All Roads (Planes) Lead To Mexico

One of the most common responses I received when I told people I was going to Mexico for surgery was shock and horror. I’ll be honest, Mexico wasn’t my first choice. Unfortunately, the US health insurance/healthcare system sucks. No matter how many doctors recommended a WLS procedure, my health insurance company refused to cover surgery. Fortunately, the friend I had mentioned that had WLS a few years ago, had also gone to Mexico, and I had already been watching and researching the surgeon she worked with.

My initial plan was to go in August, shortly after the kids’ school year started. Covid had other plans though. In mid-June our household finally caught covid. While the rest of the family snapped back fairly quickly, it became apparent that I wasn’t going to. Thanks to covid, I had some significant cardiac issues start to arise. This pushed my surgery date until I was more stable.

At the start of September, my team of doctors figured out how to treat my heart issues. I started walking daily, right after I would drop my boys off at school. Knowing my weight probably contributed towards the issues I developed, I knew I wanted to start getting more active in preparation for surgery. There were still those weird throat issues we had to resolve, but overall, I was healthy. I started to notice each time I was weighed at the doctor, the number kept going down. The walking combined with what little I was eating was starting to show.

By mid-November, we finally figured out the throat issues, and I started the process of booking my procedure. One of the drawbacks to having surgery in Mexico is that I was going to have to assemble a local care team- a dietician, a doctor to help with follow-ups/bloodwork, and a personal trainer to help me as my body changed.

Taking The Leap

The doctor I had chosen to work with, Dr. Jorge Maytorena was based at a medical center in Tijuana. When I contacted the clinic, LongTerm WLS, I was shocked to discover that I could essentially book the procedure whenever I was most interested. I only needed to get approved for the procedure and pay a deposit to secure my surgical date.

The process was fairly simple. Once I made my initial inquiry, I was assigned a “concierge” to help me navigate the booking process and answer any questions I may have. I ended up booking the procedure for mid-January. This way, the kids would be in school, and there wouldn’t be any holiday temptations/social gatherings that would make me feel awkward.

After copious amounts of research, I decided that a mini bypass was my best option for several reasons. In addition to the fact that it was the recommended procedure for my bmi range, the risks, operating time, and recovery period were lower than a traditional bypass. Not to mention, the results were comparable (and better in some cases) to having the full bypass. It also didn’t hurt that it’s been clinically proven that having a gastric bypass, though slightly riskier, has a better success rate for keeping off the weight long-term. This is due to the fact that it’s both restrictive (smaller stomach size) and malabsorbtive (less small intestine). It also alters hormones in the gut so I’d feel fuller longer.

Assembling My Local Team

I knew that once December rolled around, my diet would have to change drastically, and I would need to create and work with a team of local professionals that would help ensure my success, both prior to and after surgery.

I was committed to starting a bariatric diet that would prepare my body for surgery a few weeks ahead of when I would need to, just to help with the adjustment and my health. Given that, it was very important to me that I would be able to find a professional that had a proven track record with helping individuals who had experienced repeated weight loss failures.

I was excited to find a local dietician that did just that. I felt even better about working with them when I learned one of their specialties was helping patients who were preparing for & recovering from bariatric surgery. After my first visit with them, I experienced a massive amount of relief. In addition to helping me with meal planning & and accountability, they also sold specialized food that made it easy for me to stick with a diet that was appealing, healthy, and convenient.

Knowing that in addition to a dietary change, I’d need to work on my strengthening my physical body, I found a local gym. I knew I’d need accountability and encouragement, so I met with one of their personal trainers to explain my situation and develop a plan. As an added bonus, they also offered red light therapy, something I was very interested in for post-surgical healing. I started working with my trainer once a week and going to the gym 1-3 times a week.

I attempted to find a local practice that offered bariatric surgery to help me maintain other potential post-surgery issues, but I wasn’t able to find anyone. Fortunately, my primary care doctor offered to help me monitor my levels and help answer potential questions. She said she preferred me to have the surgery locally but understood that without my health insurance helping it wouldn’t be affordable.

I also made sure to surround myself and my family with support for the time I’d be away and for part of my recovery. My mother agreed to be my travel & surgery companion, despite the fact she absolutely hated flying and was nervous about my procedure. I spoke with my mother-in-law, and she agreed to come help Fredric with the boys while I was away & for a few days after I returned while I was recovering.

