Apple Picking Practice

I think everyone should go apple picking in the autumn.  It’s a perfect activity for little ones.  Our trip kept getting pushed back for one reason or another throughout the whole month of October.  In that interim, I made this pretend apple picking sheet for J to work on. He uses his magnetic pompom balls (on a cookie sheet) to complete his apple picking.  I just set out a basket of “apples” for him to choose from, but I think it would be fun to add a hunt around the house for them too.  I originally saw the idea here and just adapted it a little.  After he was finished we counted the number or red, green and yellow “apples” and discussed which color had the most/least apples. 

I'm blaming the blur on my iphone!

I know apple season is over but if you want to try this activity yourself, you can print this pdf form for yourself.  It also has some apple counting and apple pattern worksheets along with it.  Apple picking and patterns

**I’m just noticing that I never posted about the magnetic pompoms, I’ll get back to you on that soon**

Age attempted: 29 months

We did finally make it to the real apple orchard.  Lots of fun!

I wish I could blame the blur on my iphone!

Leaf Sorting Pictures

This was an activity J did sometime during the summer when we were talking about how God created the plants.  It was simple yet effective and included very little prep work! My favorite

During a morning walk, we gathered a group of leaves from a few different trees (or bushes; J was adamant we chose a certain leaf from a bush!).  When we got home we examined the different kinds of leaves we chose.  How many points do they have?  Shape? Color?  Smooth or rough? 

Sorry for the dark photo. My normal camera was packed away in a boz so I used my iphone.

Then I mixed all the leaves together, cut out three tree trunks (we used 3 different types of leaves) and J sorted the leaves to replicate the three different trees. 

He did this activity on contact paper since I wasn’t sure if glue would hold the leaves in place quickly enough. I imagined a mess honestly and didn’t have time for one this day.

Age attempted: between 2 and 2.5 years

My Little Helper: Washing the Car

J loves to wash the car.  We do try and emphasize what a great helper he is by working with Daddy/Mommy to get the car clean and shiny, but really he scrubs because he loves it!  He loves anything involving cars really. 

I don’t think we need an explanation of what to do.  J gets a sponge and a bucket of water.  (The pic shows the new foam water shooters and of course he loves to shoot water on the car with those as well; they’ve become his version of hosing down the car.)

Painting the Driveway

I remember when we were little, my sister and I used to spend FOREVER painting the bricks that surrounded the neighborhood pool with water.  Of course by the time we made it around the whole pool, the water had dried so we had to start over.  We had a goal and were determined to accomplish it!  My mom was free to talk with the other moms and we were completely content.  The paintbrushes were a permanent addition to our swimming bag for quite awhile.

So when J got old enough, I capitalized on this activity.  I used to put him on our back deck with a bowl of water and a paintbrush while I cooked dinner on the other side of the glass doors.  He was content (literally 3 feet away) painting the boards in the deck and I was free to cook without my pretoddler under my feet. 

At two years old, J is still entertained with just a paintbrush and water.   Sometimes he paints whatever he wants and sometimes I give him a goal to accomplish (paint all the steps, paint around the car).

This link and this link shows how to capitalize on a paintbrush and water indoors.

Age attempted: originally around 15 months, now 25 months

Outdoor Fun: Circle fun!

I got this idea from Little Hands, Big Work (an awesome blog by the way!) and tried it the very next day.  We all know how much I LOVE sidewalk chalk.  

 (See this post or this post for more on sidewalk chalk)

You basically draw circle paths along the driveway in various colors.  You’ll notice in my picture that our paths were quite easy with only a couple intersecting colors.  The idea is to call out a color and have your toddler jump, run or skip along that particular color route. 

The activity was definitely a win!  J took to it immediately (though he didn’t always want to follow the rules of the game!)  I should also mention that the neighborhood kids loved this activity too.  I had kids coming to play on my driveway all week! 

Age Attempted: 24 months (he could’ve done this earlier I think); You could make this harder by adding more colors, more intersections, drawing different shape paths (in repeated colors, so they would have to follow the red triangles NOT the red hearts).

Teaching Proximity

You all know I am a fan of sidewalk chalk for many reasons!  (See this post if you don’t)

I also think it’s a great tool for teaching the concept of near and far.  We’ve all heard parents (and probably been parents) telling their child to “Stay close!” Not long after that you generally hear (or say), “That’s too far!  I said to stay close!”  “If you can’t stay close to me we’re leaving right now” or “If you can’t stay close you’re getting locked into this stroller/cart!” 

Close, Near, Far… they’re very relative terms.  Do our kids know what we mean when we say “Stay close!”  They probably don’t really get it, especially if we haven’t explained it to them fully.  We end up frustrated, they end up punished for disobeying and they don’t really understand how to obey our directions, so it will all be repeated again and again. 

