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.

School

Every time we drive by a school, R asks "Mommy, can I go to school?" I try to explain that she just isn't old enough, but one day! I asked her if she would like to do school with me, and she gave an exited YES!
So I better be a good Mom and do some "school" with my child.


I went to Barnes & Noble to look for some books, and as I was looking through them, I realized that I could make these myself, and gear them more towards what I want her to learn, and what I know she needs to learn to be prepared for kinder. I used to teach 1st grade, before I was an adored Mommy....anyways... I used to make a lot of my own worksheets then too.

I'm starting with 3 things:
Recognizing and writing her name
Recognizing and writing letters
One to one correspondence (which means they can count objects correctly, by touching each one and saying the number)

If there is time, I really like to end our school with reading her a couple of books.

Here is practicing her name, I write it first, say the letters out loud and have her repeat. Then do it again, one letter at a time, and have her copy it one letter at a time. **Draw a line, or else she will write it seriously anywhere she wants on the paper. Then I wrote all our families names and had her circle hers, and she knew it immediately. - YEA!

Today was A day. We practice writing A at the top, then she has to go find and circle the A's on the paper. * Helping her hand over hand when first writing is very helpful!

Give her a treat if she works well (and sometimes she won't) then put it up on the fridge so that she can look at it throughout the week - mostly when she's bored while you're trying to make dinner.

When I taught first Grade, one great piece of advice my principal gave me was that First Graders need to change activities every 15 minutes, because that was their attention threshold. R is 3 yrs, so imagine what her attention time is! This activity took about 5 minutes. With about 5 minutes of prep time (for me) to make the worksheet.

MInerva the Monster

We checked a listening story out at the library. The book was called "Minerva the Monster" It was a really cute book. In the book, Minerva made a monster face out of a paper plate, and went around scaring everyone. So, we decided to do it too. Poor little Chloe, cried and ran every time "Minerva the Monster"came near.

(Of course, I made her write her name on the back for practice)


Materials:

**If you wanted to, you could make it way cooler with glitter, pom-poms, and all sorts of more crafty stuff than I used

Paper Plate

Markers or crayons
Paper or cardboard for the ears

Ribbon to tie around childs head (elastic would be better, but I didn't have any)

...and off she goes a scarin'

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

Ice Sculptures

This is the second activity of our rainy day. I saw it on PBS kids. Here's how ya do it:

1. Find a bunch of different containers
2. Fill them with water
3. Freeze them overnight or longer
4. Lay a towel on the table, get some tools from the kitchen
(I used a fork, a wood skewer, a spoon , a paint brush, & some bowls with food coloring)
5. Pop the ice out and let them at it! We stacked them, pushed them around the table like a hockey puck, painted them, poked and prodded them, and towards the end Riley was sucking on the ice cubes.

At first, she wasn't super fond of this, she only spent about 15 minutes on it. We left to the store and I left it on the table, when we got back, she went and played with it for about 45 minutes, I'd say that's some good time for Mom!

ValentinePurse

I found this little activity in Family Fun Magazine, although theirs was a lot better. Today is a very rainy day,(as you can tell, she's still in her jammies) so we will do another activity later. Now Riley has a place to put the Valentines she got from friends and Grandparents, then later use the purse for dress up.

the materials are:

Felt ( I think it was 27 cents a square at Michaels)
Scissors

Whole punch

Ribbon or Yarn

Simply poke holes in both hearts in the same spots, then loop your ribbon through. Use the excess ribbon to make a handle for the purse and tie in a knot at the top.

( Great activity for developing their fine motor skills)