Building Rainbows

J loves rainbows.  So of course, I’m going to capitalize on this interest to teach all that I can.  Using rainbows to teach colors is of course great.  We have rainbows drawn outside on our driveway every week during the summer.  Today it finally clicked that I could use rainbows to teach size, similar to the colorful stacking rings J has had since infancy.

 

I cut each band of the rainbow out of construction paper and had J glue them in the correct order (largest to smallest).

Afterwards, it occurred to me that this could be a good airplane activity.  Since we fly so often, potential plane activities are always on my mind. I would precut foam/felt instead of construction paper and let J create on the seatback tray.  Foam/felt creations work well on planes and they take up little space and weight in your carryon!

This would also be a good craft after discussing the story of Noah, emphasizing that the God still places rainbows in the sky to remind us that He always keeps his promises.

To increase the level of difficulty, just add more bands to the rainbow.

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Book Review: Lucy Cousins' Book of Nursery Rhymes

A little over a year ago when I was reading The Read Aloud Handbook, Jim Trelease strongly recommended reading nursery rhymes to children, especially babies and toddlers. He listed a few nursery rhyme books he really liked at the moment, and Lucy Cousins' Book of Nursery Rhymes was one of them. I hopped on Amazon and ordered our copy.

McKenna was around 18 months old when we got it. She is now 27 months old. She has been in love with the book from the moment we got it to now. She loves it. At first, she would haul it around the house with her everywhere. Now, she looks at it at independent play every day and wants it read to her every single night. 

When we do nursery rhymes for learning time, she knows them all because of this book. 

I recently read Reading Magic by Mem Fox, which is another book on literacy. Fox also recommends nursery rhymes, and says important elements in reading are rhyme, rhythm, and repetition. 

Anyway, this is a great nursery rhyme book. In all honesty, it probably doesn't matter much what nursery rhyme book you get--a nursery rhyme is a nursery rhyme. The difference in book collections is which rhymes they include. There is also the picture factor--which I think is a big one. For whatever reason, children love Lucy Cousins' books. Another nursery rhyme book we have read and liked is Sing a Song of Sixpence: A Pocketful of Nursery Rhymes and Tales.

Balloon Hacky Sack

I first must praise my camera. That is an awesome picture. I love my camera. I am no photographer and look what my camera has produced. I also love sunny days that help my camera.

Okay, so today we had our library craft day. This fun Hacky Sack ball was one of the crafts we made. 

Age Range: 

This is great for children of all ages. As long as you trust your child with balloons and small seed-like things, you can do this with your child. At the activity, children one and up were doing this.

Materials:

• Balloons
• Scissors
• Funnel
• Hard wheat or bird seed. You could also use small plastic pellets.

Activity:

1. Choose three balloons
2. Cut the "neck" of the balloon off of two of the balloons right where it juts out from the round part of the balloon. One of these will be your outer edge of the hacky sack, so may sure your favorite color will be one of these.
3. Stretch and blow up the third balloon. Then release the air. This is just to stretch it out.
4. Put the third balloon over the small end of the funnel.
5. Fill the balloon with the seed/wheat/pellets. We used hard wheat, but if you don't own that already, I would do one of the other options.
6. Work it all in so it is out of the neck.
7. Cut the end of the neck off, but not the entire neck. Just the bulky end part. 
8. Fold the remaining neck so it is flat against the balloon.
9. Put one of the two cut balloons over the balloon now full of seeds. Put the neck portion of the filled balloon into the second balloon first so that the openings are not next to each other.
10. Repeat with the final balloon. You can always use more balloons if you want to.

You now have a fun ball to play with! I don't know about you, but my kids love balls. 

Prayer Book

Started around 17 or 18 months, J and I read a Bible story and then pray together before starting our day.  A friend of mine had the best idea that I’ve adopted into our routine (thanks mamanickles!).  I made a prayer journal to help J through our prayers each day. It’s basically a notebook of pictures and names. It starts with the thankfulness page and then is divided into five categories (separated by colored dividers), family, friends, government officials, ministers, and military servicemen/women. I covered each page with page protectors so that J could handle the book himself without fear of tearing the pages. 

Every morning we pray for one person from each side of the family and then one person in each of the other categories. So we are praying for 6 people a day which turns out just right for his attention span. He really likes it. After using it only a few weeks, J would immediately fold his hands to pray when I picked tup he notebook.  If I don’t pick up the notebook quick enough, he would point to it. This became his way of reminding me.

