Category: Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Categories
Craft Marriage Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

40 Free or Cheap Date Night Ideas

Yesterday was my husband’s birthday. It was not exciting at all… he got his gift early (last) week, which was a circular saw and the rest of his gifts won’t be here until tomorrow because I’m a crappy wife and ordered them late. He went to work, after work he rushed home to grab Sylas and Josie and then rushed to Nevaeh’s choir concert, while Liam and I went to my nephew’s high school graduation.

After the choir concert, Chris rushed back to our side of town to pick Peyton up from the school when he got back from his Macinack field trip. By the time we all got home, it was 9 pm and we hadn’t done anything fun all day. Sylas asked about 10 times when we were going to the park for daddy’s birthday because we always have Sylas’ parties at the park. LOL.

I knew ahead of time that Chris’ birthday wouldn’t be very “special”, so the littles and I took some time to make him a couple of homemade gifts.

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

I helped the kids make him some handprint crafts. Josie made a birthday cupcake using her hand, and then the flames on her “candles” are made from her fingerprints.

Sylas and Liam made little monsters. Sylas used his hand (minus the middle finger) to make his monster, and then I added the eye and mouth myself. Liam made a monster using his foot, and then I added the smile and eyes. I helped Liam make polka dots on his monster, too.

Sylas and Josie also did some free art time and they both chose to make pictures for daddy. They’re so sweet and I’m trying to help them understand that they should try and make daddy feel special on his birthday like he does for them on theirs.

 Josie’s artwork for daddy, it’s two different spaceships.

 One of Sylas’

 Sylas’ other one… this one is a tall tower, a dragon, and rain.

So then MY DIY project for Chris was a date night jar. We struggle with finding things to do when we are stuck at home and I always want to bond more than we do during a normal week.

We ALWAYS talk about having more date nights but with the kids, it’s really hard to find the time.

I decided to create a “Date Night” jar, full of things we can either do at home or (with a little planning ahead) find a babysitter for a couple of hours while we do something quick but fun.

I used a mason jar (I buy mine on Amazon) to hold the date night ideas. Then, I made a tag for a label, used a hole punch to make a hole in the tag, and slipped it onto twine before tying the twine around the neck of the bottle.

When we are wondering what we should do to have some fun, we just draw a date from the jar and go with the first one we pulled out. The ones that require a babysitter or a little planning ahead, I marked with a different color so that we know to avoid those ones when we know we are stuck at home.

No more sitting around wasting time on our phones or cleaning when we want to bond and spend time together… now we have plenty of ideas. 🙂

Are there any free/cheap date nights you would add to this list? Let me know in the comments. 🙂

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Magazine Letter Hunt

What’s better than an activity that involves letter recognition, cutting, and gluing? An activity that the kids LOVE and one that holds their attention for a while, right? What if I told you this activity does ALL OF THAT?

I’m serious.

I was inspired by Playful Learning in the Early Years. She did this activity on a poster-size scale and with each letter written out on one big piece of paper. The kids lined up their cut out letters next to the written letter.

My kids only know a handful of letters, though, so I thought writing them ALL out at once would overwhelm them. For this activity I wanted to work on letter H. No reason, really, it’s just one of the letters that they didn’t really know yet. I plan on doing this same activity with pretty much every letter of the alphabet at some point.

I took a single sheet of paper and wrote the letter H at the top of the page in both uppercase and lowercase. I handed the kids scissors, glue sticks, and a stack of magazines and asked them to find H’s, cut them out, and glue them to their paper. Sylas was able to do it all on his own and I worked with Josie on hers. Josie only wanted to do like, three H’s and then got distracted by pretty shoes and started cutting out the entire outfit. At least she focused on the letters for a little bit.

I guess this is also a good time to talk about when activities don’t go as planned. Josie literally covered up most of her letters with a giant picture of an actress’ outfit… THAT’S OKAY. She still took something from the activity.. we talked about and looked for the letter H, and she was able to pick some of them out herself. She also worked on fine motor concepts. Cutting, gluing, using her pinching fingers when needed, and also she made a little collage. She’s happy with what she created, she learned, she worked on other concepts, and she enjoyed herself. It’s totally okay if your child doesn’t do exactly what you had envisioned.

