Living Room Elevator

Yes that's a Swiffer he's holding - although to him it's a guitar!

My son loves elevators, especially the ones in the high rise office building his dad works in. It’s always a treat to go into the city and visit daddy at work and see the multiple banks of elevators busily dinging , opening and closing. For a few days my son have been pretending to go on the elevator and grabbing my hand to join him. So I decided to make this to help support his play and sneak in some number practice.

1. Gather your materials. You will need 2 pieces of paper ( different colors), scissors or a circle paper cutter, a marker, glue stick and blue painters tape for putting it up on your wall.
2. Start by cutting out as many circles as you need buttons. We decided on 12 floors, and an open and close button.
3. Write out  your numbers.
4. Add your glue.
5. Glue the circles to the other page.
6. Tape it to the wall, and play.

   

7. We would get in our elevator and decide together what number we would push, later he was the elevator attendant and I would randomly choose a number and he would find it. Once we arrived on our floor we would go to the dentist, go to our office to work,  and my favorite ride to the toy store. Your child’s imagination is the limit!

Book

Elevator Magic by Stuart J. Murphy was such an awesome library find. We’d just finished our elevator and headed off to storytime at the library and the first book I saw when I got there was this!  It’s a simple story about a young boy who meets his mom at work and before they can meet his dad on the bottom floor, they have errands to run in between.  His mom doesn’t tell him which number to push on the elevator just how many floors below each stop is. So the readers must subtract along with the little boy before they can figure out what button needs to be pushed. The math is super simple and my almost 3 year old had no trouble with my prompts. Also each stop is a fun surprise, with settings that will appeal to your child like a speedway and rock band. Fun book- so glad it caught my eye.

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