6 Super Fun (Easy Prep) St. Patrick's Day Inspired Toddler Activities

Over the past two or so weeks, my daughter and I have been trying and adapting some toddler activities that I have found on Pinterest. The six included in this list are the ones that we have deemed worthy enough to share with other parents looking for fun ideas to get their little ones (and themselves) into the St. Patty's mood. And here they are in no particular order:

#1: Shamrock Cork Stamp --

First off, you and your other adult friends and family need to drink 3 bottles of wine. Once done, tape those 3 corks together in the shape of a shamrock. Then simply give it to your child to dab in some green paint and stamp away making a lovely picture of mini shamrocks worthy of fridge-hanging.

#2: "Digging for Leprechaun's Gold" Sensory Bin --

This one will take minutes to put together. You will need a tub (or bowl), some cheap gold coins (I got mine from the Dollar Tree), and some type of medium to hide those coins in. I used baking soda so that my daughter and I could use it again for another activity, but you could use whatever you have laying around: beans, rice, flour (messy), birdseed, even good old dirt! Once you have your coins hidden in whatever medium you chose, let your little one dig for their coins. You can give them some tools to work with; like a spoon, colander, etc.

#3: Marbling Rolling Shamrock Painting --

I used 3 heart-shaped doilies for this one, but if you are fresh out of these you could always just cut out a shamrock shaped piece of paper. Anyways, you take your doilies or paper and tape it to the bottom of a cake pan, then drop some marbles in with some green paint, and finally place the lid on top. Hand this to your child and let them explore and roll the marbles back and forth while spreading the paint. Let dry and tape together to look like a shamrock. Hang, step back, and admire your child's creation.

#4: Baking Soda and Vinegar Treasure Dig --

Remember that sensory bin from 2 paragraphs up? Remember that my daughter and I used baking soda? That's because we used some of the remaining baking soda in this activity. I transferred some of it to a shallow dish and let her play in it again while digging out all her gold coins. Once she got bored, I introduced some green vinegar and let her go crazy. She loves the bubbles and this is definitely one of our favorite activities!

#5: Rainbow Bath Puff Paint --

Another simple prep and you do not have to make it into a fancy rainbow shape like I did, because remember this is going to a toddler who doesn't care and who is going to mess it up in seconds. Mix food coloring with shaving cream. That's it. Then give it to your child in the tub to make a grand ol' mess. Clean up is easy since it's already in the tub.

#6: Shamrock Sun Catchers --

Tape some coffee filters to a hard surface and let your child color them with markers. After they are done, I taped them to a window and helped my daughter spray them with some water and we watched the colors blend. I then let them dry for a couple of hours before cutting them into the shape of a shamrock and hanging them in our front window.

I hope you enjoy some doing some of these activities with your children and making memories. Keep an eye out for our Easter activities that we will be doing within the next few weeks. Some are already up on the blog. Go ahead and add me on Instagram, @NapTimeBloggerMom, and you can see my daughter's and my daily adventures and maybe get some ideas for you and your family.

DIY Upgraded $1 Store Easter Magnets

I don't often go to the Dollar Store and now I remember why. They have a ton of awesome deals that I can never pass up because, come on, it's only $1! Well, right now they have these awesome Easter refrigerator magnets in stock. I bought one of each set: the Easter rabbit, and the 5 chicks.

As soon as we got home I opened up the package, popped them out of their forms, and stuck them on the fridge for my little one to begin playing with (why wait until Easter?). She was thrilled and immediately begin pulling them off and presenting them to me as if I had never seen them before in my life. She's pretty adorable.

While wondering if I could recycle the leftover magnet forms, it hit me (duh!) why don't I upcycle them myself?! I could cut them up and make extra (and educational) magnets for Rose. So that's exactly what I did.

I always have to remind myself not to get too fancy. Why put a lot of energy and time into something that my child will probably crumple up and ruin in seconds? So I didn't. I took some index cards and wrote out "purple", "blue", "pink", "green", and "pink" then cut them out. I cut out some funky shaped-magnets and hot-glued them to the back. In less then 5 minutes, I had made color magnets that corresponded to the 5 little chicks that I just bought. I also spelled Rose's name out and made each letter it's own magnet. Another plus, I still have 1 1/2 sheets of extra magnets left for future magnet-making.

Easy Banana Bread

There’s nothing I hate more than throwing away produce. Yet almost weekly I find myself digging through my fruit bowl to find and pitch whichever apple, peach, or lime has decided to rot. This week it was our bananas. They had gotten to the point where they were entirely brown. Yum. Thank goodness this is the perfect banana-state for banana bread. So I decided that this would be a great activity for Rose and me to complete today.

Recipe

3 Mashed Bananas

1 cup Sugar

1 Egg

¼ Melted Butter

½ cup Flour

1 tsp Baking Soda

1 tsp Salt

Preheat oven to 325°F. Grease a 9x5 inch loaf pan. In a bowl, combine bananas, sugar, egg and butter. In a second bowl combine flour and baking soda. Slowly stir the banana mixture in until it is just mixed. Stir salt into batter. Finally, pour batter into your pan and bake until a toothpick comes out clean (around 1 hour).

Rose’s Experience

First off, we only had two bananas so we had to reduce the recipe by a third (I did my best with the egg). We began by throwing the bananas into the bowl and I helped Rose mash them. She enjoyed this, but she also enjoyed reaching in and grabbing a chunk of banana to eat every now and then also.

Then it was time to mix in the sugar. Oh boy! Rose was in heaven. She thought sugary bananas might quite possibly be the best invention ever. I could see I had a problem on my hands as the egg was next to be added. So I got her bowl of rice out (I have dedicated a bag of rice just for Rose to play in every now and again) and she played around in that while I finished the recipe.

Since my batch was smaller than what the recipe called for my bread only had to bake for around 40 minutes. I cut it up and buttered a piece for myself and another for Rose. We both enjoyed our yummy snack and I added this simple recipe to my recipe book for future use.