Toddler Time: Creepy Crawly Water Beads

momstown Edmonton hosts a twice monthly Toddler Time event on Saturdays for working moms and families. Focusing on open-ended sensory activities, the toddlers get a chance to play while moms and dads get a chance to visit. It's a great opportunity to get out on the weekend for moms, dads, and kids! 

This month, the toddlers played in a tub full of water beads with some creepy crawly Halloween critters hidden inside. If you haven't yet had a chance to experience water beads, they are very cool! They start out as tiny beads and when soaked in water, they grow up to 100 times their size! Toddlers love digging in them and feeling them slip between their hands. It was great to see the toddlers experiment with the funnels and using them as both scoops and a place to store the creepy crawlies that they found!

Did you know that Toddler Time is one of 30 great events we host every month and is included in your membership for only $45 a year? Sign up here!

Tales for Tots: Fox and Squirrel

momstown kids love to read, and thanks to Scholastic we get to read a new book every month! This month we headed to Sherwood Park Beaners for a cute book and fun craft. We read Fox and Squirrel by Ruth Ohi. What a great book with a fantastic story that celebrates both similarities and differences! We loved how Squirrel learned that you don't have to be the same as someone to be the best of friends! It was a wonderful story of friendship that the kids loved.

For our craft, we continued our Pirates and Princess theme and made Treasure Discovery Bottles. We took a simple bottle and added beads, rhinestones, jewels, and water beads. Then, we filled it up with water and added some blue food coloring. The results were so neat! The kids loved watching the jewels as they bounced around the water beads. We also made sure to glue the lids shut just in case! 

Are you interested in our programming? We have over 30 events every month! Sign up here and come on out!

Rhyme, Rhythm and Read

This month momstown Edmonton kicked off our brand new program for little ones called Rhyme, Rhythm and Read. This program is designed for the youngest momstown members (0-24 months), but even our older ones that attended had a blast. Babies and toddlers love to sing and they love to listen to you read, so putting the two things together just makes sense! We read a few books, sang some songs, and played with some shakers! The babies loved the bouncing songs and we sang those ones a couple of times over just to hear the laughs and giggles fill the room. 

Want to teach your little ones a new song? Here are a couple that our babies loved!

Slowly, Slowly

Slowly, slowly, very slowly

Creeps the little snail.

Slowly, slowly, very slowly,

Up the wood rail.

Quickly, quickly, very quickly

Runs the little mouse

Quickly, quickly, very quickly

All around the house!

Going to Kentucky

Going to Kentucky, we’re going to the fair

To see the senorita with flowers in her hair

Shake it baby, shake it. Shake it if you can.

Shake it like a milkshake, and pour it in the can.

Shake it to the bottom. Shake it to the top.

Shake and shake and shake and shake

Until I tell you STOP.

Did you know that this brand new program is one of 30 events a month that is included in your membership? All for only $45 a year! Sign up here!

Halloween Sensory Play with Pumpkins at Baby Basics

Each week at momstown Edmonton's Baby Basics program, moms and babies connect and share with other Edmonton moms. Through artwork and sensory play, like this Pumpkin Sensory activity, our babies get to explore the world around them!  Sensory play is such an important part of early fine motor and language development.  Using language when exploring; "does the pumpkin feel soft?  does the pumpkin feel wet?" helps baby learn new words to label their world.

Materials:

pumpkin

knife

spoons

plastic spiders

plastic worms

plastic pumpkins

various Halloween items (dollar store, party store or craft store)

Directions:

1.  Cut open up your pumpkin and put the "guts" in a bin for babies to explore.

2.  Place smallish items (but not too small for choking) into the open pumpkin and let kids put their hands all inside and reach around the items! 

3.  Don't forget to read some cute Halloween stories and do some adorable "Trick or Treat" artwork with baby too!

momstown has tons of great sensory ideas for you and your baby or toddler!

Thank you to our location sponsor Inflatable Fun - for the use of their fantastic space! The moms and babies absolutely love the Fun Place & Cafe! Delicious sandwiches, homemade treats and gourmet coffees for the moms and a fantastic play area complete with a life size dollhouse, gaming area, bouncy castles and ride on toys! 

3663 – 99 Street Edmonton, AB
780-709-7193
www.inflatablefun.ca

Little Scientists: Discovery Bottles

Each month, momstown Edmonton hosts a program dedicated to science and exploration. We always have a full house for this program! Kids just love to explore and learn about the world! This month, we decided to make Treasure Discovery Bottles similar to the ones we made at our Tales for Tots event with a little more of a science twist. 

