Word Jump; Spelling Word Practice

 As I mentioned before, I been trying to compile a list of fun ways to practice spelling words. We do a lot of sitting and writing words over and over, and that has its place and its benefits, but that gets so boring. When we get to the point where there are just a few words on the list that Erik just isn't getting, I try to find a way to get more excitement into the learning to finish off the list.

On this day, I wrote each word on a piece of construction paper and then taped them to the floor with masking tape. This gave us several ways to play with the words to help Erik learn them. Here are a few ideas:
- Call out a color and the child has to spell the word on that color of paper before they can jump on it.
-Jump from word to word, saying or spelling each one as you jump to it.
-Spell a word aloud and have your child jump onto that word as they read it.

Yep, this is real life. There's a week's worth of clean laundry on my couch and I'm not even trying to hide it. But Erik passed his spelling test the next day, and in clean clothes too, so I count this day as a success.

You can also include younger siblings in the fun by treating this more like a color wheel. Here are some ideas on how to do that.

Color Wheel Sorting

 We've played with a color wheel before, and it was enough fun that when Sharli was trying to learn her colors we decided to give it another try. With 3 kids all joining the fun the papers only lasted an hour or two, but they still had a great time.

 I gather up a basket full of items from around the house and let Sharli match the items to the corresponding piece of paper. Maren just wanted to be sitting in the middle of whatever was going on.

For more ways to have fun with nothing more than a few pieces of construction paper and some masking tape, visit my original post on this activity here.

Pink Sensory Bin

 When I asked Sharli what kind of birthday party she wanted, she told me "PINK!" With that as my only guide, I moved forward with plans for a pink party. I knew I wanted to keep things fairly simple, more like a play date than a birthday party. The biggest hit of the day was our pink sensory bin. 

I bought 40 lbs of the cheapest rice I could find, a large bottle of hand sanitizer, and a bottle of pink gel food coloring (from the cake decorating aisle at WalMart).

To dye the rice you first empty the hand sanitizer into a bowl (use one you're not attached to, like an empty sour cream tub) and stir in the food coloring. I used the whole jar of food coloring. Once that is well mixed, add it to your rice and stir well (you probably want to do this in a well ventilated space). Let it dry and you're ready to play.

 I went to the dollar store and picked up anything I could find that was pink (it helped that this was around Valentine's day). There were little pink and red hearts, little pink gem stones, pink and red pom poms, etc. These all got dumped into our little kiddie pool with the rice.

 I found some pink measuring cups at the dollar store, and some cute little silver ice scoops. I added some scooping/pouring toys and utensils from the toy box and my kitchen and we were all set. Oh boy did they love this! It got played with for days! At night I would cover the pool with a fitted sheet to keep critters out so that we'd be ready to play again the next day.

 We did end up with pink rice everywhere in the front yard, but it didn't take very long to break down in the sunshine. Even if I'd felt the need to pick it all up it would have been worth the hours and hours of play for all the kids involved. They played with it until there just wasn't enough left to play with, and I had to throw the remnants away. THAT was a sad day! 

Painting on Foil

 I found this fun idea on Pinterest for a new medium on which to paint. These kids love to paint and always jump at the chance to do so. I love trying to find new ways to make it interesting for them without breaking the bank. Painting on aluminum foil was perfect!

 The feel of the paintbrush sliding along the foil is quite different than painting on paper. 

 It's also fun to have the light reflecting off the surface anywhere where the paint was thin enough. The paint colors really popped and it looked neat.

While this doesn't really make a work of art that you can hang on the wall forever, it is a fun process art project. You can pick up a roll of aluminum foil at the dollar store, so why not give it a try?!

Pom Pom Sorting

 I was looking for a way to keep Sharli busy for a while and decided to go with one of my old stand-byes. Pom poms are good for SO many things, and most of them require very little prep work on my part.

 This day I grabbed a few small bowls out of the cupboard and set them on a tray with a set of tongs. I picked through the bag of pom poms to find only the ones that matched the colors of the bowls, and put those on the tray as well. I didn't give any instructions, just put the tray in front of Sharli and let her decide how to play with it on her own.

 She fiddled around with color sorting for a little while, and really enjoyed the challenge of using the tongs. 

 It didn't take too long before this turned into a game of "Ice Cream Shop". She would ask me what kind of ice cream I wanted, then scoop up a bowl for me. This kept her busy for as long as I was willing to sit and play along.

I picked these pom poms up for a dollar at Dollar Tree, and we have really gotten our money's worth out of them!

Balloon Free Play

 We LOVE balloons at our house. They are so cheap and provide so much entertainment! I almost always have a package of balloons tucked away somewhere so that when we're desperate for something to do I can pull them out.

 This day both kids were bored and cranky and just kept getting into trouble. I've learned that if I can provide them with something to keep themselves busy and cheer them up it can change a BAD day into a good one. And this pack of balloons only cost me a dollar, so it's a winner all around.

 We built muscles while we threw and caught and batted and kicked the balloons.

 We built vocabulary as we talked about colors and sizes.

 We built a foundation for learning math by comparing and classifying.

 We built memories as we goofed around and enjoyed being together.

