I use this activity to help my kindergartener son practice his spelling words. Because let’s face it, memorizing things isn’t fun for young children. Since my 3 year old daughter thinks she should do everything her big brother does, I adjusted this for her to practice her letters, numbers, and writing practice.

All you will need to do this simple activity are paper and crayons. That’s it.

I drew an upper and lower case A for my daughter and her friend. But we also did a couple of numbers and threw in some shapes, too.

Have your child trace the letter, shape, or number with any color crayon. As they are tracing it have them say it out loud, too. For letters we say the letters and then say the sound they make. For shapes we will say the shape and then say something that is that shape. You get the idea.

Have them trace over the object again with a different color crayon.

Then have them repeat it again with another color, and so on until all seven colors of the rainbow are used.

Our friends had a little trouble getting the idea at first, they wanted to draw another one next to the one I had drawn. But with a little bit of guidance they saw that it would make that one a rainbow and then they were eager to do it.

Now you have a rainbowed letter (or number or shape).

This is a very easy way to get your child to do repetition without making it seem like doing the same thing seven times. It is great for handwriting and pencil grasp practice, along with recognition of letters, shapes, numbers, and colors. It really is a lot of fun and your refrigerator will soon be covered with rainbowed objects. Just a warning.

Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.

When I suggested this idea to my son for the Tinker Lab Paper Bag Challenge he bolted to the playroom to start finding supplies. One problem his sister was napping and I’d worked hard to get her to sleep, I wasn’t about to wake her with the sounds of exploding bags. So we waited until this weekend and to say it was worth the wait is a total understatement. Our Love Bomb was fun to do and the end product was even cuter than I thought it would be.

1. Gather your materials. You will need some paper bags, scrap construction paper, a canvas or heavy paper,contact paper,  white glue, scissors and/ or a hole punch.
2. Start by cutting your scrap paper into small pieces. We used scissors and a hole punch.
3. Pop them in the bags. We made 3 bags with a handful of confetti in each.
4. Make a heart with contact paper.
5. Pop the heart on the canvas. spread glue all over the canvas. Make sure there is lots along the edge of the contact paper. Forgive the photos, my camera dove to the floor on Friday and my new one hasn’t arrived yet. Thank you apple for my iPhone camera!
6. Time for some confetti explosions, you might want to do this outside.
7. Blow it up
8. Smack it as hard as you can. It took us a few tries and we practiced earlier.
9. Bam! Some of the confetti will fly out but you still have to give it a little shake to get it all.
10. After all have been popped, gently push the confetti that are on the heart to the edge. Let dry for only a few minutes then peel off the heart.
11. Let dry over night.

Pretty cool right? We had so much fun, just hearing the giggles that emanated from my son was enough to do this again and again!

Check out the other creative uses for paper bags at Tinker Lab.

Before we all show off the brilliant and creative blog posts we have to share this week I want to share a few things.

1. I am in love with these wooden dolls from Curly Birds.  It makes me wish my daughter was just a little older to help me make some or that my son would make them with me without turning them into Clone Troopers. I pinned it and will make them in the future.

2. Have you seen some of my collaborative boards on Pinterest? Check out my Reading and Writing Readiness Board . Together with other early education bloggers I pin great activities that help children with reading and writing at all stages.

3. Our reader survey has had great response but we want to hear from all of you. So far based on your comments we’ve made all posts printer friendly, fixed the broken links, and are slowly re-recording all the old songs that we lost. All suggestions and comments are taken to heart and we are so thankful for you taking the time to help us be better.Take our survey here .

Okay to the good stuff !

What do fantastic dresses for women have to do with kids crafts and early learning? Nothing.

I decided to go forward with this review and giveaway because after doing my reader survey I found that almost all of you are moms, almost all of you are right around my age ( early 30s) and if these dresses make me squeal with delight and dream of nights out I bet they’d make you excited too! So I am posting on a Saturday , when I don’t usually post as to not take anything away from our regular learning but as a bonus .

