Busy Bag-A-Thon ~Week 4~

 

Here we are in our 4th and final week.  Thank you for joining me each Sunday with our Busy Bag-A-Thon.  In case you missed Week 1, Week 2, or Week 3 check them out!

 

1. Simple coloring book page puzzles.  Color and cut out a simple coloring book page and turn it into a puzzle.
2. Bucket of animals into an egg carton.  Have your child use a spoon or tongs to transfer objects to an egg carton.
3. Shape sewing.  Thread yard through a simple shape.  Use a hole punch around a theme picture.  Have child thread yarn through each hole.
4. Magnetic letters.  Spell words or practice letter or sound recognition.
5. Put the fire out.  Color a fire on a small sheet of paper and write a number on it.  Your child needs to use that many toy plastic firemen to put the fire out.  (Firemen are available at the dollar store.  Other ideas here could be how many Indians fit in the Tee Pee, how many soldiers fit in the tank, etc.
6. Simple children’s board games like Topple, or Jenga.  Then child can play these games alone.  Think about what fun quality time this would be to spend with your child.
7. Homemade number flashcards
8. Melting beads.  Even if you don’t melt the beads every time, or if your child doesn’t finish the project, think of the hand dexterity used for this activity.

Thanks so much for joining me this past month.  I hope you gained great insight as to activities that will keep your toddler/preschoolers entertained and more!

Don’t forget to follow Family Style School.

This is linked to:

We are that Family / Works for me Wednesday

Busy Bag-A-Thon ~ Week 2

Welcome back!

This is week 2 of my 4 week busy bag-a-thon! 

It seems like this time of year we need more activities to be able to keep our toddlers and preschoolers busy, older kids back in school or being homeschooled, and the holidays quickly approaching.  I hope these ideas make your life and your toddlers life so much fun! 

Every Sunday I will post a bunch new busy bag ideas!   Stay tuned and in case you missed last week, here it is!

1. Shape matching disk.  Use clothes pins with shapes drawn on them and shape cut outs on a disk.  Double side it!  (See #2)
2. Color match using clothes pins and opposite side of shape matching disk (#1).
3. Threading game.  Thread shapes of felt onto ribbon with buttons attached.
4. Color popsicles. Colored felt sewn into rectangles that thread over popsicle sticks with color words and matching colors on them.
5. Clothes line game. Cut felt into clothing shapes, string line across two items, (I use kitchen chairs) and have child hang clothes to dry.
6. Letter flashcards on a key chain.
7. Shape making game.  Have sheet with the number of sticks needed to build each shape.  This is really good for older kids.
8. Fun play letters.  Pretend play that requires imagination- So great!
9. Colorful shape making game. This is an easier version of #7 for younger kids.

I hope you are able to keep your toddles busy this time of year. 

This post is linked to

Works For Me Wednesday at We Are That Family

Bitty Ball

Tyler took a fun little Bitty Ball class from our local rec center.  It was a parent involvement class.

He learned basketball, tennis, volleyball, soccer, and t-ball.  The only sport he didn’t enjoy was tennis.  I ma so grateful that I signed him us up for this class.  I just love exposing my kids to new experiences.

Busy Bag-A-Thon ~Week 1~

 

Welcome to my Busy Bag-A-Thon!

It seems like this time of year we are needing to find more things to keep our toddlers and preschoolers busy.   I have recently participated in a busy bag swap and have acquired quite a few ideas.  Some are my own, but many are from the swap. 

Each Sunday for a total of 4 weeks I will be posting a variety of busy bag ideas.

 

1. Simply a nut can with shape holes cut in the lid and pom poms to stick through.  So simple, yet so fun. 
2. A bean bag and a piece of string.  Be creative here, make a shape to through the bean bag in.  Have your child walk the string line with the bean bag on their head.
3. Paint chip matching with clothespins.
4. Shape pictures.  Cut out colorful shapes and create designs with them.  Take pictures of each design for your child to recreate.
5. Homemade I Spy book.  Take pictures of groups of your child’s toys, then take individual pictures a few toys for them to find.
6. Button Shape Matching.  Cut out or trace shapes of buttons and  have your child match buttons to them.
7. Bug matching game. Use simple clipart to create a matching game for your child.
8. Sticker matching game. Put fun sticker shapes on one side of the paper, have your child match it on the other side.
9. Popsicle stick puzzle.  Use white glue or Modge Podge to glue a picture on the sticks and then cut apart.  Have a second picture so your child can know what they are building.
10. String pony beads on pipe cleaners.
11. Homemade marble maze.  Take two pieces of felt and sew together, with a marble inside and sew lines partway across.

This is linked up to:

Works for me Wednesday at We Are That Family

Jesse Bear What Will You Wear? B4FIAR

We just got done rowing Jesse Bear What Will You Wear?  This has been one of our most favorite rows so far! 

In fact I was having some trouble getting my youngest, 3, to stay in his bed. Since this row and a “Jesse Bear” of his very own, he goes to bed and stays there each night now!  Whoo Hooo.  (Knock on wood)

We started off learning all about America and it’s symbols.
We had an all American lunch, of hotdogs, potato salad and watermelon. Yummy.


We made sculptures of the Statue of Liberty out of our homemade play dough leftover from Blueberries For Sal.



We potato painted with shapes to match Jesse Bear’s kitchen floor.  The kids loved this!



