Mitten Match up

I made a little ABC learning game using mittens!

I found this printable HERE

I printed one set on patterned paper

and another set on plain white paper

Cut the set out

wrote a letter on each mitten

and laminated them!

here are a few of the letters

I also added a piece of velcro so that they could stick together when the matches were found!

My idea was to hang them on a "clothesline" and then hid the other pieces and the kids would stick them together!

We have not done that yet but hopefully tomorrow!

Today I just laid one set on the table and hid the other set and the kids had to find one letter at a time tell me the letter and find the match and head back for another!

They did a great job and was impressed with the way they are learning their capital letters!

You can do so much with this activity:

-have them match to the lower case letter 

(i don't feel like my kids are ready for lower case and that why I did upper case)

-print out pictures to match the letter

ex: A is for Apple

I is for Ice cream

-do numbers instead of letters

(i want to do this one, but I think I am going to make it with snowman instead of mittens)

the list could go on for a long time!!

If you have any other ideas for me please share!!!

Linking up withShow and Tell #85

Confetti Names

Before Thanksgiving Break we did these fun confetti names. They turned out pretty cool!  I first saw the idea of a long piece of paper that they wrote the word THANKFUL on it in glue and then crushed up leaves.  I decided to skip the crushed up leaves part and then I also decided to do their names instead of the word THANKFUL.  I wish I could get credit to where credit is due but I only saw a picture and a brief description of the craft so I don't know where it came from.

Here is what you will need:

pieces of paper all cut up, a pen/pencil, and glue

paper, with whatever word you want to put on it! I choose to put the names of my babies, toddlers, and preschoolers.

I carefully wrote each letter of the child's name. 

The older children traced their own names with the glue bottle, while I did the younger kids names. 

Then the kids carefully poured the confetti all over their paper

and we shook it off! 

The projects turned out super cool!!

This would be a fun project to do for all different seasons or just because!  Cutting up seasonal colors, and writing different words the children are talking about or learning about! 

We will defintly be doing this project again in another way! 

What kid doesn't like to dump confetti all over the place!

ABC

I found this website with these great printable ABC letters.  They are cute and the kids really enjoy doing them! 

I don't know how educational it is but right now my daycare kiddos are into coloring actual coloring pages so I figred these are possibly better than some coloring book page!  and they are FREE! 

Click HERE to go to the website so you can get pages like this:

-bragging moment-- my daughter colored this page, she did such a great job!-

I decided once a week we will do a different letter, but not just crayons, but different "tools"  to make it a little more fun and not so much like we are doing a work sheet!

I STINK!

"I Stink" is the book that we have been reading all week and often since its a very favorite of ours! 

I love the book because it is funny, uses new and different words, and has an alphabet "rap" in it! and its just cute!

While reading a blog post with a super cute idea I kinda made my own version of it!

In that blog post the blogger made a monster, but for our project to go along with our book we made a garbage truck!

The garbage truck is hungry all the time and LOVES to eat names and the alphabet!

Here are a few pics of our garbage truck in the making and the after look:

I used a klennex box, wrapped it in black paper

It doesn't look that great since I am using tape as my reinforcments but it will do the job!

add some eyes and some things on the top to give it a truck/ears look :)

We also decided it needed wheels so on the side i cut out cirlces and added the wheels!  The kids were disappointed they didn't spin so i might have to uprade him and get some reinforcements to make his wheels spin!  :)  The things we do for kids!

Very simple and easy to make and the kids just love our garbage truck!

We then played a few games with it,  I wrote all the names down of the kids and then the kids would have to find the names of the kids I called out and feed it to the garbage truck!

FEED ME!  STRAIGHT INTO MY HOOPER!

(when you say that as the kids are putting in the names it makes the game all that much more exciting!)

CRUSH THEM, MASH THEM, SMASH THEM!!

this was a GREAT way for the kids to recognize their names and the names of their freinds!

They LOVED the game and got super excited when the kids would "feed" the garbage truck their names! 

We also played another game feeding the garbage truck all the letters of the alphabet!  I put a sticker on a milk lidS and then the kids would have to find the letters and feed them to the garbage truck!  A very simple but a fun game! 

Also to go along with the book we have been painting with "trash" Check out this post and this post.

