Decorate-A-Cupcake Numbers Game

This is a really fun way to work on one to one correspondence.  We also learned number recognition, new words, TAKE and OFF.  Fine Motor as my daughter participated in the setup of the game by using scissors to cut the cards.  And of course as with most games, taking turns.

I found these foam cupcakes at the dollar section in Target.  At the time I had no idea what I would do with them but bought them anyway.  I stuck them in our craft closet knowing that I would get an idea sooner or later!

We have been working on so many word and letter activities recently that I wanted to try a numbers activity.  Here's how we played our Decorate-A-Cupcake Numbers game:

I used coffee filters since they look like giant cupcake liners and we filled them with beads and pom-pom's.  These would act as the 'sprinkles' for our cupcakes.  I also added one heart bead to each coffee filter as the 'topping' for our cupcakes.

Using some cardstock I hand wrote things like TAKE 1, TAKE 2 or  TAKE 0, all the way up to 5.  I also added some TAKE OFF 1, TAKE OFF 2, etc.  And their is also a card that says, HEART which is the 'topping' for the cupcake.  Their was about 20 cards in all.

The object of the game is to draw a card and do whatever the card tells you.  For example, if it's TAKE 3 you would have your child count out either 3 beads or pom-pom's depending on which they want to use as their 'sprinkles.'  The game continues like this until one of the players has at least 10 'sprinkles' on their cupcake.  Whoever gets to 10 first and has their heart 'topping' wins!

We played a few rounds and each round took about 5 minutes which seemed to not be too long or too short and kept my daughter's attention.

Game set up

shucks, picked up a zero!

adding on 'sprinkles'

counting 'sprinkles'

She had alot of fun as we counted and learned a few new words.  

And..........guess who won!

Other ways to play this game are instead of writing TAKE OFF you could introduce the plus and minus signs so writing, -1 OR +3.  You could also write out the number words instead of just the number.

Materials used:
Foam Cupcakes
Perler beads (but any kind of bead would work)
Pom-pom's
Coffee Filters (or anything to hold the beads)
Cardstock
Scissors
Marker/Pen

And here are how some of our other decorated cupcakes:

using pom-pom's as sprinkles

using perler beads as sprinkles

This game fits perfectly in a quart size ziploc baggie!!

DIY Wind Chime - Vacation Memento

Summer vacations are quickly approaching which gave me the idea of writing this post.  How many times do you go on vacation and collect shells, rocks or other things that you would like to keep as a memento but then ends up sitting in the  bottom of a drawer?  I hope this post will help you turn some of your findings into a beautiful keepsake or memento.

Over Easter we visited with my parents in Ohio.  They have this cute 'cove' with lots of shells, driftwood and other beach-y treasures!  My daughter LOVES to collect and so she had a pocket full of some seashells and rocks.  On our way out I grabbed a piece of driftwood as my mind is constantly thinking, "I could do something with this."

 Here's how we turned our treasures into a DIY Wind Chime:

• My daughter sorted through and picked out what she wanted to use

• My husband gave me some spider wire and drilled some holes through the driftwood

Some of the shells had holes so those were easy to string onto the wire and for the other treasures without holes I used a hot glue gun.

Once all done we hung from a tree in our backyard.  This was an easy and lovely way to make a memento from our visit to my parents.  Every time we look at it or hear it clang together we will be reminded of the memories we made.

What do you do with the things you collect from vacation?  Let us know in the comments below or visit us on our Facebook page!

Disney Countdown

We leave for Disney in 11 days and of course my kiddos are super excited.  We've been going annually and this will be our 4th year.  I've never done a countdown before, other than the calendar, but because my kids ask every day how many days are left I decided it would be fun if they had something they could countdown with.

We picked up a few boxes of popsicle sticks at a yard sale last summer and I knew I wanted to use them since I have SO many.  I also have a Mickey Mouse cookie cutter, red glitter and black construction paper so I was almost ready to begin.  The last thing I needed was something to hold the popsicle sticks.....Target dollar section to the rescue!  As I was walking past the dollar section I spotted these yellow tins that would work perfect.  I now had all the colors I wanted to use for Mickey, the classic Black, red and yellow Mickey is so well known for.

I was hoping the colored popsicle sticks I had would have included red but no luck.  I started off by painting the popsicle sticks red.  While they were drying I traced and cut out the Mickey heads.  I used white glue to write the numbers on each Mickey head and shook glitter over the number.

After everything had thoroughly dried I glued the Mickey heads to the popsicle sticks but needed something to hold up the stick inside the tin.  This part was not necessary but I thought it looked better.  Sure enough I had some left over styrofoam in my craft cabinet, cut it to size and stuck each popsicle into it and now the Mickey's stand up perfectly!

I added a simple label to the front of the tin and voila.......Disney Countdown.  It also helps my almost 5 year old with number recognition as she searches for the number each day!

Flower Word Families using Crayon Resist Art

My preschooler has been working on CVC words and now we are grouping them together into word families.  With May bringing up beautiful flowers I thought we would incorporate flowers into this activity.

To make learning more fun I used some magic!  Actually, it's simply crayon resist art but to my preschooler it's magic! To do our Crayon Resist Art we tried Homemade Liquid Watercolors that we learned about from There's Just One Mommy.  This is such a fun way to make your own watercolors.  Check out the post to learn how!