Shabby Apple dresses weren’t new to me when I was contacted with this opportunity. I’d browsed their site before having seen them pinned on Pinterest. I love how the dresses are cut, they are classy and feminine and have that hip feel without feeling too trendy. You don’t have to worry that they are going to go out of style before you get to make it your go to dress. I chose this dress  to give away and love it.  

I get dressed up at most once a week for church so when I looked at how modest the dresses were I was even happier, but it’s still hot enough for a date night ( if I can remember what that is ). This dress really is so versatile. I put it on with some very high heels for my husband and his jaw drop was all I needed to know he approved. I also popped a cardigan over it , and paired it with flats and felt comfy enough to wear it all day.

My one complaint was how it had to be ironed. I am completely unable to iron so I am not sure if it was just my inability , the fabric’s desire to wrinkle , my disproportionate bust ( still nursing) or just the fact that it was unlined. The dress wasn’t tight at all but in the pictures it looks as though it is in places. The wrinkling wasn’t bad and I only noticed after looking at the photo. I just want to make sure I give a balanced review. The fit and feeling of it on was fabulous!

So here is the deal about the giveaway but first the gals at Shabby Apple are also offering a site wide 10% off coupon code for all my readers for 30 days.

The code is NoTimeFor10off

How to Enter : 

Pop over to  Shabby Apple  and find your favorite dress, come back here and leave a comment telling us which you like the best . That’s it!

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Official Rules

For about 3 weeks we’ve been writing on our playroom wall, well on paper attached to the wall. Both my kids, friends who have come by and even my husband and I have contributed to this on going mural.  My daughter loves to write on vertical surfaces and she is just starting to point out letters in books and other print so I figures we could fill both those needs and create a cooperative project for my son and her as well.

1. Gather your materials. You will need some painters tape ( don’t buy the cheap stuff, I did and it’s cheap for a reason), butcher block ( aka craft paper), marker and then the materials to decorate  things like crayons, markers, stickers…
2. Clear a large wall space, part of the magic of a mural is it’s size so to make a simple project like this super make it big. Hang the paper up.
3. Write out the alphabet . I thought I had it spaced well but poor little z got almost no space.
4. Add kids.  Sometimes I ask her to find a letter and color, often I just put the crayon jar on the floor and watch.
5. We added stickers . My son put them on the matching letter, and directed my daughter where to put them too.  Stickers are great little fine motor exercises especially peeling them off their original sheets.
6. Now every time we are in the playroom ( many times a day) someone adds something. Not sure how long we will leave it up but for now we are having fun with it. Below is the mural today- check out all the stars on the letter S, it’s my daughter’s favorite word these days!

Alphabet Books

Alphabet Under Construction by Denise Fleming is a wonderful example of what an alphabet book should be. Perfect for toddlers and preschoolers learning their first letters, the text is short , the letters are front and center and the illustrations are fun and interesting. My son loves this book, I grabbed it at the library after remembering how much my Pre K class loved it too.Many alphabet books are too long to read entirety at circle time or in one shot with a toddler but this my 19 month old will sit through Z every time. {This review is from when my son was 19 months old in 2008. His love of this book was really a jumping off point for his love of letters in general. I wish I could say I taught him his letters but really reading this one particular book over and over at his request probably did the trick. }

Chicka Chicka ABC  by Bill Martin Jr. and Jim Archambault is a fantastic board book with the perfect amount of text for a toddler. The illustrations by Lois Ehlert are so bright and bold that even very young babies will respond to it!  Of all the alphabet books we have at our house this is the one my daughter who is 19 months grabs the most. She loves the way the text leads whoever is reading it to a sing song voice , especially her brother who practically sings it to her. It’s a great first alphabet book for toddlers.

Al Pha’s Bet by Amy Krouse Rosenthal is a rare find. An alphabet book that can keep a 5 year old who says alphabet books are for babies, completely engaged. The story follows Al who has bet himself that he can win a contest ordered by the King figure out an order for the brand new 26 letters that were just invented. In a string of adorable events and a little chance the alphabet as we know it is put together. My son thought it was hysterical that P was put in the line up after Al went pee. It’s a cute idea for a book and abstract enough to be a bit of a challenge for preschoolers but just the right level of interest for kids that think they know it all when it comes to the alphabet.