Autumn Tree

This is a simple activity to do in the fall. I brought this along on a trip to complete in our downtime at the hotel. 

I found a bag of glittery leaf stickers for $1 (either at Target or Rite Aid?).  I drew the tree trunk prior to the activity, but this certainly doesn’t need to be done beforehand.  Since they were foam stickers, J had no problem filling his tree completely on his own.  And I thought the end result looked really good!

This would be a good travel activity.  It involves little to pack and will keep them occupied for awhile!

Age attempted: 30 months

(We did a similar activity with dot markers last year.)

Autumn Collage

 J made this collage by combining autumn stamps, stickers, and cut-outs from magazines/junk mail (I just saved so over the past few weeks).  We did this activity after reading Curious George Seasons. 

 I started all our fall activities with this collage.  You could end the season with this activity and have them pick out the stickers and pictures that would apply as a good review instead or add a few new items to the collage as you learn about them (acorns, leaves, turkeys, squash, pumpkins,…).

I’ve already started saving clippings from junk mail for our winter collage.  Might as well put that junk mail to good use!

Categorizing Transportation

J is really into transportation right now.  Anything that goes vroom vroom catches his eye. So I thought I’d design a learning activity around this love.  To prepare, I printed out three pictures from the internet (a road, the sky, and the sea) and then gathered a box of cars, trucks, planes, helicopters, and boats.  (Do you notice that most of the activities I do have little prep!!)

If this works, here’s the link to the ppt I made with the pictures.  Categorizing transportation ppt  If you can’t get the link to work, it literally takes a minute to search for images on Google and paste them into a ppt.  I should’ve thought to add one more category for trains.

With J, I set out the three pictures, having him describe what was on the picture.  I then showed him the transportation box, pulling one toy out at a time, and he placed them on the appropriate picture.  It was probably too easy for him, but he liked the activity.   In fact, he went babk to the activity tray on his own twice more that day and the next when I wasn’t with him.  He pulled the tray down and had everthing categorized by the time I noticed.  He was quite proud to show dad his accomplishment that night!

Age attempted: 26 months

Other options: You could use pictures of transportation instead of the toys; I think I’ll try more categorizing activities in the future

My Little Chef: Avocado Black Bean Salsa

I have no clue where I got this recipe, but it’s great for toddlers and really pretty healthy. 

Avocado Black Bean Salsa

INGREDIENTS

1 avocado
1/2 can black beans (drained and rinsed)
1/2 tomato (diced)
cilantro to taste
salt to taste
lime to taste

DIRECTIONS

Basically mix all ingredients together until you get the flavor you like.  The amounts can definitely be changed according to your own tastes! 

I serve this in tortillas, like a burrito, or in pita bread for lunch.  I’ve served it as a dip with tortilla chips for an afternoon snack (when I thought J needed an extra serving of fruits or proteins).  You can easily add some finely chopped spinach (precooked) for veggies or diced chicken.  It would also go well with Triscuit crackers I think.  J loves it.  I love it. 

24 months

Today it dawned on me that it’s an easy enough recipe that J could help (and pretty much make it entirely himself).  I just cut up the tomatoes and the avocado before he joined me.  He dipped the avocado into a bowl, added the beans and tomatoes and stirred them all together.  I didn’t have fresh lime or cilantro, so he squeezed some lime juice out of a bottle and shook the cilantro out of the spice container.  We added the salt together (so he wouldn’t shake the entire jar into the dip!).  He could even spoon the salsa onto the tortilla and help roll it up! 

The reward is immediate, so there’s no question in his mind that he helped create the meal. 

As a side note, I included a little science with today’s cooking too.  I happened to have an extra avocado and tomato, so I kept them out for him to feel.  We described the textures of the fruits and then I showed him what the inside of each looked like (pointed out the color, the texture, the seeds in each). 

Archeological Dig for Toddlers

Well, I don’t know if “archeological” would be correct since we were digging for puff balls!! But J found them very intriguing

I filled a plastic tray with rice and hid pom pom balls inside.  I also set out a few scoopers and an empty tray next to it.  At the last minute I added a cookie drying rack on top of the empty tray.  It’s holes were big enough to let the rice fall through but small enough to keep the pom pom balls from falling.  I showed J how to scoop up the rice and then empty it on top of the drying rack to find the pom pom balls.  He then separated the pom pom balls by color into small bowls. 

He loved this activity. 

Age attempted: 23 months (could be done earlier; for really young toddlers you could leave out the scoopers and just let them dig with their hands)

Lesson Learned:  I set out a beach towel underneath, but I should’ve used the plastic table protector instead.  It is heavier and doesn’t move around as much.  I could’ve used the empty baby pool too. 

Letter of the Day Activities (I day!)

We focused on “I for Ice” today and included some science in our lessons!

