Fabulous Fall Fun: Corn Maze

Fall is almost over for me (okay, let's be real, it was over about three weeks ago, I mean, it is snowing while I write this). Anyway, the "calendar" says fall so I am doing a fabulous fall post. 

One of our favorite traditions is to do a corn maze. I am sure not all of you will have access to a corn maze because corn doesn't grow everywhere. You might have a straw maze or something that you can go to.

Now, some places will have a corn maze that is kid-friendly--meaning it is not several miles of maze. If you do not have a kid-friendly version, don't be afraid of turning around and coming back out the entrance. We have done that several times. If you don't have an hour or two to walk through the maze, there is no problem with retreating out the entrance. 

If you go for the long haul, we have found this to be most pleasant if it is warm, so going on a Saturday in the middle of the day is better for us than trying to beat the sunset after work on a weekday. Bring a stroller for young kids--even young kids who typically walk (unless you don't mind carrying this young child). Bring blankets, hats, and coats. 

We let Brayden take the map and navigate us through the maze, which he is very happy about. If you don't want to hand it all over to the child, let the child help look at the map and talk about which way to to to get out. 

A maze is a great activity! You get exercise, you can practice map reading and maze-following as well as instruction following. Lots of fabulous fall fun!

Simple Summer: Park Day

image source

Each week during nice weather, we join several friends at the park for park day. It is a great learning ground for social skills like taking turns and getting along with others. It allows for lots of physical exercise. And best of all, it is lots of fun with lots of play.

I am an advocate for allowing children to learn through play. Summer is great because so many of our activities through the summer center around playing. Don't let the idea of play leave your mind as you enter the "school year," whether you have children in school or not.

I found this great article on the benefits of play: Play Is Essential to Learning. Be sure to check it out! 

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. 

Paper Plate Streamer Rainbow

This is a great time of year to talk about rainbows. The rainy season of spring brings rainbows. And rainbows are something fun to tie into any St. Patrick's Day learning you may be doing.

This is a very simple activity. It is a fun, simple craft that can morph into a fun gross motor activity.

Age Range

Toddler and up.

Preparation

• Gather supplies
• Cut flat circle out of paper plate (as shown above)

Supplies

• Paper plate
• Streamers in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple (two shades if you can find them)
• Glue

Activity

Talk about colors and rainbows and the order of a rainbow. The picture above is a picture of one Brayden made in preschool last year; obviously he didn't put the colors in order. You can decide if you want to focus on color order or just let the child put them on in any order.

Have your child glue the streamers onto one side of the plate. 

Now you can run around with your rainbow! One side (the empty side) is perfect for holding while your streamers stream behind you!

Surviving Winter: Winter Sports

Now that my kids are getting a little older, I decided it was time for us to pick up on winter sports. We live in an area where it is cold weather for nearly half of the year some years. Even in a warm year, you have at least three months where you don't want to be going outside much--and those don't come around very often (those warm years).

I decided we need to A) Do something that required some physical activity and B) Do more than "survive" winter--we need to "thrive" through winter! Enjoy it! Have things to look forward to! A winter hobby that made us excited to see winter come.

There are a lot of winter sports: snow shoeing, cross country skiing, snowmobiling, snowboarding, skiing, and ice skating name a few. We decided to go with ice skating this year. We signed up for lessons for Brayden (5) and Kaitlyn (3). McKenna will be able to start lessons when she is 3. They both had a great time. I don't feel bad about Brayden not taking lessons until he was 5 because he caught on quickly. Kaitlyn was timid and slow about it, but I don't feel bad about her starting at 3, either. She was able to pass level one, though I do think we will put her in level one again the next time she takes the class just so she can get a really solid foundation under her before moving on.

So my point here is, find something your family can do during less than ideal weather that you can look forward to. Thrive--no matter what time of year!

By the way, I got thinking that since this is an indoor rink, ice skating will be a great summer activity, too! It will be fun to go cool off! We do also have outdoor rinks here in the winter--so this will be a relatively easy and inexpensive winter sport to pursue as a young family.

