Pattern Block Piece Picture

First off, sorry about my very long hiatus! I really needed a break from worrying about getting posts up here, so I took it. Sometimes you just need to let things go, you know?

We of course didn't let doing learning activities go, so on with the posting!

This is a great activity to work math skills. 

SUPPLIES:

• paper
• glue
• crayons (optional)
• scissors
• pattern blocks or pattern shapes printed off of your computer (you can make the shapes in a Word document and print them out)

ACTIVITY
Have your child trace the pattern block pieces onto a paper and then cut them out. If you don't have pattern block pieces, just create some shapes in Word and print them out. If your child isn't able to trace and cut, do this for your child beforehand.

Have your child take the pieces and create a picture. Older children can use their creativity. For younger children, you will likely need to give direction (like, let's make a cat with these shapes).

Have your child glue the pieces in place and use crayons to add some details to make the picture if desired.

Color Mixing with Ice

This is a great outdoor activity but a few simple adaptations can easily bring this activity inside during the winter months and actually works well with a winter theme.

Ice is a great medium to practice color mixing.  J and I made yellow and blue ice cubes together. This is an activity all in itself, so be sure to include your little one in this step.  It's a great way to teach the process of freezing. Let them add the coloring and fill the tray using a scooper or a medicine dropper to include some fine motor skill practice!  Then they get to practice patience while waiting to play with their color cubes.

Fast forward to the activity, J first separated the ice cubes into bowls by color and chose to make blue water first.  I filled the tray with a small amount of water.  Make sure the tray is white/clear so you can easily see the water change colors as the ice melts. J really enjoys scooping and stirring the ice cubes, letting them melt in his hands, etc.  He basically plays while watching the ice melt.  This is a great time to let them utilize their motor skill practice with tongs or different size (and length) scoopers or spoons.  I’m surprised at how long a little ice can entertain! 

When he moved onto the yellow ice cubes I asked him which color the water (currently blue) would become and he of course guessed yellow.  I told him it was going to be a surprise that he’d have to wait and see.  He wasn’t convinced the water was actually green until the very end when there was no denying it.  He was sure it should be either blue or yellow!

We then filled the ice cube trays with green water to play with in the future.  This activity is free, entertains and recycles itself too!

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Ice Melting Bags

This was one of our science activities when J was almost 2 years old. I made several different colored ice cubes using food coloring.  I had J separate the different colors into sandwich bags and we taped them to the dishwasher so they would be at his eye level.  We described the ice together (cold, hard, slippery, heart-shaped in our case).  I opened the freezer door and had him feel inside.  He noticed that it was cold in the freezer.  I told him that ice needed to be kept cold or it would melt. Since we had already worked with ice a little, I asked him if he remembered what happens when it gets warm and he did!!  He replied “water!”  By this point our ice bags had already begun to melt, so I had him look for water in the bags.   He was excited to find some in a couple of the bags!  Throughout the afternoon, we kept an eye on our ice bags.  I pointed out that the ice was getting smaller and the water in the bag was increasing.  We talked about the different properties of ice and water.  By dinnertime, he was excited to show daddy his bags (of now colored water) and to tell him that the ice had become water because they got warm. 

I got the general idea for this activity from  http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/toddler-theme.htm.

You could easily turn this into a color mixing activity or get more specific by placing more ice in one bag and noticing how it melts slower this way, discuss why,…

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

Homemade Audio Books

When I was little my grandmother recorded stories on tape for us all the time.  We still have some of them!  She also sent some to my cousins who were overseas at the time.  I think this is an awesome gift for little ones that live far away.  They get to hear your voice on a consistent basis, acting out your love from thousands of miles away by reading stories to them!

 

A few years ago I took the same concept and made a set of books on CD for my nephews (age 2 and 3 at the time).  I chose some favorite books from childhood and recorded myself and my husband reading them using my computer. 

I used a free recording software called Audacity.  It worked well.  Their software was easy to use and easy to edit.  I later went in and added a little chime sound for when the page should be turned.  The software made it easy to dub the chime to my saved recording.  Just Google “free sound effects” to find a wide array of choices.  Finally I burned all the stories onto a cd, made a cute little cover for it and packaged cd and books together for my nephews. 

We also recorded some fun family stories and songs and I added a few stories from my grandma and grandpa using the tapes they gave us as kids.

I should add that I am not a technological expert by any means.  I have trouble with Facebook!   I guarantee that if I could do this, anyone could.

It really wasn’t a difficult project to complete and I think it’s a great gift.  I recently burned all those same stories onto a cd for J so it’s become a gift that keeps on giving!  It’s been great to use on road trips and plane trips.  It also works great while cooking dinner or entertaining toddler while busy with the baby.

