Bug Race Game

Here's another printable game for you!

To play the Bug Race game, you roll the dice, count the dots, and mark through the correct number. Keep marking off the numbers rollled until a bug reaches the other side of the page and wins the race!

Thanks to Confessions of a Homeschooler for linking to this great game and to Blessings for creating it!

Domino Parking Lot Game

O and I had a lot of fun playing the domino parking lot game last week! Thanks to Amy from Let's Explore for the link :)

To play the game, you simply count the dots on your domino and then drive the domino to the correct number. We had lots of fun making beeps, bumps, and screeches as we drove, and baby E looked at us as if we were crazy :)

A Fun Fine Motor Activity

Here is a fun way to get your kiddos to practice their fine motor skills, and it was very simple to make.

To make this toy (I don't really know what to call it), you need an empty water bottle (cut in half), duct tape, pipe cleaner, and 3 bottle tops.

I cut the bottle in half, put duct tape around the cut edge for safety, made holes in the side of the bottle for the pipe cleaner, put pipe cleaners through the holes, made holes in the bottle tops, and put the other end of the pipe cleaners through the bottle tops. I used an ice pick to make the holes in the bottle tops...unfortunately, I was a little hammer happy, and I hammered the ice pick through the bottle top and into my kitchen table. I was pretty surprised when I lifted the ice pick up, and it stuck! Oops!

The idea for this activity came from Julie K in Taiwan.

This post was written a loooooooooooong time ago...July, I think. O wasn't very enthusiastic about this activity, and I eventually put it away. When I took it back out in December, she was very excited and she has really enjoyed working with it.

Loving the Olympics

We've been letting O stay up late every night to watch the Olympics, and she has thoroughly enjoyed it! She especially loves to watch ice skating. I recently printed an ice skater coloring sheet and an Olympics flag coloring sheet for her to color and cut. Thanks to Laura from My Montessori Journey for the link to the flag coloring sheet!

O's Job Chart

O and I recently made a job chart for her to follow each week. The job chart is from Mod Eco Kids, and you can find it here. After downloading and printing the chart, I laminated it so O can mark off her completed jobs with a wipe-off marker. O has done great with her jobs, and she even stopped me when she saw me cleaning the bathroom sink. She said, "Mama! That's MY job!" I love it when I hear those words :)

It's been about 6 weeks since I wrote this post (it's been hiding out in draft since then). O has been great about completing her jobs, especially feeding the cat. However, we almost always forget to mark her completed jobs off of her chart. I need to put the chart in a more central location so that we can remember to check them off!

Texture Board Memory Game

O and I had fun playing memory with her texture boards this week. We felt them before turning them over to see if we had matches, and then we turned them over to see if we were right. I had no intention of saying who won because I try to de-emphasize competition. However, O had other plans. She immediately started counting the boards to see who won after we finished the game. She had 10 boards, and I had 8 so she determined that she had more, so she won. I decided to turn this into an impromptu math lesson, so I asked her how many more she had. She didn't know, so we lined the boards up in 2 rows with hers on the top and mine on the bottom. I showed her how her line of boards was longer by 2 boards, so 10 was 2 more than 8. It was still a little over her 3 and a half year old head, but it was a good introduction to higher level math skills :)

A Simple Storytelling Game

O and I have had fun telling stories together using this storytelling game lately!

To make the game I borrowed these wooden figures from her phonics bags and put them together in a drawstring bag (from IKEA). To play the game we take turns taking one figure out of the bag at a time. The first person starts the story, and we keep adding to it using the figures as prompts. I was surprised by how much O enjoyed this game, and I was happy enough with it that I bought more figures from WM. You can find these (already painted) wooden figures at WM, Hobby Lobby, and Michaels. They cost about 50 cents each.

Walking the Line...Valentine's Day Style :)

This is the last Valentine's Day post, I promise! For this activity, I used a long piece of red yarn that I shaped into a heart on the rug. O REALLY enjoyed walking the line that was shaped like a heart! She's very into balancing lately, so she had fun balancing beanbags on her head as she walked. We really need to walk on the line more often!

Chocolate Playdough Hearts

O and I recently made chocolate playdough using this recipe. It smelled divine, but we halfed the recipe and I never could get the texture quite right (it was too sticky). O had a great time making chocolate hearts and tricking her Grandaddy and Grandpa into to thinking they were real (they played along...O is not very good at deception :).

Glittery Snow Playdough

O and I made homemade snow playdough about a month ago, and I just realized that I'd never written about it. We followed this recipe and added white glitter and peppermint extract. It smells delicious! We had fun making and playing with the playdough, but O lost interest in it rather quickly (very surprising since she used to be obsessed with playdough). Luckily, this playdough lasts and lasts (if you store it in an airtight container), so I'm sure she'll be ready to play with it again eventually :)

Heart Suncatcher...Or Not

I planned for O to make a heart suncatcher using contact paper and crepe paper streamers. I cut a heart out of the contact paper and taped it (sticky side out) onto our sliding glass door. I gave her a basket of crepe paper streamers and a pair of scissors. I told her she could cut or tear the streamers and then put them on the sticky heart. She cut a few streamers, but then decided that she'd rather her heart have tails. My little artist has a mind of her own!

