. George gets to ride a subway train for the first time and, of course, accidentally leaves the man in the yellow hat behind. Adventure ensues, as is expected, but so does learning about maps and direction. When she was done reading Ava said "I'm going to make my own subway map" and then several hours of imaginative play followed. She and her brother both made maps of an imaginary subway in our hometown and listed all of the places they would want the subway train to stop.
They used our glider as the train car and played together (without fighting!) for hours. They frequently checked their maps, visited all kinds of fun places, and pretended to get lost, miss the train, and other things that required some creative problem solving. I had to smile because this is the exact kind of activity that I would offer as an extension of a book, and she came up with it all on her own. Now part of her ingenuity might be because our playroom has been off limits for the past two weeks. After it got so messy that you could no longer see the floor, my husband and I thought everyone needed a break from the playroom and the overwhelming amount of items inside of it. While we go through and purge and organize, it has been locked up during the day. We have noticed that the kids are getting much more creative in their play and are turning towards art and coloring more frequently. I don't plan to get rid of all of their toys, but it has sure been a nice break.
Today's adventures reminded me of a quote from Mr. Rogers and I will leave you with that:
"Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood."
was perfect for this week and the kids loved it! When I saw this fine motor skills craft idea on the blog 
.
which Wyatt especially loved. I asked if they wanted to make their own pretend ice cream truck and, of course, they did. I gave them a basket of random play food and DUPLO ice cream toys, the play cash register, and let them have at it! They decided to use their play table and chairs rearranged to be the truck. Ava made the sign for their truck and then came up with a menu. We all spent a lot of time being customers (too bad they weren't serving real ice cream)! They did fight over the cash register a little bit. We got ours at the thrift store a year or so ago, but you can find them on amazon, too. It is the 
, and if we hadn't found it at the thrift store, it definitely would have gone on our kids' holiday wish lists!
by Peter Sis and 
might be my new favorite Learning Resources product. It is so much fun and there is so much you can do with it. You know I've said before that I like it when things have multiple uses across multiple ages, and this one fits the bill! Ava can practice patterning and addition/subtraction with it, while Wyatt can practice sorting and counting. And they can both have a ton of fun with imaginative play. We had an ice cream shop going for a a few days in our living room!
for Wyatt to match up uppercase and lowercase letters. These were another purchase that I've found multiple uses for over the years, as we've owned them for about five years now, I think. You could also use them in this b
to safely cut the strawberries. This set comes with three knives made out of a nylon material and her using them didn't make me nervous at all. She LOVED being able to do this "big person" task! We tossed everything in the blender and after it was mixed up we poured it into IKEA ice pop sleeves that I bought forever ago and hadn't yet used. It was hard to wait for them to freeze, but totally worth it! Our popsicles turned out great and we thoroughly enjoyed our first Sweet Treat day!
