February 28, 2013

What is a color game my toddler can play with that will teach him about rainbows?

I’ve made several color games for Smiley Man now and they have been awesome, but I really wanted to make something for him that was a little more self-directed. I wanted to have something he could play with even if I wasn’t sitting right there showing him what to do. I remembered this awesome easy craft clay that I made with Little Bear several months ago, and I knew just what to do to adapt it to a toddler color game.

First I made some of this easy craft clay. When you are done making it, the bottom of your pan will be coated in clay stuff and you will be worried that it will never come out. It will come out, I promise. ;)

Once the clay was finished, we rolled out a few thin “snakes” and put them on top of this rainbow template to make sure they had the right size and shape. You have to be careful with the size of your snakes. You want them big enough that they will be able to hold up to toddler use, but you want them thin enough that they don’t take forever to dry. If they are too thick it will take them a week or more to dry completely. I know this from experience. :(

Once the clay has dried completely (it will still take a day or two) get out some paint and have your toddler help paint the pieces the correct colors of the rainbow. We used watercolor paint and they worked beautifully. Be sure to talk about the different colors and explain that the colors always go in that order. You can also look up images of rainbows on the internet and show your toddler that rainbows always have the same colors in the same order. If you are lucky, you will have a real rainbow you can show your toddler.

After all the painting is done, let the paint dry completely. This will probably take another day or so. Once the paint is all dry, you can take the pieces off of the template and they are now a rainbow puzzle.  I have done this twice and the first time the pieces dried beautifully with no cracks. As you can see, there were lots of cracks this time, but it’s a puzzle, right? The cracks just make it more puzzle-like. I printed another copy of the rainbow template onto cardstock and I painted it the colors of the rainbow, then I laminated it. I have Smiley Man put the pieces onto the rainbow template.

Smiley Man really likes this rainbow puzzle. They have held up pretty well to his use, but I do have to watch and make sure the pieces don’t go into his mouth. :)

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

February 21, 2013

What is an activity with bubbles that will help my child learn about colors?

This color game was definitely one of Smiley Man’s favorites. He didn’t have to guess the right color, or sort, or anything. We just explored colors and had fun with them. Luckily, this is still a great way for teaching your toddler colors.

I started by pouring some bubble solution (from the dollar store) into each of three small containers. You could do this activity in the container the bubbles come in, but I wanted the colors to be easier to see. Next, I put a few drops of food coloring into each container. I think I dropped in about 5 drops per container. We just did red, yellow, and blue this day, but I think we’ll do this activity again with orange, green, and purple.

I sat down with Smiley Man and Little Bear at their preschool table and gave each of them a white piece of paper. Then, I showed them how they could blow bubbles onto their paper and it would make color on their paper. Both of my kids were totally fascinated by this phenomenon.

Little Bear loves blowing the bubbles and making a bunch of colors on the paper. Then, he wanted to make a paper with only blue bubbles.

Smiley Man needed my help holding the bubble wand because he kept putting the bubble wand in his mouth. :( Yucky. As long as I held the bubble wand though, Smiley did great. His favorite part was popping the bubbles on the paper and then seeing the color appear.

My kiddos loved this game and it was a really great way to learn the colors. Both my preschooler and my toddler were able to just enjoy colors and have fun with them. Plus, Smiley Man is really starting to get his colors down. His favorite color is definitely blue. I see a blue-themed 2 year old birthday party in our future. :)

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

February 18, 2013

What are some toddler school activities that have a ball theme?

This is our fourth set of Montessori inspired tot trays. Smiley Man (21 months) does tot school while I am doing homeschool preschool with Little Bear. So far, Smiley really loves these trays and I love it because they are getting my toddler ready for school. Hopefully you can find a few tray ideas and activity ideas for your preschool or toddler as you look at Smiley Man’s trays.

Ball Themed Tot Trays

2 Part Puzzles

Print off these 2 part ball puzzles. Put all of them or only a few puzzles on the tray. Smiley Man matched the two parts together and then put the puzzle into the container.

Round Sponges and Water

This was definitely one of Smiley Man’s favorite tot tray, but it was also the messiest. I filled one bowl halfway with water and added a drop of blue food coloring. I also put three circle sponges (to look like balls) and another empty bowl on the tray. I showed Smiley how to fill a sponge with water and then squeeze the water into the empty bowl. My toddler loved this activity so much! The mess was worth the fun he had. I do want to note that I kept this tray in the kitchen when it was not being used. Since Smiley’s tot trays belong on a bookshelf that sits on carpet, I didn’t want the tray on the bookshelf. :)

Color Match Spike Balls

Okay, these aren’t really balls, they are jacks, but they do kind of somewhat look a little like balls, right? I figured they were close enough for a toddler. I put four colors of jacks, two of each color on the tray. Smiley Man found a match, then set it to the side.

Bead Paper Towel Rolls onto Straws

There were two straws set in a small amount of play dough on this tray. There were also several paper towel rolls cut into “beads.” Smiley Man beaded the paper towel rolls onto the straws. This has been another favorite.

Numbered Cups and Spike Balls

This activity also uses jacks, not balls, but just use your imagination. ;) There were three cups numbered 1, 2, and 3. Smiley Man put the correct number of balls into each cup. He isn’t quite old enough to understand the concept of this game, but he loves the sound of the jacks when he puts them into the cup and he LOVES dumping them back out again.

Color Game 7

(Each color game is only on the tray for one week. The rest of the activities are on the trays for two weeks. That means I go through two color games, but only one of all the other activities.)

Here is the Color Game 7 post.

Color Game 8

Here is the Color Game 8 post.