From Thanksgiving until I left for Mexico, (approximately 7 weeks), I lost almost 40 lbs. I was working with my personal trainer, going to the gym several times a week, and following a carefully planned out diet. My body and plans were as ready as they were going to be!

Holy Cow, It’s Time To Go!

January 18th, 2023 rolled around much more quickly than I anticipated. I was ready though- the more I had to defend the choice I made, the firmer my resolute became. I understood that I was going to be facing a whole host of physical and emotional changes after surgery, however I trusted myself, my team, and the process to reach my goal of a healthier and happier Crystal.

Confident in my research and knowing I had been putting in the hard work, I arose that chilly, pre-dawn morning, fully packed and ready to go to the airport with my mother. We were set to fly into San Diego, and despite the weather causing some havoc, we were able to be there in time for our shuttle driver, Edgar, to pick us up and take us across the border.

The procedure I booked not only included my surgery & medication, but it also covered my shuttle and a guest condo for the night before surgery. The guest condo was essentially a very basic Airbnb- there were a few bottles of water, (the tap water in Mexico isn’t safe for consumption), several beds/bathrooms, and a TV.

Surgery Time

My surgery was scheduled for fairly early Thursday morning. We needed to get up early so Edgar could get us there in time to have my pre-surgery labwork done. The sunrise drive from the condo to the medical center was chilly, but I enjoyed watching the sites in Tijuana pass by.

We arrived at the facility and had to wait in a frigid lobby until all of my paperwork, payments, and pre-surgery labwork was done. When we got up to my floor, I was informed I would be the first surgical patient of the day. This meant that I had to rush to get ready because I only had a few moments before different members of the surgical team were coming in to introduce themselves and go over the procedure with me.

A lot of different people flooded into my room for the next 45 minutes, and I’ll be honest, for the most part, I forgot their faces almost as soon as they left. The only one that stood out was Dr. Maytorena, but seeing as I had researched him so much, that’s not surprising. I was given my IV (that took several uncomfortable sticks and multiple nurses to get it in correctly) then shortly after I was wheeled away for surgery.

The only time I second guessed myself was during this time. They wheeled me up into a surgical suite that looked a lot different than I was used to seeing in the US. While I assessed my surroundings, everyone around me was speaking Spanish and I had no clue what was going on. I remember telling myself “Well I guess it’s too late to back down now…”  The next thing I knew, I was waking up, and the procedure was done.

I slept most of that day, but I still managed to get up and start walking around the floor I was on and start to tolerate ice chips. The next day, I progressed to broth & other clear liquids, and my walking/standing endurance was increasing. I was shocked with just how well I was doing and how quickly I was feeling better. The worst part was when I blew my IV and they had to place another in. 3 more sticks and a fancy vein finding light later, the problem was solved.

That Saturday morning, I was scheduled to get my checks and leave for my return flight. Everything looked and felt great, so I was given the green light when Edgar arrived to take us back across the border. Due to how long it takes to cross the border, we had to be ready to leave no later than 6:30am, despite our flight not leaving until 2pm. The wait time at the airport wasn’t pleasant-I was exhausted, uncomfortable, and ready to be home.

The plane ride back was absolutely miserable. The flights were long, the seats were cramped, and I felt like a bottle of soda that was being shaken nonstop. At one point a passenger who was trying to get his luggage down accidentally hit me, right where my incisions were. I about fell over from the pain. I’ll be honest, I spent the entire journey home wishing I had booked a hotel room in San Diego for Saturday instead of a flight- it was genuinely that bad. Fortunately, we made it back safely, and I happily collapsed into my bed shortly after midnight.

My recovery was and is going much smoother than I anticipated and as of today, I have zero regrets about my decision. There have been a lot of adjustments that I have had to make in regards to my eating habits, such as slowing down when eating and learning to listen to my body. I am also working through my eating disorder triggers and finding healthier outlets for those triggers. However, I’m close to reaching a total of 100 pounds lost since June 2022, which is a huge motivator. I can’t wait to see what changes the next few months bring and how much my life improves! 