It’s so easy to add new friends or replace pages with newly elected officials.  When I recently added new friends to the notebook, he had a few days where he only wanted to pray for them. He also likes to just flip through the book afterward. He learned President Obama this way. Another benefit is that it’s helping him become more comfortable with the pastors at church.  He used to shy away from the children’s pastor every time we saw him (which is often since I work with them during the week), after introducing the prayer book and praying for Pastor John a couple times, J is suddenly friendly in person too! If your little one is cautious or deals with separation anxiety, this would be a great way to help them grow more comfortable with caregivers (Sunday school teachers, babysitters, distant family, etc.).

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Independence Day Round-Up

This marks our second year as a blog during Independence Day, so we have only a few ideas from last year to share with you.

American Flag Pattern Activity

This activity works in colors, sensory, counting, patterns, shapes, and history all in one.

Fourth of July Book, Craft, and Snack

Books, craft, and a snack! Plenty to do!

Star Sponge Painting

Any time I get paint out, my children are in heaven. 

Independence Day Books

A full list of books to read in conjunction with Independence Day.

Independence Day Books

Here are some great books for Independence Day!

ABC of America by Kim Bellefontaine

Fun for the younger readers who are just learning their ABCs.

How to Bake An American Pie by Karma Wilson

I love, love, love this one. I am someone who very much loves my country and very much loves the history of it. This book pays great tribute to the founders of this country as well as the immigrants who built it up. 

Scrambled States of America by Laurie Keller

This is a great book for learning about the geography of the states. Geography can be a difficult subject for young children. This book is silly and interesting to the children, so they pay close attention!

The Journey of the One and Only Declaration of Independence by Judith St. George

Similar to the book above, this book is able to teach about history (another tough subject for young children) in an interesting manner. 

A is for America by Tanya Lee Stone

This is another fun "American" alphabet book. 

Book Review: Press Here

I often do book lists of fun books for holidays, but there are many, many books out there that are absolutely fabulous that have nothing to do with a holiday. So I thought I would share some every so often.

Today's book is a very special find. My toddler and I were in the library together one May day and came across it accidentally. Each library trip, I go through every single book in a section of the bookcases. I want to find those gems that you might not hear about otherwise.

And I do.

And this day, I did.

Book Info:
This book is titled Press Here. The author is Herve Tullet.
Age: Publisher recommends 4-8. I say 0-101+

Review:
Every so often I get so excited about something that I essentially get writer's block. I know I could never do it the justice it deserves. This is one of those moments.

This book is so simple. It is full of dots. But it is interactive. And it has everyone from my two year old right on up through my husband laughing. We checked this book out in May and we will hold on to it until they make us give it back. Then we will buy it.

This book is so creative. Brilliant, really.

This is a must read for you. If you own it, you will never regret it.

McKenna (two) loves to sit with the book and go through the instructions herself.

I can't recommend this book enough. If you click on the link (Press Here), you will read read 17 reviews that all rave about the book. Check it out! You will love it too!

Papertowel Painting

This is the perfect “painting” activity for little ones since it involves very little mess. 

I drew some pictures on a paper towel with a washable marker (“A” and an apple, since we were working on the letter A). I gave J some paintbrushes and a cup with a TINY amount of water. As he paints the paper towel, he can watch the marker spread. J really liked this craft and it was simple to clean up! 

When J was a little older, I started letting him draw his own picture on the papertowels.  They have to learn to be very careful not to tear the towel when drawing on it. 

**If they use too much water, the picture basically disappears, becoming a tye-dye style art piece.  This is perfectly fine, since it’s all about the process in my opinion.  Some kids might be disappointed to see their picture disappear however, so be warned!  

Here are two examples of the final product:

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Father's Day Ideas

I just got sucked into a time warp of the Internet looking at Father's Day ideas. I have a long, long list of ideas to do for our Father's learning week, but our Father's learning week is happening while you all want to be doing Father's Day things, too, so I thought I would bring you some great ideas from the Internet. Here are some of my favorites:

Monogram Painted Hammer

This is something I think would be fun to do some day. My husband is a tool guy, so I think decorating a tool of some sort would be very fun, and something he could look back on fondly as a 60 year old man hammering a nail.






Cookie Gift Tube

I thought this could be fun to do in conjunction with your shape and color activity. Whatever your shape and/or color was for the week, you could have your child decorate the tube with. And what dad doesn't love treats?