To start I cut out some flowers on white paper and in the middle of each flower I wrote the ending letters of the word family.  For this activity we worked on -ap, -et and -ot.  Then on each flower petal I wrote the words ending in these sounds using a white crayon.

Finally, I let my preschooler use our watercolors and paint the flower petals.  She was super excited to see words 'magically' appear.  We sounded out the words and once all done she wanted to make flower stems and flower roots!!

We have kept the final creation on our wall so that we could review the words we learned!

10 Ways to Explore and Learn with Letters

We have really enjoyed doing our letter of the week and now that we have completed all 26 letters I'm highlighting a few of our favorites.  In addition, I am sharing letter activities from other bloggers who show how many fun ways their are to explore with letters!

Letter V: Came upon us during spring so we turned a couple of popsicle sticks into a letter V vase.

Here's what you'll need for this craft:

2 Popsicle sticks

Glue

Green pipecleaners 

Flower stickers

Construction paper

This was an easy, fun and springy craft. If you don't have flower stickers or pipecleaners your child  can draw the flower stems and flowers. Or you could choose to paint your letter V vase.

Letter N: Write the letter N on a piece of paper, and either you or your child depending on age, can trace the letter with glue.  Next, take some noodles and line them up along the glue.  We chose to dye our noodles but that's completely optional.

Here's what you'll need for this craft:
Noodles
Glue
Construction paper
Pencil/Marker
Food coloring (optional)

Sugar Aunts shares her letter N craft by making an adorable Napkin Newt




Mama's Happy Hive shares the fun they had with Montessori Inspired letter B activities.

What an adorable letter B Bumblebee!




Golden Reflections Blog shares their A-Z's of Sensory Play  with 26 different ways to enjoy sensory activities with letters.  This list is truly amazing and one that will certainly serve as a great resource.




Here are some more great letter activities:

B is for Butterfly from Crystal & Co. - tis the season for butterflies and this craft is so pretty!

M is for Moose from A Little Pinch of Perfect adorable moose craft and 2 letter M activities

W is for Watermelon from Dabbling Momma - crafts and learns with Watermelon

X is for X-ray from Dabbling Momma - craft and learn about the human body

Z is for Zebra from Crystal & Co. - cute Zebra craft and a song, rhyme and book to pair with it


Learning letters never has to be boring!  I hope this round up shows that learning letters can be a ton of fun!

Think Outside the Box with Store Bought Games

Store bought games can be fun but we don't always have to play by the rules!  Take for example our Elefun game which we love and which has been enjoyed by both of my kids.  

We have been learning CVC words for awhile now and the last thing I want is for it to become boring.  I thought using this game, that my daughter already really enjoys, would help keep her interest. Here's how we changed the rules:

We took out the butterflies that come with Elefun and I replaced them with cut pieces of party streamers.  Shortly before we played this game we celebrated my husband's birthday, and instead of tossing the streamers I gave them a second life with this game.  I wrote a CVC word on each cut piece of streamer, which would now act as the 'butterflies.'  I decided to only use animal CVC words which I also wrote on a piece of paper and later laminated. The point of the new game was when one of the pieces of paper were caught my daughter would have to do two things:

1. Sound out the word 

 2. Act out the word

 

Once all the 'butterflies' were caught she matched the word  to the word on the paper and wrote either her first name letter or mine in the box next to the word. This showed which one of us caught that word, and whoever filled up all the CVC words first won the game.  

Catching......

Sounding.......

Writing......

Here's what we learned playing by the new rules:

1. Recognizing and Sounding out CVC words

2. Acting out/identifying with animals and animal sounds

3. Writing skills

4. Counting

5. Hand/eye coordination

Take a peek at your games and see how you can think outside the box and change the rules in a way that will help your child learn while having fun!  

Learning While Pretending

Pretend play is important for building many different developmental skills such as language, thinking, social and emotional skills.  The best part is they are learning while pretending and imagining!

Recently, while cleaning out one of our kitchen cabinets I had a bunch of food boxes and instead of tossing them I used them for a pretend play grocery store.

Here's what I used to set up our grocery store pretend play:

Paper
Pen
Play money
Toy cash register
Empty food boxes/containers
Toy carriage
Plastic grocery bags
Toy purse/wallet

I began by setting up the empty food boxes and containers around the house.  I wrote a grocery list but because my 4 year old can not read yet, I told her what the word on the list was.  As she 'shopped' she had to match the word on the list to the word/letters on the item.  Some of the items she simply remembered from our own 'real' trips to the grocery store.

As she shopped she crossed off items from her list just like Mommy does!  Once she found all the things on the list it was time to check out.  I set up her toy cash register had some plastic grocery bags ready and gave her some play money.  After I rang up all the items I told my daughter how much money she owed.  At this point I had her count out how many dollars she needed so that she could pay for her groceries.

Finally, she was ready to load up her carriage with all her goodies and off she went........"thanks for shopping - come again!!"

Their are many ways to share pretend play with your child.  Most times you don't have to 'set up' anything.  Children tend to pretend play and use their imaginations on their own.  However, here are some other ideas to encourage pretend play with your child:

Dress up clothes
Stuffed animals
Dolls
Books
Cardboard box
Blankets
Paper
Envelopes
Stickers
Crayons

How does your child pretend play?  Share with us in the comments below or visit us on our Facebook page.