The post All Roads (Planes) Lead To Mexico appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

This year, we kicked off our Earth Day celebrations a bit early. We still have plans to clean up the creek behind our house tomorrow, when it’s actually Earth Day, but I wanted to go ahead and share what we’ve been doing in case you need ideas!

Last year, our focus was on wind power/sustainable energy. If that’s your jam, you can find a link to those activities here. This year our focus is on having good Earth stewardship and being mindful of our environmental actions.

Book Review

One of my main focuses for Earth Day this year was to help the boys understand how their actions directly impact their environment. To start working on this concept, we read 2 books, One Earth by Eileen Spinelli and What a Waste by Jess French.

One Earth was a really fantastic way to help highlight the beautiful things Earth provides for us while also teaching kids the ways they can do their part in protecting the environment. I really loved the artwork and the way they used counting & rhymes to introduce earth stewardship.

What a Waste was a phenomenal way to really highlight how our little actions add up for big results, both good & bad. It got the boys to start asking a lot of good questions and excited to do their part to help the environment. There were some great diagrams that broke down the important facts into smaller tidbits the boys could absorb that I really appreciated.

Activities

Earth Treasure Hunt

A friend who knows that I’m a big science geek tagged me in a post 2 weeks ago about a cool new startup she saw called Earth Treasure Hunt. I was immediately intrigued, so I started pouring over their website and loved what I was seeing. Science based. No easily broken plastic toys. Easy set up. I could keep going, but you get the point. This looked super rad. Here’s a little snippet from their website that talks about their product:

Spark curiosity in any child with Earth Treasure Hunt, a science-based treasure hunt game focused on quality, design and natural earth treasures.
It’s simple to play. The grown-up secretly plants the treasures. The child solves the clues using science and smarts, leading them on a thrilling treasure hunt adventure through the home!

I knew this would be a perfect fit for the Earth Day activities I had planned for the boys, so I reached out and asked their founder, Lauren, if she’d be interested in partnering up. Much to my excitement, she was willing to send over a kit for both boys and I got started planning.

When the kits arrived, I couldn’t wait to start investigating them. We had a pretty busy weekend, so I wasn’t able to hide treasures until Everett was at school. I distracted Finn with some Magic School Bus and started hiding. I kind of felt like a super spy, hiding things while Finn could very easily have discovered me! However, not only did he not figure out what I was doing, I even managed to hide a treasure mere feet from where he was sitting! Excuse me while I go pat myself on the back!

When we got back from picking Everett up from school, I navigated them through the house in a way that they wouldn’t accidentally stumble on a clue before the hunt started. Everett is still struggling a bit with reading and Finn definitely can’t read yet, so it was up to me to read the cards. It took a little bit for the boys to puzzle out the clues and I could see the wheels spinning as they tossed out ideas.

Each time they figured out the clue, they raced across the house to find the next clue. The “aha” moment and excitement was something that will stay with me for a long time. Even while writing today’s blog I have a HUGE grin on my face while remembering the joy they experienced.

Then came the educational part. We talked about what each item was and how the Earth was able to provide these awesome treasures. I tied it back to the books we had read and why their treasures were so valuable. I also talked about what made these “toys” different from their plastic ones. Finn didn’t quite grasp these concepts, but Everett most definitely was able to connect the dots. Once I could tell I was losing their interest, I let them go about and do their thing. Their own thing turned out to be video calling their grandparents and giving them a run down of the treasures and a slightly disjointed science lesson!

Nature Walk Hunt

One of the things we’ve been doing a lot of lately is going on nature walks. Thanks to the pandemic, we’ve had to get creative with entertaining the boys, so we turned to the outdoors. Monday we did a little creek splashing and used a little nature hunt sheet to explore the area.

We didn’t take photos of the items above, but I did have them find items while they splashed around and we talked about them. A good friend who is also a photographer took photos of the boys as they explored and they turned out so well!

Creek Cleanup & Other Activities

Tomorrow we will be cleaning up the creek in our backyard, doing a bingo game, and a free Earth Day worksheet set I found. All in all, the lessons we are working on this week are so important. Teaching children at a young age how their actions impact the environment and maintaining those lessons as they grow up will help ensure that future generations will still have an Earth to enjoy.

