Alphabet Water Play

Today I needed an activity that was easy to set up and that Monkey could play with independently. My poor little Peanut has been sick for a while now and I think he might be teething, too. 

I did a similar activity about six months ago, minus the water. So in the back of my head I knew that it would probably entertain Monkey again if I added water. 

Supplies: letters (we used foam and sponge), ladle, tongs, bucket, towel, food colouring (optional)

Monkey decided to use blue food colouring so he helped me drop it in and stir up the water in the bucket. 

If you use food colouring, I recommend only a drop or two - it can stain your hands even when it's diluted. Personally I'm not worried about that, I think if you can eat it then how could it be bad for your skin? Something to keep in mind, though. 

Next, we dumped in the letters and Monkey started to play. 

I decided to put in two sets of alphabet letters so that we could find matching pairs.

Monkey also practiced his letter sounds while grabbing the letters with the tongs. He does this on his own all the time, almost any time he sees the alphabet. 

Just as I'd hoped, he was able to play with this independently. When I had a chance I would come over and talk to him about the letters or ask what he was doing. We found a few letter pairs. That was tricky because the amount of letters meant that Monkey really needed to focus to discriminate and find the specific ones he was looking for. 

Mar

Glow Stick Bath

I know I've said it before but it bears repeating: kids love playing with water! And there is certainly nowhere easier than in the bathtub. (Okay, outside is a winner too..) 

We do this activity about once a month for bath. It's Monkey's favourite special bath, hands down! 

Supplies: glow sticks

I got these glow sticks at the dollar store. The eight smaller ones came in one package and the large tri-colour one was separate. They have a huge selection of glow sticks at both of the dollar stores I go to so I try to buy Monkey all different ones to try out. 

First you break the glow sticks. Depending on the age of your child and how easy the glow sticks are to break, let them help! Monkey can break the smaller, thinner ones. 

Then it's bath time! Fill up your tub and throw in the glow sticks. 

Then turn off the lights!

We usually use around 8-10 glow sticks. I find it lights up the room enough once you shut the door so that you can still see each other's faces and the bath tub enough to be safe. 

Monkey never uses any other toys in his glow stick bath, he has too much fun playing with the glow sticks. 

Today he started making letters with the glow sticks. All on his own, I swear! He even asked if we could make letters on the floor after bath was over. Um, yes!!!

After a glow stick bath we always put the glow sticks in Monkey's room for the night. I wish they lasted longer than a day but it's a fun treat to have every once in a while. 

Mar

Stacking Cups

Here's a really great, no prep, fun activity to work on hand-eye coordination and to introduce concepts of stability. I think I had as much fun as Monkey did with this one. 

This is a big hit with my Kinders and is available for them to work with for most of the year in the building centre. 

The cups were given to me but I'm told they are fairly priced for a very large bag at Costco. On a smaller scale I think the dollar store would be a good place to look, too. 

Supplies: cups

Monkey had no idea what I was up to when I put the stacks of cups out in the middle of the floor. As soon as I started playing with them he jumped right in. 

We ended up building a really big pyramid, taller than him, and when he was reaching up to put the last cup on the top, it toppled over! I wasn't fast enough to get a picture. But it was actually awesome - all the cups hitting the hardwood made a really cool noise. 

It can be frustrating for a kid to work on something and have it fail, especially so close to the end like Monkey was. But it gave us a chance to talk about trying again and making it different. 

This time I helped him make the bottom stronger and more stable and we were able to finish the whole thing.  

Since it didn't fall on us Monkey got to knock it over himself - possibly the best part of this whole activity! 

Peanut even got in on the action after his nap. 

Mar

Painting with Cotton Swabs

Today we did another activity to add to our ocean mural. We're almost done with making the ocean creatures, two more to go, and then we'll make the background.

I'm always looking for art activities that are open-ended. There's certainly a time and place for doing a craft that has one outcome. But they can limit creativity because there's only one way to do them. Using techniques and provocations that require more imagination from the child allows their ideas to come through and places more emphasis on the creative process as opposed to the product. 

Supplies: paint, cotton swabs, construction paper (white), crab outline

I chose to turn the end product into a crab but you could do anything your child was interested in. 

Painting with different objects is always a hit with kids. They can explore how to manipulate the paint using something other than a paintbrush. 

