Easter Printables

Have your plastic Easter eggs made an appearance in your home yet this year?  I love bringing them out about now; love how they brighten things up a bit with their pretty colors. :)  I crave color this time of year.  Crave it.

I’m in the process of going through all of my printables and moving them to a site where they can be a bit more organized and just… prettier than the current printables page.  I found some Easter-themed printables and thought it would be fun to post a little reminder about them.

One of M’s still-favorite games to play with our plastic eggs is our Easter Chicks in Eggs game.  I made this for him a couple of years ago and it is still a lot of fun – for him and the grown-ups around here. 

 

Another favorite when he was 2 or 3 years old was this Easter Basket file folder game (I have to say I’m really looking forward to re-using some of these handmade activities with our new little one!). This is a fun way to work on one-to-one correspondence and practice counting to 10.

I also want to share this little Bunny Shapes Craft with you.  I made this for M a couple of years ago, but for some reason never shared it on here.  He went through a phase where he loved putting little animals together with shapes.  This is a fairly closed-ended activity, but it’s good for shape recognition and learning to follow directions!

Have a beautiful day!
Nicole :)

Letter Dd Lapbook

While M was sick last week I gave myself a break from housework (well, except laundry, dishes, and cooking) and spent some time completing a few projects. This lapbook was one of them and I’m excited to share it with M this week. The entire lapbook is laminated so M can use dry-erase markers for some of the activities.

First, Things that Begin with D:

Color the Daffodils (laminated right onto the folder):

Which Dinosaur is Different?:

Writing Skills Practice:Trace the D and d on the outside of the pocket, and follow the lines on the little card inside to help the baby ducks find the mother duck.

Sorting upper and lower case letters:

Dinosaur Patterns (I chose to laminate this right onto the back of the folder, but I did include a pocket for this in the printables – your choice.):
We’ve been doing a lot of other dinosaur activities too… I hope to post about them soon!
You can download all the pages for this lapbook here. Use them as activity packs or in workboxes… however you want!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – March 28, 2010

M is 42 months old.

Wellllll…… M had pneumonia this week.  So, we did not do much of anything except read books and watch tv.  My poor, poor baby.  We went to the doctor on Monday and he immediately started getting better after starting the antibiotics, but he’s still not back to normal.  (We’d appreciate prayers, if you are willing!)

The following is a smattering of this and that from past weeks that haven’t yet made it into a post, in no particular order as I’m not up to organizing anything right now…

We visited my parents who live on our family farm in Missouri.  It is more of a hobby farm now than anything (in its glory days it was a magnificent dairy farm, with horses and sheep to boot).  M loved feeding the chickens, and hearing the rooster crow!

While we were there we made a trip to Bass Pro (a major outdoor sports / hunting mall.  They had a lot of wonderful displays, including these sweet turtles:

And this grizzly bear, whom he agreed to stand next to if Auntie M would hold him:

 

I found a small foam ABC puzzle mat - the squares come apart and the letters all come out – for $1.00 at Walmart.  Here M is lining them up like a  train.  After he finished placing the letters in he “drove” it (pulled it) all around the house.

 

I took all the soft stuff out of our previous sensory bin and left the hard glass pebbles and marbles in.  I found a gumball machine at Dollar Tree and added it in.  Here’s M figuring out how it works (it was perfect for the marbles!):    (And, um, WHY does my baby look so long in this picture?)

This past week we did do one school-ish activity (later in the week, when he started improving and actually got dressed)… our egg game, which you can read about here. We played it and a couple of other games quite a bit, and although I hate for M to be so sick, I have to say I enjoyed the slower pace of our days this week.  Anyway, here we are playing the game:

And after we finished, we quickly graphed our chicks and other animals to see who had more before we actually counted them: 

Beginning next week (or the next school post I get around to writing), I’ll be linking these posts up to the Preschool Corner instead of Tot School.  I’ve been in denial that my baby is growing up, but have decided that our posts are probably more preschool-oriented now, although I do intend to keep school activities play-based and fun… no formal curriculum of any kind yet.  I hope all of you who read our Tot School posts will continue following M’s progress and our weekly activities!