The post Celebrating Earth Day 2021 appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

When most people think of skateboarding, their first thoughts are usually something along the lines of misfit teens, punk rock, or maybe even guys like Tony Hawk. What they don’t think about, is just how amazing skateboarding is for kids who need occupational therapy. Kids like Everett, who are on the autism spectrum. Kids like Finn, who need help with impulse control. So today I’m going to highlight the awesome benefits of skateboarding for kids with special needs.

Surprising Benefits of Skateboarding

From the time children with autism are toddlers, they are placed into Occupational Therapy which is needed to develop motor, proprioceptive, vestibular skills and more. Skateboarding offers nearly every component of Occupational Therapy, which is why many of these children “crave” to skateboard. It stimulates parts of their brain that trigger focus, hand-eye coordination, and more. Here are just a few of the health benefits:

• Coordination – Skateboarding improves hand, eye, leg and feet coordination. When skateboarding, you need to alter your movements so you skate smoothly and accurately.
• Pain Tolerance – Other sports improve your pain tolerance, but learning how to skateboard includes constantly falling, tripping, cutting your knees and elbows, etc. Believe it or not, this helps to improve your tolerance and build up resilience.
• Stress Relief – Stresses consume people, even kids, all the time. Skateboarding is an avenue to relieve some of those stresses or frustrations.
• Precision – Skateboarding takes a lot of precision to master. You are constantly adjusting weight from one direction to another, switching your speed, and, when good enough, perfecting tricks.
• Reflexes – This one ties together with coordination. When falling or stopping quickly, you need to have quick reflexes to brace yourself or prevent a collision from happening. You learn quickly that running into a railing is not ideal.
• Patience/Behavior Management– Skateboarding, like other sports, requires an immense amount of patience. You will not be the next Tony Hawk after your first time on the board. Falling countless times, missing that tricky bend, and hitting that awesome trick will test your patience time after time. When a skateboarder is having a bad day, annoyed with the world, feels like he could punch through a brick wall what does he do? He skateboards. Same as kids with autism, when their impulse control is almost lost, their anxiety is through the roof, and the screaming and crying is about to begin, break out the skateboard and you’ll find that it helps them work through their current behaviors.
• Social Development- skateboarding allows those who struggle with normal social interaction interact with peers on the level the individual feels most comfortable with.

Skateboarding offers many components similar to occupational therapy such as focusing on motor, vestibular and proprioceptive skills. Saturday skateboarding lessons are quickly becoming one of the boys favorite things to do. Both boys have a weak core and crave high impact activities. Everett has poor motor planning and balance issues, while Finn has poor impulse control and anger issues. Skateboarding is helping tremendously with both. Learning self/impulse control and behavior management is a huge part in why I decided to start the boys with lessons. And perhaps, most importantly, it’s also pretty freaking fun!

Skateboarding has had such a amazing impact on kids with autism that there are several nonprofits that have been created to help connect and introduce skateboarding to those the spectrum. There are even studies that have popped up specifically to research the correlation of brain activity and heart rate between autism and skateboarding. It’s even been approved as an acceptable form of occupational therapy in several states.

Hopefully, with these studies and nonprofits, skateboarding will no longer be looked at as a rebellious pasttime by those who don’t understand it and more funding would be available for using skateboarding as a therapy rather that funding just another information autism organization out there.

I know that right now, the boys have found an outlet they both love and I couldn’t be happier with their awesome teacher and their continued progress. I hope they continue to find joy in skateboarding and that the benefits continue to carryover into other aspects of their lives.

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“Let people help”. “Rely on friends and family”. “Don’t be shy to ask family members to help around the house”. This is the advice touted on every baby blog, in all of the pregnancy books and shouted from the rooftops by experienced moms. But what if you can’t?  

The end of my pregnancy and beginning of my daughter’s life hasn’t looked at all how I expected it to. Breastfeeding classes? Canceled. Mommy-and-me play groups? Nonexistent. Friends and family coming over to meet the baby and help around the house? Nothing but a fantasy. As thankful as I am to have had a healthy baby girl and an amazingly supportive partner, I still feel like COVID-19 stole this time from me. I’m still processing and mourning the loss of a time in my life that was supposed to be happy and exciting.