Following the Leader

I always want to have some way to celebrate President's Day. I think learning about our presidents is highly valuable, but I do struggle with ideas for the little ones. For some reason, I get stuck with history lessons in my mind. Last year, we did Cleaning Coins.

This year, I was thinking of a good vocabulary word to go with President's Day and came up with "leader." The natural thought process with little children and the word leader is to jump to the game "Follow the Leader." My children LOVE this game!

You will have the most fun with at least three people to play this game. More can be even more fun. The more children you get, the more issues you will have with turn-taking. Everyone wants to be the leader. It is a great chance to talk about sharing, turn-taking, not always getting to be in charge, etc., so if you can round the numbers up, it will be a great learning opportunity though I can't promise you will get through it pain free. Keep in mind training in times of non-conflict; explain the rules to your child before the game so she knows what to expect and you will make the process more smooth. 

You have the children line up. One person gets to be the leader and guide the line. That person can run, walk, skip, hop, twirl, etc. The line does what the leader does and goes where the leader goes. You take turns being the leader and being a follower. Fun for all ages!

Surviving Winter: Dancing

One of the major problems with being stuck in the house is a lack of exercise. Exercise is good for the body, but also good for the brain. Okay, the brain is part of the body...but you get what I mean. So an important element to surviving winter is getting exercise in. A great and easy way to do that is with dancing.

There are many ways to get dancing into your day.

The simplest and most basic way to do this is by turning music on and dancing with your child. Back when it was just Brayden and me at home, this is what we did. I did everything from children's music, to modern tunes with a beat, to big band swing music. We just danced and danced. We of course still do this today, and it is even more fun with a group of children :)

Another fun element you can add in is dress up. You can see in the picture that my girls love to wear tutus to dance in.

Many children's CDs have songs that you can play that offer some guidance for how to dance. Examples are The Hokey Pokey, The Ants Go Marching, and If You're Happy And You Know It.

You can also get DVDs that are interactive about dance. The only ones I have that I can speak to are the Prima Princessa Ballet DVDs. I reviewed one on my babywise blog last year and liked it so much I ordered one for Kaitlyn for Christmas.

Another idea is to take dance lessons. You could either do a parent/child dance class or a class just for your child.

A final idea from me is the many interactive dance video games. A good one is Just Dance Kids. These really provide good exercise and are a lot of fun.

Do you have any fun ways you dance with your children? Any great DVDs? CDs? Video games? Please share!

Playing Just Dance at a friend's house

DIY Bubbles

Bubbles always tend to be very messy around here. Though bubble solution isn't generally expensive, it's always nice to know how to whip up a batch when needed. Certainly saves a trip to the store!

Carefully mix ingredients:
1 cup Dawn or Joy detergent
10 cups Distilled water (you can try tap water first to see if it'll do okay. Mine was fine.)
1/4 cup Glycerin or White Karo syrup

(Of course you could always cut the recipe in half or whatever your needs may be).

Then look around for things you can use as wands. Some ideas:

• clean flyswatters
• sour cream/yogurt lids w/ holes
• pipe cleaners
• cookie cutters
• slotted spoons or spatula
• coat hangers (wire)
• make a circle w/ your thumb and pointer finger, dip it in the solution!

Aquadoodlin'

Most of us are familiar with the Magnadoodle and possible with the Aquadoodle. I have a special fondness for the Aquadoodle Wall Mat. I've written before about the benefits of using a chalkboard or paper mounted on the wall to strengthen hands, arms, cross body lines, and help your child with pre-writing skills. We've been using the Aquadoodle to connect dots, practice drawing vertical and horizontal lines, and drawing shapes. It's a great place for preschoolers to practice writing their name or letters since it's very easy cleanup (none is pretty easy, right?).

And since it just uses water, no worries about spills. And mounting? Wall putty...super easy to move from location to location without leaving marks on the wall. Looking for an activity for kids while you are making dinner? You can use paintbrushes and water, or even let them "fingerpaint" with water minus the mess of paint.

I found mine at Target, but I also saw that AsSeenOnTV.com is offering a free Travel Doodle and pens when you buy the Wall Aquadoodle.

