Tag: toddler activities

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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!

Categories
Craft Holiday Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Mother’s Day Crafts

Every year I ask my mom, “what do you want for Mother’s Day?” and every year she says, “oh nothing. Maybe just a hanging basket of flowers.” And every single year I get frustrated because that is what she gets from EVERYONE! Does she really need 7 hanging baskets with flowers? No, absolutely not. But… she loves them and she is stubborn so I follow suit and get her yet another hanging basket.

I am also stubborn, though, and I refuse for that to be the only thing we show up with on Mother’s Day. This year, I kept it simple. My babies love to create artwork and give it as gifts so that’s what we did!! The babies are happy that they got to paint, I’m happy that we will be taking something more than just a hanging basket, and my mom will be happy that she got homemade crafts from her grandbabies.

To get started, I just gave the babies some blank paper and paint and let them go to town creating whatever they wanted. Once their paint dried, I turned those random paintings into something more.

These are the crafts we made for my mom this year. Sylas painted the vase with the flowers. To make this, he did free paint for the vase and when it was dry, I sketched a vase shape onto the back of it, making sure to get the coolest pattern and the least amount of blank spots from his painting and cut it out.

Next, I cut a sponge into the shape of a flower and JoJo and Sylas took turns dipping the sponge into the paint before placing the sponge on the paper. When they were finished, I added the green stems and the yellow in the center of the flowers and glued the vase on. I LOVE the way it turned out.

 

The Mother’s Day Handprint Flowers were even easier. I simply used paint for the babies handprints (Liam was not participating very well so his doesn’t look much like a handprint) and yellow hearts for the center of the flower, and Sylas helped me add the green stems and leaves.

The Mother’s Day Heart Card was Josie’s free paint craft. Once hers was done, I cut it into a heart and glued it to a piece of construction paper. On the inside, all of the babies “signed” their name.

Who says you have to go all out to make a mama (or a grandma) happy on Mother’s Day?!

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Friday Favorites

Friday Pinterest Favorites

I am absolutely in love with this idea and every bit of it is inexpensive. Looking at the picture, I wasn’t sure what she used to make the lily pads and I worried about that part but reading her post answered all of my questions. The supplies are already on my shopping list for this weekend. I’m excited and I know Peyton, Sylas, and JoJo will be, too.

This shirt is so perfect. It’s cute, true, and right up my alley. Adding it to my Mother’s Day wish list. 😉

 

How cool is this? So easy, very little prep, and hardly any cleanup. No clean up at all if your kids take care of it all. 😉 We are working on letters like crazy lately so I’m always looking for new ideas. I plan on doing this on our sliding back door while I prepare and cook dinner tonight. I think it would also work for practicing name recognition and numbers, too.

I’m all about cute outfits, I just can’t put them together myself. I’m not even kidding. I used to be fashionable – before babies. Now I’m so far out of the loop that I don’t even know what’s in style or what looks good together. I either have to take Nevaeh shopping with me or I have to have Pinterest open while I shop. I am good at using Pinterest to guide me in the right direction at TJ Max. 😉 What do you all think of this outfit?

That’s it for today!! Share some of your favorite pins with me in the comments!

Categories
Craft Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Handprint Frog

I’m a sucker for handprint artwork. I love looking back on the tiny little handprints made into some cute design. My kids have been interested in frogs lately, so we made handprint frogs!

They painted their own hand green. I let them do this part themselves because let’s face it, kids love to paint themselves so why not let them when there is a fair chance?

I helped them press their hand onto the paper so that we could get the whole hand print the first time. Sylas insisted that he do that part himself, too, so I mostly let him. I just pushed the tips of his fingers down to make sure we got the whole thing.

Once we got the handprints, I let the kids free paint while I added the little details that they are still too little to do themselves.

I added green circles with paint for where the eyes are, a green oval for where the mouth area is, and a smiley face. Then I cut out circles with white paper for the eyes. The circles for each frog were different sizes since the frogs were all different sizes. I wanted to make sure the eyes weren’t way too big or way too small for them. Then I used a sharpie to make the black part of the eye. You could also use googly eyes but I don’t have any on hand (surprising, but it happens) so I used paper.

Once the paint dried, Sylas and Josie (with my help) cut the tongue, curled it, glued it on with a glue stick, and added the eyes. We curled them by wrapping them around a pencil. I curled the tongue for Liam’s frog.

Aren’t they the cutest? I made the oval on Liam’s a little too wide so I might have to re-do his later, but I still love it!

Have your littles made any cute crafts lately? Tell me about them in the comments and leave a link if you’ve blogged about it! I’d love to see them.

Categories
Big kid fun Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Oobleck

Peyton asked if we could make oobleck and while I wanted to say no, how can I deny him a little messy fun?!

Plus, it’s so easy and the perfect activity for a rainy day… or so I thought. The joke was on me. IT IS SO MESSY. But, so much fun. The next time we make it will be when the weather is nice and we can play with it outside and then hose off afterward.