I told Monkey that we'd be painting and then using the paper to make a crab. He chose to use only red paint even though I offered him many colours to choose from. He's in the stage where everything is very literal. Crabs are red, so his crab has to be red. 

Monkey got started with the cotton swabs. Since they are a bit smaller than a paintbrush he found them to be pretty messy and he didn't love that aspect of it. He went through quite a few because he didn't want to use them anymore if the paint got up where his fingers were touching. 

I told him to try and cover the whole page with red. He painted for about four minutes, not too bad. 

I figured he had done one big section at least, which could be the body of the crab. 

When the paint was dry, I cut out the crab I had printed off and traced it onto the back of the paper Monkey had painted. Whenever possible, I trace on the backside of the paper to ensure that my trace lines won't be visible. 

Then I cut out the crab and we added on some googly eyes. It's so cute!!

Mar

Alphabet Train

Monkey has known his uppercase alphabet for a while now, so I want to get started on the lowercase set.

He's such a typical boy. He loves playing outside and any toy that has wheels. So using something he likes is a great way to get him interested in learning. 

In this activity Monkey has to match lowercase letters to the corresponding uppercase one. 

I got the idea here: http://thrivinghomeblog.com/2013/11/alphabet-train-toddler-learning-activity/

This took about twenty minutes of prep time which I did the night before. 

Supplies: construction paper, train template, tape, scissors, markers, card stock (optional)

I began by printing a train picture off the Internet to trace and cut out of construction paper. 

Then I cut out the cars for the train out of construction paper. Once I had all thirteen cars cut out I wrote the uppercase alphabet on them, two letters per car. 

I also cut out little squares from card stock (you could use construction paper) and wrote the lowercase alphabet on them. 

I cut out black wheels for all the trains as well. Mostly because I had time while I was watching tv and a little because I knew it would look cool. 

The next day once Peanut was down for his afternoon nap, I grabbed the tape and started putting up the train. Monkey had seen the train and all the letters on the counter earlier in the day and kept asking me what they were for.

I only got the first two cars of the train up before he was standing right beside me asking to help. So I just put the tape on the back for him and he stuck them up on the wall. It looks so cute! 

He told me the back of the train is going over a mountain. 

Then I told Monkey what we were going to do. He got started right away. I couldn't get the tape on the back of the lowercase letters fast enough. I was surprised how many he knew without my help. The obvious tricky ones - b, d, p - required some help, plus a few others. I'm not sure where he learned them but I was impressed. 

I love activities where he can be up and moving around. He always responds better if we're up and moving as opposed to sitting at the table. He kept walking the length of the train, singing the alphabet. 

He always watches me take all the pictures to post here and usually he grabs his toy camera and takes some too, but today he ask to take some pictures on my phone. So I handed it over. He took about a hundred pictures and some turned out pretty good. 

I'm going to leave the train up on the wall for a little while. He has been re-visiting it when he walks by, and it's quick and easy to ask him to find a few letters when we pass by. 

Mar

Painting with Bubble Wrap

Okay, so sadly the summer is over and we are finally back into a schedule over here. Time to do some art!

I'm always looking for some art activities that might catch Monkey's interest for longer than a few minutes. His attention span can be super long when he's playing with his cars and trucks, which is great, but it seems to be so short for activities like coloring or making a craft. So when I saw this painting activity using bubble wrap on your feet I figured it was worth a try. 

I got the idea here: http://www.messforless.net/bubble-wrap-stomp-painting

Supplies: bubble wrap, tape, paint, paint brushes, paper

To get started, I rolled out a long strip of paper and taped it to the floor using painter's tape. Then I laid a tablecloth next to it. 

I taped the bubble wrap to Monkey's feet while he sat on the table cloth. 

I'm not sure where we got green bubble wrap but I like it!

Monkey had picked out two colours of paint. I painted them onto the bottom of his feet. He wanted to help do it but it was too hard to do without making a huge mess.

He laughed a lot when I was painting his feet, so ticklish!

I picked him up and stood him up on the paper. Then he started walking back and forth. 

I think he liked it, he was trying to watch a little bit behind himself to see what was happening. 

Once it seemed like his feet weren't leaving paint behind anymore I would help him sit back down and paint his feet again. He did it five times, which was less than I thought he would but he did tell me he thought it looked cool! 

I do too!! 

I've put it up on the wall and I think next week we'll add some new colors to fill it in a bit more. 

Mar