 

Next time I’ll probably cut the paper in half because the letters were small and didn’t cover much of the page anyway.

They really liked this one because they love cutting and gluing, and apparently they think it’s fun to cut up mommy’s magazines.

And a bonus – now they are BOTH recognizing H.

What are your favorite ways to teach letter recognition? I’m always looking for new ideas. 🙂

 

**Note – Sylas just turned 4 a couple days ago and Josie is 2.

 

Categories
Family Activities Our Family Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Name Recognition with Sidewalk Chalk

While we were outside playing today I wanted to do a learning activity with the toddlers. We hadn’t done much all day because Liam had a reaction to eggs and it threw our day off a little while we dealt with that.

The kids were using sidewalk chalk so I grabbed a couple pieces myself and wrote out the names of everyone in our immediate family. We’ve been working so hard on name and letter recognition so I wanted to reinforce what we have been learning.

I asked Sylas to find his name and he did immediately, then he noticed that my name has the same letter as his name. We talked about how he will see the letter ‘S’ in a few different names in our family so I asked him to show me every name that had a letter ‘S’ in it. He was able to identify them all!

Then he went and stood on Peyton’s name and actually told me that it was Peyton’s name! I hadn’t read any of them to him so I was a little surprised. I asked how he knew and he said, “It has his first letter!” He couldn’t remember that it was called ‘P’ so we worked on that a little, too.

We worked our way through all the names and the letters they have in common.

It was super effective and since we had never done it with sidewalk chalk before, he paid attention a little longer and seemed to pick up on more of the learning aspect.

Bonus, there is absolutely no clean-up required. 😉

Categories
Craft Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Paper Plate Wolf Craft

My toddlers are obsessed with the big bad wolf right now, Josie especially. Her favorite is The 3 Little Pigs but she’s also really enjoying Little Red Riding Hood.

We read the books pretty often and I also found a couple YouTube videos of each story that the kids really like.

Josie always asks to watch this “scary” Three Little Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf, which is actually an older version. That one is definitely her favorite, but Sylas likes a newer version better (Three Little Pigs kids story cartoon).

They agree on the same Little Red Riding Hood video, so that’s good. I don’t have to sit through two different versions of the same cartoon.

Anyway, Josie asked to make a wolf with paint and of course, I said yes. I never pass up on an opportunity for crafts. I sometimes regret that afterward when there’s a mess to clean up but it’s worth it.

She used brown paint on a paper plate for the wolf’s head and then I helped her cut out construction paper in the shape of a snout, teeth, eyes, ears, and nose.

She glued all the shapes together and put them on the paper plate.

It turned out sooooo cute!! I love it and so does she.

She’s been walking about the house with it in front of her face and growling. She thinks it’s hilarious.

Share your most recent crafts with me in the comments! I’d love to take a look. 🙂

Categories
Holiday Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

4 Year Old Boy Gift Guide: Gift Ideas For a 4-Year-old Boy

Sylas’ 4th birthday is this weekend and my phone has been blowing up with people asking what he would like for his birthday. That’s a tough question to answer when I hadn’t really even thought about it myself. For inspiration, I decided to head over to Amazon and come up with a 4 year old boy gift guide.

He’s a pretty typical almost 4 year old and likes PJ Masks, sharks, Paw Patrol, building toys, play doh toys, dress up, puzzles, outside toys, drawing items, legos, etc. It’s such a large variety that it ended up being pretty easy.

I know that it is so tricky buying for certain age groups. Since I struggle with it myself ALL THE TIME, I turn to the internet for buying suggestions from moms who have experience with that age group. I hope you find this boy gift guide helpful and can find something to buy for the 4 year old in your life!

4 year old boy gift guide, gift ideas for a boy

My son would be so excited about any of these toys! A few of them he’s actually specifically asked for. Anything similar to these items would work, too! Buying for a 4 year old is easier than it may seem, I promise!

***This post contains affiliate links. It costs you nothing extra, but I may receive a small commission.***

Where To Find The Toys In The 4 Year Old Boy Gift Guide

Here are the links to the specific items shown in the guide.

