Family Game Night

We had our first "Family Game Night" on Friday and it was a success!  We got everyone fed, cleaned up and the kids in their PJ's before we began on the stack of games I had selected.  Most of these we've collected from thrift stores, garage sales, and birthdays. (Is anyone else excited that garage sale season is upon us?!)  Here are some of our favorite games suitable for preschoolers:

Marble Maze: My children can't set this up by themselves, but honestly, I enjoy setting up the marble run!  They are mesmerized by putting marble after marble down the shoot, and can do this for a long time!

Hi Ho Cherry-O: A great introduction to counting and turn taking.

Great States Junior: I love that this game is doable for a 3 year old (the box does say for kids ages 4-7) and that as we are looking for shapes and pictures on the states, we are learning about them too.  For instance, did you know that the ice cream cone was invented in Missouri?  I didn't until we played!

Goodnight Moon Game: This game has a few different variations of ways to play.  We've only done the matching in color and back and white.  I think my children enjoy that the game is based on pictures from a favorite book.

Mudpuppy Constructibles building set: Although this isn't a game per-say, it is for ages 4 and up and therefore too hard for my kids to do alone.  We have the Painter's Palette edition, which has different colored pieces that are labeled with their color.  We learned the color of chartreuse while we built our tower!

What games does your family love?

Box Ramps

This is definitely not an original idea, and I'm sure many of you have done it in your own homes, but we've been having so much fun with box ramps that I thought I'd post about it anyway.

We just took a flattened box, leaned it up against the couch and let the kids roll cars and balls down it.

One morning Daddy got creative and set up a ramp in the kitchen that ended with a tin pan full of water for "washing" the cars.  The kids loved it!

Shovel Clean Up

These letters-inside-baby-food-jar-lids are a part of a game I made Isaac for Christmas.  Last week he found a whole new way to play with them.

Using a shovel Isaac scoops up a letter, says it's name and what sound it makes, and then dumps it into his bucket.  He's practicing letter recognition, phonics, and fine motor skills, and to him it's just plain fun!

I think the best learning takes place when kids are having fun.  :)

More Bath Time Fun!

I'm not sure if you've had the problem of bath toys becoming moldy, especially the ones that can squeeze out water, but this seems to be the fate of our bath toys.

Instead of investing in more toys that will just need to be thrown away in a few weeks (maybe it has to do with the humidity where we live) we try to find other toys/activities to make bath time fun:

-I've mentioned we love to blow bubbles during bath time.

-We also love containers and funnels for dumping and pouring water. Washed out Parmesan cheese containers are great because of their large opening and fun holes for pouring.

-Making ice cubes with toys frozen inside. (Just make sure you keep a feel out for the bath water temperature so that your little one isn't sitting in an Arctic pond.)

What do you do to make bath time fun?

Karate Chop Balloons

Another fun activity we've done with our many balloons is playing "karate chop balloons".  This is a great one for active little ones!  We each take turns trying to hit (or karate chop) balloons with our hands.  Oh, and saying "hi-ya" is pretty fun too!

I love Isaac's expression in this picture!

The balloons are perfect for this because they don't hurt anyone or anything that they bump into!

And on another note, I've mentioned before that my sister-in-law has a blog, Wanna Jugar With Migo?, about raising children bilingually.  She is hosting a giveaway this week for a Las Estaciones DVD.  If you're wanting to raise your children speaking Spanish, this would be a great addition to your home.  You can check out the giveaway here.

Felt Mail

Remember the pretend mail box we made out of a cardboard box last year?  At the time I made some cards and we used real envelopes for our pretend letters.  But yesterday I got the itching to make some letters and envelopes out of felt.  They were so fun to make and will last much longer than the paper ones!

I looked at lots of examples of felt mail online, and sort of followed the tutorial from Lu Bird Baby.

These were fun to make and my children will attest that they are fun to play with! 

If you're not in the mood for sewing, I listed some in my shop.  Thanks for reading!