We learned about nutrition and eating healthy.  We discussed food groups and how to eat some from each every day.
We used the food group sorting game from File Folder Fun.
 
I printed off and made some placemats from Choose My Plate.  The kids really loved this and they still use them.  They keep tabs on me now and let me know if I didn’t include each food group.  I have noticed them eating healthier on their own since doing this also.

The kids loved reenacting parts of the book, like putting a rose stick between their toes.

Tyler dressed like Jesse Bear with his shirt of red and pants that dance.  We had to improvise with the actual teddy bear’s clothes. 

The kids got to take a bubble bath.  This is a real treat in our house as I usually rush shower time.  Yep, that’s right.  All my kids shower, we do not bath around here, unless you choose to get in before your scheduled time at night.  It also cannot interfere with someone else’s scheduled time.  I will have to write a future post with our schedule.

They were so excited when I made them a little Jesse Bear Snack.  They were surprised that I let them drink the pear juice from a can.


Some other fun things we did this row were:
Study and practice the Pledge of Allegiance. Color and American Flag.  Learn about insects and the patterns on them.  We studied the life cycle of a butterfly and a lady bug.

I used many printables from Homeschool Creations, Jesse Bear Unit.
I used a ton of ideas from the Before Five In A Row Book.

Here I sit looking through my lesson plans to see what we completed, and we only did about half of the things I had planned.  However, I decided to take this row easy and go with the flow.  My kids still got a bunch out of it, and I kept my sanity.   I may continue to over plan on some rows, knowing that I may not get to all the activities.

This is linked to:
Homeschool Creations
Tot School

Blueberries for Sal ~ B4FIAR

 

We recently rowed Blueberries for Sal.  This was such a fun book.  We really love the story. 

My children that participated in this are 7 and 3.

Here are a few of the things we did. 

1- Homemade Blue Play dough. 

2- Eating and counting real blueberries

3- Playing Blueberry Letter game

4-Drawing Pictures with just one color. 

5- Blueberry basket painting with a pencil eraser

6-Blueberry pancakes for lunch!  YUMMY

7- Blueberry writing

8-Blueberry number matching

We did quite a few other things as well that are not pictured here.  We learned about the state of Maine.  We watched some videos of a blueberry field harvest. This one is by hand.  This one is by machine.  We discussed berry safety in that not all berries are safe for humans to eat.  We also learned about food preservation techniques.  Bears and hibernation was much of our science for this week.

My Resources for this book came from

• Before Five in a Row Manual
• Homeschool Creations
• My Pinterest Board 

 

Runaway Bunny ~Before Five In A Row~

 

 

Tyler has been obsessed (to say the least) with rainbows, ever since St. Patrick’s Day.  I added rainbows into his activities this week.

Day 1:

We began by reading the book The Runaway Bunny.

Once we read the book he played a bunny pattern game, a shape puzzle, and cut a rainbow cutting page. He was really proud of himself for cutting.  This was his first time using scissors.

Next we set up a fishing game for him he used a real carrot with a homemade fishing pole (thanks Daddy).  He fished for a bunny just like the momma did in the book. 

He caught one.

 

Then we had carrots for a snack.

Day 2: We read the book, did the shape puzzle, played the bunny pattern game all again.  He also climbed the stairs mountain looking for the baby bunny.

While reading the book we discussed the pictures.  We colored a color picture and drew a black and white one. 

 

Day 3: We read the story again, as well as the shape puzzle. We added in the bunny shadow match and tracing lines rainbow sheet.

We planted some flowers in a flower pot for the garden page. No, they are not crocus, but one was yellow.  Close enough, right?

Day 4:

We read the story, did the shape puzzle, played a animal match game. (We did it like memory, except with the cards face up.) We also played a rainbow match game, while eating a corn dog.

This day his fun activity was ice boats, I put some water in a cupcake tin, put tinfoil over it, stuck in toothpicks and froze it.  The next day I cut out paper triangles and stuck them on as sails, he loved this.  I just let him play at the kitchen sink on a stool.  I showed him how to blow the boats around without touching them. 

 

 

Day 5: We read the book, did the shape puzzle, played the animal match game and colored a rainbow page.

We did a tightrope walk this day as well.  My camera battery died so no picture of it.  I just laid a piece of string out and we practiced walking in a straight line. 

 

Another thing was we did a science experiment making milk rainbows.  All the kids loved this one.  In fact we have done it twice.  We learned this from watching Amazing Science Volume 1.   (Review coming soon)

 

 

I got my ideas for this unit from:

Before Five In A Row Manual

1+1+1=1.com

Homeschool Share

Do you want to know more about Before Five In a Row?  Check out my review of it here. 

This is linked to Tot School

TOT School~ March 25, 2012

It has been a while since I have done a Tot School post.

Tyler is 2 1/2. 


He spent some time painting with water colors.  Ever since last weekend, St. Patrick’s Day, he is obsessed with rainbows. Next week I will use the Rainbow tot pack with him. 


He made a bird feeder with us.  He chose to do an American Flag shape, because it was a blue cookie cutter.


We traced our hands and made Easter Lilly flowers to display.  He really loved this.  He wanted me to trace his hand so many times.


He played a little basketball on the fridge.


He “helped” daddy fix the water pump on my car.


He has been playing a handwriting game on the Kindle this week too. 

Check out all the neat stuff other tots are doing over at Tot School.

Don’t forget to vote for me too!!



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