Rice Sensory Bin Challenge

My girls love sensory play and our Rice Bin has been one of their favorites since they were pretty young.  I have set up all different themed sensory bins with things that I thought the girls would find fun.  They always seem to enjoy scooping and pouring the rice from one container to the next.  When I found out about this child led Rice Sensory Bin Challenge I couldn’t wait to participate.  The awesome part about this challenge is that it is a child led play project.  All I did was fill one of our Plastic Storage Bins with some plain white rice and the rest was up to Juliette!

Here is what Juliette came up with:

She decided to add some of our Play-Doh toys to her Rice Bin.  This included, plates, a spoon and fork, ice cream cones, an ice cream dish, a whisk, candles and a paint palate.

She spend lots of time scooping and pouring the rice from one cup to the next.

  She also had fun making ice cream sundaes and singing “Happy Birthday!’

After awhile she came up with a Hide and Seek game for us to play.  She would hide one of the pieces under the rice and I had to find it.  Then I hid one of the pieces and she had to find it. 

I loved seeing and listening to her as she played with the rice.  She loved that she was in control of this activity, by picking everything out it was everything that she wanted and I loved that about this project!

For more great Rice Sensory Bin Activities check out these awesome blogs.  Don’t forget we all started with just a bin of plain white or brown rice and our kids did the rest!!!

• Little Bins For Little Hands
• A Mommy's Adventures
• Craftulate
• Creative World of Varya
• FSPDT
• Gift of Curiosity
• Glittering Muffins
• Here Come the Girls
• Kids Play Space
• Lalymom
• Life Over C’s
• Life with Moore Babies
• Minne-Mama
• P is for Preschooler
• Preschool Inspirations
• School Time Snippets
• Squiggles and Bubbles
• Still Playing School
  Suzy Homeschooler
• Teach Beside Me
• Teach me Mommy
  The Chaos and The Clutter

 

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Baby Fun ~ Big Buttons

 

Clara is 9 months old and wants to do everything that her big sisters do.  She loved playing with our collection of  really big buttons.

These REALLY BIG BUTTONS are a lot of fun for all ages!  We use them for sorting, patterns and now baby play.  Clara enjoyed exploring them.  She looked inside the container, picked up the buttons and especially liked dumping them all over the floor.  This is a great activity for developing fine motor skills and cause and effect relationships.

Letter and Number Sticker Matching

This is a simple activity to put together that helped Juliette recognize uppercase and lowercase letters.

First, I wrote all the letters of the alphabet in capitals on colored dot stickers. Then I wrote the lowercase letters on a plain piece of paper. I did these in a random order so Juliette really had to hunt for them. Finally, she used the stickers to cover the letter matches.

This was the perfect activity for my sticker loving preschooler!!! After she finished she said "another one, another one!!"

So next we did this with numbers and dots. She practiced counting the dots and covering them with the matching number.

Roll and Fill a Counting Game

Check out the fun counting game that Juliette is playing…I posted all about it over at Totally Tots today!

Exploring Alternate Canvases ~ Sticker Balloons

I love giving the girls alternate canvases to work on.  It is a great way to have them think out of the box and use materials in different ways.

Balloons and Stickers are two things that almost every child loves so for this open ended art project I put the two together and the girls had so much fun with it.

The little kids (21 months – 2.5 years) placed the stickers all over the balloons. The older girls (5 years old) turned them into people.  They made eyes, hair, a mouth, teeth, a nose and even a bow to go in the hair all with the different shaped stickers.

After they finished their creations it was fun to use the decorated balloons to play keep it up.  They tap the balloon trying to keep it from touching the ground.  It was interesting to feel the difference between a plain balloon and one that is covered in stickers!

Read and Stamp

Emily is so excited that she is starting to read so I thought that she would have a lot of fun with this read and stamp activity.

My dad found this Melissa & Doug Baby Farm Animals Stamp Set at our Church’s White Elephant Sale last year for a really great price.  I tucked it away and thought it would be the perfect thing to use for this activity. 

I folded a piece of white paper to make 8 even spaces.  At the top of each box I wrote the directions.  For example, I see 4 red pigs.

  First, Emily read the directions.

  Then she used the animal stamps to fill in the boxes.

Emily was so careful to pick the right stamp, the right color and to count as she was stamping the animals throughout this whole activity.  She did this whole activity on her own.  When she had trouble with any of the names of the animals she looked at the stamps that she did not use yet and made the sound of the first letter of the name to help her figure it out.

This activity can also be done with farm animal stickers.  I just noticed that I have a set in my sticker box, so I might try it another day that way!