Playing with Pot Holders

My children have discovered where we keep the pot holders.  So we've been playing with them quite a bit lately!  Here are two of our favorite activities with pot holders, and yes, Isaac is wearing his pjs. :)

Pot Holder Stepping Stones

Child lays out the pot holders and we take turns walking across them.  For an added challenge, spread them out across the floor.

Even Amy (17 months) enjoys this game!

"Grab it" with a Pot Holder

- for this game you need a mitten style pot holder.

1.  Have the child choose some objects and lay them out on the floor:

2.  Put on the mitten pot holder and try to pick up the objects:

 Got one!

Some objects are hard and others easy.  Isaac enjoys seeing what he can pick up with his big mitten-ed hand!

Magnetic Paper Dolls...I Mean Bears

One of my recent projects for a quiet, take-along activity for my 3 year old has been making magnetic paper dolls.

Well, actually they aren't exactly dolls, they are bears. I used the Berenstain Bears Dress Up Dolls available to print for free here. I loved that there are lots of clothing options and items (like a boat, ball, bat, etc. to go with the themed clothes. We found this thin metal box in a closet, which has made this a great church or car activity.

Here's what I did to make out magnetic dolls:

1. I printed off the dress ups at 150% their normal size. (I just used regular paper, but I would recommend card stock if you have it around.) I just used Brother and Sister Bear, although Ma and Pa bear are available too.

2. I cut out the dolls and glued them onto sheets of magnet from ad magnets I picked up at a health fair and that came with our phone book.

3. I covered the tops with contact paper, then cut out each piece.

4. Isaac played with them. I showed him the general idea, and he took it from there. He loved that if he held the magnets a little off the board, they would still stick to it.

Even if you don't have a magnet board, these would be fun to use on the fridge!

Styrofoam. Ahh!

We recently got a package in the mail, and almost as wonderful as the package was the Styrofoam is came wrapped in.

I'm not a huge fan of Styrofoam for several reasons (it can get messy, it's not environmentally friendly, etc.) but I just couldn't throw it away before we put it to good use.

We tried painting with watercolors on it. I was surprised at how well it turned out once the paint dried: And the kids had a great time jabbing my old pencil collection into the Styrofoam pieces:

There's nothing like playing with a new toy!

Playing With Shaving Cream: the clean hands version

After I posted about playing with beans, several of you recommended trying shaving cream as a fun sensory activity. Knowing that my son doesn't enjoy getting his hands dirty (he has finally warmed up to playing in the sand after much exposure and encouragement!) I knew he would need a little help with the shaving cream.

I gave him a plastic fork and spoon, and a short straw to blow the shaving cream. He drew pictures and lines, and the letter I (the only letter he can write on his own). The first few times his fingers touched the shaving cream he wanted to wash his hands, but he always wanted to play again.

I think next time we may bring out the cookie cutters. What other clean hands ideas do you have? I'd love to hear them!

Note: If you let your child blow the shaving cream with a straw, please supervise so that the child does not accidentally suck shaving cream up the straw into their mouth!

Stuffed Animal Dress Ups

The other day we pulled out the dress ups and got a few stuffed animals involved too! Isaac had a great time trying different hats on the rocking horse and finally settled for a fire fighter horse.

Some of our favorite dress ups for stuffed animals:

-hats

-old baby clothes (or current children clothes for bigger animals)

-socks

-mittens and scarves

-headbands (baby ones for my daughter)

Dressing up the stuffed animals was a fun change to traditional dress up play!

No-Sew Felt Pizza Tutorial

I love felt play food...and I love a quick project. Which leads us to this tutorial for creating a no-sew felt pizza. Great for budding chefs, for color and number practice, to use on a flannel board or on the table...imagine the possibilities!

