Is your Mama a Llama?

If you haven't heard of this book - where have you been? I got the book on CD from the library (the books on CD are a great way to get some variety in reading books, so they don't always
have to hear my boring voice)

Anyways, the llama is looking for his mama, and asks all the other animals, "Is your mama a llama?" They all say no, then descibe (with really good adjectives) what their mama looks like.

After we read the book, we pulled out all the stuffed animals, threw them all on a blanket. Then began sorting.

I would ask who can find a duck? Who can find another? I went through, until all the animals were matched up.

During this, I also asked the kids to describe details about each animal, for example:

What color is the penguins tummy?

What does the duck say?

How many bears are there?

So on and so forth.

And of course they put them ALL away before we finished.

(this activity is very similer to my other animal sort, I just used a book to help)

Do as I'm Doing

Our church has been doing this song since I was a kid. Its one of those songs to fill the time and get the wiggles out. Its really cute, and the kids never get sick of it.



I let each child take a turn being the leader and picking an action, The actions of this morning were:

Spinning in a circle
Marching
Twirling our arms
Jumping
Tapping our heads


Here's the song:

Do as I'm doing
Follow, follow me
Do as I'm doing
Follow, follow me


If I do it high or low (the kids do their motions high and low while singing)
If I do it fast or slow( the kids do it Fast and slow while singing)


Do as I'm doing
Follow, Follow me
Do as I'm doing
Follow, follow me



Ri being the leader (jumping)



Chloe being the leader (marching)


Click here to hear the songs melody

Water Paint

I first saw his a the Childrens Discovery Museum, then At my friend Melissa's house. And this was almost 3 years ago! I can't believe its taken me this long. Anyways, its simple!

Materials:

Paint brushes

Water

Cement

I got these paintbrushes for $4.97 at Walmart

Fill up a container with water and have them paint on the cement!

Its cool because there really is no clean up and the kids can get their paint on!

My 4 year old liked this for maybe 5 minutes, but my 2 year old and our 3 year old friend played for almost a half hour. So its pretty much geared towards the younger toddler.

Buttons in a Can

Materials:

Old Buttons

A big can (or small, if you want to make it hard)

Tape (optional)

1. Put a can somewhere in or out of the house
2. Put some tape on the ground, so the kids know where to stand

3. Make them line up and take turns, take a button, and have them try to toss it into the can.
( I gave them 3 tries)
4. Leave it up all day, they liked just throwing things in there all day

**This is a really good opportunity to teach the skill of "standing in line and waiting their turn." I'm often amazed at how much these kids DON'T understand how to do this!

Color bags

Learning colors and learning how to sort objects are pretty important for kids. This activity can accomplish both.

Clearing out toys and having kids keep busy on their own are pretty important to parents. This activity can accomplish both!

Go find random toys that are at the bottom of the toy basket, if you have flash cards, throw some of those in too. Make some "color labels" and throw them all into a Ziploc bag, 2 colors to a bag. Give a bag to your kid, and have them sort away.

My 2 year old only had the attention span to so one bag. My 4 yr old did all 3 in one sitting. They've asked to do it again too!

oobleck

Do you remember this stuff from your 5th grade science class? Some kind of property makes it a liquid and a solid at the same time. As long as you apply pressure to it, its a solid, but the moment you let go it slithers through your fingers like a liquid.

All you do is mix cornstarch and water, (i just eye-balled it) and food coloring. Mix until thick and a little runny at the same time - sounds weird huh?? R played with this for almost an hour. I had to add a little more water to it during her play, because it dries out as its exposed to air. I put her outside, so that I could just hose the little table down (2$ at a garage sale by the way) when she was done.

Makeshift sandbox

This past month, we moved out of our apartment and into a twin home. Which means we have a backyard!!!! This move has drastically improved our play time! Although we still pull out some of our same old tricks.

Here's one that is super easy!

Go to Walmart and get 2 large bins.

Fill one with water.

Fill one with sand.

Get some sand toys.

These were perfect for when we just had a balcony to play on (and they still work good in the backyard). The are compact and have a lid, so they can be moved out of the way easily, pulled out easily and stacked on top of each other. Not to mention they are much cheaper than regular sandboxes or water play toys, and create the same effect for the kids. Make sure to lay a blanket or towel down underneath...you know cuz they're kids.

Drums

Big can.
Various kitchen utensils.

You can clap to a rhythm and have them try to do the same rhythm along with you, or clap a number of times and have them copy it on their drum. You can do this all while you are cooking or cleaning - that's the best part!

Scissors!

Just let them CUT!

If you get those crafty scissors, the littles can't cut themselves. I have a set of 20, but if you just have a few its still a blast for them . Get a few pieces of paper out, and let them have at it, Riley spent 1 whole hour doing this. Its a little bit of a cleanup, but if you get them to help, its not that big of a deal

Sand ....or sugar

I put some sugar in a pie tin, since sand is not readily available. We practiced writing her name, made shapes, and practiced letters and numbers, not to mention its great for their developing sensory skills. I think this is a good activity for any age. Riley loved playing with this and even got one of her polly pockets to join in the fun.

Animal Sort

Been a busy month!

Have your little one get all her stuffed animals out, then put them in a big pile

Sort the animals in all different ways, here are a few that we did:

Biggest to smallest

Animals that roar

Animals that live on a farm

Same animals (she had a bunch of dogs & bears)

Depending on your assortment of animals, you could do tons more. The goal of this is that hopefully one day, you could simply say "go get your animals and sort them" and now you get some time to maybe, JUST SIT!

Cookin' with Mama

She is Loving this lately. It sometimes gets a little frustrating, like when I turn my back and she dumps more flour in. I try to stay patient and remember that she was just trying to "help" I think this is one of those activities that makes me feel really close to her, like we might be cooking together in the kitchen as mother and daughter for the rest of our lives. I love it.

Finger Paints

A little messy, but way fun for the little ones. Nothing interesting to add, its just a great activity for a rainy day. I did use this opportunity to teach her how to rinse the brush off, before using another color. This also went up on the door, so I could show her how proud I was of what she drew.

Ring Toss

Materials:

Bowl

Wooden spoon

rings (or play bracelets, like I used)

playdo

The pictures are pretty self explanatory. But just in case, put the playdo on the bottom of the bowl, stick the spoon in the playdo, then toss the rings to try and make it on the stick.

This was not Riley's favorite, I don't think she had the motor skills to throw the rings that well. Next time, I might just have her throw them into a bowl, with out a stick. I'm sure that kids 3 1/2 and older could do it, though.

Idea stolen from my friend Robbin

Beans & Noodles

Keep the beans/noodles in a Ziploc bag and then get a variety of kitchen utensils and containers, the aluminum bowls are good because they make that cool "chink" sound. For today, I used some of R's play kitchen set. She played this for over an hour, and asked to do it the next day. One good idea my friend gave me, is to do it on a tray, so that they keep some sort of order. (I used chick peas and white beans and some old decorative noodles)

BOX!

I saw this on my friend Tennille's blog a while ago, and thought it was so simple. So, I now save the diaper box every time we get them and let the kids play in it for a few days (only a few days because I get annoyed with the box just lying around).
Riley loves to get in and just sit and curl up in a ball. This morning I was pulling her around like a train and she loved it! Chloe likes to bang on the top of the box and sometimes venture inside, if the box is tipped over.