Hip-Hip-Hooray for another successfully spent dollar. :)

Bowling time!

I recently purchased a mini plastic bowling set for my girls for some fun indoor/outdoor play. My youngest is 14 months and oldest is 2. This is a great activity to practice coordination, balance, aim, crossing the body line, and gain arm strength. It's easy to set up, the concept is simple, and could be great for a rainy day as well. The girls love it and it only cost me $5 at Wal-Mart. Yay!There are lots of fun variations you can play as well: spinning/twirling and throwing, counting before rolling, tossing instead of rolling, using the opposite hand to roll/throw, etc.

Definitely worth the $5 around here! If you don't have them at your local Wal-Mart, Oriental Trading also offers them for $5.99.

Animal Toss

My girls are about 19 months apart, so it's really nice to find activities that they can do together. This idea is from The Sibling Busy Book and was really fun for both girls (2 and 11 months when we first started playing).

Materials:

• laundry basket (or some sort of large basket)
• crib or bed, depending on what is safe for your kids
• stuffed animals

Activity:

1. Put child(ren) in the crib or bed (or couch, etc).
2. Show them how to toss the animal and try to get it in the basket.
3. Start the basket close to the bed/couch/crib and gradually move the basket farther away.

I filled the crib with stuffed animals. They had a blast doing this! (And I got the added benefit of contained, happy children while I put laundry away). This activity eventually ended with both of them rolling around giggling hysterically. Love it!

Snowball Fight

I was going to try to do all of my snow ideas in one post, but I won't. Why? I live in a cold climate with lots of snow, so we will be learning about snow all month long. If I wait until the end of the month for it all, it will A) make for one very, very long and overwhelming post and B) be too late for those of you living in warmer climates to possibly apply...and I am jealous of you :)

I got this idea from my children. They come up with lots of fun ideas on their own--two heads are better than one :)

AGE RANGE
Old enough to enjoy being a bit crazy...probably about 1 or so. It goes on up to adulthood if you are willing to be crazy.

SUPPLIES

• People
• Tissue paper

ACTIVITY

1. Take your tissue paper and crumple it up into lots of balls. Let the children help with this part--they will love it! This could be a fun activity to do following a big present unwrapping day.
2. Throw them at each other. You can make forts to hide behind using couch coushins.
3. Once they are all thrown, gather them up and start all over again.

Coloring: A gross motor activity?

At 2.5 my daughter has gone through a love-hate relationship with coloring. One week she loves it, the next barely tolerates it. Don't be discouraged if your child doesn't enjoy coloring yet. Keep on trying!

We all know coloring works on fine motor skills. However, there are ways to develop gross motor skills at the same time. Here's a few examples:

1. We have an art desk that has the chair and inclined desk attached. We got it for her when she was 18 months old and she still has to sit/stand on her knees to color. Believe it or not, this is a gross-motor activity. Find a place your child can reach by sitting on their knees (or standing on their knees) and have a spot to color. That may be knees on the floor and coloring on the seat of a chair, or taping a piece of paper a little higher than normal on a wall or door. This way they have to use their legs, hips, and stabilizing muscles to color.

2. Taping paper on the floor and letting them color. I tape butcher paper (huge sheets of it) to the kitchen floor when I cook sometimes and let her color. They have to get on their hands and knees and color. When they do this, they use arm and leg muscles as well making their hip and shoulders stronger. Keep and eye on them, as my daughter tires out this way and ends up laying belly down and coloring with her eyes about a millimeter away from the paper.

3. Thanks to our school OTs that recommended this! Tape a piece of paper on the wall or door or put a piece of paper on an art easel for them to color on. (You can also do this with a chalkboard.) Place pillows or cushions on the floor where they'll have to stand on them in order to color/draw/paint. The soft floor provides a slightly unstable surface to stand on and allows them to work muscles while trying to stabilize themselves by shifting their hips and weight. Kind of like the idea of walking on pavement vs. walking in the sand.