I’ve learned to be very specific for J’s age.  “J, you must hold Mommy’s hand.”  “J, hold Mommy’s leg.” (for when my hands are full or my head is turned away, but I NEED to know where he is at all times), “J, you must keep your hand on the cart.” ”J, stay in the grass…. in the driveway, in this chair, in the den.”  If I’m not that specific with my directions, he doesn’t get it and we both end up losing it.

For older kids, you can practice the meaning of near and far using sidewalk chalk!! 

Draw three concentric circles, each with different colors. 

• A small circle – one that you and your child can both fit inside but would probably be touching to do so, 
•  A medium circle – one in which you and your child don’t have to be touching to share, but could with an easy reach of the hand
• A large circle -  one in which you and your child could not possibly touch unless you moved towards each other  (this would take up my entire driveway)

Then you stand in the smallest, center circle.  Have your little one join you in the same circle.  Point out that you are so close that you’re touching each other.  This is how close they should be if we’re walking in a parking lot or in the street.  We should always be holding hands, so we’re very close to each other. 

Have them move to the middle circle and explain that you are still near each other.  He/she can reach out his hand to touch you if needed.  This is an ok distance for the mall or the grocery store (or wherever you deem appropriate). 

Have them move to the largest circle and explain that you are now far from each other.  You can still easily see each other but you would both have to move much closer in order to touch.  This is too far for them to be from mom/dad if we’re at the parking lot, the street, the mall, the store, but ok for the backyard or the park. 

I would be very specific about the locations but of course choose which location works best for each circle for yourself.  Obviously plan this out and draw your circles according to the distance you are ok with. 

After initially teaching them the concept, practice, practice, practice.  Make a fun game out of it.  Call out a location and have them quickly run to the correct circle.  Eventually remove the circles and see if they can still determine the correct distance for the different settings.  Or when you’re at the store, remind them they must stay near you which means they must stay within the middle circle (or the green/purple/orange circle) from you at all times.

Letter of the Day Activities (H day!)

Today was H for Hat day.  These are the Letter H activities we did today.  You’ll notice that some of them are focused on the letter and some on the sound of the letter.  The activities were not done back to back, but spaced out throughout the day!  You could also space them throughout the week.

1.  H for Hat craft – This is the way I introduced the letter H to him.  I presented a blank color sheet with both the upper and lower case letter.  We discussed the name and sound of the letter.  Then I showed him his Leap Frog fridge toy and had it tell him the name and sound of the letter too (it has a cute sing-song version that J loves).  We colored the color page and I talked about words that start with the letter H.  We focused on hat.  While he was coloring, I gave him a hat to wear.  Then I brought out some cutouts of hats (from clipart) and he glued the pictures on his coloring page.  He really liked this and wanted more hats when he ran out!  A lesson is small disappointments turned out well too!  

For an older child, you could have lots of different possible H pics or even a mixture of some that start with H and some that don’t so they have to separate them. 

2.  Hat Hunt in the Dark  – I mentioned a similar version of this game in this post. I just revamped it for “H is for Hat” day.  I prepped this activity by setting up hats all over his room, turned the the lights off and had an empty box and a flashlight by his door.  Before we walked into his room, I explained the game.  “Mommy has hidden hats all over your room.  I want you to use the flashlight to find all the hats and place them in this box!”  He did a great job.  He loves using a flashlight so that made the game extra fun for him.  After he filled the box with all the hats, we both tried them on together.  Then he lined them all up and walked back and forth straddling them (his own addition to” H is for Hat” day activities!). 

3.  Playdoh – I bought this great set of cookie cutters from Target that have letters, numbers, shapes, animals, vehicles,… (101 pieces).  So I brought out the letter H to let J stamp with.  As a good review we made letters A-H and sang the alphabet song.

4.  Hats or No Hats game – I found a lot of great smiley face figures in clipart and printed them out.  Half of the smiley faces were wearing hats and the other half were not.  I cut them out and laminated them (with contact paper) to create little cards.  I made a simple table using painters tape on our kitchen floor and labeled one column “Hats” and the second column “No Hats”  (using his stuffed animals as an example).  He had to categorize the picture cards in the correct column.  I will say he lost interest in this midway.  I think the problem was he felt sorry for Doggie because he didn’t have as many smiley faces as Teddy did.  J hit a point where he wanted to give more smileys to Doggie.  When I asked him to look again to see if that smiley was supposed to go to Doggie (because it technically wasn’t), his response was to remove the hat from Teddy’s head and place it on Doggie…. so Doggie could now have the smiley and mom could be satisfied too!  The game ended at this point.  I was too busy laughing  

5.  Sidewalk Chalk – if it had not been raining, I would’ve reviewed with this as well.  Instead I reviewed with his magnetic letters… and then we spent some extra time playing with J’s train set instead.  See this post to discover why sidewalk chalk helps so much that Mondays are designated sidewalk chalk day in our house. 