Here's what you need:

Materials:

-scissors

-1 large square tan/light brown felt for crust

-1 large square red felt for crust

-scrapes of felt in different colors for pizza toppings

Here's the process:

1. Decide how big you want your pizza and cut a large circle of tan felt for the crust. I like mine to fit in a recloseable plastic bag, so I use one for measuring:

2. Cut a slightly smaller circle out of red for the sauce. It doesn't need to be a perfect circle...it's pizza sauce! I fold mine as shown to make sure it's smaller than my crust:

3. Now it's time to cut the toppings. Here are some of the ones I like:


Cheese (triangles of yellow felt)

(sorry the color's a bit off in this picture)Green Pepper (made of light green felt)

Mushrooms (made of white, gray, or tan felt)

Onions (made of purple felt)

Pepperoni (red circles with black dots made with a permanent marker)

Black Olives (made of black felt)

With all your toppings cut you are ready to make a pizza!

I like to keep mine in the bag I used as a measuring tool from the beginning, that way none of the little pieces get lost.

My two year old enjoys taking my order and making a pizza for us to share! I'm sure your little ones will love playing pizza chef too!

Learning Wheels

(These are based off a similar idea I saw on The Activity Mom here.)

I loved the idea of a color wheel. It's a simple circle of paper divided into section. Each section has a color on it. One way to use it is for a color hunt. The child must find something of each color and place it on (or next to if it's too big) the corresponding section of the circle.

We had so much fun with the color wheel that I had to make two others.

One is a shape wheel. Each section of this circle features a shape. We went on a shape hunt, which was trickier than a color hunt, and found objects in our house of each shape.

The other learning wheel has just four sections: hair, wheels, smooth and bumpy. For this one we searched for some object that had one of those characteristics. A doll or stuffed animal for hair, a car for wheels, etc. Since my son can't read yet I drew pictures to help him out.

These learning wheels are so fun for playing "hunting games"!

Do you have any ideas for other learning wheels?

More Felt Ideas

I think felt is great! You can make so many flannel board activities/games/stories with it. Although you can buy them, you can make your own with some creativity and a little felt. I find that looking online at other people's work helps me figure out ideas for projects. Here are a few ideas:


-Freight Train felt story (you need a train car out of a variety of colors, similar to this idea, read the book by Donal Crews and place the train cars on the board, or have your little one retell the story with the pieces.)

-Old McDonald's Farm (make a barn and animals and sing as you put up the animals one by one). If you want some templates to make your animals, try this website, or google coloring pages for the animal you're trying to make. You can make it as simple or elaborate as time allows!

-Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed (make a bed and five monkeys. I used a die-cut as a school district office to cut my monkeys, but that's not necessary. Just search on etsy.com for monkey ideas)

-Snowmen (easy shapes to cut out and then assemble on the board). You can even sing this song to go along.

-Felt People/Face (cut out a basic person shape and clothes to go on him/her. Or cut a large circle for a face and then pieces for eyes, nose, etc.)

-Shapes (use different colors and cut different shapes. Use them to practice shapes, colors, counting, fractions, or make things as if they are felt Lego's)

-Five Speckled Frogs (I love this story and song! Here's one pattern you could use from Early Learning Activities.) Here are (one version of) the words of the song:

Five little speckled frogs,

Sat on a speckled log,

Eating the most delicious grub.

Yum! Yum!

One jumped into the pool,

Where it was nice and cool.

Then there were four green speckled frogs.

(Repeat until all are in the pool)

These are some of the ones we do at our house. What other felt ideas do you have?

Side note: If you have access to a die cut machine (either a home machine on one in a school district office) you can cut felt with it, although you'll want to put a piece of paper on top of the felt for the machine to work best. Our local school district lets anyone use their machine, and it was great for cutting things like vehicles and animals!

Pizza Box Felt Board

While we're one the theme of felt, here's an idea my friend Sarah gave me of making a felt board out of a pizza box.

Materials:
Pizza box- call around to local pizza places to get an unused one for free or very cheap
Felt- Large enough to cover top of box
Glue


To Do:
1. Cut your felt to the dimensions of your pizza box.

2. Glue the felt onto the inside of the top of the pizza box.

3. Open box and use as a felt board

You can even store your felt stories in the box! Try using a personal pizza box for a travel sized felt board!