4. Can't remember who told me about this one, sorry! I haven't tried this one yet, but it looks interesting. Again, tape a large piece of paper on the wall/door. Have your child lay on the floor, toes almost touching the wall. Have them grasp the crayon with their toes and try to draw on the paper. This will take coordination, use of abdominal and leg muscles, and a lot of control. Have them try to draw lines horizontally and vertically. Try drawing a circle. You can even use your hands to slighly guide them and help.

Have fun!!

Log Rolls, Stepping Stones, and the Foot Flex

Here are two more activities you can do with your child to work on gross motor skills!

Log Rolls
1. Have your child lay on their back.
2. Instruct them to keep their legs straight and raise their arms over their heads. They are laying flat with arms and legs completely straight (like a pencil is how I explain it).
3. Tell them to try to stay stiff like the pencil as you start to roll them over. Use as little force as possible to get them to roll while still staying straight. The less you push, the more they use their abdominal strength to roll over.

Stepping Stones
1. Taking a few towels or a long piece of butcher paper, make a path for them to walk on. I used our balance beam.
2. Lay out obstacles on the floor in a straight line, leaving room between items for them to step. You can you paper towel or toilet paper rolls, small books, cereal boxes, or anything you can find around the house for them to step over.
3. For younger children, hold their arms or one hand and have them walk, stepping over the items. It takes coordination for them to step over the item, stay in a straight line, and not fall.

*You can also put pieces of paper down and have them walk or hop from paper to paper, like stepping stones. I bought a blue plastic table cloth from our dollar store and we pretended it was water.

Foot Flex and Tippy-Toes
1. Standing up, have them alternate from flat feet to standing still on tippy toes. Have them try to stay on their tippy toes without falling or teetering. You can hold something above their heads that they can only reach by standing on tippy toes.
2. Sitting with legs straight in front, show them how to point and flex their feet. I took a favorite stuffed animal and put it in front of my feet far enough away where I couldn't touch it with relaxed feet but close enough where the tips of my toes could touch it when toes were pointed. We played a game where my toes pretended to sniff the bears feet (foot pointed) and then the toes ran away (foot flexed) saying, "Pee-yew!" She thought it was hilarious.

Stork Stands and other Gross Motor Control Activities

Gross Motor activities deal with the large muscles in the body and their movement. It's important for kids to work on gross motor skills to strengthen their large muscle groups. Kids that have trouble with gross motor skills can later have trouble with fine motor skills, like drawing, writing, and cutting.
Here are a few fun things to do with your kiddos to help with gross motor control and strengthening different muscle groups. Many of them require them to focus attention on one or two specific groups and use control to guide the movements.


Rock Backs: For young children, hold them in your lap for this activity. Toddlers may be able to do this on their own. My two year old likes to do it both ways. Whether on your lap or on their own, they are still getting benefits of muscle control and abdominal strengthening.
Sit cross-legged with knees pointing toward the ceiling or sit with your knees toward the ceiling and legs bent and closed. Grab knees and hug. Rock backwards, keeping knees and legs tight into the body. Try to rock back and roll back up to a sitting position. You have to use stabilizing muscles to keep the body in control and abdominal muscles to pull back to a sitting position.


Stork Stands: Standing up tall, hold arms straight out to the side, like an airplane. Take your foot and place the bottom of the foot on the inside of the opposite leg. Try to hold that position for as long as possible. Switch legs! My daughter needed to hold onto the wall first to get her balance.



One leg Raise: Sitting on your bottom, lean back and support yourself with your hands (arms straight). Try to raise just one leg at a time. Then try both at one time. Make sure you aren't leaning back to raise them up, but rather using your abdominal muscles to raise your legs.

Walking while grabbing ankles: Exactly what the name says! Grab your ankles while keeping the legs straight and try to walk.


Wheelbarrow: This is an activity that they need your help with each time. Have your child stand up straight. Then have them place their hands on the floor. Slowly grab their legs and lift. Telling my toddler to walk with her hands was helpful since she wasn't sure what we were doing at first.