 

For more great activities for preschoolers click on the buttons below:

Laundry Basket Weaving

One day when I was doing laundry I looked at the laundry basket and thought that it would be perfect for practicing weaving.  I went through my craft bin and found different textured ribbons to tie on to the basket for the girls to weave.  I wanted them to be able to try weaving with a variety of ribbons so  there was string from a bakery, curling ribbon, elastic and a few types/widths of decorative ribbon. 

This activity was such a big hit, the girls were occupied by weaving the ribbons throughout the basket for at least a half an hour.  Plus they kept asking for it throughout the day.  In fact it was the first thing that Emily wanted the next morning when she came down for breakfast!

 

There was plenty of room for both girls to work.

  They were both so focused on weaving the ribbons through the basket.Juliette got right to work on the green ribbon. Emily got the brown one all through one whole side…  …and around to the next!

I loved to see the different ways they chose to weave the ribbons through.  They didn’t limit themselves to the sides, they pulled them right over the top and even practiced some tying too!

The next day Emily turned it into a sled and had to “buckle” Juliette in.

The girls had such a great time with this activity, which was a great fine motor workout as well as an open ended art project with lots of creative play thrown in!

**If you try this with your children just make sure they are supervised at all times.  The lengths of the ribbon can be a strangulation hazard.  As soon as Juliette started going into the basket I made sure that Emily did not put any of the ribbons any where near her neck or or even shoulders. **

I am linking this activity up to:

Heart People

Last year we made a cute “Little Miss Valentine” which motivated this years heart person.  Instead of accordion paper arms and legs we used pipe cleaners and beads, for a great fine motor skill art project.

To make these I cut out a large heart out of pink foam and 4 smaller hearts from pink, white and red foam. Emily used markers to decorate the heart.  Then I used a hole puncher to make holes for the arms and legs.  Emily picked out what color pipe cleaner she wanted for the arms and legs.  We used a half a pipe cleaner for each arm and leg.  Once the pipe cleaners were attached she was able to use whichever beads she wanted to decorate the arms and legs.   Emily picked which color smaller hearts she wanted for the hands and feet and I helped her attach them, by twisting the pipe cleaner through the hole in the smaller hearts.  Finally, Emily glued on wiggly eyes and drew a nose and mouth.

She was very proud of her heart person and could not wait to show it to Daddy when he got home from work!

Open Ended Art ~ Painting Snow

We had another snow day and I thought that painting some snow in our nice warm house would be the perfect activity for today!

Emily’s friend braved the snow to come play and this kept the girls busy and having fun for a while, which is always the mark of a great project in my book :0)

First I put a layer of snow in a cookie tray and patted it down for Emily and her friend.  Then I filled our paint cups up with some liquid watercolors (the best paints ever) and some water.  These watercolors are very concentrated so for this activity diluting the paint was perfect.  I was going to use food coloring but I was out of red.

Emily used the dropper to color the snow on her tray.

      I think the smile says it all!

After she filled the tray with color I filled up a bowl with snow and we added it on top of the colored snow.  It was fun to watch the watercolors spread out and color the new snow.  I thought I took a picture but realized I didn’t after I washed all the snow down the drain :(

This activity was a great open-ended art project and fine motor skills practice too.

Check out other great ideas for Tots and Preschoolers:

 

Sensory Fun ~ Packing Peanuts and Pom Poms

I thought it would be fun to make a winter sensory tub and I have been saving some biodegradable packing peanuts for a while now just for this activity!  So I filled our sensory tub with packing peanuts.  Then I added some white and blue pom poms, cotton balls, silver and blue sequins and spangles and white, silver and blue pipe cleaners.  This added some fun colors and textures for the girls to explore!

I also added some blue training chopsticks for the girls to pick the pieces up with.  Then small, medium and large clear plastic containers and our snowflake silicone baking cups for them to fill up. 

Juliette loved putting the packing peanuts in the silicone baking cups.

Emily used the training chopsticks to transfer the pieces into the containers.

Frighteningly Frozen Fun

I was inspired to make this fun Halloween Activity after seeing a similar activity on Counting Coconuts.  I knew that Emily and Juliette would enjoy this and when I came across a bag of plastic creepy crawlies and spider rings from last year I knew that they would work perfectly.

First, I gathered all the things that I was going to hide in my block of ice.  I used some mini pumpkin erasers (target dollar spot), plastic bugs and skeletons (dollar tree) and spider and bat rings (dollar tree).  Next I put them in a round baking pan and added some ice cubes and then enough water cover the objects.  Then I put them in the freezer until the whole block thing was frozen.