Heart Family

When I saw these heart people at The Crafty Crow, I thought they would be fun for O and I to make. To make the heart people, you need a construction paper heart for each person, 4 pieces of pipe cleaners for the arms and legs, and a hole puncher.

I set up a tray with all the necessary materials. I punched the holes in the hearts while O decorated the faces. She decorated 4 hearts, one for each member of our family. She was so funny when she was drawing the face on E's heart. She kept staring at E's face and looking back and forth from E's face to the heart as if she were copying it exactly onto the heart.

O was surprisingly uninterested in this project, so we didn't finish it until the next day. After she finished drawing the faces on all 4 hearts, we joined their pipe cleaner hands (she made sure that the children were in the middle with the mama and daddy on either side) and hung them from our mantel.

Heart ABCs

Since we're loving these heart activities lately, I decided to write the letters of O's name on them. She was SO excited and thoroughly enjoyed putting the letters in order to spell her name. I also wrote all of the lowercase letters of the alphabet on the hearts. I planned to play with her with the hearts and show her how to make simple words. She had other plans, and she put them in ABC order. I was surprised since that's not something that I would have ever taught her to do, and I had no idea that she could do it. I'm always surprised by the things that she learns completely on her own :)

Cutting Hearts

I told O last week that I'd show her how to cut hearts. She assured me that she couldn't cut a heart, so she was SUPER excited when she found out that she could!

To prepare this activity I folded 4 sheets of red or pink paper in half and drew a half heart on the fold. I gave O the tray of paper and a pair of scissors, and she got to work. She cut along the line and then excitedly opened the paper to see her heart. She was surprised to see that she really had cut a heart! Now she wants to make a book out of her hearts, and I think that is a great idea :)

Counting Hearts

Yet another activity with the heart stickers! I gave O a bowl of heart stickers along with a stack of numbers. She put the numbers in order (she was confused by the zero...I need to incorporate a zero into our other number activities). She then counted out the correct number of hearts to go under each number. I was surprised by how easy this activity was for her, and I would have had her go up to 10 if I'd had more hearts :)

Winter Transferring Activity

I set up this simple winter transferring activity for O last week. She used the chopsticks to transfer the cotton balls to the ice cube tray. The cotton balls are supposed to represent snow :) This activity promotes fine motor control, one-to-one correspondence, attention to detail, and concentration. O enjoyed doing this activity when I first presented it to her, but she wasn't interested in doing it again. (So it's already back in the Montessori rotation drawer to make room for lots of fun Valentine's Day activities).

Number Wheel Activity

I downloaded this great number wheel activity from Homeschool Share, and O LOVES it! After printing the number wheel, I laminated it before cutting it out. Then I wrote the numbers 1 through 10 (using a sharpie) on 10 clothes pins. O counted the dots, found the correct clothes pin, and clipped the clothes pin to the wheel. She was a little unsure of a few numbers, so this was a great way for her to practice recognizing her numbers.

Last Week in "School"

Here are couple of pics from "school" on Tuesday. O was excited to play this "What Goes Together?" game. It's a Winnie-the-Pooh game in which you match cards of things that go together (hat and coat, broom and dustpan, etc.). After you make your match, you turn the cards over to see if they go together to complete a picture. If they do then your match is correct. I found this fun game at the Dollar Tree.

O was also really excited about this cutting activity. I have a Kumon cutting book that I pull pages from periodically for her to cut. Last time I had a page for her to cut, she was not very enthusiastic (this was surprising since she loves to cut), but this time she was thrilled. I chose a page with a winter theme since we are doing lots of winter activities this month. She cut very slowly and carefully and with excellent concentration. After she finished cutting on the line, she asked if she could cut the page up. Of course, I let her and she had fun cutting out the animals and trees.

Snow Sensory Tub

We've been hoping and wishing for snow, but it looks like it's not going to happen. So, we made our own snow! Fake snow is better than no snow! I bought a snow cone maker (from WM) at then end of the summer (super cheap!), and O was THRILLED to make snow on Tuesday. At first she was only interested in eating the snow, but once she had her fill she was ready to play! She scooped and poured a little, but she especially enjoyed playing with her miniature plastic animals in the snow. She pretended they were hunting in the snow for food. It was fun to watch her play and listen to the story she told as she played :)

Snowman Writing Practice

I downloaded these great Snowman Writing Practice cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I laminated the pages after printing them (before cutting) and put them together with a book ring after cutting them. They are so convenient, and O has enjoyed using them in the car, at home, and at Guh-guh's house.

Check out Confessions of a Homeschooler for more great printables!