Throughout all the activities I refreshed his memory on the look and sound of letter H.  I keep up the reminders throughout the remaining week.

Follow the arrow!

I can’t believe it, the weather was absolutely gorgeous today! So gorgeous in fact that we got to play outside!  I forgot how wonderful it was to run around in the sun together! And such a perfect way to wear out a toddler  

I brought out the sidewalk chalk this afternoon and J made his usual requests (funny how he always asks Mommy to draw letters or shapes and Daddy gets the more intricate requests like a whale or a ship; do you think he’s already figured out who the skilled artist in the family is?).  Then I decided to reinforce a lesson we’ve been learning, the purpose of arrows.  He’s taken an interest in arrows and has a few books with arrows in the pictures.  He likes to point to them and say “way! way!” (meaning ”Go this way!”)  I’ve decided to just go ahead and teach him that arrows point in a certain direction that we should follow.  He kinda gets it. 

So back to my reinforcement lesson… I drew arrows in a block around our driveway, pointing a path that he should follow.  I thought actually marching along the arrows would reinforce their purpose AND help him recognize the direction that each arrow is pointing.  He loved it.  He followed the path over and over and over and wanted Mommy to follow the path over and over and over.  He did not, however, get the entire lesson.  I realize that I need to spend some time inside teaching him how to recognize the direction an arrow is pointing.  There were simply too many distractions outside to keep his attention long enough for this lesson.  He was way too interested in following the path (and sometimes backwards since he hasn’t quite grasped the arrow concept yet!).  Since our driveway is on hill, we could discuss going up and down the driveway and turning at the corners.

Anyway, it turned out to be a great activity and something that, with time, can be educational!  With older toddlers you could make the path they follow more intricate, introducing left and right or even north, south, east and west (for the especially advanced!). 

Age attempted: 22 months, needs a little more work before he completely grasps the concept

Can you see the arrows on the driveway?

Teachable moments: purpose of arrows, recognizing the direction an arrow is pointing, following directions, possibly understanding up/down, left/right

Try Again? yes, he loved this

Snowbox

In the midst of our 2.5 foot snowstorm last weekend, this southerner realized…. it takes a lot of time dressing a toddler for snow!  Do I dress him up first or get dressed myself?  Then once we got dressed (probably overdressed!), it was still too cold and windy outside.  J also hasn’t gotten the hang of mittens (at least not the thick waterproof ones), they really impede his ability to do anything outside and when we remove them his hands are freezing in no time.  Something clicked in my brain one day, why not bring the snow inside!  A snowbox solved all my problems!  I just bring the blow up pool inside and fill it up with snow! Add some shovels and dump trucks and J is in heaven.  He could enjoy the snow and the blessings of a heated home at the same time (and mom can too)!  He dug, dumped, built a miniature hill for his rubber ducky to sled down, built a snowman, a snow wall (that of course was crashed a couple dozen times), and of course he loved letting a snowball melt in his mouth!  This was a great idea and he continually asks for more snow in his pool.  He loves it.  It’s really easy to set up and clean up. 

22 months

22 months

 

21 months

Age?  21 months but could be done much earlier

Try Again?  yes yes yes

Outside Snow Spraying

Well, we got over 2 feet of snow yesterday so I planned some more snow activities to entertain J with.  After the snowstorm blew over, I bundled him up to do some painting outside.  I read about this idea online.  I brought along a spray bottle filled with water and a few drops of food coloring (just one in our case, but of course the more colors the better!).  I first showed him how spraying the water on the snow turned it orange.  It didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  He couldn’t handle the spray bottle on his own so I ended up doing all the spraying.  He watched and told me what to “paint” in the snow.  I should have taught him how to use the spray bottle inside where it was warm and he had less distractions. 

Another problem was the water kept freezing in the spray mechanism, clogging the spray bottle.  It was really cold!  It was fine as long as I was continually spraying, but if I stopped for any length of time it would freeze up and stop working. Shaking it around, getting some fresh water up in the spray mechanism was all that was needed to unblock it, but it was frustrating. 

Anyway, I can see how an older toddler or preschooler would like this, but J was a bit too young.  I should’ve just let him paint with paint brushes.  Afterall he had a 4 foot wall of canvas after the driveway was shoveled!

Age?  21 months, but it would work better when he’s older and can work the spray bottle himself

Try again?  Yes,but probably not until next winter at least (he’ll be 2.5); it’s easy to prepare and no clean up necessary