Then we used the glow bracelets as rings. This activity was the hit of our party! All of the kids loved it!

Another station was a dinosaur Duplo challenge. I made pictures of dinosaurs out of Buddy’s Duplos. (Here is the pdf in case you want to use it too: Duplo Dinosaur Cards) No one actually did this station at the party, but Buddy and I have had a lot of fun with it since then. 

I created the dinosaur world bin for Buddy’s dinosaurs, and I pulled it out for this party. It was a fun station that the kids loved. Read more about this bin here. To decorate our dinosaur world, I used vines and green streamers to cover our fireplace. I put some trains and dinosaurs on our mantle to tie the two themes together. I also had some dinosaur balloons hanging using the template found on  Baby Wants Baby Gets blog. (I didn’t get a great picture of them though.) Finally, I set out some white chocolate pretzels marked dinosaur bones as a centerpiece on our coffee table. 

It was a great party, and we all had a lot of fun! Please comment if you have any questions about specific party elements.

Ten Easy Activities To Do With A Two Year Old

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Last week Buddy turned three. We had a wonderful celebration with our family and friends, and I hope to blog about that soon. This week, however, I want to reflect on the activities that I did with Buddy during the last year. Here are my top ten favorite activities that we did when Buddy was two.

Floating LettersAll you need for this activity is a spatula, some foam letters, and water. It was so easy to set up, and Buddy played with it for a long, long time.

Whisking Bubbles

This was a Water Wednesday activity from last summer. I put some Dawn and water in a bowl, and Buddy used a whisk to make it bigger and bigger. He thought this was hilarious and eventually started to spread bubbles on his arms and legs.

Magnetic Letters Sensory Bin

I hid magnetic letters in a rice bin, and Buddy found them and matched them to letters on a baking pan. We started this one with a horseshoe magnet, but eventually switched to shovels for finding the letters. Buddy had a blast and played for more than an hour!

Mighty, Mighty Construction Site Bin

If I had to pick a favorite two year old activity, this would be it. We left these beans and trucks together in the bin, and Buddy often pushes it into the kitchen to play while I cook dinner. Buddy has played with this bin at least once a week until the last couple weeks, when I swapped out the beans to create the dinosaur world sensory bin (see the next post below). I expect he’ll ask for his beans to come back out again soon.

Dinosaur World Sensory Bin

I used some old felt and some leaves and rocks from the dollar store to create this bin for Buddy’s dinosaurs. He loves having a special place to play with his dinosaurs. This has replaced his construction site sensory bin as a thing for him to do while I cook.

Decorating Dinosaurs

We used a cookie cutter to cut out dinosaur shapes in playdoh. Then we decorated them with pony beads. It was so easy, and so much fun!

Laundry Basketball

This is probably our second favorite from this year. Buddy loves playing basketball with his beach ball! This version was with the laundry basket, and I played defense while I folded. Most nights, he uses his bed as the basket and if it stays in, it counts as a basket.

Bubbling Colors: A Science Activity for Toddlers

I put drops of food coloring in the bottom of muffin tins, and then I covered it with baking soda. Buddy had a water bottle of vinegar, and the result was bubbling colors. It was a fun and easy science activity.

Bowling for Cups

We stacked some leftover cups from a party and knocked them down with a rubber ball. This was one of Buddy’s first games, and he loved it!

Duplo Busy Bag

Duplos were another favorite this year, and we brought this busy bag with us on a lot of trips this year. He liked it so much, that I’ve made a couple more versions of it for playing at home as well.

Last year was a great year, and I’m looking forward to the new activities we’ll do now that Buddy is three. If you have any ideas, please share in the comment section.

Dinosaur World Sensory Bin

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Buddy loves dinosaurs, but until recently, we didn’t have many to play with at our house. However, he got these in his Easter basket, and now we have a lot! He was so excited to see his new dinosaurs, and he couldn’t wait to play!

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I decided to create a fun play area for Buddy and his dinosaurs. I emptied our sensory bin, and added some green felt. Then, I cut some blue felt to create a lake. I also used felt to create a volcano. The base of the volcano was stiff felt, and then I stapled it to create a cone shape. Then I used staples and fabric glue to add on extra layers to the volcano.

The last time I was at the dollar store, I had this dinosaur bin in mind while I shopped. I found two fake ferns and two bags of different sized rocks. I curled up the fern stem to make it stand up, and then I reenforced it with some river rocks. The final touch was a couple of sticks I found outside. 

Buddy was thrilled with this dinosaur world sensory bin! He loves to make his dinos drink the water and eat the leaves. They walk along the logs and up the volcano. 

Some of his tiniest dinosaurs from this dinosaur toob even fit into the volcano!

This is one of my favorite sensory bins we’ve done. It’s so much fun, and not messy at all! Buddy had this out at his birthday party last weekend (more to come about that soon), and it was a huge hit!

Do you have any other dinosaur activity ideas? If so, please share in the comments.

Magnetic Letters Sensory Bin

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Buddy has been working on letters at preschool, so I’ve been keeping an eye out for fun alphabet activities to do at home. When I saw the idea of a magnetic alphabet sensory bin on Busy Toddler’s blog, I knew Buddy would love it. He plays with his construction site sensory bin all the time, but it’s been a long time since we’ve played in our rice bin. (Read more about our construction site sensory bin and our first rice bin here.) Even though I prefer black beans as a sensory bin filler, I chose to use rice because we have more of it. We don’t really have enough black beans to hide magnetic letters well.

*Disclaimer- this post contains affiliate links for your convenience. As an Amazon associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.*

I started by adding magnetic letters to the bottom of our sensory tub, and then I poured rice on top. The letters were completely hidden in the rice. I also pulled out an old cake pan, and I used a washable dry erase marker to write the alphabet on it. That way, Buddy could practice matching and identifying letters as he found them.

Buddy started with our large magnet (similar to this one). He put it in the rice, but he had a hard time getting any magnets to stick. Busy Toddler used a magnet wand instead, so maybe that works better for this type of activity. Buddy ended up pulling out the magnets and sticking it to his. The magnet wasn’t an effective tool, but he still enjoyed it. 

I pulled out a couple shovels, and Buddy was ecstatic! He was thrilled that he could now dig up the letters. Buddy asked me to play with him, so we both took a shovel and found letters. 

As we found letters, we matched them up to the letters on the cake pan. I used an old bag of magnetic letters, and there were some letter repeats. Any time we found a repeated letter, we stacked them on top of the match or put it on the edge of the pan. 

It took us awhile, but eventually we found all of the letters. But Buddy was having too much fun to stop! So he took the letters off of the pan and threw them back into the rice. I set the duplicate letters aside for the second round, so we only had one of each letter. 

We didn’t bury the letters quite as much for the second round, but Buddy was just as enthusiastic about finding them. 

This activity was amazing! Buddy played with the rice and letters for 75 minutes! (That’s forever in toddler time!) Then he decided he missed his beans and construction vehicles, so I switched the bin back. And Buddy played with those for another 20 minutes! It was a mess to clean up (beans are much neater than the rice), but it was so worth it. Buddy had so much fun, and it was great letter practice.

Do you have any fun alphabet activities? Please share in the comments!