Here's an idea of what the flannel board will look like:

Felt Pizza

I have lots of felt that I have collected and have been trying to come up with ways to use it to make games and activities we can do at home or on the go. Here is a felt pizza that is easy to make, quick, and can be used for creative/dramatic play, to practice color, or to practice shapes (I cut my cheese in triangles and pepperoni in circles.)

Pizza topping ideas:

-pepperoni (red circles (you could put black dots on top with permanent marker to help them stand out from the sauce.)

-cheese (yellow/orange triangles)

-onions (purple rectangles)

-green peppers (green shapes)

-olives (black o's)

-mushrooms (made with white felt)

File Folder Outline Games

Here's a quick file folder game.
-dump out your "junk drawer" or collect small items from around the house.
(I used a crayon, glow-in-the-dark star, key chain, screw, pen cap, paper clip, whistle and quarter)
-trace the items on a file folder (or on a piece of paper)
-have fun finding where everything goes!
NOTE: this game may contain small pieces and small children should be supervised during play!

41 Ideas to do with Preschool Age Kids

A friend of mine recently posted these ideas on her blog, and I thought I'd pass them along to you all. Here are some great (and easy/little planning involved) activities to do with young, preschool age children. (One idea: print off this list, cut them into strips and put them in a jar. Draw out one idea each day to do together.)

1. Sorting (different colored beans, goldfish, whatever you have) into different cups
2. Stringing pasta or cereal to make a necklace
3. Lace ups
4. Rainbow name (write their name and trace the outline in different colors, like a rainbow)
5. Play dough
6. Typing letters
7. Tweezers/Tongs (moving objects from one bowl or basket to another with tweezers or tongs)
8. Ball/sports
9. Stickers
10. Giant drawing (trace their body and draw a life-size kid)
11. Boggle or Scrabble letters
12. Dominoes
13. Will it float? (have the child gather objects and then guess if they'll sink or float)
14. Follow the leader (sing the Peter Pan song while marching around the house, taking turns being leader)
15. Plant seeds
16. Where's my lid? (give a bunch of containers and lids and have them match them up)
17. Play a game
18. Color mixing (with cups of water and food coloring)
19. Concentration/Memory (play the game or create your own)
20. Bubbles
21. Pbskids.org
22. Fingers and toes (trace fingers and toes and color pictures of them)
23. Hide & seek surprises (have them open containers with screw-off lids with a surprise - toys you already have or tiny treats - inside)
24. "Piano lessons"
25. Bowling (make bowling pins out of household items and bowl)
26. Go for a discovery walk
27. Blanket fort (then story time in the fort)
28. Story writing (have child dictate a story to you; draw or take pictures to illustrate)
29. Paper toys (print, fold, and glue a toy free from The Toy Maker or Paper Toys.
30. Blow bubbles in a cup (using a small amount of dish soap in water, blowing with a straw!)
31. Finger-paint (with shaving foam, pudding, ketchup, or dishwasher detergent mixed with water)
32. Paint the sidewalk (with a bucket of water and paint brushes)
33. Sidewalk chalk
34. Puzzles
35. Play with magnets
36. Fire Drill (both stop drop and roll, and running out of the house to our meeting spot)
37. Act out a story
38. Tickle Monster
39. Dress-ups (mom and dad's clothes work great)
40. Leap Frog
41. Hide-and-Seek

The Joy of Boxes

We love boxes! They make great cars, houses, kitchens, etc. And the latest fun we've had with them is making a ramp for cars out of cereal boxes. What box ideas do you have?

Activities for Toddlers

Lately I've been feeling that my little one needs more meaningful interaction with me. I find that we resort to the same games over and over and over again, and while that can be entertaining for a little while, we both need a change! So I've been looking for activities and found that Family Fun Magazine has a web page with lots of toddler-age games and activities. Here's the link. Some are still a little advanced for us, but I'm looking forward to trying them out. What are some of your favorite games to play with your little ones?