Ball tube course

This fun activity teaches cause and effect and critical thinking. The kids really had to think about where they thought the ball was going to end up. We made this like a marble run but we used a bouncy ball, TP rolls, colored duck tape, magnets and the fridge of course. it was a lot of fun and it would be a great rainy day activity. Instructions are really simple;
1st save different size cardboard tubes,
2nd get different color duck tape and cover the tubes,
3rd place round magnets with sticky backs on the tubes. Make sure you use the round one instead of the long strips( the round ones hold to the fridge better). Also put at least 4 magnets on the paper towel sized tubes and 2 on the TP ones.
Another tip, make sure you have a ball per kid or they tend to fight over it.
This was part if our Letter T lesson.

Letter G

G is for
Each lesson starts with the intro to the letter that we are learning that week. I show cardboard cut letter and then I ask, Do you know what letter this is? And what sound does it make? Then we practice and talk about the letter and sing the song by Leapfrog, The (name the letter) says (letter sound), The (name Letter) says (letter sound), every letter makes a sound the (name the letter) says (letter sound).Next we do tracing and intro to the word of the day. We practice saying, spelling and writing the word. Then we start the specail activity, which is different for each letter.
ACTIVITY:
G is for GREEN
First we practice writing the word and talking about each letter and their sounds. Then we have a GREEN hunt. I got out our magnifying glasses and a GREEN basket and then we went through the boys favorite toys and found all the GREEN things. GREEN trains, cars, balls, dinosaurs, blocks and more. The kids had a great time! I was able to get them to help clean up by bribing them with a green snack. GREEN GRAPES.

Letter S

S is for Sand Each lesson starts with the intro to the letter that we are learning that week. I show cardboard cut letter and then I ask, Do you know what letter this is? And what sound does it make? Then we practice and talk about the letter and sing the song by Leapfrog, The (name the letter) says (letter sound), The (name Letter) says (letter sound), every letter makes a sound the (name the letter) says (letter sound). Next we do tracing and intro to the word of the day. We practice saying, spelling and writing the word. Then we start the specail activity, which is different for each letter. For this letter we practice writing the letter S in the SANDBOX. Using a skewer I wrote a uppercase S and a lower case S and had my son copy underneath. Then we practiced writing the word SAND. He had a lot of fun writing in the sand and it was an added way to practice the letter. We also made cupcakes with "sand" on them. That was a big hit of course!

Letter F

F is for Frog Each lesson starts with the intro to the letter that we are learning that week. I show cardboard cut letter and then I ask, Do you know what letter this is? And what sound does it make? Then we practice and talk about the letter and sing the song by Leapfrog, The (name the letter) says (letter sound), The (name Letter) says (letter sound), every letter makes a sound the (name the letter) says (letter sound). Next we do tracing and intro to the word of the day. We practice saying, spelling and writing the word. Then we start the specail activity, which is different for each letter. Today since it was the Letter F we went on a Frog Find where we searched through the enitre house trying to find frogs. We found them in the stuffed animal basket, toy bins, on books and even on quilts. What a fun time we had Finding Frogs! Then we Flipped Frogs. After Easter I bought a frog game not really knowing what I was going to use it for. The kids spent a good 20 minutes playing and flipping the frogs. After each day we try to think of other words that start with the letter of the week. It is amazing what my boys can come up with. I will sometimes give them hints, for example; I am thinking of a "B" word that we can eat and is yellow. Answer Banana.

The little says Roll over

 

This fun idea goes along with a fun song I learned when I was little. It goes something like this. "3 in a bed and the little ones says, I'm crowded roll over, roll over." But it is really made to go with the book 10 in the bed by Penny Dale. This is a really cute way for kids to practice story order. As well as working on listening skills.

Shop O Roma

We just love the Llama Llama books by Anna Dewdney. After reading the Llama llama mad at mama we did our own shop O Roma like in the book. Using cardboard boxes, tape and some stickers we made a scanner, shelfs and a fridge. We had a great time shopping using our play kitchen toys, food and our new shop o roma items.

 

 

Fridge section where we put our cold items. The kids had a lot of fun opening and closing the doors as they put the food in and out.

 

Here is one of the felt foods that we had. It is really easy to make, red felt with pick stripes glued or stiched to it. Place in a plastic bag and you had shop o roma bacon.

I got this idea from the Play and learn we went to when we lived in San Antonio. It was great!

Busy Bag intro

Being a former elementary teacher has forever changed the way I view children's activities. I am a big fan of limited TV and a tons of hands-on learning activities to fill a child's (especially toddler & preschoolers) days. So once I saw Busy Bags I became completely obsessed. I had already been doing these types of activities with my own kids but making them into easy take anywhere bags was an awesome idea. Children need and love to learn, we just need to provide the opportunity for them to grow! The picture and lots of fun ideas can be found here

Socks

Ok this is a simple, productive and Fun way to work on matching with your young child. While doing laundry save all your socks until you have a big pile. Than help you child lay out socks and find matches. You can make it a race or a contest to see who can finish first. Another thing we like to do is after all the socks are matched and folded into balls we play dodgesock ( you know like dodge all). Another game is setting up everyone's laundry baskets and shooting them into the baskets like basket balls. You can have fun, get chores done and work on matching, color and aiming skills. Not to mention a lot of smiles and fun!

Fast food Busy Bag

I love finding easy all put together activities for my kids. And this we just happened to find as we were traveling and stopped for lunch. As we got the kids their kids meals i didn't expect to much more than the normal chicken, apples, milk and some cheap toy that would entertain the kids for a few minutes. I was pleasantly surprised to find Mattel travel versions of some of there games. I was so excited I asked for more. I was able to get Pictonary Man, Wac A Mole & Flippin' Frogs. In the Wendy's kids meals. My kids really enjoyed them and were able to work their brains at the same time.