Hopscotch: Doing this correctly wasn't really doable the first few times for my toddler. This activity takes lots of practice. Hopping with control on one foot is the first step. Then try hoping on one foot and switching to two feet. We recently got a great hopscotch rug from Wal-Mart that Charis has in her room.
Bubble Wrap Hopping: With all the packages and mailing we do around Christmas, we usually have some bubble wrap left around the house. Today we practiced hopping, jumping over, jumping on the balls of the feet, and jumping into a stradle position over the bubble wrap. She got a kick out of the popping sounds and it helped her focus on landing hard and keeping her balance at the same time.

Obstacle Line

Age: 3-5 year olds

Materials:
thick piece of yarn

Activity:
Take a thick piece of yarn and lay it on the floor.
The yarn should curve in a snake-like fashion over the floor.
Have your child walk heal to toe down the yarn, as if he were on a balance beam.

Skills:
This is great for practicing gross motor skills and balance.

Resources:
this activity comes from the book Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready by June Oberlander. I'll be going through several activities for infants and toddlers from this book and including pictures once I get my own copy after Christmas. It's a fantastic resource and lists a new activity for each week from 0-5 years old.

Baby Yoga-Rock and Roll Tummy

Back when I was pregnant and had all these idealistic visions of working hard to get rid of my baby weight after giving birth I bought a mommy and baby yoga video. Of course, that was before the realities of birth and the recovery set in! So anyway, I just now watched my video for the first time and attempted to do some of it with Tobias :)

Here is a fun yoga exercise to do with infants-toddlers:

Activity:
-lay your child on his back, take his hands in yours and hold them up by his chest. Rock him back and forth gently still holding his hands saying "rock, rock, rock". After the third "rock" you bring his hands to his chest again and move them in a circle around his abdomen saying "roll!"
-tuck his legs up over his tummy and hold his feet while he's in that position. Rock him back and forth gently while holding his legs this time saying "rock, rock, rock" again. After the third "rock" you move his legs in a circle while still tucked into his abdomen saying "roll!"
-bring your child's feet up over his chest (babies and toddlers are quite flexible!) and grab his hands as well. Hold his feet and hands together over his abdomen and rock back and forth again, then bring them in a circle and say "roll!".

Extension:
After all that scrunching you may want to stretch your baby back out again. You can do this by gently stretching his or her right arm up and left leg down saying "long baby!". Repeat with the left arm and right leg as well.

Tobias giggled a lot about this one, he thought it was great fun to scrunch up and roll around. For babies this can be a great way to build their tummy muscles and get one-on-one physical interaction with Mom or Dad.

Video to come as soon as I convince my ever-patient husband to videotape us doing this :)

Singing Songs

We have had a lot of requests for ideas for activities with babies, so I thought I would start with a simple one: Singing Songs.

AGE RANGEAll ages. Really. All kids of all ages love to sing and do movements to songs. I still love it :)

SUPPLIES

• Adult
• Child

WHEN TO DO IT

All the time, any time. I sing to my kids all the time. We sing while we are driving, we sing while we are playing, and I sing while I am feeding them. I love to sing to my babies while they are eating their food. They are typically quite interested in it and don't try to stick their hands in their mouths or anything.

With my oldest, I found singing songs with actions particularly helpful during the evening. He was a typical baby in that he got fussier in the evening, and my husband was in school and working at the time. He was gone before we got up and got home shortly before Brayden went to bed. I needed all the tricks I could muster up for the day!

SONG IDEA: Wheels on the Bus

There are so many possibilities out there. My favorite (because it is my kids favorite) for a young baby is Wheels on the Bus.

Wheels on the Bus

This was Brayden's favorite. Brayden was my only baby to get fussier in the evenings (McKenna had a witching hour...but I am just talking fussy :) )--probably since he only took 45 minute naps until he was 6 months old. He also hated driving in the car. The Wheels on the Bus saved us every evening and every car ride.

For a baby, lay baby on the floor or another surface you feel comfortable with. For a toddler, have your child face you. Your child might need help doing actions. For the preschooler, have your child face you and mimic your movements.