Have a beautiful week, everyone! :)

Easter Basket Counting Game

This is a pretty simple game…. place the baskets in numerical order from 0 – 10 (obviously you can do 0-9 or 1-10 if you prefer), then place the correct number of eggs in each basket.  Here’s what the playing pieces look like:OR place the egg with the correct number of flowers painted on it in each basket.  OR turn it all into a file folder game and do both.

I decided to create a file folder game.
   
I laid the baskets out on the inside of my folder and taped them down with small pieces of double stick tape along the top and bottom edges.

Then I laminated the entire folder with contact paper.  (Note:  I tried adding a pocket for the game pieces, but it just wasn’t working for so many pieces.  I ended up putting them in a zipper baggie which I stapled to the back of the folder.)

Next, I took a very sharp pair of scissors (you could use an exacto knife) and made a slit in each basket.  I had to be careful to go only through the top layer of contact paper and the basket, and not through the file folder itself.  This turned the baskets into little pockets for the eggs.
M counts out the correct number of eggs and then places them in the appropriate basket/pocket: Then, if he wants, he places the flowered eggs in the correct baskets:
Despite the lengthy instructions for putting this together, it actually only took about 1/2 hour.  Let me know if you use it… we are really loving it!

The printables can be downloaded here.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Easter Egg Games

Last Easter (pre-blog) M was 2 1/2 and crazy about opening and closing plastic Easter eggs.  He could not stop playing with them.  He was also obsessed with trucks at the time and the idea of flat tires.  Every day he hoped out loud that we would get a flat tire.  Nothing would have made him happier. :)

Well, these loves/obsessions/fantasies of his all came together in my mind one day and I put together a little game for him, which we have been playing all year long.  Seriously.  Our plastic eggs were never put away, and my husband and I now groan whenever M mentions the “flat tire game”.  It is actually pretty fun…  at first.  52 weeks later, it can get a little old. ;)

It has been such a hit that I’ve thought about posting about it before now, but decided to wait until it’s kind of normal to have plastic eggs out and about.  And I’ve changed it up a bit too, with new clip art, which makes it into a brand new game in the mind of a now 3 1/2 old.  (I wish I could share the trucks and flat tires clip art, but I have no idea where I found it!)

This is what the game pieces look like:

And here’s a color cube (with playing instructions) to go with them: (If  your plastic eggs are not these particular colors, there’s a black and white version that you can color in.)

Put the game pieces in the eggs; there are 20 chicks and 5 other animals.  The other 5 animals (cow, elephant, giraffe, zebra, and lion) each get their own egg.  You can give each chick its own egg too, or put several in one egg and just a couple in another, etc.   It depends on how long you want the game to last and how many eggs you have on hand.  Place the filled eggs in a basket and mix them around.

To play, each person takes a turn rolling the color cube then selecting an egg of that color.  Open the egg and see what you have.  If it’s a chick, yay!  You get another turn.  Put the chick in front of you and discard the opened egg.  If it’s an animal whose life doesn’t really begin in an egg, your turn is over and it’s the next person’s turn.

Count the chicks at the end and see who has the most!

We’ve played some variations of this, which are just as much fun.  Those variations are explained in the .pdf file.

It's a good game for counting, learning to take turns, and learning that some animals hatch from eggs and others  are born from mamas.

Click here for the printables.

Have a beautiful and fun day! :)

Tot School – Feb. 14, 2010

M is 41 months old.

Well, M is still feeling camera shy.  For this reason, I took a lot of pics of the activities as they were set up.  I love action shots more, but I’ve realized he really needs my attention to be on him when we are spending this precious time together.  I hope you all don’t mind the boring pictures!!

 

FINE MOTOR SKILLS:

This was a quick, simple activity to put together – I just punched some holes around a heart cut from fun foam and set it out with a lace from some lacing beads.

 

For this activity I set out a jar (filled with glass pebbles to keep it from falling over while M worked with it) and some elastic ponytail holders.  He stretched each one out with his hands, then manipulated it over the top of the jar and slid it down.  He really, really, really enjoyed this and it was definitely a challenge for him.  I got this idea here.