Oobleck is solid when it’s pushed on, but liquid when you try to pick it up. How cool is that?

 

It’s so easy and you probably have the ingredients on hand right now.

  • Pour 1 cup of water into a bowl. A small one will be fine but if you are letting kids help stir, you may want a slightly bigger one.
  • Start adding cornstarch to the water. Start with 1 and a half cups and go up from there if it’s too liquidy. It’s easiest to use your hands to stir it but we always start with a spoon.
  • This is where you can add food coloring if you want. We didn’t.
  • Get messy and have fun!

Categories
Craft Toddler and Preschool Age Fun

Create a Bug Craft

When springtime comes, so do the bugs!! We have been seeing bugs everywhere outside, and inside our house, we are seeing ants. UGH. I know, I know, ants are harmless. I still don’t want them in my house. Chris will DEFINITELY be spraying that bug killer/repellant stuff around the house this weekend because JoJo and I are sooooo over the ants.

Anyhow, I thought it would be fun to create our own little bugs to celebrate this warm weather we are having. After seeing the bugs that my kids created, I am SO THANKFUL we only have ants in our house. If I saw one of their bugs crawling across the floor, I’d burn the house down. On paper, they are VERY cute, though… just don’t bring these little guys to real life please. 😉

Peyton and I cut all the pieces ahead of time. We wanted a variety of shapes and sizes to work with, so we just free handed everything. Sylas and Josie worked on cutting, too, but they used crafting scissors to cut strips with designed edges for a different project.

Once the cutting was finished, everyone chose a blank piece of colored paper. We used glue sticks and began making our own bugs. It was so much fun. Sylas loved it and exclaimed how awesome the project was a couple times while making them. They aren’t as “pretty” as some of our others, but we definitely enjoyed this one. I loved that we each got to do something different and all of the kids were excited to check each others’ craft out.

Sylas’ bug
Mommy & Liam’s bug. Liam mostly just played with the glue stick and tried crumpling the paper, but he loved joining in on our big kid crafts.
Peyton’s bug
Josie’s bug. Can you tell she loves yellow?

 

Categories
Infant/Toddler Learning Kindergarten Age Learning Parenting Toddler and Preschool Age Fun Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

9 YouTube Songs for Kids to Have Fun While Learning and Moving

I’ll be the first to admit that my kids love YouTube. From watching other kids play with toys to practicing Spy Ninja skills, my kids are obsessed. While I don’t always love the things they watch, I’m pretty open to letting them watch whatever they enjoy, as long as it’s age-appropriate. I also require that they watch at least some content that enforces brain development, learning, or movement through songs for kids.

YouTube can be a great learning tool when it comes to researching new things and reinforcing things that have already been learned. You can find good ideas on YouTube and watch funny videos when you need a laugh. Plus, you can find any song you want on YouTube, which is what I use it for the most. When I’m cleaning at nap time or writing a blog post in the living room, I turn on quiet music for myself. Before lunch, however, we use it for toddler songs and dance.

My kids LOVE the songs we find on YouTube. Josie is my dancing queen and could literally sing and dance to YouTube videos forever. I put songs for kids on the TV and we go through our favorites a few times before lunch. These songs get kids moving, and they are fun and easy to learn and remember.

The Best YouTube Songs for Kids

My kids remember these songs long after the TV is off, too. They sing them when they are laying in bed, playing with their toys, and even at the dinner table. Music is a big part of our everyday life, and it is a great developmental tool for young kids. Singing songs promotes memorization and language skills, amongst many other benefits.

Songs for Kids

What are your favorite songs for kids on YouTube? We would love to check them out so post the title or a link in the comments!

Categories
Toddler and Preschool Age Learning

Play Dough Letters

If your kids are anything like my kids, they will love this method of learning to write letters. With two kids in the house who are learning letters, I am always looking for new ways to teach them. Pencil and paper do the trick, but I want them to be inspired by new ways, as well. My kids love play dough so incorporating play dough and letters seemed like the perfect way to further their learning.

We did it a couple of different ways. First, I had them roll their play dough flat and then gave them tools to “write” with. I put out flashcards with letters on them, as well, so the kids could copy what they see and I worked with my own dough while they worked so that they could see the way I did it. I always find that they learn best when they can see it being done and do it at the same time. I wasn’t sure if the flashcards would help but Sylas actually referenced them while he was working. We worked on letters S (for Sylas), J (for Josie), and A.

The second way we used play dough to learn letters was by forming the letters with playdough. I taught them to rip a piece of the dough off, roll it in their hands until it’s long like a snake, and then form it into the letter they want to make.

They wanted to make shapes this way, as well. It could work for any learning concept!

They really loved making letters with play dough and asked if we can do it again tomorrow. I’m completely okay with that because it’s easy to clean up and there are not many materials involved.

For older kids, this would be a good way to practice sight words and spelling words.

What are some of the ways you teach your kids to make their letters?