My stepmom planned a wonderful baby shower for me, with friends and family flying in from all over the country, that I never got to go to. I bought a dress for the pregnancy photoshoot that never got to happen. Gazing at our bundle of joy via ultrasound with my husband by my side ended up being me alone in a room with the technician, wearing a protective mask, trying to record a video of that dark screen on my iPhone to show my husband later. My mother-in-law hasn’t even met her grandchild for fear that she would bring the virus up with her from Florida.

Being pregnant and giving birth during a global pandemic has been one of the hardest experiences of my life. The social isolation alone was challenging, but to experience that with pregnancy and postpartum hormones on top of caring for a newborn for the first time seemed almost insurmountable. When hospitals started restricting visitors, I read story after story of women who were forced to give birth completely alone because the visitor policy didn’t allow their child’s other parent.

Whether I would elect to have a homebirth or have my husband unable to attend the birth of his first child was not a decision I ever envisioned having to make. Thankfully, I didn’t have to. What I did end up having to do was arrive in the hospital, after 24+ hours in labor, breathing through a piece of fabric.

Before I could get inside, I had to stop and get my temperature checked, knowing that if I “failed”, they would try to isolate my baby from me immediately after birth. The fear that they would try to take my baby from me and prevent skin-to-skin, breastfeeding and general motherhood immediately after birth brought me to tears on more than one occasion. Had I tested positive, I was prepared to insist they leave her with me or I would have to leave the hospital and birth somewhere else.

Again, I’m thankful it didn’t come to that.

Once inside, I couldn’t be taken to L&D until I had my COVID test results back. After having my upper nasal cavity assaulted by a lengthy Q-tip, I continued to labor in an emergency department hospital room with no access to pain medication. We were told that I could remove my mask after getting the all clear from the test, but that as soon as the baby came out of me, I had to put my mask back on. At the time, I remember feeling SO grateful that I didn’t have to push with the mask on my face, which isn’t something most mothers have to incorporate into their birth plan. My husband was told to wear a mask the entire time (though to be honest, we both kept forgetting to put it back on when people came in the room with everything we had going on). All of the nurses wore masks at all times. In fact, I saw a nurse in the hallway without a mask on and asked her if she had seen my nurse who had been helping me for days. It turns out she actually WAS my nurse (embarrassing), but I had no idea what she looked like because of the masks.

As if giving birth during a global pandemic wasn’t enough weight on my shoulders, our country simultaneously (finally) began stepping up against systemic racism. While we were in the hospital after birth, our plan was for my husband to run home to tend to our dog on the second day. However, rioting around the globe and within our city resulted in a curfew during my hospitalization, and if my husband left, he wouldn’t be permitted to come back into the hospital until the next morning when curfew was lifted.

Coming home from the hospital was more emotional than I envisioned. I was leaving the safety of on call lactation support and endlessly being able to ask the nurses “is this normal?”. I knew these resources, normally available to new moms after they leave via support groups and meetups, would not be available to me.

When I did find a lactation group still meeting in person, my husband and I debated if it was safe for me to go get some much-needed help getting my baby to latch. My internal monologue debated if I was a horrible mother for risking exposing my child or if I was a horrible mother for not getting the nursing help that I knew I needed to feed her well. It felt so lose-lose. Ultimately, I made the decision that I thought would best set up my daughter for lifelong success and got the help that I needed to nourish her little body.

After a few weeks of settling in and things starting to get easier, I started reading some more baby books again now that I had the time. When the first chapter of a new book started with an emphasis on accepting help from friends and family, I literally threw the book across the room and cried to myself. When my family tried to guilt me into traveling with the new baby or letting people come see her that hadn’t quarantined, I sobbed in the shower. I wasn’t having to choose which daycare to put my daughter in when returning to work, I had to choose whether I was a horrible parent for even considering putting her in daycare during this time or if I should give up my career that I love. If I didn’t have the support of my husband, I don’t know how I would have emotionally made it for this long (shout out to all the single parents – I cannot even fathom how awesome you are for surviving!).

But hey, it’s not all bad – at least I didn’t have a ton of strangers touching my stomach for the last 4 months of pregnancy! In all seriousness, living through this situation has taught me that I can handle a lot more than I thought I could. It also taught me that there are more ways than one to lean on my support system.

I sought out others going through what I was going through. I found a lot of solace in two reddit groups – one private group specifically for mothers due at the same time as me (every birth month has a private reddit bumpers group – I highly recommend you find yours!) as well as an open group for pregnant people during this time called CoronaBumpers. My husband and I may not have hands on help, but I know we have support day and night through a network of amazing friends and family, even if it is virtual.

