100 (Attempted) Ways to Entertain a Young Toddler, Day 94: Water Hand Prints and Footprints

Oliver helped me come up with today's toddler activity for Jo. We've been getting some afternoon thunderstorms recently (yay, rain!). A few days ago, he tracked wet footprints all over the back patio. We ended up having a lot of fun making hand prints and footprints on the cement. He loved it when my in-laws' dogs tracked paw prints to look at, too!

I decided to recreate that fun with Jo. I got a bucket of water, but I bet this would work even better with a baking pan full of water. I showed Jo how to make hand prints with the water.

Jo had a lot of fun in the water! She wasn't able to quite "get it" yet, though. She would put hand prints on places that were already wet. She had fun and mimicked what Oliver and I were doing, but I don't think she was fully grasping that the point was to leave prints behind. I mean, that's totally OK. She had fun! I just wanted to point out that she was still a little too young to fully understand the cause-and-effect of using water to make hand prints. So, this activity was fun but might be best for kids who are a little older.

I give this activity a B grade. It was so easy to do! It's nice playing with water when it's hot outside, and the kids had fun. Jo didn't really understand the point of the whole thing, though, so I might as well have just plopped her into a toddler pool with a bucket. Actually, that probably would have even been more fun...

Pinterest Find! Halloween Footprint Dish

I found the cutest painted plate on Pinterest. Here's the pin, if you're interested in repinning:
http://pinterest.com/pin/216383957067061530/

Last month, one of those deal sites offered a half-off voucher for a local paint-your-own-pottery place. I printed out a copy of the plate and went there with some friends. The woman there helped me stamp Jo's feet onto the plate, and then I painted the rest of the plate just like in the pinned photo. I wasn't sure how well it would turn out, but it was fantastic!

Here's my plate before firing:

And here's the finished product:

I love it! I swear, Pinterest is the best resource for craft ideas. I'm going to try to get back to the pottery place sometime soon to paint a Thanksgiving plate with my son's hand print. I'll paint it into a turkey!