Verse One: bicycle baby's legs round and round. For toddlers and older, make a big circle with your arm like a wheel

The wheels on the bus go round and round

round and round,

round and round,

The wheels on the bus go round and round

All through the town

Verse Two: Take baby by the hand and have her swish her arms back and forth. You might need to do the same for your young toddler. For the older toddler on up, swish your arms like windshield wipers and have your child mimic.

The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish

Swish, swish, swish,

Swish, swish, swish,

The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish
All through the town

Verse Three: You are already holding baby's hands. Gently pull baby up and down like baby is doing a sit-up if baby is old enough to do this. If not, just move baby's arms up and down. For the toddler and older, stand up and sit down.

The people on the bus go up and down

Up and down

Up and down

The people on the bus go up and down

All through the town

Verse Four: On each "beep," gently tap baby's nose. You can do the same to your toddler and older, or you can have your child beep her own nose while you beep your nose.

The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep

Beep, beep, beep,

Beep, beep, beep,

The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep

All through the town

Verse Five: For all age ranges, put your hands in front of your face with your elbows touching each other. Open and shut the doors when you say open and shut in a peek-a-boo fashion.

The doors on the bus go open and shut,

open and shut

open and shut

The doors on the bus go open and shut,

All through the town

Additional Verses: You can to so many different things with this song. I have sung this song enough times to have an endless supply up my sleeve:

• Babies on the bus go wah, wah, wah (put finger on baby's chin and move mouth open on wah. For toddlers and older, make a wah-ing motion where you roll your hands in front of your eyes like you are crying)
• Mommies on the bus go shh, shh, shh (shh your baby's mouth with your index finger or shh your own mouth for older children)
• Driver on the bus says move on back (take baby's arms and move from one side to the other. For older children, move your arms in a "move back" motion).
• Girls on the bus go giggle, giggle, giggle (tickle all ages. Be gentle tickling a baby and watch for signs baby doesn't like it. If not. Just pretend to tickle)
• Boys on the bus say let's go play (hold baby's hands and move one arm up then the other, or bring them together in front of baby and then spread out in a Y form. For toddlers and older, jump up and down or spin around excitedly)
• Road under the bus goes bump-ety bump (if baby is on a soft surface, you can bounce the bed. You can also put baby on your lap and move your legs up and down. You can also put a young toddler on your lap. For older toddlers and up, jump up and down)

This is just one example of how you can make a simple song into a fun, gross motor skills activity. You can add verses and make up your own actions. I just made these all up, so anything you can think of will be fun. Children are easy to please.

Children love singing and they love moving around. This is a great way to distract a fussy baby or to just have fun with a baby. I know it is simple, but baby does learn a lot from it. It moves baby's body, it exposes baby to music, and it gives baby fun time with the parent, which all babies love :)

Bean Bags

This is a good activity for any age child so long as the bags are securely sewn and the beans won't fall out. You can do colors for toddlers and practice counting the bean bags. For preschoolers you can make or purchase alphabet bean bags and practice letters.

Supplies
-4.5 inch squares of fabric in various colors (2 of each color)
-Basic Sewing supplies (machine, thread, etc.)
-small beans or lentils
-or purchase bean bags

Prepping
-Sew 3 sides of the 4.5 inch squares together to make a pocket
-Fill with beans (don't fill too much, your fingers should barely be able to touch if you pinch the middle of the full bag)
-Sew open end closed

Activities

Colors: Place the bean bags on the floor near your child and as him/her to give you the blue one. Start with just 2 colors and progress to picking out one color out of 4 or 5. Infants and Toddlers also enjoy putting them in and out of boxes. An old shoe box with a hole cut in the top is very useful for this purpose and lets them take the lid off to get the bean bags back out. (supervision required for children under 3)

Gross Motor: Set out a laundry basket at one end of the room and ask children to stand at the other end and toss the bean bags in. They can also do a relay race with 2 cushions between them and the laundry basket. They must run and jump over the cushions, place the bean bag in the basket, and then come back to get a second bean bag for the basket. To reinforce colors and reading for preschoolers you can use different baskets/boxes, each with a different color word on it and they must get the correct bean bags in each labeled basket/box.

This can be a wonderful rainy/snowy day activity to get the kids up and moving.

Photo