Two months after she was born, I still don’t know if I’m doing things right. I have no idea if I would be learning tips and tricks from other mothers that would make raising her easier. I’m still feeling isolated and lonely, but when I’m feeling really overwhelmed, I take a whiff of that amazing new baby smell and I know we will get through it together.

-Abbi Hernandez, Ph.D.

7/24/2020

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Today’s activities focus around the fun things you can do with playdough, putty, and slime.

The cool thing about these activites, is even if you currently don’t have them, they are easy to make at home, and it’s easy to find things around the house to manipulate the dough/putty with.

Benefits

Enhances fine motor skill

When your child squishes, rolls, flattens, shapes, scores or cuts play dough, he develops and strengthen his hand muscles. The strengthened hand muscles helps improve fine motor skills of your child

Improves pre-writing skills

When your child plays with play dough, his pincer grip (the squeezing of pointer finger and thumb to grasp an object) improves. An  improved pincer grip enhances your child’s pre-writing skills

Creativity and imagination

Play-dough provides your child with unlimited possibilities of moulding the dough into food, animals, decorations, flowers etc. Thereby, it encourages your child to use his imagination and inspires his creativity. If your child uses various shapes, rolling pins and other tools while playing with play dough it further improves his creative imagination. 

Calming effect

Is your child often restless and finds it difficult to express his emotions? Give him some play dough to play. Sitting at one place and squishing and squashing of play dough will have a very calming and soothing effect on him. It will also provide him with great option to express his emotions

Develops hand – eye coordination

Use of variety of shapes and rolling pins while playing with play-dough will improve your child’s hand-eye-coordination

Social skills

When your child plays with play-dough along with other siblings or you they will interact, talk, discuss problems and find solutions to creating great works of art and craft with play dough. Thus, playing with play dough will enhance your child’s social skills

Increases curiosity and knowledge

When your child mixes 2 different colour dough together and discover a new colour or when he learns to mould play dough in different shapes, it encourages his curiosity and he will ask various questions which would help increase his knowledge and help overall development So the next time your child requests you to play with play dough, not only encourage him, participate in his play along with him to help him learn the most from use play-dough.

While playdough is absolutely fantastic, I prefer using putty for Everett. The resistance is higher, so it’s much better at strengthening his hand muscles and it requires a little extra finesse, so it’s more of a challenge in general. Fun & Function offers some really amazing putty options and some really cool putty hide & seek pieces. They also have a not super slimey slime kit that it’s a bit more challenging than playdough, but not quite as hard as putty.

Activities

Although this time of play is only limited by your imagination and time constraints, I do have a couple cool activities that I like to do with the kids.

Hide & Seek

For hide & seek, find small toys around the house and hide it in your playdough. I usually use around 10 small toys. I’ve used everything from the cherries in HiHo Cherry-O to aquatic animals.

As your child finds the items, have them describe them to you. What type of item is it? What is it’s color/shape? How many items have you found so far? And so on.

Make sure that they remove the playdough in it’s entirety from the objects-this helps them with their fine motor control and helps contain the mess!

Animal Skeletons

Animal Skeltons are super easy! You just need pasta noodles or toothpicks and playdough. Honestly, if you don’t have pasta or toothpicks, you could probably get creative and find other things around your home to use in a pinch.

Have your child pick an animal, roll out your dough so you have a nice flat surface, and have them make the general shape of the animal.

Ask them questions about the animal. What’s it’s name? Where does it live? Is it living, extinct, or made up? What does it eat? And so on.

Letter/Number/Shape Recognition

This activity is so versatile. You can really do this just about any way that you need to to challenge your child. You can make letters, words, shapes, numbers, simple math problems, and so on. You can also have them form using the actual dough to shape or trace on the dough using something like a toothpick.

Which activity was your favorite? Comment below!

The post Playdough & Putty Activities appeared first on Not So SuperMom VS Society.

Today’s the first official day that Everett can’t attend school, and tomorrow is Finn’s. This weekend I decided to dig into my ginormous stash of activities and start prepping some cool things to keep the kids engaged. Don’t get me wrong, we will definitely be using way more screen time than we normally do, and we will be keeping things pretty low key in general, but the kids definitely need more than just PJ Masks & Blippi to keep them company!