Since all toddlers and preschoolers tend to love hearing themselves, a great addition to your audio assembly would be having them join you in reading key words, recite a poem or even read a simple book themselves.

Becca also blogs at Fun and Engaging Activities for Toddlers 

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 

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 

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.

Family Board Book

I made these board books for J when he was 12 or 13 months old. It was SO easy to accomplish and well worth it.  J has always loved them.  I think these would be great from infancy on.  Just keep your little one’s slobber away since the ink will bleed… or better yet, seal the pages beforehand.

I bought a board book kit from Amazon; I’m pretty sure this is the link. The kit included the books, blank labels for each page and a computer template to download.  Of course you don’t have to use the labels.  You can draw on the books or even have your toddler create their own book.

The family book I made is very simple.  I included parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins.  We don’t live anywhere near ANY family, but I really wanted J to learn who all his relatives were.  This way when we are able to see them, he was already familiar with their pictures at least.  Each page in the book has just one labeled picture so it’s very clear who is who.  I used to read this book a lot to him before we took a trip to visit family to refresh his memory.  After each trip we’ve taken to visit family, J tends to return to the book a lot on his own too. I do think if I were to do it again, I would try and include photos that were a little more fun… like Grandpa playing with a ball or Aunt Jenn riding a bike (whereas I just have a photo of each one smiling).

“My Dad Loves Me” was actually a Father’s day gift (from J to daddy).  This is his favorite of the two board books, probably because Daddy is J’s favorite person in the world!  I included lots of pictures of J and dad from birth, on. I added a rhyming story to go along with the photos.  J loves that he sees them playing the guitar or playing with a ball in the pictures.  When we’ve taken a few trips without dad, I brought J’s daddy book along with us to read which he really likes.
Here’s the text of J’s daddy’s book:

Right from the start, Dad was my biggest fan. 

We share kisses and cuddles and lots of big grins.

My Daddy is teaching me to play the guitar.

I’m teaching him to take care of the car.

We work out together.

We act silly together.

We walk and we ride and we explore together.

We splash around in the pool.

We eat ice cream ’till we drool.

Whether we’re playing ball or just hanging out,

My Daddy loves me. You can’t get better than that!

Another side benefit of the board books is that when J has experienced a little separation anxiety and hesitant to play alone, I have kept the books within his reach so he has pictures of those he loves close by.  I got this idea from an online group I’m in.  I’m honestly not sure how much this helped since any bout of separation anxiety was very short lived for J.  It certainly didn’t hurt though!

Sticker Sorting

We do a lot of sticker sorting in this house. It is a great way for J to practice categories and also helps him with fine motor skills (getting the stickers off really works those pincher muscles).  It requires little prep on my part and the only supplies necessary are paper and stickers! These activities also work really well on airplanes (easy to pack and keeps them occupied for a long time!).  We travel a lot and I always have some type of sticker sorting included in our carry-on bag.

Prep: I printed out pictures of a road, the water and the sky. You could definitely just draw these as part of the activity on the plane.  I then cut out stickers of things that were found in each location.  I placed the stickers in a zip-up pencil bag.  J pulled out one sticker at a time and decided which setting it should be placed in.  This worked really well and kept him occupied for awhile (he had a lot of stickers to place).

 

We’ve also done a similar activity in a hotel room.  I drew a train track, road and lake on some paper and he found stickers to place on each.  He was then quite content to drive his cars around the tiny road for quite awhile!

Finally we’ve done something similar at a restaurant.  I have a random assortment of items in my purse at any given moment.  In this case stickers and index cards.  We drew a setting on each one and he sorted the stickers.

These type of activities would also work well for long doctor appointments and car rides too or at home of course.

Here are a couple other examples I’ve posted on in the past:
Sorting Colors with Stickers
Counting with Stickers

We’ve also done shapes, seasons, letters and animal homes.  The possibilities are limited only by your sticker collection.

Stringing Sponges

In one of my trips through the dollar store, in search of cheap, light weight “toys” to keep my toddler busy on planes, I came up with this version of stringing beads.

I bought a couple packages of sponge curlers (the kind some of us slept in when we were little).  They came in black and pink in our dollar store.  I took them home and sliced some in thirds, some in half, and kept others the full length.  I keep them in a small wipee box with some pipe cleaners.  The sponges are perfect to string on the pipe cleaners.  I think it’s a little easier for them use the pipe cleaners than regular string, making this activity possible at a younger age.  You could also use thin straws.  We also make jewelry with them or link them together to create a chain (thought J needs a lot of help with that).  **Since this original post, I came across a larger color selection of the sponges which allowed him to play a matching game too (matching them to the colored pipe cleaners)**

This makes a good plane/travel activity because it keeps them occupied for awhile, it reuses the same materials from other plane activities (so you have to pack less), and it’s lightweight.  The disadvantage is that the sponges can be decidedly fun to throw around on the plane.  J just learned that was not an option.  But in the meantime, at least they don’t hurt if they hit you and they’re so cheap that it’s not terrible if some are lost.  This worked well for J at 23 months; our first experience with this plane activity (at 14 months) didn’t go as well.

