Archive for April 2010
With Earth Day coming and spring warming us up and taking learning outside I have collected some of our favorite nature crafts and activities ! If you remember how your perspective changed when your teacher decided to take your class outside you don’t need to be told how such a simple act can open up young minds to learning.
Giant Sunflower Craft ( above)
Looking for Earth Day Activities?
Yarn y
Y is always tricky but this craft does double duty not only reinforcing the letter y, but also as a active fine motor skills lacing toy! As you can see I wasn’t fussy about how my son laced it. I wanted him to get the yarn through the holes not make perfect stitches. Holding the yarn in between his thumb and fingers also promotes the tripod grip ( proper way to hold writing tools).
- Gather your materials. You will need some cardboard, a hole punch, some markers, yarn, scissors and tape.
- Write a lowercase ( would work great with uppercase too ) on your cardboard.
- Hand it to your child and invite them to color it with markers. My son has taken to tracing and writing the letter on it.
- Add more colors until they decide they are done.
- While they are coloring cut off a long piece of yarn and double it, so it make a bog loop. Tape the 2 ends together tightly so that it makes a hard end for easy lacing.
- Cut the y out.
- Hole punch time! Our card board was too thick for my son to punch the holes, if the cereal box in the picture hasn’t had writing on the inside ( why do they do that?!) it would have been great. If your child can help , have them help.
- Before you hand the y back thread the yarn through the first hole and loop it back through the yarn so it ties onto the y. This eliminates meltdowns about the yarn just zooming through all the holes. As well as keeps the 2 pieces together for later use!
- Lace! I laced the first two holes to demonstrate it to my son then let him at it.
- Keep going!
Magic Writing!
Teaching children about letters is more fun if you include as many novel and sensory experiences as you can. This was a huge hit and even bigger mess, but well worth it. My son who is in the midst of a perfectionist phase loved that he could “erase” his letters. He also loved how the bright colors magically appeared under the cornstarch.
- Gather your materials. You will need a shallow cardboard box, cornstarch, and some brightly colored markers, pastels or what I used… window markers.
- Color the bottom of your box with a few colors. If you are using anything “wet” let it dry 100% before adding the cornstarch.
- Add the cornstarch and cover the color.
- Start writing! Isn’t it cool how the colors pop? I was giddy that it worked!
- Explore!
- He wrote an M then exclaimed – look I can make a W too, then flipped the whole box , then wrote another M.
We stepped outside to shake all the extra off! 
Have fun this one is MESSY – I was covered, my camera was covered, my son was covered and we had a blast!
Some of our Favorite Alphabet Books
I first found Sorta Crunchy quite a while back . Megan used to be the editor of SimpleKids which I was honored to have been linked on a handful of times. Megan is my kind of writer and mom, smart, down to earth, trying her best and it shows. I love her insights about motherhood and her general attitude is refreshing and never preachy. Her Open Letter To My Fellow Breastfeeding Advocates is simply put a must read for all moms no matter how they feed their babies. If you have never stopped by, please do I think you will find yourself reading and reading like I do every time I visit.
Do your child’s ears perk up when they hear sirens? Do they ask to drive past fire stations just to see if the trucks are “at home” ? Have they ever dreamed about being a firefighter, doctor or police officer? If they have these books will be perfect for them.
Emergency!
Policeman Small 
Ambulances 
Doctor Meow’s Big Emergency 
Fire Engines
Whenever I do little lessons like this with my son , I set them up when he is not around. I introduce them as “puzzles” for him to help me solve and that peaks his interest and makes it fun, not some “lesson” mom is doing cause she misses teaching . Seriously though it is fun because he uses what he calls his “detective skills” to figure out the pattern. He’s also getting a good fine motor work out pinching them onto the sentence strip.
- Gather your materials. You will need some colored clothes pins. If you don’t have colored ones available, grab the good old wood ones and color them with markers. You will also need some stiff paper like cardboard, card stock or sentence strips like we are using.
- Set out a number of patterns with the clothes pins. I did 3, a general rule of thumb is to provide a challenge but not overwhelm them, or challenge them too much to the point of frustration . I have done patterns before with my son but it had been a while, I also wanted to provide choices for him, something if you have a toddler or preschooler is at times an absolute must have.
- Give them the pegs and ask them if they can solve the puzzle and figure out what comes next.
- If they are not sure sing a song ” White , Blue, White , Blue…” that is normally get them going if they are ready for patterns.
- If an ABABA pattern is too easy try a ABCABC one.
Next time we do this I will be doing it with 3 colors in one pattern, my son needed me to sing the pattern for the first strip but them completed the next 2 on fast forward with no input. Which tells me next time to make it a little more challenging, but to also provide some at this level to give him a balance of challenge and independent success. Best part – nothing you used gets ruined. The pins can be used again and so can the sentence strips.