Our general schedule is going to look somewhat like this.

I’m not great about sticking to a schedule, so this is very generalized and flexible. I will let the kids interest levels dictate how long we work on each activity and adjust as needed.

Day 1 Activities

Today’s activites focused on teaching the kids a bit about why they couldn’t go to school, the importance of hand washing, and some fun color mixing.

Germs Lesson:

For our first activity, we talked about why they couldn’t go to school and how germs spread. This lesson also showed the importance of handwashing.

Steps:

• Fill the bowl or plate with about an inch of water.
• Sprinkle pepper evenly across the surface. Try not to sneeze! The pepper flakes should float, not sink, upon the surface of the water.
• Squeeze a little bit of dish soap onto the counter or in a little cup
• Have the child dip their hand in the pepper water.
• Show them the “germs” on their finger.
• Now have them dip their finger in the soap. Stick the soapy finger into the water, right in the center of the plate.

As we did these steps, we talked about germs, handwashing, how germs spread and we came up with a hypothesis for what would happen to the pepper water when they dipped their soap finger in.

Results:

Most of the pepper flakes should have darted to the sides of the pan, and some of the flakes should have fallen to the bottom of the pan. It may have looked like the soap was chasing the pepper flakes away.

Why?

The first question to ask is why the pepper flakes float. Why don’t they sink or dissolve in the water? Well, pepper is hydrophobic, meaning that water is not attracted to it. Because of that, the pepper can’t dissolve in the water. But why do the flakes float on top of the water? Water molecules like to stick together. They line up in a certain way that gives the top of the water surface tension. Because pepper flakes are so light, and hydrophobic, the surface tension keeps them floating on top.

The next question to think about is why the pepper shoots to the sides when soap touches the water. Soap is able to break down the surface tension of water—that’s part of what makes soap a good cleaner. As the soap moves into the water, and the surface tension changes, the pepper no longer floats on top. But the water molecules still want to keep the surface tension going, so they pull back away from the soap, and carry the pepper along with them.

Color Activities

The first color activity we did was making a candy rainbow. This is seriously such a simple and fun experiment! I recently found the stash of leftover Halloween candy that we hid from the kids, so I decided to utilize the skittles I found and I dug around for old paper plates.

• STEP 1 :  You want to empty out your skittles and check out the colors.
• STEP 2:  Next, lay out your plates in an are where they won’t be disturbed.
• STEP 3: Now’s the fun part, make patterns! It’s up to you on how you want to place your colors. Make a rainbow or any sort of pattern that interests you. You can experiment with placing different colors next to each other.
• STEP 4: Once you have your patterns placed, gently begin pouring water in the middle of the plate until it reaches all the candies and just barely covers them.

THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SKITTLES EXPERIMENT

FACTS ABOUT SKITTLES  

Skittles are made of ingredients that can dissolve in water. They also do it quickly, so you have neat science right away.  Dissolving candy is fun to test out with a variety of liquids and candies.  Find out how different candies dissolve at different rates. Dissolving gumdrops also makes a colorful science experiment.

WHY DON’T THE SKITTLES COLORS MIX?

While digging around for information, I learned about a term called stratification. The immediate definition of stratification is the arrangement of something into different groups which is a lot like we see with the skittle colors, but why?
Water stratification is all about how water has different masses with different properties and this may create the barriers that you see among the colors from the skittles.
Still, other sources talk about how each skittle has the same amount of food coloring being dissolved and as the concentration of this color spreads out similarly they don’t mix when they meet up with each other. You can read about this concentration gradient here.

Further Learning:

• Use different liquids
• Use different temperatures
• Try other candies

Color Tray Mixing

Color mixing is an easy way to help kids learn primary and secondary colors and work on fine motor skills, and you probably already have all the ingredients you need.

Supplies & Directions:

*Pro Tip: use an egg storage container instead of an ice cube tray to contain the mess*

For this activity, just drop a few drops of coloring in every other cube slot. For coloring I prefer using Sargents Watercolor-it’s washable, makes pretty colors, and is nontoxic. Fill up the empty ones with water. Then let the fun begin! We used pipettes to mix the colors and many cool combinations ensued! During this activity, we discussed what was happening to the colors and named them.