After dinner the other night I put the block of ice into a shallow tub (mine was my cupcake/cake carrier) along with a bowl of warm water, some pipettes and a salt shaker.  Emily, Juliette and Grandpa got to work excavating the petrified plastic treasures!

Here Emily is focusing on freeing this bat ring and getting an excellent fine motor skills work out.

   Juliette with the ring that Grandpa excavated for her!!

This activity was so much fun and everyone including Grandpa (my dad) enjoyed it.  In fact, I don’t know who had more fun, the girls or Grandpa :0)

Next time, I am going to pre-freeze some colored water ice cubes to add into the mix.  I think it will add some more fun as the colors melt.

 

**Don’t forget to check out my JumpStart Review and Giveaway for a chance to win a 3 month subscription!!**

Check out other great ideas for Tots and Preschoolers:

Candy Corn Math ~ Grid Game

When I went to the store to get a bag of candy corn for my Candy Corn Wreath project, I saw this bag of Autumn Mix Candy and immediately thought off all the fun activities we could use it for, oh and yes we could enjoy eating it too!!

I first saw the idea for Grid Games on the PreKinders website, there are many wonderful printable versions available on her site.  I am low on ink so I decided to use my ice cube trays instead of printing out the grids and my handy bag of Harvest Mix Candy Corn as the manipulative.

Emily and I played this game together.  We each got an ice cube tray and a cup of Candy Corn.  To play, Emily rolled our Foam Dice and told me the number that she rolled.  Then she counted out that amount of Candy Corn and placed one in each spot in the ice cube tray.  Next, I did the same thing.  The winner was the first person to fill all of the spots in their try.

This can be done individually as well, but Emily loves when I join in on activities like this and I find it a lot more fun than just watching too!

This activity is great for teaching 1 to 1 correspondence and counting as well as practicing fine motor skills.

 

Check out other great ideas for Tots and Preschoolers:

Stick It

This is one of the first activities that I did with Emily when she was a baby/toddler.  She was not that impressed with it, but this is just another example of how different my two little girls are because Juliette LOVED it!

I taped a piece of clear  contact paper on the tray of Juliette’s highchair and gave her pieces of paper from our scrap box.  I showed her how to put the pieces on to the paper and how they stuck to it.  She got to work right away, she put them on then pulled them off and moved them around.  This project is also great fine motor skill practice.  It  is also one of the first activities that she has spent a really long time working at and it thrilled me to pieces!

Once she was finished I pressed the contact paper onto a piece of construction paper and cut around the edge of it.  We chose yellow since according to Emily that is Juliette’s favorite color.    

Styrofoam Plate Sewing

Emily enjoys watching her grandma and me sew.  She can’t wait until she is able to create her own sewing projects too.  So I thought that this would be a fun way to practice, it is also great for developing fine motor skills. 

 

First, I cut a long piece of yarn and taped it to the back of a styrofoam plate, as seen in the picture above.  Then I threaded a blunt tip yarn needle and demonstrated how to poke the needle into the plate, pull it through and come up the other side.  For this activity I did not pre poke the holes in the plate, I told Emily that she could do it wherever she wanted around the edge of the plate.   

stART ~ A Day at the Apple Orchard

 

Welcome to stART! I hope that you will enjoy our story and art project and maybe even share your own too. All I ask is that you link back to A Mommy’s Adventures so that everyone can see all the other great projects that everyone shares too! The linky will be open all week.

I added a stART tab in my navigation bar to make it easier to search for past stART projects. Be sure to check it out!! All the books that we have read and did a stART project for are listed in alphabetical order.

This week we read A Day at the Apple Orchard, by Megan Faulkner and Adam Krawesky.  This is a great book that describes a child's trip to an apple orchard.  Emily was excited to see all the photographs and to talk about when we went apple picking last year with her little cousin.  I loved all the information that this book shared in a fun way.  At first I thought that it would be boring for her, but it actually held her attention as we discussed the information I read and things that were going on in the photographs.

After reading this book we made some cute apple sun catchers.  All you need is a clear plastic lid, paint brush, watered down glue, green craft foam and a brown pipe cleaner.  First, I punched a hole in the top of a clear plastic lid, then Emily glued red tissue paper on to the lid.  Once all the glue was dry she threaded a brown pipe cleaner through the hole in the lid and a green leaf that I cut out of craft foam.  To finish it she twisted the pipe cleaner together to make it look like a stem. 

Emily was very proud of her finished sun catcher!!