 I pulled out a marker and drew a face on one of the balloons. This idea took off like wildfire, and soon every balloon had a different face on it. The kids would bring me a balloon and I'd let them pick whether that one would be happy, sad, surprised, etc.

 To see more of the fun things we've done with balloons, click here.

Balloon painting

 I saw this idea on Pinterest and thought it looked fun! I'm always on the lookout to turn an ordinary activity (like painting) into something more interesting. 

 Holding onto the balloon with slippery paint covered fingers took some skill and concentration. It was fun to watch the kids try to figure out how to make things work out how they wanted. (We also had the occasional dropped balloon, so using some kind of easily washable paint is a good idea.)

 The kids experimented with different ways to incorporate the balloons into the painting fun. We used them as stamps...

 

...and also as a canvas. 

 

 The kids ended up switching to finger painting when the balloons just got too slippery. I was glad I'd covered the table under each kid with some wrapping paper from the dollar store!

 The kids still wanted to paint, but were tired of finger painting, so we tried making some prints by pressing blank paper into the little plastic trays their paints were in. They were fascinated by that idea!

I love activities like this that keep the kiddos happy for a good long time!

Summer Reading Fun: Not Your Typical Dragon

This cute book is one that came to us through the Imagination Library. It's actually comes in handy as a way to help my kids understand when we see someone in a store or somewhere who is different than us. In the book a little dragon named Crispin has a birthday, making him old enough to breathe fire. Unfortunately, when he opens his mouth, fire does not come out. He tries everything he can to be a "real" dragon, but ends up breathing out funny things like beach balls and whipped cream. In the end he has to learn to love himself for who is is, and find a way to use his differences to bless those around him.

The story begins and ends with the dragon Crispin's birthday parties, so for our play dough time I made my usual play dough recipe, and added in a bit of vanilla to make it smell yummy (although I don't think any of the kids noticed the smell, if they did they didn't say anything). I gave the kids cupcake papers and birthday candles, some beads for "sprinkles", and a few utensils from my kids' play kitchen. We did this during last year's library reading program and it was such a favorite that the kids had been asking to do it again all summer.

I forgot to bring my camera with me this week, so I didn't get any pictures of our fun. This picture came from picklebums.com, and they have several more GREAT play dough ideas and lots of other family friendly content, you should definitely check it out!

For our sensory play the kids enjoyed some shaving cream free play, reminiscent of the whipped cream Crispin breathes out on his first attempt at fire breathing.

For our craft we followed Crispin to fire breathing practice. We did straw painting with yellow and red paint, which also brought some color mixing into the fun. I used tempera paints that I watered down enough to be able to squirt them with a syringe. It was so easy to fill the syringe and squirt a little of each color onto the child's paper. Then all they had to do was use their straw to blow the paint around. Erik's (on the left) is what it looks like if you only blow on the paint with the straw. Sharli's (on the right) ended up being more finger painting than straw painting, but oh well.

I found some beach balls at the dollar store, so we blew up a half a dozen of those for the kids to kick around for their outside gross motor play time. I'm not sure who got more of a work out, the adults who blew up the balls, or the kids who played with them. ;)

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Summer Reading Fun: Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?

 The second week of our Summer Reading Program at our local library, we focused on the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. and Eric Carle. Since the book is about different colored animals, I focused all our activities around color.

 We started out with Color Surprise Play-dough (which I apparently forgot to take pictures of), using the white play dough from last week. Talk about low prep!

For our Art activity, I made some finger paint and let the kids make a finger paint mural on a roll of butcher paper.

 

For snack time I made my Grandmother's brownies. They're always a big hit! One of these days I'll have to share that recipe. 

Our Gross Motor activity was a great game that my mother-in-law sent Sharli for Easter. We love this Roll and Play game and have gotten lots of mileage out of it.  

For our sensory activity I made a bunch of bags of Color in a Bag. These didn't get much attention from the kids that day because the big kids were busy playing balloon/flyswatter volleyball (which was naturally way more fun). Oh well, they had fun and that's all that matters.

 

If you need more ideas for activities for learning colors, here are all of ours. Hope you have fun with your Brown Bear adventures! 

*Diedre Mower is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com. This post contains affiliate links.

Pudding Painting

Sharli has always had a pretty serious need to put things in her mouth, so she hasn't gotten to do as much painting as Erik did at her age. I had some extra boxes of instant pudding in my cupboard, so the kids helped me mix it up and color it. I put Sharli's "paint" right on her high chair tray, and Erik's on a large cookie sheet.

 Now obviously this isn't going to create a work of art you can hang on your wall, but it does give your kid a chance to create and explore new tastes, smells, and textures. Process art is so much fun!

 We talked about colors and color mixing. It was fun to try to get Erik to guess what color we'd end up with before we mixed things together. When they were done creating we had snack time ready to go!

Throw Back Thursday, Edible Finger Paints

We needed some paint for one of Erik's letter D activities, so we made some edible finger paint. After Erik was done with the paint, we took Sharli to the bath tub and gave her some to play with too. It's a good thing it's edible!

 Sharli loved painting so much she decided to roll in it! It was about this point we got rid of the diaper and washed the mess down the drain. One thing about this paint is (being flour and water after all) that it can be hard to wash off once it dries, and is not much fun to get out of hair. So, as soon as the mess started getting all over, it was time to be done.