I linked up with A Story + Art = A Great Start

I also linked up with Show and Tell #76

This is just a fun way for the kids to learn their alphabet and start some reading! 

What are some fun things you do to help children learn their alphabet or start reading familiar words!

ABC

I will meet you at the top of the coconut tree!  Chicka Chicka BOOM BOOM!  Such  a favorite of everyone here!  I just had to do an activity for this story!  So we made a coconut tree and used my cookie cutter letters to decorate!

Here are a few photos of the kids working on their trees!

The kids kept very busy with this activity!  Most of the time I let the kids do projects until the paper runs out, but this time when I said only 1 they were super bummed! 

Linking up with a Story + Art = a Great Start

A Mommy's Adventures 

What are some acitivies that you do with your kids for this story?

Shaving Cream

Did you know that shaving cream will not only give your man a clean shave but provide hours of entertainment to your children!  (FYI: A friend informed me hyvee is having a oneday sale on monday and their shaving cream is super cheap!!  STOCK UP!!)

We startedout the morning by doing shaving cream art!  Its fun, messy,makes your house smell like a man (clean man) and their is a little color mixing going on!
I didn't get good pictures of this because i forgot and the kids were to excited and i was to late in getting the pics...
But all you need is a surface (the food coloring will stain so I used tin foil as an easy clean up surface), shaving cream, food coloring, something to "stir" the shaving cream with and something to squigy the shaving cream off.
Here are the pics that I have of our fun project!

 Stir up shaving cream and food coloring.

press paperdown into shaving cream.

 use something to squigy off the shaving cream...i used our kids dust pan (yes I have the kids clean up the mess they leave under their area of the table after meals.)

Here is one of the kids scrappin off the shaving cream!

 Final product!

its fun and makes a pretty cool design!

After "art" was done onto a writing lesson...with shaving cream!!

Here are some photos of the kids working on their writing skills!  We made LOTS of shapes, we made each letter of the kids names that were at the table and then they just got to have fun and make whatever their little hearts desired!

 Everyone was a little hesitant to touch the shaving cream so of course i dove right in smearing it all over the table and the kids jumped in right after that begging for more and saying they were running out!  Its very messy but super easy clean up!!  and if you buy the super cheap stuff (we are talking dollar tree) the smell isn't over powering! (notice Eli trying to get in on the fun!)

 getting messy!! 

This girl will eat dirt, play in the mud, pick up worms, but was SUPER hesitant about this...whats up with that!!

 working on letters!  I found it interesting that making the letter A was easy for everyone but making a triangle was a stuggle, i guess we will have to keep working on that!

EVERYONE LOOK AT JILL AND SAY CHEESE!  almost everyone:)  I LOVE these kids!!

Till Then, Peguin!

OUTDOORS!

Alot of our time today was spent outdoors!  This morning we did a little art activity which I will hopefully be blogging about later this acitivty.  Think something like "Things you can do with ... Thursday" Hope you all stop back over for that!! 

But since the weather is so beautiful we took advantage of being outdoors because I know that our outdoor time is going to be gone very quick! 

The morning was spent playing "troll" think 3 billy goats gruff, well I am the troll and the kids climb up the slide while I stand at the bottom and then I say this little chant...

"I AM A TROLL IN A DEEP DARK HOLE MY BELLY'S GETTING THINNER(i wish) I NEED TO EAT AND insert childs name IS A TREAT, SO I WILL HAVE HER/HIM FOR MY DINNER! 

and then the child slides down the slide and i gooble them up!  We do this till I can't say the chant one more time!  But this gets the kids giggling everytime over and over!

Here are a few photos of the kids waiting to be goobled up by the troll:

After everyone was gobbled off it was time to play school!  Most of my "older" kids go to preschool so when they get back they want to continue to play and teach the little kids the rules of school!  Eventually school made its way to doing chalk!  They had lots of fun drawing people, and writing my name, and of course getting covered in chalk dust!  Here are some more photos of the artwork the children created with chalk! 

This is my name written by another child, she did a GREAT job!

This is a family of people!  I love when they start making people!  Its fun to see their circles with arms and legs coming out of their heads, and then with time children develop and more body parts are added to their drawings!

 This is Rapunzel...notice the long hair!

 Chalky butts!

And I leave you with this wild, happy boy who walks behind everything! 

Time to Scoot, Little Newt!