M made these sweet little beaded hearts for the grandmas.  Each one was made with a 3” length of pipecleaner and pony beads.  Once the beads were strung on we formed them into tiny hearts. 

 

This was a great idea found here.  I cut slits in some red and white felt hearts, sewed a button onto a length of ribbon and M made a button snake.  He really enjoyed this once he started it.  Sorry there’s no “after” picture!

 

MATH SKILLS:

 M enjoyed doing his Bob the Builder truck size sorting activity. 

 I turned these little valentines from our most recent  High-Five issue into pom pom counting cards.   M used the tweezers to put the correct number of pom poms on each card.

 

We played a memory game with our shape sorting cards.  This was a little more difficult than a regular game of memory because we weren’t matching pictures, but shapes of items.  M did very well with this and really enjoyed it much more than simply sorting the cards into shape categories.

 

SCIENCE:

We bought some tiny seed starter kits at Target and planted some forget-me-nots and a shamrock plant. :)  M has been checking them every day to see if anything is growing yet.

SENSORY:

 We made a batch of valentine playdough – pretty red with glitter in it and a dash of cinnamon too – yum!  M wanted to make a snowman like we did with our white playdough in December… so that’s what we did!  I called them *Valentine Guys*.  M just called them red snowmen, heh. 

Then he made me the sweetest little playdough valentines (“These are just for you, Mommy!”):

And here was the big hit of the week… a tissue paper sensory bin.We actually used our old baby bathtub for this because our regular bin was being used for something else.   We had fun tearing it up, feeling it, and hearing how crinkly it is.  Then we tossed the pieces in the air and watched them float down.  M thought they float “probably because they aren’t very heavy”.  :) Then we had the best time blowing them up into the air and across the room.  Finally we just took handfuls and threw them at each other.  We both had a LOT of fun with this!  Thank you so much to April, who gave us this idea with her great post.  Visit her blog if you haven’t already, she is full of good ideas and has the sweetest little girl! :)     

CREATIVE PLAY:

Well, there were actually 2 big hits this week and this is part of the second one:Our lovely friend Elise sent us these tumbling goannas in a little package.  They stick to the fridge or window or wall and flip flop their way down, sometimes tangling each other up.  We’ve been having a lot of goanna races lately, they are so much fun!   Thank you, Elise, Savvy, and Blake!!  This was such a treat!  More about what else was in their package in a little while.

We also found out this week that our town has a toy lending library.  What?!?!  This is something I’ve read about on other blogs and I’ve been soooo jealous!  Well, it turns out we have one too and I’ve lived here for 10 years without knowing about it.  Not that I would’ve cared more than 3 years ago, but still.  So of course we went the very day we first heard about it.  M brought home this cool building toy set.  It’s mainly wheels, bolts, nuts, and some yellow connecting pieces.  We’ve made a cart for his pretend grocery shopping and a truck!  It’s really cool and I’ll hate taking it back. 

He also picked out this fun bulldozer floor puzzle.  I’m really looking forward to making the toy library part of our weekly or bi-weekly routine!

MUSIC:

Ok, here’s the other part of what we got in Elise’s package.  Really, she was so generous and she is truly one of the people I’m most thankful for having “met” via blogging… she’s a great mom, full of energy and fun ideas, and just has such a cheerful outlook.  I’m always inspired by her.  I want to move to Australia and be her next door neighbor. :)   Oh wait, would that be weird at all? ;)

She and her sweet children sent M these great Australian animal flashcards and the BEST cd of music.  This is such a good cd; we’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop since receiving it and, honestly, I’m not tired of it yet.  I’m actually really enjoying it and that says a lot!  It’s fun to dance to and we are just having a great time with it!

 

Speaking of music, here’s what I videotaped one day this week.  Check out M’s bedhead. :)  (But please don’t look at the messy background.)   This cracked me up and I thought you might get a kick out of it too.  I apologize in advance for my obnoxious laugh (sorry!)…  the reason I thought it was so funny is because M normally does not have such a serious frown on his face when he’s singing, and his sweet little voice is not at all like this.  I don’t know what he was thinking, but he was adamant about making a video. :)  Enjoy…

 

For more Tot School posts go here!

Have a beautiful day! :)