  1. Atmosphere Star Projector
  2. Road Repair Truck Legos
  3. PJ Masks Playset
  4. Paw Patrol Sub Patroller
  5. Wooden Tetris Puzzle
  6. Paw Patrol Bubble Machine
  7. Shark Bite Game
  8. Etch-a-Sketch
  9. Picasso Tiles
  10. Play-Doh Kitchen Creations – Sizzlin Stovetop
  11. Superhero Capes

I hope this helps if you’re struggling with gift ideas for a 4-year-old!!

If you’re a mom with a 3 or 4 year old, what things would you add to this 4 year old boy gift guide? Let me know in the comments!

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Looking for gift ideas for a 3 year old girl? Check out this gift guide: Gift Guide For a 3 Year Old Girl 

Categories
Sensory Play Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Sensory Imaginative Play

My kids love water, love sensory, and love frogs. I saw a post by Fun at Home With Kids that inspired me to create this little sensory box, imaginative play for my kids. I actually featured her post on my Friday Favorites post a few weeks ago, check it out!

On the original post, it looks like she used more of the little blue stones in the bottom, bigger lily pads, and more realistic frogs. The kids and I went to Dollar Tree to find the material for this activity and we did find the rocks but I only got one bag of them. We couldn’t find bigger sheets of foam, so we bought the small ones they had. The pack came with several sheets of all different colors so we have a bunch leftover, too! Then we bought the only frogs we found in the whole store, which are actually bath toys and completely perfect for water play!!

Every bit of this (except the small tote we put it in) came from Dollar Tree, but they even have small containers there that could work for this!

My littles HAD A BLAST. I had to keep a close eye on Liam because he kept putting the stones in his mouth, but other than that it was a breeze! We will definitely be doing this again.

Later on, we put all these items in the bathtub, too!

 

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Name Recognition with Caterpillar Letter Matching

We work on letters and name recognition SO MUCH. When I was working full time and my kids were with a babysitter, I felt like they were falling behind and not learning quite so much anymore. That feeling had a lot to do with me quitting my job to stay home with them. We couldn’t afford a daycare, so the littles just went with whatever friend or family member was available that day. They were taken care of, don’t get me wrong, but they were not learning anything and that was a huge issue for me. (Let me just add that my friend Nikki did watch them sometimes and she worked on learning stuff with them, but she didn’t have them often enough to really enforce it).

So, since I’ve been off work, we’ve worked on letters quite a bit. Sylas is starting preschool in the fall and I want him to know how to write his name before he starts and I want him to be able to recognize letters.

That leads us to this – Name Recognition with Caterpillar Letter Matching.

I found two objects with different size circles to use to draw the circles, one only slightly bigger than the other. I used the smaller circle shaped object to trace on construction paper and then I cut out different colored paper for each letter of their names. The first time I cut out the construction paper, my circles were too big and wouldn’t fit on the piece of paper so I had to find a smaller circle and re-cut. I used a canned good from the play kitchen and it was a perfect size.

The bigger circle is for the caterpillars head, which I traced onto a full piece of paper. I didn’t need to cut construction paper for the head because there was nothing to match. Josie did insist, however, that I make a circle for her to put on the head. I didn’t, but I would if she was adamant. LOL.

So, once the construction paper is cut out and the caterpillars head is drawn on the page, I used the same toy canned good (the smaller of your two circles) to trace five more circles onto the full page, trying my best to make it look like a caterpillar. Finally, I wrote one letter of their name in each circle and did the same on the construction paper circles, and then I added a face to each caterpillar.

I made one for both older toddlers.

It was extremely easy to make and both Sylas and Josie loved it. I wondered how Josie would like it because it’s hit or miss with her, but she LOVED it. She didn’t even need help to match the letters in her name and she did it over and over again. We talked about the letters as she worked. She would say, “what letter this one mom?” in her teacher’s voice and then I would tell her what letter it is and vice versa.

When dinner was ready I told the kids we had to be done and Sylas asked if we could save it to do it again later so I put it in a gallon size Ziploc bag (I but these from the dollar tree because they are so handy. I store everything in them haha).

This activity could be used for numbers, shapes, other letters, etc. There really is no limit to what you can match up here.

What are some of your favorite name recognition activities? I’d love to hear about them!

