The Gem Jiggler

Do you habitually save things like egg cartons at your house? Sometimes my desk looks more like a recycling center than an office! But look- all that trash treasure comes in handy!

We have glass beads from the dollar store that we use for our behavior system (more on that later). Ryan still needs some work with double digit numbers. This game was super easy to make and provides another fun way to practice our numbers.

I started by cutting a single circle and asking him to trace it and cut it out 17 times. He did 4 in 30 minutes. It was great cutting practice- but I didn’t want to use all his patience on making the game! After the circles were cut I wrote the numbers and glued them to the egg carton.  TaDa done!

To play, stick a gem in the jiggler (aka the egg carton). Close it up and shake, shake, shake. The kids had a blast being super silly with their shakes. Open the jiggler and announce what number your gem is on. In yesterday’s version we announced the number, and then showed it on our abacus. If you could do both you got to keep the gem!

In the near future I’m going to use this game to introduce our place value kit.  With older kids you could have them write roman numerals or tally marks, or practice addition or subtraction. You could use sight words instead of numbers! You could use English or Spanish vocabulary. For younger kids you could include shapes or colors. Older kids could graph the colors they shake. The possibilities are endless…

Locks & Keys

I had a couple of keyed padlocks laying around the house, and picked up a few more at the dollar store last week. Ryan has loved playing with them everyday and had gotten really good at quickly figuring out which key opens which lock. He likes to lock the locks together, and on various things around the house. Even little Ella loves trying to put the keys in the locks.  It’s great hand-eye coordination, fine motor skill practice, and a logical thinking activity.

All of the locks came with two keys so I kept an emergency set :) As you can see we’re storing these in my new favorite containers: produce clamshells. Ryan traced the keys to decorate the lid.

Sticks of Endless Possibilities

icLast week Ella played with sticks in gymnastics class for a few minutes. She loved it and my brain started spinning with possibilities. We were in Home Depot the next day (because, we’re building this for Ryan, but that’s a whole other post…) and I just had to pick up some giant dowels to make our own set of sticks. I bought 12 sticks and painted them with 2 coats of paint plus a layer of polyurethane for durability. It took less than an hour and cost about $8 (I already had the paint and polyurethane).

I just love how many different things you can do with the sticks! In the picture you see us trying to march and tap at the same time. You can tap them above your head, by your knees, on your left side, behind your back. You can stand on one foot while tapping, you can take turns creating beats to mimic. You can use them to write letters in the air, or lay them out on the ground to create shapes, or use them as giant tally sticks, or hide them outside. See why my head is spinning- endless possibilities!!
I’m going to try and keep these special by only bringing them out occasionally and doing new things with them each time. I can see using them a lot in our music and exercise activities.

Color Sorting Game

Forever ago I picked up a bunch of paint samples. I had intended to make a cool word game. I don't have a fancy dancy giant paper punch, so I decided that the game would be too much work for the amount of use it would get. Plus, we have tons of similar stuff.

So, I've had these samples sitting in my to-prep pile. I've seen a bunch of different ideas. After, my discussion on the importance of fine tuning the senses I decided to make a color matching game. I most recently saw it on Crunchy and Green.

I was super excited that it took less than 20 minutes of the oh-so-precious Quiet Time to make! Ryan really likes it, but it is very difficult for him. That's another bonus, because too often the stuff I create for him is too easy- and doesn't get used enough. Plus, learning to work at (and not get too frustrated) with something that is difficult is a very important lesson in itself!

Obviously, to make it easier you could just use a single sheet of each color. Some children may need help with the clothespins, but it is great fine motor practice.

Owl Week

We're learning about owls this week in anticipation of attending an  event at our local nature preserve this weekend.

We started by making owl dolls with our friend Princess R! First I printed a simple owl image. I taped the owl picture to the table and then taped a piece of muslin on top of it. The kids used fabric markers to trace the owl. They did way better with the tracing than I expected! Next they got to color their new friend in. Our owls are double sided. To make sure the owls were facing the same direction on each side, I flipped over the owl print out and traced it in sharpie. Then I taped it sharpie side up and they traced and colored again.

I took each kids' two owl drawings and pinned them with the right sides together before cutting them. Next I sewed around the edges leaving the bottom open so that I would be able to flip it right side out. After flipping it right side out we stuffed them and sewed them shut.
They took about an hour total and the kids are so excited about their new owl friends!

We read about owls in our Usborne Owl book. Tomorrow we are going to use the internet links from the book to watch a video of an owl hunting, listen to different owl sounds, and sing songs about owls. 

We played Owl Roll and Color Addition for math today. To play print out the linked page,  then take turns rolling two dice. Add the numbers (or dots) on the dice and color the corresponding area on the owl.  The first person to have their owl colored is the winner. I was trying to show Ryan how to add using a counting on technique. So if he rolled a four and two. I would have him put up four fingers, then two more and count it as four, five, six. 

We are going to the library to look for more owl books tomorrow. I'll let you know if we come up with anymore great owl activities!

Monday Math- Counting

What kid wouldn't love a counting game with clothespins? I made this counting wheel with a different number of star stickers in each section. Ryan's job is to count the number of stars then find and attach the clothespin with the matching number on it. Since I would like to work on larger numbers, next time I would make larger sections so that it's easier to count when there are more stickers.

**I forgot to add that I put tally marks on the back so that I didn't have to count the stars to check it. You could write the number to make it self correcting, if that works for your little one.


Ella loves trying this by having her own wheel and clothespins. Of course she can't count, but trying to use the clothespins is great for her fine motor skills!

Monday Math- Writing Numbers

My usual worksheet loving kiddo hasn't been in the mood lately- which works for me! (For some reason for a long time Ryan has LOVED doing worksheets!)

So, we have been using a variety of methods to learn how to write our numbers. Today we tried to make the digits out of pipe-cleaners. This was actually harder for Ryan's little fingers than I expected. But, nevertheless we had fun with it for a few minutes and mommy was there to help.

We've also used playdough and shaving cream in the last few days for some practice with writing our numbers. For when Ryan does want to do some handwriting practice I've put practice sheets into plastic page protectors. He has fun writing on them with an overhead marker (dry erase markers work too, but they smudge easily). His favorite part is when I take the paper out and the marker stays put! I love it because I don't have to make copies.

Toddler Tuesday- Pouring Palooza!

This year we had to move the kids activity table and chairs to set up the Christmas tree. I stuck it in the garage thinking that we could easily live without it for a few weeks. I was wrong, but I'm so glad! I think we have used the table everyday now that I realized I can easily move it anywhere in the house.

I was trying to cook a healthy dinner, even though Daddy was working late. So, instead of turning on the tv, I brought the table into the kitchen. I put a huge vinyl tablecloth on the floor and grabbed a few towels to have handy if when, things got messy. I gave the kids measuring cups, spoons, ladles, all kinds of stuff from the kitchen. I only gave them about 2.5 cups of water, but it was plenty!

Ella got some great practice pouring and stirring. Ryan had fun seeing how many ladles it took to fill up the different containers. Next time I'll mix up the toys and find a funnel. I may even get brave enough to add food coloring. 

The grand finale was when Ryan dumped the big measuring cup, and it all started raining off the table. Ella screamed shower and stuck her head under it! Well, it's only water and I got the ahi broiled and veggies sauteed- what more could a mama ask for!


In case you've got a keen eye and are wondering, Yes- that is the same Batman shirt as yesterday! It wasn't worth the battle this morning :)