~Koko is 29 months old~
I put 4 trays together for Koko a month.
Each tray covers the following:
1. Fine Motor Skills
2. Colour Recognition and Matching
3. Counting and Number Recognition
4. Threading
Our new tot trays for the month:
1. Spooning “Mickey Mouse” shaped beads into a bottle
2. Colour Recognition and Matching
3. Number Cards
4. Threading Pasta
I got this wonderful idea after reading The Attached Mama blog
Materials Needed:
Scissors
Sponges or foam
Tempera Paint
Water
Flat saucers or dishes
Construction paper
Use scissors to cut sponges into interesting shapes. You might cut out alphabet letters, numbers, geometric shapes, animals, spaceships, or whatever your child likes. You can also use foam instead of sponges – it is available at hardware, craft, and fabric stores in large sheets.
Dilute liquid tempera paint with water. Pour small amounts of different colors in saucers. Let the kids press the sponges into saucers of paint, then onto large sheets of construction paper to make designs. Have them write their names, create landscapes, or tell a story with their sponge shapes.
Creative Options
Have the kids repeat the same shapes over and over to make wrapping paper. Or, make greeting cards, picture frames, or place mats.
Trouble-Shooting Tips
Ask the kids to keep sponges on the paper. Keep the activity contained at a table covered with newspapers.
Materials Needed:
A large table
1 cup cornstarch per child
About 1/4 cup water per child
Food coloring (many colors)
1 zip-lock plastic sandwich bag per child
Set up a big table outside (if possible), and cover it with a newspaper. Your party guests can stand up while making slime if there aren’t enough chairs. Hand out sandwich bags and let the kids pick out a favorite shade of food coloring.
When children have their materials, begin demonstrating the following steps, pausing often and checking that the kids are following directions properly:
1. Pour 1 cup cornstarch into the sandwich bag, and slowly add about 1/4 cup water mixed with a few drops of food coloring.
2. Carefully press the excess air out of the sandwich bag and seal it shut.
3. Knead the sandwich bag until the mixture is well-blended and smooth. Make sure not to puncture the bag!
Watch the delight as the kids mix up the “magic” concoction, which slowly changes from dry to wet, from hard to soft, and from white to a color. Tell the kids to first squeeze the mixture firmly and quickly in the bag and then feel the mixture “melt” in their hands.
Creative Options
The kids can add two different shades of food coloring to their slime to make a new color.
Let everyone put glitter in the slime, at the same time the food coloring is added, for a little sparkle.
Another fun and magical recipe is a catsup and mustard creation that the kids can work with to make designs. Just put a blob of catsup and a blob of mustard in a zip-lock bag for each child, seal it, and let the kids create colorful designs by pressing or “drawing” on the baggies with their fingers. The two colors will stay separated for a while. Once they’ve completely mixed, pour the contents in a bowl and use this special sauce to top hotdogs, burgers, or French fries.
Trouble-Shooting Tips
Even though the described slime mixture is nontoxic, it’s not a good idea for the kids to put it in their mouth. Warn them ahead of time to touch but not taste.
To be on the safe side, seal the sandwich bags with electrical tape to make sure they won’t open during handling.
If you have a large group, premeasure the materials so that all the kids have to do is pour and mix.
Provide the children with old T-shirts to put over their clothing so the food coloring won’t stain their good clothes.
Koko ~ 27 Months
I bought these awesome craft sticks and blocks from Crafters Market to help Koko with fine motor skills and colour recognition.
After playing a little with him, I showed him how to put the little craft sticks into the little holes in the blocks and to match the colours on the sheet I designed for him (downloadable here).
He had so much fun with this and understood the concept of matching the colours very quickly. I only had to show him 2 or 3 times. He then started to mix and match the craft sticks and blocks. He must have played with this tot tray for at least half an hour. I’m very happy that our first tot tray was such a success.
Today we took a break from “traditional” learning and spent our designated school time doing arts and crafts for fathers day.
Noo coloured this picture in for me, isn’t he just the most caring and adorable child
The boys each made a puppet for their fathers. They had tons of fun and made a glorious mess with the glitter. Fun was had by all.
I helped Koko by putting the craft glue on the paper bags, sticking the googly eyes and his name down in foam letters. The works in progress:
I’m a planner, or I try to be at least, and in saying so, I like to have lists and check lists for just about everything. With 3 children, I need to plan, or I’ll never get to everything. I think that’s probably why I love the workboxes so much.
I, once again, downloaded some lovely organisational lists and Tot School Assesment’s from Carissa’s 1+1+1=1 Tot School site.
Noo is almost finished with his Teach You Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons and we will then start on his curriculum readers. I’m hoping we will get through one a week at least. I also downloaded some new readers from Hubbard’s Cupboard for Noo’s free reading time. I’m going to bind these into a nice book for him. I want to nurture Noo’s love for reading.
I’ve been very busy the last few days creating new types of learning tools for Noo. I came across the “Word Wich” and modified it a tiny bit into a downloadable file available here. I downloaded the template from abcteach.
Because Teach You Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons hasn’t touched on the use of capital letters yet, I’ve decided to create a game using lower case and capital letters. I downloaded a set of each from Kizclub. I’ve cut the lower case letters out and he needs to put the letters on the correct capital letter. This will help him learn the names of the capital letters a fun way. I’ll make a most of this activity as soon as we use it.
I’m in the process of finalising our craft box, so I put a list together and I’m happy to announce that I have 90 % of the supplies that we need. I’ll be going shopping for the balance of the craft supplies we need tomorrow.
Click on the image to download our Craft Box Check List.
The craft box list was typed out on paper from Graphic Garden
And somewhere between this, I’m arranging our wedding, which is going to be in just 15 days time. I’m finally going to marry the man of my dreams.