Categories
Big kid fun Family Activities Our Family Printables Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Summer Bucket List Free Printable

Hey everyone!! Summer is so close I can feel it. I want my family to have the BEST summer ever. I say that every year and then lose momentum halfway through the season. I’m trying to avoid doing that this year so I created a Summer Bucket List. Creating it inspired me to create a printable (five, really) for everyone to create their own summer bucket list. My kids and husband have their own idea of what would make this summer perfect so I made a couple different versions for them to write their list out on. I bet my husband is going to write, “a whole day of doing nothing”. 😉

Summer Bucket List Blank

Summer Bucket List Clipart

Summer Bucket List Kids

Summer Bucket List Blank Sunset

Summer Bucket List Sunset

I created one version for the littles with fewer lines and more space in between each line. This is for the littles who are just learning to write and still write pretty large or the littles who may not have as many ideas as older kids and adults. I created two different versions for older kids/teenagers and adults. Then, I created a printable of my own bucket list and if you love all of my bucket list activities, you can download that one instead.

For the toddlers, I plan on asking them to “write” their own list and then going back and asking them what each line says. When they tell me, I’ll write it in for them, next to their own writing.

There are actually a bunch of other activities I want to do that wouldn’t fit on the list, so I may print myself another blank one and make a second page.

I’m so excited to share these with you! What are you going to put on your Summer Bucket List?

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Cutting Practice

Do any of you have a toddler or preschooler who loves to cut things up? I do! Sylas loves using scissors to cut any piece of paper he finds lying around. Usually, he’s pretty good about asking before he starts cutting but sometimes he just thinks the paper is fair game. It’s gotten him into some trouble a couple times. He hasn’t mastered control of the scissors yet and his cutting is usually all over the place. With him starting preschool in the fall I want him to be a little better with them. That leads us to the DIY Preschool Cutting Box.

So. Much. Fun.

 

For one of the cutting activities, I cut strips of different colored paper and then drew some lines and designs on them (see the picture for design ideas). It was literally that simple. The little one will simply use scissors to cut on the lines you’ve drawn. I did a ton of them because I knew Sylas would want to keep going forever.

Another option for cutting that I put in the box is empty toilet paper rolls, cut down to different sizes with “hair” (see picture) and faces on them. I ALWAYS save the cardboard tubes because they can be used in so many different ways. Chris was complaining that I had too many piling up so I grabbed those and tried to come up with something fun. It was DEFINITELY fun. Toddler AND preschooler approved.

I also drew shapes and letters on paper for him to cut out, as well. A little shape and letter practice built into cutting practice. I’ll take it.

I never knew how tricky it would be to teach a leftie to use scissors… I have to cut everything with my left hand when I’m showing him how. LOL

Sylas spent a long time working on everything in the box. It’s the perfect quiet time option for kids who no longer nap, or just when mama may need a little quiet time.

 

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Alphabet Bingo

My kids have been way into their Bingo games lately and it seemed like the only version we didn’t have is an Alphabet version. Well, I changed that this morning! I made one by hand. I probably could have easily created one to print out but it was just easier to freehand it. I wasn’t sure how well my kids would enjoy this but they LOVED it. Sylas especially. It was perfect for matching the letters and also working on recognizing them. We used cheerios at our bingo markers. A bunch of them were eaten by Josie but that’s okay.

   

So to make this game, I cut squares out of orange paper. You can use any color you want, of course. Then I used a pencil to draw lines, creating 16 boxes. Four vertical lines and four horizontal. When I was content with my lines (they’re still not perfect but that’s okay), I drew over them with a black marker. In the boxes, I wrote letters. I made two boards and I made sure to get all 26 letters somewhere on the two of them, then I filled in the extra boxes with letters that weren’t on that board yet.

Then I cut out 26 small pieces of paper and wrote one letter on each piece of paper. I put these pieces into a small bowl and began pulling slips of paper from the bowl. I read the letter aloud and asked if either of the kids had that letter. Sylas was able to recognize quite a few letters without having to match my piece of paper to the letters on his board, and Josie was able to identify ‘A’ and ‘J’ without matching. For the letters they didn’t know, I sat my piece of paper with the letter on it in between their boards and let them match it up.

This is seriously my new favorite way to learn letters. I really feel like it’s going to help them learn, and they have a lot of fun playing. I didn’t want to reward them with candy or anything like that so I just excitedly announced the winner and that was enough for them. Then I let them eat their cheerios.

Tell me about some learning games you’ve created for your littles!