Praises of a Wife and Mommy

If you are looking to reuse some of the items you may have around the house then look no further.  This fine motor activity is sure to keep those toddlers busy and entertained for a little while.   I used baby food jar caps and wrote letters on each cap for other letter work with my preschooler but when my toddler showed such an interest in them I found a tupperware container cut a hole and then allowed him to put the caps in the hole.   Who knew that this activity would provide me 30 minutes of uninterrupted cleaning time!  Yes, these boys both played with this for 30 minutes!  They were also stacking the caps but they had fun putting them in, taking them out, and did a pretty descent job of turn taking!  I know most of you have similar things laying around your house so get get started on making this for your toddler.  

Do you have the big foam letter puzzle??   I am so thankful to have them because we use them for so many  fun activities.  Here is another alphabet lesson that my daughter and I did last year.   For this activity I let my daughter put the letter pieces where ever she wanted.  She thought she was just making a really big hop scotch game.  I did let her play some hop scotch but then we also did "I Spy."   I really wanted to see how well my daughter would recall her letters when the letters were not in order.  I was happy how she recalled her letters.  :)   If you have never played "I spy" then let me share it.  I would say, "I spy with my little eye the letter B"  I would then allow her to find it but if I noticed her searching I would sometimes give her a clue to help find it faster, "I spy the letter B and it is the color purple."   We also did some color jumping.  :)  "Jump on the color red 6 times." ...

Parents or teachers this activity was affordable and easy to create!  I took a normal pool noodle and cut it 1-2 inches apart until I had enough for 26 letters.   After they were all cut I put 3 letters around them.  (I did this with some thinking as to sight words I could make)  For instance I wanted to work on 2 letter words so on one noodle I put I, A, U on the other I put T, S N.  When you move the letters around you can make the sight words: IT, IS, IN, AT, AS, AN, US, UN.  I have flash cards that my daughter would use to help her make the words.   Each letter she would give me the name and sound and then she started to learn the words.  We did 2 letters, 3 letters, and 4 letters.  :)  I also used some yarn to keep them connected. 

What child does not love squirt bottles?  I know my kids keep finding my plant bottle and keep trying to get each other and the dog.  So instead of spraying each other I turned this into some work for my preschooler.  I have some flashcards and anytime we use them we have to be doing something more fun then flipping through them.  So I created a letter board using sidewalk chalk.  After that was completed I had my daughter hop from letter to letter saying her alphabet.  Then I got the flash cards out and she had to tell me the letter, give me the sound, and then locate it on the sidewalk and shoot and aim!  :)  She had a lot of fun.  We also got to do the letters more then one time because the water was drying so quickly!  I also would give her a number and that was how many squirts she had to squirt the letter.  (Had to sneak some math in there.)   I wish I would have done upper and lower case letters.  I really need to...

The Color Game Thanks again to Pintrest where I found this idea from Toddler Approved .  We love fun ideas for outside and chalk!   My daughter never has played "Simon" so I called our game the Color game.  We played it similar to  "Simon" but my daughter is only 4 so trying to get long sequences was not the goal.  I also used 8 different colors so my goal was to sequence the 8 colors.  I would call out a color and she would jump on it then back in the middle.  Next I would say the same color and add one more and she would jump from one color to another and then back to the middle where I would add another color.  We would do that similar to "Simon" but we did not repeat a color so we would use all 8 colors  once.  She did a fantastic job of remembering where to go and each new color when it was added.   :)  This game was played several times for at least 45 minutes!  :) Yay!  My 16 month old a...

  I bet your looking at that picture wondering what it is???  I froze a whole lot of water with random objects or colors in it to create some fun for the kids during our hot and humid day.  We have had several days in a row that are 90 plus degrees and  heat indexes in the 100's!   I  included a car, paint, food coloring, dog treat, bath toy, and even some fruit.  :) I also provided a few "tools" to help the kids dig them out or play with them.   The frozen paint made a bit of a mess but that's part of the fun.  My daughter did not use the tools much she just started throwing the ice until they broke.  The kids seemed to enjoy the play even though the ice melted very quickly. How are you  beating the heat?  This post is featured on: 

We have not had much snow this winter so we had to improvise our snowman this year.  My daughter loved the idea of staying inside... she is a summer girl.  She is not a fan of being outside as she hates being cold.   Gather the items you would use on a snowman or create some of your own items.  We made a carrot nose and buttons out of paper.   Grab a roll of toilet paper and get wrapping.  You can have your child turn in circles or you can go around them.  Then add the buttons, carrot nose, hat, mittens.  Giggle and sing Frosty the Selah!  :)  (or your child's name)  This activity is sure to please any preschooler.  If you have more then one child they will have a ton of fun wrapping each other up!  :) PS... we are not going to waste the toilet paper I rolled it back up to use!  HA!

We could have made a 100 of these adorable snowflakes.   Here is what you need: coffee filters bingo dotters (markers will work too but will take much longer) scissors Here is how to create: Fold the coffee filter in half and then in half again.  Color both sides with the bingo dotter.  After you have them all colored unfold them and let them dry, you can not cut them until they have time to dry.  Once dry fold them back up and get ready to cut.  Then make sure you have do not cut the one corner that holds it all together.  I did some hand over hand with cutting and also let my daughter have fun with the scissors.  Every snowflake is different just like real snow flakes.    :)  Have fun discussing the differences and if you can look at real snowflakes.  Our snow is all melting with this unusual heat wave so google snowflake images and it will create some fun on the computer.  :) Once you are comparing the snowflake...