This bird feeder is fun to make and quick and easy to do with toddlers. I just love recycling materials and what better to recycle than toilet paper rolls! Read the rest of this entry
Aug20
Quick and Easy Garden Bird Feeder for Toddlers
Category Archives: Toddler Activities
Jun4
Fun With Practica for 2-3 year olds #2
This is the second post in the series “Fun with Practica for 2-3 year olds. In the first post we focused on balance, counting and working with color. This post we will focus on Spacial Relations, Visual Conceptualising, Color Perception, Manual Dexterity, Eye-hand Coordination, Visual Figure-ground Distinction, Sequence of Events, Memory, Logical Reasoning, General Insight, Spacial orientation and Listening skills… all of this in just 4 simple exercises! Here we go…
1. Pegboard: Develop Spacial Relations, Visual Conceptualising, Color Perception, Manual Dexterity, Eye-hand Coordination, Visual Figure-ground Distinction, Sequence of Events and Memory
– Put the pegboard upside down and trace the holes in the board. Draw a circle around a dot to show them where they should put a peg in the board. This will help them draw the connection between the pegboard and its cards.
– Now show them Card 1 and tell them about the boy on the card and how he wants to get to his dog on the other side and that he has to follow the red line to get to the dog. Show them how they must fill the first row with red pegs for the boy to follow to get to the dog. Do the same with the blue, green and yellow lines with the dog and cat, cat and mouse and mouse and hole.
2. Sorting bowls: Develops Numerical Conceptualising
– Give each toddler or mom/toddler each a sorting bowl and play “one for me, one for you”. This teaches them to wait… name each color as you are sorting… “One blue button for mommy, one blue button for Pieter.” etc.
– Now let him do the sorting. IF theres two toddlers, give each a chance. Describe each action… “One for mommy, one for Pieter” “One red button for Pieter, one red button for Hanlé” etc. This teaches them to share.
– Now let each take their own button and repeat “Each take one green button. Now each can take TWO yellow buttons… wow! One, two yellow buttons each…” This teaches them to take only what they are told.
3. Long Jump: Develop Major Muscle, Balance and Mathematical Development
– Place a shoelace on the floor as a starting point and let her stand with both feet behind the shoelace. Show her how to jump with both feet as far as she can. Measure with the Hex Counters (or Popsicle sticks like I did) after every jump and write the results on the black board.
4. Kwik Pick Book
– Use the Pre-school Kwik Pick workbook #1. Explain to them how the boy in block 1 has no head. “Look this boy has no head! Oops… where is his head? He has arms, legs, hands, feet and a body but no head.” Show them the rest of the pictures in the block. “Look, here is his head!”
– Now let them do the second one and ask, “What is missing from this boy? An arm? Which of these pictures are his arm?” As you progress you can just ask, “What is missing in this picture and they should get the idea of finding the missing part.”
– Go on with the pages as long as your child can stay focused. Once my daughter started she didn’t want to stop so we went up to no16 until I had to stop her from getting brain fog 🙂
Well thats it for now folks… please like the Facebook page and follow this blog to stay in touch for more awesome Practica activities.
For more fun Practica activities, click Here!
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* Disclaimer: I am not a spokesperson/ promoter/ reseller of Practica. I share my activities, often adapted for my children with other mothers who also have the Programme or would like to know more about it. I will not be held responsible for any damage and/ or injuries obtained while following my instructions.
May12
Fun With Practica for 2-3 year olds #1
Practica, according to their textbook is a comprehensive Guide for individual stimulation during the formative years of children from 0-6 years. It is based on recognised one-on-one activities within a closed parent-child relationship. I Have found it very comprehensive, catering for every level of a child’s development. I have done LOTS of research on the internet and I must say theres not many places where I have found something quite like this.
Read the rest of this entryMay8
Mess free painting with MR Price Home Chunky Paint Pens
I have to admit that I have not been painting with the kids nearly as much as I want to because I have been lazy when it comes to the messes it makes when the kids put their hands in the paint tubs and paint everything around them except the paper in front of them… no, I have not been lazy… I have been drop dead tired and not up for cleaning!
Even though I absolutely love crafts, I am a pain in the butt with messes.
I walk around with the washcloth, cleaning every little drop I see, put the washcloth down and tell myself its good for them to mess… But after like, 5 seconds I just find myself with the washcloth again trying not to yell at them, not to mess around… Not cool, I KNOW!
So when I saw these in Mr Price Home I had to try them out. My kids love painting so this was an opportunity for me to try it out and maybe we’d get to paint a bit more. Well, we did! I got some white shirts that they can wear every time we paint and I had some plastic aprons that wipes off easily… Ready to go!
