Pipe Cleaner and Cylinder Beads - An easy fun activity

My friend Flo, who has four children under five which includes a two and a half month old, created this activity for my kids with leftovers she had from making it for hers.  She's pretty amazing!  This activity allows the children to work on sorting, fine motor skills and counting.  The items needed are pipe cleaners and cylinder beads. We also use a sectioned tray to sort the items in, a mat to put the items on  (shelf liner) and a bowl for our numbers. 

There are many different ways to set up this acitivty, but here is what we do.  The pipe cleaners and beads start out in a plastic bag on thier trays with the numbers in the middle.  I have K and G pour the beads and pipe cleaners on their individual mats and then sort them by color onto their sectioned trays (I purchased these trays at Wal-mart for a dollar over the summer).  Then they put a number on the mat, count out the beads and put them on the pipe cleaner.  Then, I have them take the beads off and put the pipe cleaner back, placing the number they use to the side or in a small bowl before they choose another number.  They have the option of using the different colors available; sometimes they do, and sometimes they do not.

G at work

K at work

 The kids have really enjoyed this activity, and we are very greatful to Flo for making it for us.

Week in Review - Legos (August 6th)

This past week was a good one for us.  With the new (to us) legos that we received from my parents, I decided to see how many activities we could do with them.  Here are some of the things we were able to do so far.

Counting with Legos
We used our jumbo numbers that I printed from here, and used legos for one to one counting.  Both K and G enjoyed doing this. 

K counting

G is focused

K also enjoyed stacking all his smaller stacks together and counting all of the legos.  I liked this because it was a way for him to practice some higher number counting. 

Addition
We have a set of addition cards that are in nice bright colors, the same colors as our legos, so we used the legos to practice addition.  He only does about 4 or 5 problems per sitting.  Hopefully, that number will grow.

Love that K wants to add

Sorting
We sorted the legos by color and shape.

Design
Of course, K and G enjoyed simply playing and building with the legos. 

In addition to our lego play, we made very simple party hats (used white computer paper, markers, and stickers) after reading Blue's Big Parade, a story where Blue and her friends plan a parade and make party hats as a part of what they do .  K asked to do this. 


G designing her hat

 

K and his hat design

K's finished product

We also used our first words cards, which allowed us to work on beginning sounds of words with G.  We also used our giant letter mat, which K and G used for some beginning, middle, and ending sound work.

G enjoying placing her cards on the table and emphasizing the beginning sounds of the words.

M is still playing, investigating and discovering all over the house.  We had a good week here!

Week in Review (July 23rd)

We spent this week out of town - a little getaway for the family. We had a fantastic time.  We had the opporunity to visit with family the weekend we left - Grandma, Aunts, Uncle and cousin - and celebrate our neice's birthday. From there, we headed to Orlando (my husband had to work there for a week, and we tagged along this time).

We took our travel boxes with us, which had activities for the K, G, and M to do while we were hanging out at the hotel. K's box had his Sesame street books, crayons (dry erase and traditional), letter magnets, a hot wheel eraser set (which is like a puzzle; you can put the 2 different cars together and take them apart); I also brought his phonics book.  G's box had a Pooh Number Match Cars, a Melissa and Doug 4 puzzle set (this was a hit with both K and G), lacing beads, and a her counting stars actvity from this post.  M's box had his shape stacker, a couple of zoomer cars and some items from our sensory tub I thought he might like.  I brought a couple of books for all of the kids, which came in handy, particularyly during the car ride. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but some of the items are the same ones from this post. 

I also printed out the rain packet from here, mostly for G. She liked it a lot asking for them almost everyday, but went through the activities pretty quickly. Here are a few pictures.

Shadow matching

Counting

K and G's aunt bought them some flashcards - alpahbet and addition/subtraction. K, once again, was eager to use the cards and was the most engaged with addition (without cars involved) as I've ever seen him. Score for Auntie Betty!

K used bottle tops as counters

G also loved the letter cards, said the sounds, and put them in alphabetical order.

M played with his leap frog letter drum and his melissa and doug shape stacker.  We spent time at the pool, a nearby playground, and got to visit with some friends we don't see often. It was a wonderful week!

G and M at the park

Week in Review (June 4th)

We had a fun week at our casa last week.  We spent a lot of time getting back into the swing of things after a few weeks away from the normal routine.  We continued our work on our scriptures about self-control. 

K enjoyed working on his Go Together cards and we tried some water transferring activities with a turkey baster.  At first, I gave him a medicine dropper, but the time it took to move the water was much too long to hold his attention.

Matching work with Winnie the Pooh Go Together Cards

Water transferring

G also enjoyed a water transferring activity with a sponge.  This activity definitely had her attention for a good bit of time.

Glancing over at K

Both K and G enjoyed bubbles and play-doh. 

K has some Cars wands, and G has some princess wands. 