Ball Tot Book

I read this book at least once during the time that these trays are out. If Smiley man uses this tray while I am working with Little Bear, he can color the pictures or just look at the pictures as he turns the pages. I do not in any way expect Smiley Man to learn how to read by looking at this book. This book is simply for exposure to words and letters and concepts of print.

Printables

I made this ball pit printable. I cut out the balls and gave Smiley Man a glue stick so he could glue the balls into the ball pit. I also printed off some ball coloring pages.

Featured Toy

This tray just had a bunch of balls from our toy collection. Since Smiley Man’s first word was “ball” and balls are practically his favorite thing in the universe, we have quite a collection of balls. He loved this tray.

Themed Books

We don’t really  have any ball books. Sorry. I just grabbed some books we haven’t done on a tray yet.

• Dinosaur Roar!
• Fly Guy Vs. the Flyswatter
• The Berenstain’s B Book
• Read to Me

Here are some ball books:

• Balls
• A Ball for Daisy
• Ball

Pompom Stuff it in

I made this game using a small bowl with a lid that we used when Smiley Man still ate baby cereal and baby food. I simply cut some holes into the lid using a sharp knife. I put the bowl, with the lid on it, on the tray along with several pompoms. Smiley puts the pompoms into the holes and then he dumps them out and does it again.

Sensory Bottle

I made this sensory bottle using a Perfect (that’s the brand) water bottle. I added water, corn syrup, 1 drop blue food coloring, and a bunch of things that looked like balls (beads, pompoms, small bouncy balls, etc.) In hind sight, I think I should have added a bit more corn syrup (I added about 1 ½ Cups) and maybe a bit of glitter. Smiley does love the sensory bottle though.

Be sure to check out our other Tot School Posts:

• Winter Themed Tot Trays
• Valentine Themed Tot Trays
• Car Themed Tot Trays

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

February 14, 2013

What is an activity that will help you learn your colors? What is a game that will help my kids learn colors?

I’ve had some people ask me when their child should learn the colors. 18 months is a pretty good general rule of thumb, but remember that every child is different. When Little Bear was young, I constantly tried to teach him his colors and I worked really hard on the activities we did. For months it seemed like nothing was teaching him. Then, one day, he just got it. It literally seemed over night to me. I realized that he actually had been learning what I was teaching him, it just took a little time for it to click. He has been that way with almost all of his milestones so I have learned to just teach him what I can, then to just sit back and let him figure it out.

Smiley Man has really enjoyed getting to learn about colors, but I certainly wouldn’t say he has them down yet. He is 21 months old, but I’m not worried about it. Teaching a toddler colors is mostly about exposure and making it fun. I’m sure Smiley will have his colors down in a month or two. Then, we can move from games that will teach my toddler colors, to games that will teach shapes. :)

This week, my sweet toddler was learning his colors with sensory bins! I was really surprised at how much fun this was. I kept having to remind Smiley Man to keep the objects (especially the rice) over the container, but he loved playing with the sensory bins. I can definitely see this being a very helpful tool for him to learn the colors.

We only did one color each day. I made a few large sensory bins, but I also made some mini-sensory bins in some old diaper wipes containers. We started each sensory bin with a base of colored pasta or colored rice or both.

Here is a great recipe to color rice and pasta using rubbing alcohol. Here is another recipe just for rice that uses vinegar. Here is one more colored rice recipe that uses hand sanitizer. Finally, here is a recipe just for pasta that uses rubbing alcohol.

Once the base was complete, I added in all of the items in the green bag from our color scavenger hunt that we did last week. I did add in a few extra items just to make the bin feel full.

Next was playtime! Smiley Man really liked pulling out all of the items and showing them to me. I would say what each item was and I would point out the color. “That is a green crayon. Look how nice the color is. That is green.” “That is a green pompom. That one is light green. Can you find a dark green pompom?” I don’t know how much Smiley understood, but I kept repeating the color over and over.

Smiley Man also really liked scooping the rice and pasta into the green bowls and letting them fall out of the bowl back into the bin.

In retrospect, I wish I had done the sensory bins as our very first color activity.  I think having a separate bin for each color has really helped Smiley Man understand the concept of color. It isn’t a big deal either way, but if I had to do it again, I would start with the sensory bins. We have lots more color games and activities, so be sure to check them out.

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

February 12, 2013

What is a Valentine math activity or game that my preschooler can play?

Back in December I did this fun candy cane math game with Little Bear. He liked it quite a bit more than I thought he would, so I decided to reincarnate the game as a Valentine’s Day math game. We started by printing off a few copies of this Valentine math activity sheet. Next, we borrowed the Valentine’s Day stamps from Smiley Man’s Valentine themed tot trays. Little Bear has been begging to play with these and I figured they would work well with this activity. Finally, we got some dice and Little Bear was set to do some valentine math.

First, Little Bear chose 4 valentine’s stamps that he would use for this activity. He put them in the order he wanted. Next, he rolled one die (we always put dice in a small container so that it doesn’t roll off the table and onto the floor).

He got the first stamp and made that many stamps on the Valentine math activity sheet. He rolled the die again and used the second stamp to make that many stamps on the activity sheet. He continued until the entire heart was completely filled.

Little Bear really enjoyed using the Valentine’s stamps, but we both agreed that the heart looked just a tiny bit boring because it was all in one color. When we did the candy cane math, Little Bear had used dot markers. So, we did the activity again with dot markers, just so it would have more color.

Little Bear loved this game just as much as the first time we played it. He liked using the stamps and the dot markers, but the heart made with the dot markers is definitely more colorful. You could use stickers, crayons, or paint to complete this activity. This was a really fun way to get some math learning in, but with a Valentine’s Day theme. Don’t forget to print off a Valentine Math activity sheet and be sure to check out our other Valentine printables.

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me