Homemade Sidewalk Paint

I saw an awesome post on Happy Hooligans today about making homemade sidewalk paint and I had to try it.  It was easy to make. You mix cornstarch, water, and food coloring together.  It took some time to figure out the right consistency, but it added to the learning process.  Little Sweets sat mixing colors and painting for a long time.  I wish I had taken a picture of the sidewalk when she was finished.  This is an activity we will be doing over and over again. 

Yes, my daughter is in a bathing suit and it's March!!  It was 85 degrees here today!

I also enjoyed painting and thought it would be fun to paint some words onto the sidewalk.  Little Sweets read the words to me after I painted them.  This is a great literacy activity. 

Stamping Fun in Homemade Playdough

Stamping Words into Play Dough

Little Sweets has been asking to play with play dough for a while now. The play dough she had been using was dried out so I thought I would pick some up at Wal-mart.  They didn't have what I was looking for so we decided to make our own.  I wanted it to smell nice so I thought it would be fun to add kool-aid to the dough.  I found a great recipe for kool-aid play dough here.   Little Sweets helped me make the dough.  Then she used stamps to spell words in her play dough.  She also stamped pictures and numbers into the play dough. 

Little Sweets helping me make the playdough.

Little Sweets stamping in her playdough. 

Linked to For the Kids Friday, It's Playtime

Self-checking Word Family Wheel

Self-checking Word Family Wheel

I made this to help Little Sweets with her word family words.  She spins the bottom wheel until she comes to a letter.  She says the word and then lifts the flap to see if she is correct.  This was simple to make.  I cut two circles from a poster board.  On the first circle I cut out 2 squares.  I wrote "at" beside one square and glued a flap on the other square.  Then I used a clasp to fasten both circles together.  I wrote the letter and glued the corresponding picture on the second circle while it was fastened together. This way I knew it would match up.  Remember to keep letters on one side of the circle and pictures on the other side of the circle.  I have included a picture of the second circle.   Have fun!!! : )

Linked to For the Kids Friday

Caterpillar Review Activity

Caterpillar Review Activity

This was a fun activity that I made for Little Sweets.  Each player gets a caterpillar sheet and tries to fill in the circles.  I laminated colored circles to use as the body.  I wrote words and numbers we were working on that week on the circles and turned them over.  Little Sweets picked a circle and could place it on her caterpillar if she could tell me what the name of the number or word on the circle.  I plan on using this game as a review with other words and numbers in the future. 

Tot School Week 4

Our theme this week was based on the book, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? We also did some other fun activities too.

Brown Bear, Brown Bear Activities
Early on in the week we read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What do you see? by Eric Carle. I love this book and had planned on using it for my story and art activity. What started out as just one activity evolved into multiple activities. Here are some things that we did.

Math Activity: Color Sorting

While we were reading the story we talked a lot about colors. That's when I decided that it would be a good idea if we did a color sort. I copied three pictures from the book: blue horse, green frog, and yellow duck. Then I found items around the house that were one of those three colors and I had Little Sweets sort the items by color.

Science: Animal Identification Game
I copied all of the pictures of the animals from the book, cut them out, and glued them to index cards. Then I had Little Sweets point to the animals. I tried telling her which animal to point to but, she thought it was more fun to tell me which animals she wanted to point to. She wasn't super interested in this activity, but I hope to come back to it and emphasize the animals colors. I would like to ask her; "to point to the blue animal or the green animal etc."

Art Activity: Painting with Pudding

I got this idea from Michelle Kincaid at http://www.atozteacherstuff.com/ Little Sweets used pudding to paint her bear brown. Great art activity and snack....

Other Fun Activities

Field Trip: Saluda Shoals Park and Enviromental Center

Little Sweets loves being outdoors. She also loves animals, so I decided to take her a park near our house for a nature walk. While we were at the park we saw lots of squirrels and birds.

This is a picture of Little Sweets running after the birds saying; "flying, flying."

We also went to the enviromental center at the park. They had a play area for children. Little Sweets loved playing in the tree house and the tunnel.

Jellybean Math

I made jellybean number cards for Little Sweets. She placed the jellybeans on the card and we counted them together. To read more about this activity and to get printables for it go here.

I also made jellybean pattern cards. I used the cards to teach Little Sweets about colors, matching, and to introduce patterns. To read more about this activity or to get the printable to go with it, please go here.

Language Arts: Learning about the Alphabet

Little Sweets has a new favorite song; "The Alphabet Train" by Dr. Jean. We listened to this song four times in a row before daddy and I decided that was enough. Little Sweets danced on her alphabet mats as she listened to the song. She also got out her alphabet puzzle as soon as the song started playing.

Tot School Week 3

This week I decided to do things differently. I don't have a theme, but instead have divided activities up by subject area.


Science Activity: We are still learning about animals. Little Sweets loved going to the pond that is near our house. She got to see ducks and turtles. She enjoyed quacking at the ducks. She also saw lots of people walking dogs. She barked at most of the dogs and meowed at a chihuhua.