K pretended to build a building with his construction vehicles.  G ws content to create flower imprints with her accessories

We also had a little science fun.  After watching Sid the Science Kid in an episode about water changing into ice and vice versa, we froze some small toys in a bowl, and then the kids used salt, warm water, and ice picks (i.e. butter knives) to melt the toys and get the ice out.  We will be doing this again soon.  I talk more about this activity in the post here.

Just getting started here

M is still entertained with the pom tub and his cups. 

Over the weekend, the children enjoyed an impromptu slumber party while my friend was giving birth to her fourth sweetie pie.  All of the kids involved loved that!

All and all, a great week!

Weeks in Review (May 21st and May 28th)

Yes, you read correctly; this is a couple of weeks in review.  I have been away from home for a little more than two weeks, but it has been fun.  It started with a weekend away with my love and ended with five days of vacationing fun, friends and softball with my sister.  My Mom and Dad were godsends during this time as they both helped make these getaways possible.  This time makes for a refreshed Mommy and wife =). 

Due to our travels, our schedule was a little (well, a lot) dfferent.  The kids had their travel tubs while we were with my parents (refer to this post for more information on the tubs), so they did get some designated learning time in (though a great deal of fun and learning were found in lots of places during this time). 

The children got the opportunity to share their verses with the family, which both parties enjoyed.
K enjoyed working with his letter magnets.  Who knew that my parents back door was like a big refrigerator?!  We didn't until K attempted to place magnets on them.  He loved that!

K making words

G enjoyed the Pooh matching game, which was originally in K's tub.  She simply matched the picture puzzles with a little help from Mommy (I had to give her the three cards that went together, usually in order and spread apart, and she put them together and counted the items on the card).

Both K and G worked with the First Words Flash cards, but K used them more (even though these were orginally packed in G's tub; funny how these things work out).  K would put them out, and he and I would take turns telling a fact or something about the picture/word on each card.  G simply identified the pictures and sometimes the beginning sounds of the words.

K with the word cards

G with the word cards

All three children enjoyed time outside with Paw Paw and Poppy.  Poppy enjoyed taking them on wagon rides.

The kids also enjoyed the ultimate in sensory areas, the beach! This was M's first time really being big enough to enjoy and play in the sand. He was so content the entire time we were there as long as sand wasn't in his mouth =).  K and G enjoyed the sand and the water as well.

M enjoying the sand

These were fun times.  We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  My vacation was fabulously wonderful(thanks E for taking me!), but I am glad to be back with the family.

At the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City, OK

Week in Review (May 14th)

Hopefully, we will be back on schedule with posts after this week =).  We have continued to work on Titus 2:12, and the children have it memorized.  They really look forward to reciting their verse at the beginning of our learning time, which makes for a happy momma. 

I am also very proud of G's accomplishment this week.  She worked hard and was able to lace her string of wooden beads.  At first, she was only able to lace the shorter ones with the biggest holes, but eventually, she was able to lace the most difficult ones.  She enjoys this work and enjoys doing it again and again.

G showing off her work

K enjoyed working rhyming words.  Unfortunately, I have no picture for this one. He started by creating a four letter word with our foam letters and went to town from there, creating word after word.  He also does a great deal of verbally rhyming words.  I have to give a big thanks to my husband because he plays a major role in  Keenen's joy in and ability to rhyme.  He "reads" them a story before bed (based on the template of Super Why, Dora, or Diego on most nights).  He works on the children's listening and reading comprehension skills, asking them to find ryhming words, listen for beginning letter sounds, and questions about the story, while simultaneously using these stories to reinforce character traits we want to see in our children.  He's pretty awesome!

Our week was rounded out with a trip to Grammy and Paw Paw's (Mommy and Poppy got to spend some much needed quality time together alone).  The grandparents have a farm, and K and G got an opportunity to ride the horse, which they thoroughly enjoyed.

K and G riding Dreamer with Grammy as a safe guard

A good time was had by all! 

I am a little late in getting out last week’s review out; things have been a little busy around here.  There was still lots of fun to be had and lots of learning that took place.  We continued to work on Titus 2:12, emphasizing our use of self-control during the day.

K’s reading is improving every day; he really enjoys reading and figuring out words and tries to read everything he sees.  It’s amazing to see how many words he knows how to pronounce and sound out, some words I don’t remember having taught him the “rule” for.  The idea that reading teaches kids to read is definitely playing out with him.

K reading a Bob book

K and G also enjoyed working with the water beads this week.  This was the first time G has really tried to sort the beads by color on her own, and she is so proud of herself when she finds she has a substantial (to her) amount of beads sorted.  It was also good to see the two of them working together to accomplish a goal.

M loved playing with the pom tub, which I talk more about in this post.  He is actually transferring the poms and really engages with that.  He is my very focused boy; when he gets in the zone, he is in the zone =).

Go M!

We also made birthday cards for Ms. Flo, a close friend of our family.  The kids really enjoyed that and were really excited about giving her the cards. 

K at work

G at work

One of the most memorable moments this week was simply sitting down and coloring with K and G on Friday.  It was good to spend quality time together talking as we colored. 

I stepped away for a moment to take the photo

I am glad God has given me my sweet chickadees.  They are awesome!