Of course you can also use these at home!

Age attempted:  14 months (too young for on the plane), better by 18 months and good at it by 23 months

Teachable Moments:  We’ve worked on the meaning of push and pull with this.  Fine motor skills get a lot of practice.  You can make patterns with the different colors, match colors, practice counting by assigning a different number of sponge beads for each pipe cleaner, etc.

Lucky Charms Math

I gave J a little bowl of Lucky Charms cereal and first had him sort the marshmallows using the sorting printout here.  I actually had a bowl of cereal to sort myself.  I've found this often helps J stay focused and work more independently.  Sometimes if he's doing an activity with me just sitting there next to him, he'll ask for my help more often.  If I have my own activity to work on, he's fine doing this by himself.  It's also a great way to teach something new since I'm basically modeling what to do (and helped a lot when we did the charting later).

After sorting the marshmallows, he graphed them using the chart here.  We practiced reading the graph to find out how many marshmallows he had in each category (without actually counting), and quickly determine which category had the most and the least.
 J did really well on this.  He waited so patiently to eat his marshmallows (I did let him eat the broken ones and the cereal as we sorted).



Here's another chart that would work well for coloring, but there's not enough space for actually charting the marshmallows.

Age attempted: 35 months

Silhouette Matching

This activity took J’s matching skills up a notch and was cheap, very easy to prepare and from start to finish allowed for lots of play time.

First, we got some of those growing sponges from the dollar section as Target.  I have no clue what these are actually called, but they come in little pill shapes and grow in warm water?  I gave J a few new ones to play with during bathtime over the past few days.  He’s still entertained by 2 or 3 at a time, so I might as well get good use out of that dollar.  I tried implementing some learning during this time, keeping one in hot water and one in cooler water to see which grew the fastest.  On another night we kept one still in a cup and the other he got to pour from one cup to the other to see if that made it grow faster.  Honestly though, J was paying little attention to the mini-science experiment and just wanted to play with them.

We saved all the sponge creatures and when he finished the entire package I dried them all out and stored them with the packaging for a rainy day.  On the back of the package, there is a silhouette of each creature along with its name.  I cut those out into individual pieces and had J match the sponge creature to its silhouette.  I keep a few different sets of these in ziploc baggies to pull out every now and then.  As he improves, I increase the number to match each time.  He thinks it’s a puzzle (and he loves puzzles).
This type of matching is actually a little more difficult because…

• they aren’t matching two exact items but rather an object and an image
• there is a size difference in the objects and images
• the silhoueete factor means there is little detail to each object and image, forcing to look at the outline of each object (and J often does not actually know what the object is so he must focus on shape)
• the colors of the image and object aren’t always the same

Homemade Highways

During the summer, we do a lot of learning with sidewalk chalk outside.  During the winter, I turn to painter's tape.  I love painter's tape!

This activity is really just a fun way to add a little variety to your day, especially these long winter days.  I set up a highway system on the kitchen floor using painter’s tape.  This took me about 5-10 minutes. This is even something your little ones can help with. J later made 2 requests that were easy to add on.  1. A garage to park some cars (my version is on the bottom right side of the pic) 2. Destination states (he’s VERY into states and geography. I definitely accomodated him on this one since it’s educational too.  I let him choose the states and just cut them out of construction paper and taped them down to the end of each roadway.)

Add buildings and bridges with Legos or blocks, stop signs, railroad crossings, etc.  It could be as simple or extravagant as you want.  This picture is fairly basic, since it was honestly meant to keep J busy and focused in the kitchen while my husband and I moved furniture for new floors (woohoo!).


I'll admit, painter’s tape is not cheap.  While you really only use a small amount of the roll, I tend to leave these up for awhile to get lots of use.  I also reuse the tape to make other things later (letters, shapes, numbers,…). One reader adapted this idea by placing tape on a blanket that she could then put away any time she wanted.  Since the tape isn't permanent, you can change the road map easily or remove them completely for cleaning. 

Shopping

Now that I have 2 kids, one of the tougher jobs on my list is grocery shopping. Well, shopping in general. I have not yet mastered the art of managing two children, one grocery cart, a crowded grocery store, checking off a list, reading labels, and keeping on budget while teetering oh-too-close to either a nap time or meal time. Don't get me wrong--my girls are remarkably well behaved in the store, even with a mom on the brink of a meltdown. You may have seen me out and about...you know, the one answering the thousandth "What's that?" question from a toddler while trying to see which items are on sale and removing the cart strap from the baby's mouth for the umpteenth time. I may or may not be crying. *wink* On a good day you'll see me humming to myself, trying to enter in to my quiet place where I can actually remember what's on my list. Or where I put my list. Anyways...