Ice Painting: This was how I introduced the letter I to him.  It was a hit. I gave J a piece of paper with both the upper and lower case letter I and we talked about the letter, it’s sound, and then let the LeapFrog fridge phonics toy repeat the letter and sound. We also filled in the block letters with stickers.

 Since “ice” was our I-word for the day, I gave him some homemade popsicles (made from Kool-aid) and showed him how he could paint with them.  I got this idea from the Toddler Busy Book.  Surprisingly, he was so interested in painting that he did not consider eating the popsicles until the very end.  (During this activity, he pointed out that the paper was wet, so I started our science lesson by telling him as the ice gets warm it melts and becomes water)   **You could also use plain ice and construction paper to paint similar to this.

Ice Melting Bags:  This was our science activity that went well with I for Ice day.  I had already made several different colored ice cubes the night before using food coloring.  I had J separate the different colors into sandwich bags and we taped them to the dishwasher so they would be at his eye level.  We described the ice together (cold, hard, heart-shaped in our case).  I opened the freezer door and had him feel inside.  He noticed that it was cold in the freezer.  I told him that ice needed to be kept cold or it would melt, so we kept it in the freezer.  I asked him if he remembered what happens to ice when it gets warm and he did!!  He replied “water!”  By this point our ice bags had already begun to melt, so I had him look for water in the bags.   He was excited to find some in a couple of the bags!  Throughout the afternoon, we kept an eye on our ice bags.  I pointed out that the ice was getting smaller and the water in the bag was increasing.  We talked about the different properties of ice and water.  By dinnertime, he was excited to show daddy his bags (of now colored water) and to tell him that the ice had become water because they got warm.  I got the general idea from  
http://www.preschoolrainbow.org/toddler-theme.htm
. 

You could easily turn this into a color mixing activity or get more specific by placing more ice in one bag and noticing how it melts slower this way, discuss why,… 

Ice Blocks - This was a simple activity with really no prep and no clean up.  I gave J a bowl of ice cubes and he built with them…. kind of.  At first we made letters and shapes with them (of course we made the letter I) but as they melted a bit, we could start stacking them to create walls/towers. 

Other things we did:

• I pulled out all of J’s letter books and had him search for the letter I page.  He then wanted to show his stuffed Pooh all of the letter I’s.
• I had printed an extra Letter I page (they were big block letters) and I had him fill in the letters with blocks, pompoms, stickers, and paperclips.\
• It’s raining AGAIN, so I used painter’s tape to write both the upper and lower case letter I on our kitchen floor.  (I reused last weeks triangle tape because painter’s tape can get expensive!!)  Our letter I will stay up all week.
• He got a popsicle as a special snack (probably his favorite “activity” of the day.  He was VERY engaged while eating his popsicle!

Age attempted: 23 months

Homemade Toys: Texture Cards

I made these texture cards for J sometime around 10 months to bring with us on plane trips.  I reserved them for those special trips, stored in a ziploc, so that they would keep their novelty.  J loved them.  He has since mostly lost interest in them at 23 months (though he does still like the one with buttons).  But they definitely served their purpose.   The cards are made of cardstock.  They survived pretty well, though I can see the benefit to laminating them (it would have to be done before the texture was added I guess).  You could even use thick cardboard to make them stronger.  There have been a few that have found their home in the trash. 

In choosing textures, I basically went through the house and found interesting textures (that would be fairly easy to attach to the cardstock… I was is a rush!).  I really didn’t get very creative with my textures, but J was still entertained! You’ll notice quiet a few cards with puffy stickers and foam stickers (especially easy to make!), buttons, sponge, styrofoam, post it tabs, duct tape flaps (I created windows and placed a sticker behind the window), fabric, clear plastic, net, …  The only one I can remember that isn’t pictured is the velcro card.  J still really likes this card too since it is interactive (he could remove and replace the velcro pieces).  It’s somewhere around the house, I just can’t find it for the picture!

The back side of the texture cards don’t look so pretty.  I covered a lot of the back sides with packing tape or duct tape.  In hind site, I could’ve created duct tape flaps on the back of all the cards so that they would be double sided. 

To create prettier cards, you could cut larger pieces of the cardstock, attach the texture, fold the card in half and glue them shut. 

Age attempted:  about 10 months -17 months

Teachable moments:  discuss what’s special about each texture/surface :)  (smooth, shiny, bumpy, squishy, crinkly, …)

Try Again?  At 23 months, I’ll soon be trying more advanced texture cards and make a game out of it (similar to this activity on Children’s Learning Activities)

The Visiting Zoo

This “game” has been on my list of activities since J was 7 or 8 months old.  It’s simple and I’m sure you’ve heard of it before.  It requires no prep work and kids love it!  The only thing you have to do is check your pride at the door. 