Nuts and Bolts Frame

This could be really fun out in the shop--a great idea for the dad who likes tools. Only I would try to get a good picture of the dad and child working on a project together. If not, at least a picture of them together.






Picture Puzzle

This could be nice on Dad's desk at work.








Tie Greeting Card

You will find lots of versions of this card all over the internet. A fun card for your child to make to give to dad.










BBQ Apron

This is fun for the dad who likes to grill. You could do handprints and dad could pull it out when he is a grandpa and have the grandkids add their handprints...precious.









Scissor Skills Paper Craft

This is a good one for working on those fine motor skills.











Stained Glass Craft

This is fun for letter activities.









These are just a few fun ones I found! Enjoy!

Beginning sounds

It's as easy as it looks. Once you've reviewed/taught a letter sound, start with pictures and have them sort them into the two beginning sounds. Don't have picture cards? Use SenTeacher.

That site is AMAZING. Type whatever word you want, and it'll let you choose a picture, then provide a print out in card form. No need to develop your own format. Love it!

Simple Shape Find

The other day I wanted to do a shape activity, but didn't want to take a lot of time to prep it. I came up with this. I simply took a piece of paper and drew several shapes on it. They aren't perfect (as you can see). Then I told my children to color the diamonds on the page. This picture is the one I did for my 6 year old. It was rather simple for him. I did fewer shapes on the page for my 4 year old, and even fewer for the 2 year old. 

If you wanted the shapes to look nicer, you could definitely make this in Word with the shape tools and print it off. 

Rainbow Crayons!!

Ever wonder what to do with all of those broken pieces of crayon that pile up? Make rainbow crayons! It's super easy, very quick, and fun to use to color. I let the girls choose their own combinations. We heated the oven to 300. They are done as soon as the wax melts (about 5 minutes). If you continue to let them "cook", they will blend into one color. So if you want to keep the rainbow effect, keep an eye on them. Let them cool completely and then peel the paper off.

Texture Flashcards

I made these texture cards to entertain J on plane trips starting around 10 months old.  I reserved them for those special trips so that they would keep their novelty.  J loved them.  The cards are made of cardstock.  They have survived fairly well, though there have been a few that have found their home in the trash. Still they have served their purpose well.  You could also use thick cardboard to make them stronger. 

In choosing textures, I basically went through the house in search of interesting textures that would be fairly easy to attach to the cardstock (I was is a rush!).  I really didn’t get very creative with my textures, but J was still entertained. You’ll notice quiet a few cards with puffy stickers and foam stickers which were especially easy to make, buttons, sponge, styrofoam, post it tabs, duct tape flaps (I created windows and placed a sticker behind the window), fabric, clear plastic, net, velcro …  The only one I can remember that isn’t pictured is the velcro card.  J still really likes this card since it is interactive (he can remove and replace the velcro pieces).  It’s somewhere around the house, I just can’t find it for the picture!

The back side of the texture cards honestly don’t look so pretty.  I covered a lot of the back sides with packing tape or duct tape.  In hind site, I could’ve created duct tape flaps on the back of all the cards so that they would be double sided.

To create prettier cards you could cut larger pieces of the cardstock and attach the texture on half of the card.  You would then old the card in half, cut a window to see and feel the texture and finally glue the card shut.

For good teachable moments, discuss the similarities and differences about each texture, have your little one come up with adjectives to describe the texture (smooth, shiny, bumpy, squishy, crinkly, …), or sort the textures.

Father's Day Books

Here are some fun books about Fathers!

Day Out With Daddy by Stephen Cook

This is a favorite of our children. This is all about a fun day out with Dad and the crazy things that can happen :)

Daddies are for Catching Fireflies by Harriet Ziefert

This book isn't just about dads, but moms and dads roles. The roles in this book are traditional, with mom home greeting children from school and dad teasing and playing.

Papa's Son by Kate McMullan

A book about helping a child fall asleep.

Daddy Hugs by Karen Katz

We love this book in our house, especially our youngest. She and my husband have a very special bond, so this is a favorite book of theirs.

Father's Day Thank You by Janet Nolan

A book about the search for the perfect father's day gift.

Just Me and My Dad by Mercer Mayer

The Mercer Mayer books are timeless and great for the preschoolers and school-aged children. My son especially likes this one since it is about camping and he loves to camp with his dad.

My Father's Hands by Joanne Ryder

This is a sweet book that has a focus on gardening.

My Daddy Snores by Nancy Rothstein

And because you need to have something fun, especially for dads, we have this book.