Everyone got to choose from an array of rhinestones, beads, jewels, and glitter to add to their empty bottles. It was a great activity to develop fine motor skills! We had funnels available for the kids to use, and some of them quickly learned that only small items would fit through them. Once full of treasure, the kids added water beads. If you haven't used water beads before, they are a fantastic sensory item! Kids love them, and you can use them over and over again. You can usually find them in places that sell dried/fake flowers. After adding the water beads, we filled the bottles with water and glued on the lids. I highly recommend using hot glue to glue the lids on! The kids (and mamas) loved watching the beads bounce around in the bottle as they turned them upside down. My son quietly watched his for 20 minutes at bedtime that night before falling asleep!

Did you know that Little Scientists is one of the 30 great events we host every month and is included in your membership for only $45 a year? Sign up here!

Not What I Planned but Exactly What I Needed.

Liam wasn't planned. We always wanted 3 kids, but maybe not when Liam was actually conceived but there were those 2 pink lines, so the adventure began.  I wanted a little girl so desperately. I know another girl couldn't replace Maya but when I found out Liam was a boy I was so devastated. Guilt overrode my whole pregnancy. I don't think I ever came to terms with losing the little girl I thought belonged in our family. How could someone whose lost a sweet baby not be grateful for the one she is carrying.

It's been one year. One year since I woke up feeling contractions at 5 am. One year since my family and friends gathered at my home to witness the peaceful home water birth of our 4th baby. One year since my midwife uttered the words - cord prolapse.  One year since I was rushed to the hospital and put under general anesthesia.  One year since I woke up terrified and in pain as a mother of four. 


Liam didn't grow.  We nursed and nursed. We pumped and pumped. Being the confident mom of 2 children who nursed and grew without issues, I struggled to believe that I couldn't feed my baby enough so that he'd grow.  At 2 months old he was still at his birth weight.  We spent the next 2 months in and out of doctors from xrays and bloodwork to testing for Cystic Fibrosis. After 3 months he started growing and the testing finally stopped.  

Liam was different.  He's our only baby who wasn't planned.  He's our only baby that had to be delivered by a terrifying c-section.  He's our only baby who didn't grow properly.  

Today, on Thanksgiving our little Liam is 1 year old.  What a fitting day to celebrate a baby who easily could have not made it through his traumatic birth. Grateful doesn't begin to describe how I feel about Liam.  I can't express the deep and incredible connection I have with each of my kids but Liam is special. He's special because in his short life he's taught me what's important. He's taught me to embrace what I have no control over.  He's taught me that I'm stronger than I ever knew.  More than anything, he's taught me that no matter what I think I want, sometimes what you get is really what you need.

Alphabet Play PJ Party with Alpha-bits!

At momstown Edmonton, we love the alphabet. We love talking about the alphabet, doing alphabet crafts, playing with the alphabet, but most of all, we love eating the alphabet. And now at our Alphabet Play program, we get to do all things alphabet including eating it thanks to Post Alpha-Bits cereal! 

This month we have been playing with Princesses and Pirates, so we decided that the perfect way to kick off with Alpha-Bits was to have a pajama party and look at the letter P! We started off our alphabet fun with a great book called I Spy Letters by Jean Marzollo. The kids love the illustrations and rhymes in this book--it's always a lot of fun to read! Since we were looking at the letter P, we did a "P is for Parrot" craft. It was really simple, and turned out great! Each kid coloured a P, glued it down, and added a beak and feathers to complete it. They turned out great! As the kids were crafting, the fabulous ladies at Beaners gave them some fun hair, complete with spray colour, glitter, and bead braids! 

A pajama party just isn't a party without some snacks, and Alpha-Bits made sure we had plenty of cereal to snack on! The kids loved it! Post Alpha-Bits has the great taste and alphabet delight that kids and moms L-O-V-E. But Alpha-Bits cereal is more than fun and games. Post Alpha-Bits cereal provides a source of 9 essential nutrients plus is an excellent source of Iron and Thiamin.  Check out the Post cereal website for great recipe ideas for Alpha-Bits cereal. 

Did you know that Alphabet Play is one of the 30 great events we host every month and is included in your membership for only $45 a year? Sign up here!