Math Activity:Sorting fruit loops by color

Language Arts Activities: We are working on the alphabet. We listened to the song The Alphabet Train by Dr. Jean and Little Sweets worked on her alphabet puzzle.

Art Activities: Talked about colors as we made fruit loop necklaces. We also made colored salt jars. (We made the noodle necklace a few weeks ago.)

Field Trip: We went to Edventure the Children's Museum in Columbia

I thought this was the cutest exhibit, a mini grocery store for kids. Little Sweets knew exactly what to do since she likes to go to shopping with mommy. When she was finished shopping she had to put everything back. She knew exactly where everything went. She's just like her daddy very organized and puts everything back in its place.

Make Your Own Magnetic Story Board

I used a homemade magnet board and magnets to help tell the story I went walking by Sue Williams

To do this activity you will need the following materials.

Materials

self-stick magnetic strips

scissors

crayons or markers

cookie sheet

printed off coloring pages for the animals

contact paper

First, I took a cookie sheet and turned it over to use as a magnet board. Then I found coloring pictures online. I printed them off, colored them, covered them with contact paper, and stuck a magnet on the back of the picture. I used the magnets to help tell the story; I went walking by Sue Williams. As I read the story I asked Little Sweets to pick out the animal mentioned on the page and stick it to the magnet board.

You can also use the magnets to teach your child about colors, animal names, and animal sounds. For example; you can ask your child to place the yellow animal on the magnet board or place the animal that says; "quack" on the magnet board. There are so many possiblities.

Resource: Book- Story Stretchers for Infatnts, Toddlers, and Twos

Foam Letters and Contact Paper

Foam Letters and Contact Paper

I found a tub of foam letters in my old teaching stuff and thought I might put it to good use. So I brought out the letters and encouraged little sweets to put the letters on the sticky side of some contact paper. Her interest didn’t last too long. She put a few letters on the contact paper and then got bored. She decided it was more fun to poke out the middles of the letters and hand them to daddy. Well at least the activity wasn’t a complete failure. She was working on her fine motor skills as she poked out the middle of the foam letters. : )

Homemade Book Making

It was a very busy weekend. I will update you with some of the activities we did throughout the week. Today I am going to share about book making. While I was reading a story to Little Sweets I got the brilliant idea to make my own book. The book we were reading was Who’s at the door? Little Sweets absolutely loves this book. She walks around the house saying knock, knock when she wants to hear it. Since she likes the book so much I decided to make my own knock, knock book.

These are the materials I used to make my own book
Card Stock (I used white)
Yarn
Hole Puncher
Construction Paper
Contact Paper
Hot Glue Gun
Glue Stick

Instructions to make your own book
Fold your card stock in half so it looks like a card.
Use a hole puncher to punch 3 holes in the folded card
Line your next piece of card stock up with the piece that already has the holes in it and repeat step 2
After you have finished punching holes in the cardstock put the pieces inside each other so they look like pages in a book.
Cut a 3 pieces of yarn about 4 inches long
Thread the yarn through the holes and tie them in bows.

You can write your own story or have your child write their own story in the book. I found that making books out cardstock last longer then simply stapling paper together.

The book I wrote is quite simple to read. On one page I wrote the words; knock, knock and who is at the door. There is a door on the other page. When you open the door you see a picture of a family member and their name. I use this book in helping with learning extended family members names. It has worked out well. Gracie enjoys looking through the books. (I had to make 3 different books because she has so many relatives)

The doors I made inside the book were very simple to make. I printed off pictures of family members from the computer and pasted them onto construction paper. Then I pasted a picture of a door on the other side. Next I covered the construction paper with contact paper and cut out the door and picture. I folded the construction paper and used hot glue to attach it to the book.

Just as a side note if you are making anything out of paper that you want to save, cover it in clear contact paper. It’s similar to laminating just not quite as durable.

Activities Using Shaving Cream

Activities Using Shaving Cream

Young children love to play with shaving cream. Placing a small amount of shaving cream on the table to play with is a great sensory activity, especially for little ones. But did you know that there are other activities you can do with shaving cream. I would like to share some activities with you.

Teaching about Colors using Shaving Cream
Add a few drops of food coloring to the shaving cream and mix with your fingers. Have your child mix different colors together and discover what happens.

Writing Letters in Shaving Cream
Have your child practice writing lower and uppercase letters with their finger in shaving cream.

Writing Spelling Words in Shaving Cream
Read the words to your child and have them use their finger to write out the words in the shaving cream instead of writing the words on the paper.

Writing Number Problems Using Shaving Cream
Read a math story problem to your child and have them write the number problem out in the shaving cream. You can have them draw the picture that goes with the story problem in the shaving cream too. For example you read, “Tara has 4 apples and Dan has 2 apples. How many apples do they have all together?” Your child can draw 4 circles to represent Tara’s apples and 2 circles to represent Dan’s apples and then write the math problem 4+2=6.

I usually do shaving cream activities on surfaces I know won't get ruined. If you are worried about ruining a table put down a platic tablecloth or keep the shaving cream on a placemat or cookie sheet.

When using food coloring be careful not to stain clothing.

Also be careful not to let your child eat the shaving cream.