So what is the “Visiting Zoo”?  Just pretend to be any animal that pops into your head. Hop around like a rabbit and scrunch your nose (J always loves Mommy scrunching her nose!), slither like a snake, waddle like a duck,… you get it.  And you get why pride has to be checked at the door.  The more into it you are, the more your little one will like it (especially as a toddler!). 

Babyhood: J started out just in awe of Mommy (or maybe it was shock).  He would stare or smile or giggle or look at me like I was loony.  He quickly learned to make the animal sounds but couldn’t manage the movements.

Pretoddler: J started trying to imitate the animals with me, both in sound and movement.  This is great practice with gross motor skills (jumping, slithering, crawling on hands and feet).  Instead of me chosing the animal, I started having him pick the animal.  I was amazed at the animals he remembered.  Caution: They will chose animals that we have no clue how to imitate (like a giraffe, what does a giraffe sound like?)

Early Toddler: J is getting better with his imitations and can do more animals.  I sometimes have him chose animals or pick flashcards from a bowl.  He has gotten to where I can act out an animal and he can name it. 

Toddler and Beyond: Eventually you can add homemade costumes to look like the animal (have them get creative with household items to use); have them draw the written word out of a hat to read instead of using a picture or use animal categories/classifications and they have to name an animal in that classification before you’ll act it out. 

Age Attempted: maybe 7 months at first?

Teachable moments: obviously animal sounds, also physical traits of animals come up (like elephants have a trunk instead of nose, paws instead of feet, beaks, tails, …); gross motor skills, animal classification, animal recognition, lose some inhibitions (though toddlers have few, maybe that’s a teachable moment for mom/dad!)

Try Again? over and over

My Little Chef: Bean & Cheese Chips

J often helps me in the kitchen.  Cooking is one skill that I want all of my children to have.  The don’t have to be culinary experts (they certainly won’t get that training from me!), but know enough to prepare tasty, healthy meals for them or their future families.  Cooking offers a ton of teachable moments.  Science, math, reading, motor skills, … those are the first things that come to mind.

This “recipe” is perfect for a toddler.  J is fully involved and feels fully responsible for the end result.  It’s also a great way to sneak some protein into an afternoon snack.  I tend to offer this snack when he’s hasn’t been too impressed with the proteins offered during the previous meals.  I have also used this as a quick lunch, but since it does include tortilla chips, I try to keep it a snack.  I grew up with this as a child friendly appetizer on Enchilada night. 

The recipe (if you can call it that) is …

INGREDIENTS

• Bite size tortilla chips
• Sliced Cheddar Cheese (or any cheese you have!)
• Refried beans

DIRECTIONS:   Lay out chips on baking sheet.  Place a spoonful of beans on each chip and top with cheese.  Broil until cheese is melted. 

I use this recipe to help J practice understanding and following instructions.  I lay out the baking sheet and a plate of chips.  I tell him to lay out X amount of chips on the baking dish.  This is great counting practice for him.  When he’s a little older, I can ask him to lay them out in a particular shape or even a simple line as extra practice in motor skills.  As he lays each chip out, I cover it with the refried beans (he’s not quite ready for this step).  I then tell him to cover each chip with the cheese slices.  We play a little “I Spy” here to help him complete the task.  (“I spy 2 chips that need cheese!!  Can you find them? Where are they? Yeah, you found one!”)  Then we place them in the oven, discuss how the oven is hot and just like heat melts snow, it can melt cheese too! 

It doesn’t take long for them to “cook”  and cool enough to eat, so he gets a quick reward for his efforts.  Out of all the dishes he helps cook, this is the one he most understands he had a hand in its creation. 

Age Attempted: 22 months, could be done earlier

Try Again?  This will be used many more times I’m sure.

Sticky Body Parts

This activity came about on the fly while removing the Tape Shapes from the kitchen floor.  We had enjoyed them for a week, but the novelty had worn off  so they needed a break.  As we were removing the painters tape, I inadvertently stuck some on J’s shoulder and of course he pulled it off.  I decided this could become a great way to reinforce body parts. 

I covered him with little pieces of tape, all placed on specific body parts, many that he could not see.  As he started removing the easy ones, I would tell him “I see some tape on your elbow!” or “I see some tape on your calf!”  It worked really well.  It was a great refresher activity. 

I also took a turn by placing the tape all over me and asking him to help me get it off by telling me where the tape was.  He enjoyed trying to instruct mommy, “Nose! Nose!” or ”Back, Back!”.  All the while, I’m playing clueless so he could help “teach” me. 

This same activity could be done with stickers.

Age attempted?  22 months, could be done much earlier, even when you first start teaching body parts

Try Again?  yes, it requires no set up; this could also be a great plane activity