Alphabet Books

I LOVED this idea when I first saw it on No Time For Flash Cards and I have finally managed to begin Alphabet Books of our own. I got a hold of some scrapbooks, drew block outline uppercase letters on the left hand pages, and the lowercase letters on the right hand pages.
For the letter 'A', we copied the idea from No Time For Flashcards - that is, the girls pasted green pieces of paper into the letter, and then added some white cardboard 'teeth' (cut with pinking shears) and some googly eyes, to create Alligator A's.

PLAY TIME ~ DEC 5th-11th

This week, play with WRAPPING PAPER.

At some point this week, try a game or activity with your little one that you've never played before, which involves wrapping paper. I figure that around Christmas time, we'll all have some of that floating around the house.
For a baby, this may be wrapping a box (from your recyclables stash) in some scraps of paper, and then letting them tear the paper off and have a good play with it. For a toddler, this may be teaching them how to wrap presents, or adding their own decorative touches to existing wrapping paper (with a potato stamp? Some glitter paint? Christmas stickers?), or making a crown - like the ones the wise men wear in the nativity scene - with leftover bits of paper and some cardboard. Please post your game in the comments attached to this post, so we can inspire other parents with our ideas!

Counting Cards

Numbers is one of those things that many toddlers pick up quite easily. I used to count everything I could from when Eden was less than one year old; cars on the street, letters in the mailbox, books on my bedside table, cans in the cupboard...everything. The upshot of this was that Eden knew how to count to ten when she started speaking, because she had heard me count so often. So now, I'm trying to extend her numeracy knowledge.
I made four cards, wrote the numbers at the bottom of each card (always slipping in literacy whenever I can!) and marked each card with dot/s to represent the numbers.

Nature Printing

Now that we're experiencing a welcome return to sunshiney days, thank you Spring!, I have been going for walks with my kids just about every day again. Sometimes, Eden just wants to run around, sometimes, she sits in the stroller, and sometimes we take a plastic bag with us and go nature-collecting. She picks up leaves, grass, bark, pebbles, gumnuts, flowers, anything she thinks is interesting, and puts it in her bag.

When we get home, she puts her 'collection' into one or two of my glass vases and it sits on the hall table as a display. Other times, we lay it out on a table in the playroom which acts as the 'Nature Table'. Yesterday, we used her haul to create some nature art.

I laid out some newspaper to protect the table, and cut some old sponges in half, dampened them, put them in meat trays and squirted some paint onto each sponge.

She simply pressed the leaves/sticks/gumnuts into the paint and pressed them onto the paper to create prints. She had a ball!

I had planned for her to paste the leaves onto a cereal box when she'd finished painting with them but we ran out of time.

If you wanted to, you could also get your littlie to arrange leaves or pressed flowers on a sheet of waxed paper (glossy side up). Then put another sheet of waxed paper on top (glossy side down) and iron together with a moderately warm iron. You end up with a semi-translucent sheet with the leaves and flowers showing through. A lovely idea for wrapping paper.

**Also, try adding a squirt of detergent into the paint (makes it easier to clean up afterwards), and you could always let your kids experiment with pebbles, sticks, etc, too. Thanks to Kate G. for this handy tip! :D

Bash Bag Fun!

This activity was a big hit ('scuse the pun)! Eden and I tore sheets of paper out of some catalogues and scrunched them up into balls (both tearing and scrunching help develop  important fine motor skills) and stuffed a shopping bag with the paper until full. I tied the bag up and attached some yarn to the handles, and hung it above a doorway. Then, armed with a spatula each, Eden and I batted it back and forth; great for teaching cause and effect and for hand-eye co-ordination.

 

 

Other ways to use the bag:

• Kick it around (for younger children) or to set up some 'goals' with a few chairs and play soccer with it
• Tie it to a sturdy overhanging branch outside, just within your child's reach to encourange jumping
• Make a few bags up and cover with a towel/sheet to make a scrunchy bed for toys
• Play hockey with it and a long cardboard cylinder (for the hockey stick)
• Stick a line of masking tape on the floor and get your child to try hitting the bag along the length of the line, from one end to the other

Let me know any other ideas you come up with via the comments (anyone can post a comment). Have fun!