The pens had tight sealing caps inside that needed quite some force with a knife to get out. It was pretty messy and took a while with the kids waiting in anticipation for me to finish so make sure you do this over paper or in a basin before you start. After opening them, also make sure to turn them over and squeeze until the paint seeps through… Once thats done, Bob’s your uncle!
Once they were all open it just took a minute or two for the kids to figure out that you have to turn it upside down all the way to get paint out but once they were on a roll they loved painting with the pens. They are almost mess free (cause can you ever be mess free with toddlers??) but the best thing of these Chunky Paint pens is that they dry really quickly and even after it has dried it wipes off hands and tables easily with just a wet cloth.
At only R39,99 it’s not too pricey either if you consider the prices of other proper paints. This paint is good quality, theres no clotting and when the colors mix it just takes a squeeze to get the original color back. I have re-used them multiple times and can say that they haven’t dried out yet as I keep the caps sealed tight when stored.
I love to draw them each a circle, triangle and square to show them the shapes and give them a basic starting point in drawing and color and then they usually try to imitate them or color them in. After this we move on to other activities like coloring or free painting on white paper. I found with this age that they have more confidence once there is a starting point.
The nice thing of the chunky paint pens was that I could make dots to give them some color guidance on their coloring pages. I believe its good to also give them free play on paper but following instructions is also a good part of development so sometimes I try to give them instructions to follow too. Coloring in specific pictures with given lines is great for fine motor skills to teach them control of the pen and helps them to have better handwriting but free drawing on white paper allows them to unleash their creativity and conquers fear of the open paper. Don’t neglect one of the two, they are two totally different activities that are both important for development
We will certainly enjoy lots of this in future and I’m pretty sure I will be buying some more soon! Head to any Mr Price Home store or order them online at : http://www.mrphome.com/en_za/jump/HOMEWARE/Pack-Of-6-Chunky-Paint-Pens/productDetail/2_3201016423/cat860009/general
Enjoy!
Mar5
Cardboard Quiet Book DIY
When my husband wanted to take my 2yo daughter on a business trip with him I knew we were going to need some In-Flight Activities to keep her busy. I made this in a rush the night before so I think I will do one of these properly again, but for this one I just wanted to make something fun for her to do. I sent her off the next morning with a backpack filled with snacks, Pipe cleaners, colored Ice Cream sticks and this book and a sticker book for the activities in the book. It seemed to do the trick and
this is what I did:
this is what I did:
I found a bunch of scraps of cardboard left over from other activities and some glue-pens, markers etc. and some stickers. I didn’t have much to choose from sticker wise but I found sea animals and flowers so I thought I could make a page for the sea activity and a page for the garden activity. I also had some bows and butterflies etc. made for creating cards so I counted what I had of what and used that as the counting page since Hanlé has become really interested in counting as of late.
- Use A4 cardboard for the cover if you like, and about 10 A4 pages for the rest
- Get all of them together neatly and fold all of them together in half (don’t staple yet)
- Keep the book together as if it was stapled as you need the order of the pages to work out in the end. Now you can either Plot your pages and start working from the back, as it becomes difficult to write on the back of a page once you have glued layers of cardboard and bows on the other side (activity page). If you use glitter glue like me, you will also need to take those pages out to dry so doing the back first will save some time BUT if you are not going to use glitter glue and don’t mind a thick book, feel free to staple and start from the front, then you can write the activities on a separate piece of cardboard, cut it out with a nice pattern scissor and just glue it on the left sides to the backs of the activity pages.
- If you start from the back, write the activity on the left page and create your activity on the right… take note of the page that goes with it to the right as the order will be messed up once you take it apart for all the glitter glue to dry.
- Draw a few coloring pages with open pages in between… its important for creativity to draw their own pictures too!
- Once everything is glued and dried (for me it was the next morning), re-order your book, open it up and press it against a soft surface like a couch with the cover facing up. Open up your stapler and staple three times along the centre fold (one in middle and one on each side) to ensure the book is fixed properly. (Note: Staplers staple at least 1-2 mm below the edge so align it with the fold and take it up a bit before you staple otherwise the staples wont align with the fold and your book will have a new centre fold!)
- Stick all the stickers that belong in a scene on one page of the sticker book and add some extra random stickers for free play. This is their book so they should have fun creative pages for themselves as well.
- If you are sending your toddler away with the book, remember to send the sticker book and some crayons to draw with.
This is what it looked like when it came back… I was impressed as I thought there would be torn pages and Dora stickers in the sea and fish in the garden but it seems daddy took note of the instructions 🙂
Dec25
DIY Sewing Kit
This is so easy to make even for kids though not cheap at R150 for all the accessories but so worth it as a gift for anyone who loves sewing and will appreciate expensive (or even cheap dollar store) new threads and accessories.
What you will need: Just a glass bottle (I re-used a jam jar and stuck a spindle of pins on the lid to make it look new) and whatever you want to put in it. Read the rest of this entry