So is it possible to learn AND shop at the same time? Sure! Here's a few things you can do while you are out shopping to help your toddler or pre-toddler learn, have fun, and possibly allow you to get some shopping done without having to resort to "The Quiet Game." :)
For most of these, it helps to have a Shopping Notebook set aside that you use especially for the store.

1. Stickers-- Peeling stickers is a great fine motor activity. Chances are your child will/does love stickers. They don't have to be expensive, either. Local dollar stores have a pretty good selection generally. If you come prepared, draw lines or shapes in a notebook and have them put the stickers on the lines/shapes you've drawn. (A little hand-eye coordination work).
Another sticker option is to call out body parts and let them stick them on. "Put a sticker on your knee. Put a sticker on your elbow."

2. Pre-printed lists- This takes a little pre-planning, but is totally worth it at our house! Here are 2 options:
*Print off pictures of items needed. I use Google Images, cut and paste. I also put them in order of the aisles at Wal-Mart. For example, I know I start in the back of the store with dairy. So all my dairy items are at the top. You can then ask them "What's next?" "What's first?" "What's last?"
*As you shop, call out items on the list and have your child check them off, or mark through them. It will take them a little while to find them and then mark through them.
For older kids, you won't need to call out anything. Just let them observe and check it off!

3. Coupon sorter: Get your coupons ready and as you get your item, let them look through a stack and see if there is a coupon for that item.

4. I spy: This is a personal game, not one they play with you. Draw or print off a picture of an item and glue it on the top of one page (example: a shirt). Then make a column of colors, like a red shirt, blue shirt, green, etc. As they go through the store they have to see if they can find these things, and then check them off. As you wait in line, help them finish off the list and see how many they've gotten.This is a good chance to work on colors, observation, and tallying.
*For older kids, see if they can find more challenging things, like something sweet, grumpy people, happy people, a kid with a toy, a baby with a bottle, etc.


5. I got this idea from Parenting Magazine--
"Honk if you love..." (or quack, whatever) Choose a funny sound and an object. Whenever you see the object (a teddy bear, a circle, a baby) you both have to make the sound. They'll be very focused on looking around and making the funny sounds. It makes shopping fun for us. :)

6. Again, from Parenting---
"Posers in Waiting"--Both of you strike a pose and hold it until the line moves, like making a face, stand on one foot. The person that stays still the longest gets to choose the next pose.

7. Can you find..
*Someone that has the same color shirt on as you?
*Someone with mommy's hair color?
*Someone with something in their cart the same as ours?
*A mommy shopping with 2 kids, like us?

8. Texture talk- As you bag up your produce, ask them questions. "Do you see a food that looks bumpy? How does this feel? Is this soft or hard?" You can even involve them in the process of choosing your food. "I'm looking for bananas that have NO brown on them. Can you find some bananas that don't have any brown?" or "See how this apple has a little spot on it that feels soft. We don't want that one. Check this apple and see if it looks good." "When we pick out a cantaloupe, you can smell this part. If we can smell cantaloupe, it might be a good one. Do you smell anything?"

9. And finally...the Quiet Game. Or the Still Game. Personal favorites of mine when you just need a moment. Pretty simple--see how they can sit perfectly still or perfectly quiet. *Aaaahhh...*

How about for the babies? Talk, talk, talk. Tell them what you are doing, what's on your list, what you see.

Happy Shopping!
Any tricks in your bag? Share!!

Tot School Activity List

I've had difficulty getting my ideas for Tot School into a workable format and really needed a more user-friendly form. So I made this one! Along the left hand column I wrote down several different categories of activities based on the skills practiced. Then I listed 3 separate activities for each category. So if you realize you haven't done pouring in a while and your mind goes blank on activities, it will be easier to reference this list. Click on it and you can see the larger format to read it easier.


I also have a tiny request from anyone reading this blog. Could you state which activities here you have tried and at what age? And then tell me whether your child did it independently, with assistance, or was unable to do it? I'd like to get some more reference points for what the age-range for each activity is so I can make one of these forms for the 12-18 month range, one for the 18-24 month range, and so on. I'll be working my way through these with Tobias but he's only one child and is past the 12-18 month age range already. It would really speed up the process to have other mom's opinions!

Oh, and anyone is welcome to download, print and use this form. I'll hopefully figure out how to get the actual form downloaded in a more share-able format but for now it is simply a picture format and even that took me over an hour to figure out, lol!