I hope you loved today’s color lessons! For more color fun, check out my previous blog that also incorporates the story “Steam Train Dream Train”

Which activity was your favorite? Comment below and make sure to follow us for more daily fun!

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If you’ve followed us for awhile, you know I’m always looking for fun ways to incorporate sensory play into our daily activities. A few months ago, I discovered Aquafaba. It’s been around for years; I certainly haven’t created anything new here, but it’s been an incredible eye opener!

Aquafaba is made from the strained legume juices, such as chickpeas. You’ll usually find it used in vegan cooking and baking. This super cool substance mimics the functional properties of egg whites in cooking, and can be used as a direct replacement, including meringues and marshmallows.

What does this mean for sensory play? It makes an awesome safe and edible sensory foam! It’s super easy to make, and safe for even the littlest explorers.

The Importantance of Sensory Play

From birth, children are exploring their senses and processing new information. They begin to make sense of the world around them as they grow through the exploration of new textures, materials and resources. Sensory play is a valuable way of engaging children in activities that will heighten their senses and enrich their learning.

Sensory play encourages discovery and independent thinking, as well as inspiring imagination and creativity. Research shows that there are many different ways in which sensory play can benefit a child’s development and learning.

Here are some of the key benefits of sensory play:

Making Aquafaba

Making Aquafaba is easy and fun. I usually let the boys help me add and mix the ingredients. It gets a little messy, but messy play tends to be the most fun!

I usually use around 4 cans of chickpeas, simply because we like a lot of foam and the boys always want multiple colors. Also, in addition to the ingredients listed above, you can also add cream of tartar if you want stiffer peaks in your foam.

After I strain my chickpeas, I put the leftover chickpeas on a cookie sheet, sprinkle the with some salt and make baked chickpea snacks. Waste not, want not!

Once the chickpea liquid is in the bowl, add color and beat the mixture for 1-2 minutes with an electric mixer. Beat until the peaks are stiff. I usually make 4 different colors, 1 per can, and toss them in my play tray.

Tip: always mix longer than you think you’ll need to. The foam will last longer the better it’s whipped!

After making the foam, I hide fun little toys in it. Seek and find games have limitless possibilities in our house! We use them for counting, color recognition, motor planning, and so on. On top of all that, it’s FUN!

Ways To Engage During Play

Asking questions while your child plays not only leads them to new areas of discovery but allows them to build a better understanding of their present environment and experiences. Here are some questions that you can ask to help build comprehension with your aquafaba foam:

• How does the foam feel?
• What do you think would happen if you lifted one side on the tray?
• What does the foam smell like?
• Have you felt anything like this before?
• Without tasting it, what do you think the foam would taste like?
• How long do you think it will take before all the bubbles pop?
• Who do you think would enjoy playing with this foam?
• If you could name this foam, what would you name it?
• What other activities do you think we could use the foam in?

Aquafaba is one of the easiest and safest forms of sensory play. It foams up better than shaving cream and keeps its form for longer. The boys played with our batch for a long time, coming up with all sorts of open ended play ideas, from making potions and soups for us to sample to pretending they were foam monsters. Kids adore sensory play and the texture of this foam will keep them busy for hours!

Do you know of any other easy & edible sensory crafts that we should try? Did you try this? Comment below and share!

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Dinosaur Obsessed

It’s no secret, my boys are dino obsessed! My house is full of roaring and stomping sounds on a daily basis, and I’ve stepped, (quite painfully), on more dinos than I’d like to admit.
I’m always trying to find exciting and new activities for the boys and adventures to take them on that incorporate their favorite items. However, today we are just focusing on dinos! We’ve done a lot of cool activities that use slimes, dino footprints, excavating activites, and dino egg hatching.



We’ve even visited all manner of places where they can see dinos up close. They love our dino adventures. They will look at all the cool bones for hours and fully immerse themselves in the entire dino experience.

Dinosaur Pictionary

Open The Imagination

Learn All The Time

Life of the Party

How To Play:

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It’ll Make You Wanna Shout!

B L I P P I

Performance

Sensory/Show Advice

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Ending An Era Of Colorblindness

All Ages:

Ages Birth-4:

Ages 5-12:

Teens:

Final Thoughts

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