Art and Play: Pirates and Princesses

October is the perfect time for dressing up, and momstown Edmonton loves to dress up! At Art and Play this month, all of the kids dressed up as either pirates or princesses. We started off our fun by decorating a cardboard play castle. The kids loved coloring and playing in the castle! Once all of our pirates and princesses arrived and got a chance to play in the castle, we read two fun books--Princess Sleepyhead by Kath Jewitt and Ahoy, Pirate Pete by Nick Sharratt. The kids loved how they got to choose parts of the story in Ahoy, Pirate Pete!

We made a great craft that uses something you likely have sitting around at home already--empty wipes containers! Just what did we make with these wipes containers that seem to multiply in the middle of the night, you ask? Treasure boxes! We spray painted them gold ahead of time to ensure they were dry for decorating. The day of, we had pirate and princess foam stickers, glitter glue, and sticker crystals for the kids to choose from to make their treasure box their own. We even had treasure for them to add to their boxes! A few bead necklaces and some "gold nuggets" (rocks spray painted gold) and we had treasure boxes fit for our princesses and pirates! 

Art and Play isn't complete without a little bit of parachute play, so we pulled out the parachute for some fun! The kids had a blast shaking the parachute, running underneath it, and pretending it was a blanket. Even the moms got in on the fun! 

Are you interested in our programs?  Check us out here!

Mattel Mommy & Me Game Day at The Toy Hutch!

momstown Edmonton mamas enjoyed a morning of preschooler friendly games courtesy of Mattel! It was a great opportunity to try out different games and get them added to those Christmas lists early! 

Here is a review of the fantastic games that were sent to us! If you're looking for game ideas for Preschoolers you can find them here!

Uno Moo!
Super easy and fun for even the youngest players! Players match their own animals with the animals in the barn. The first player to get all of their animals back in the barn wins!

Angry Birds Knock On Wood
This game will definitely be a favourite among the tech savvy toddlers - what is better than playing an online game in real life? Dad is guaranteed to love this one too! 

Parrot Pile-Up!
This game was popular and encouraged fine motor skills to carefully place items on the Parrot's raft and then carefully sliding the raft to the next player - try not to let anything take a tumble!

Chipmunk Chompers
This game has different levels of difficulty so it's perfect to buy for the youngest kids but will grow with them, start by using fine motor skills to pluck the chestnuts from the tree - as the kids get older there they can begin to match up patterns and even progress to spelling words with letters on the chestnuts!

Go Piggy Go!
The goal of this game is to get your Piggy from the mud pit to the yummy apples - you need to watch out for the tractor throwing hay bales and knocking you back to the mud pit! Great for working on number recognition, counting and taking turns!

Prize Winners! We drew five names and the kids chose their favourite games!
Mattel also sent us 10 Decks of Uno so all of our attendees will be able to start a family game night at home! 

 Check out the Mattel Game on Facebook Page for fantastic family game night ideas!

Junior Chef With Epicure

Every month the Junior Chefs at momstown Edmonton get together at The Pan Tree and make something delicious. This month we were treated to a special visit from Jen Laurie with Epicure. She brought all of the tasty ingredients and supplies to make some mouthwatering Mini Pumpkin Donuts. While the donuts were baking, the kids even got to make and snack on some fruit skewers.

The donuts were a big hit! The kids loved shaking them up in their custom decorated paper bags. Most importantly, they loved eating them (as did the mamas!). Using the Epicure Silicone Mini Donut Mold makes these donuts a bit more healthy and something we decided we wouldn't feel badly feeding our little ones!
Want to make some with your own family? Check out the recipe below!

Epicure's Mini Pumpkin Donuts

Ingredients
2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp Epicure pumpkin spice
1/4 cup butter softened
1 cup sugar
1 tsp Epicure vanilla extract
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 cup pure pumpkin
Oil for brushing

Directions:
1.Preheat oven to 400F
2. In a bowl whisk flour, baking powder, salt and pumpkin spice
3. In a second bowl beat butter and sugar, add vanilla and eggs one at a time beating well after each.
4. Alternating between dry and wet ingredients and milk and pumpkin purée mix together until just combined 5. Brush mold lightly with oil
6. Full each mold 1/2 full.
7. Bake for 10-12 minutes
8. When cool to touch, flip donuts out of mold.
9. In a small bowl or paper bag gently toss donuts in a icing sugar cinnamon mixture. Enjoy!

I love Epicure, and my pantry can attest to that! If you'd like to try out anything in their catalog, or have any questions about Epicure, please contact Jen Laurie!
Website: http://jenlaurie.myepicure.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/EpicureSelectionswithJenLaurie





Did you know that all of our events are included with your membership? That's over 30 events on a monthly basis all for only $45 a year! Sign up here!