Archive for August 2010
Allie did a color matching activity very similar to this one over a year ago, but I recently this variation at a daycare when I went to pick up my friend’s child. I had to make it as the perfect multi-level learning activity for my home.
All you will need are clothespins, paint, marker, scissors, and posterboard.
I traced an upside down large mixing bowl to get my big circle. Then I sectioned it into 8 pieces, but you can do as many as you like. I painted each section a different color.
As I painted the sections I made sure that I painted a clothespin for each color as well. You will see two of each in the photo because I made two sets (and then had to make a third).
I wrote the names of each color in the section. I also wrote the names of each color on the clothespins.
I gave the kids the circles with the clothespins already attached to the appropriate sections. I asked them to pull off all of the clothespins and put them in a pile. They loved pulling them off, maybe a little too much.
Then I told them to match the clothespins to the colors on the wheel. I demonstrated one match up to really show them, too. After all I was dealing with 2 two year olds. My daughter started right at it.
This activity is great for matching, learning colors, and motor skills. Our foster child has trouble doing the pincher hold, so this activity was more for him to work on motor skills and hand-eye coordination (not so much on color matching). Oh, and it is working. He is getting better every time we play this activity. Eve his therapists have noticed a big difference. We will get the color matching down, one day. 
My daughter is learning to match and get more familiar with her colors. But it doesn’t hurt to build those motor skills, either.
This activity is requested constantly at my house. The littler ones have so much fun playing with it that I had to make one for my four year old son, too. I am hoping we will have our colors down as sight words. We should as much as we play this.
So there you have it, an activity that can be done by different ages and developmental stages (including special needs). Here is my daughter so proud of her completion. I know that you can’t tell from the picture, but she is very happy and proud.
My plan was to make Saturn and start teaching my son about space but he asked if he could make planet Earth so I grabbed the shaving cream and this is what we made. What a hit! It’s so simple even young toddlers ( provided they are past the eating everything stage) could do this with minimal adult help. Saturn will get made sometime soon , he had so much fun making our planet and we still got to talk and learn about space.
- Gather your materials. You will need some shaving cream, white glue, green paint,scissors, a marker, blue paper, a spoon, and container or bowl.
- Start by mixing your paint. You will need 3 parts shaving cream to 1 part white glue, and green paint . Use as much green paint as you need to get the color you want.
- While they mix it up,
draw a circle on your blue paper. 
- Paint. It might get messy but it will definitely be fun!
- My son preferred to scoop the paint on to his hand and slap it down.
- While the paint was drying my son used the extra paint to make another painting !
- Let dry and cut out. The paint will dry puffy !
Books About Space !
It’s the very last week to enter our summer reading challenge! We have read over 7000 books with our kids this summer. Wow! Even if you haven’t entered yet you have until midnight tonight to read 10 books and fill out this form . Need more info? Want to know what the prizes are? Have fun reading and remember even on your busiest day make time for a snuggle and a book !
The weekly eBook prize and the grand prize an Amazon.com gift card will be drawn Monday.
Counting books are multitaskers they entertain, they teach and they are often a little more interactive than your average story. I love them and am always happy to find a good one to share with my son. Here are even more for you to share with yours.
Dinner at the Panda Palace 
by Michael Dahl was a great find, my son loved counting down from 12-1 with the bright illustrations , simple text and hidden numbers on each page. Something that seems simple but was really awesome was that each page had the number written as a word, shown as a digit and as dots to count. You can take the time to count each dot, read the word or simply recognize the digit!
by Doris K. Gayzagian is a beautiful book. Visually it reminds me of an impressionist painting, the soft beach colors used by illustrator Kristina Swarner are calming and pretty. This is more than just a counting book, there is a story of a little girl at the beach,what she finds and how she plans to use them when she takes them home. It’s so beautifully done that it almost makes me forget how much I hate finding sand in my car after a trip to the beach.
Museum 123 
One, Two, Three
It’s the process not the product right? Well it definitely was when we made these alphabet cookies. I swore I had cookie cutters but alas when I went to look for them they were MIA so we molded letters instead. The activity was a huge hit and a fun special treat. My son laughed with me when we checked on the cookies and they were unrecognizable. THey were still tasty and we still had fun with letters, so I say it was a success!
- Gather your materials. You will need some cookie dough, a cutting board, knife and pan.
- Start by portioning out the cookie size for your child. Since I was using premade dough I just sliced it.
- Start creating.
- I got my son into making letters by making some and asking him to guess what they were then he made a few of his own.
- We also made extra long ones that my son used the knife to cut to size. He loved this.
- Pop them on a tray.
- Bake – check on them and laugh hysterically – obviously less dough should have been used.
- Luckily the O ( my son’s initial) was still an O after I poked the middle a little and he enjoyed it at snack time!
Have fun with your creative time, take failures in stride and remember it’s the process not the product!
