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Toddler Tray: Invitation To Play - Pretend Ice Cream Sundae Scooping

Here is such a fun, inexpensive idea with an easy setup that works on fine motor skills. I used a tray and poured out two bags of mini pom poms that I purchased at the dollar store. I already had the ice cream sundae cups in my kitchen and figured they were perfect to use with pom poms for making pretend sundaes. My goal for this activity was to introduce tongs and see if my son could use them to fill up the cups. Right away, he really enjoyed this activity!

Of course, he realized he could use his hands too:

He began to use the cups to scoop and pour the pom poms:

What is better than sitting in a tray of pom poms?

 

So much fun, colorful, and inexpensive to create!

 

-Deborah

Ocean Squishy Bag

I posted last week about how much fun it was to make a squishy bag full of frogs, lizards, and snakes for my son. This week I decided to make an ocean squishy bag for him too!

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 I bought hair gel and ocean creatures at the dollar store. I used blue painters tape to seal the sides so the bag doesn't leak. I found the tape at the dollar store too. I added glitter for more excitement. This squish bag turned out great! I taped it to the glass sliding door for my son. The bag looks great with the outside light coming in through it. Squishy bags can also be used on a light table.

 

My son had so much fun moving around all of the sea creatures in the bag:

 

Next, I put back the first squishy bag above the new one.

My son had a great time playing with both bags together.

-Deborah

Marshmallows + Straws = DIY Tinker Toys for $2

Here is a fun activity to do with children of all ages! When I was teaching in an Elementary school, I hosted a math night and one of the stations I set up had toothpicks and marshmallows. The goal was to create shapes with them. I decided to try this with my toddler son since he is learning shapes. We used straws instead of toothpicks for safety reasons.

My son had a lot of fun helping me create shapes. We made a triangle, square, and a rectangle. He enjoyed picking up the shapes and looking through them too. When the shapes were set down in front of him, I asked him to point out each shape... and he did!

Next we created 3D shapes. Here he is with a triangular pyramid. He thought the 3D shapes were so interesting how they stood up on their own.

 

This activity cost a total of $2 to create. I simply bought a bag of marshmallows and a bag of straws at the dollar store. It was an engaging activity for my son and a great learning experience. It was also so much fun to eat marshmallows as we played together too!

 

-Deborah

Invitation To Play & Learn - Number Dig Sensory Bin

 

Here is a fun sensory number activity I created for my son. Inside the bin is a mixture of dry corn and rice. Below the bin I have a magnetic tray with number cards. The purpose of this activity is to dig through the corn and rice to find the numbers 1-10 and to place them onto the magnetic board in numerical order. This is also a great way to practice saying and learning each number.

 How to play:

1. Dig through the corn and rice

2. Find one number at a time

3. Say each number and place it onto the correct number spot on the tray

 

Shown above: Older children can dig for the numbers and then place them in numerical order on their own, without the help of number cards.

 

Children can even have fun scooping and pouring the corn and rice for an exciting sensory experience when the activity is complete. This activity was super easy and inexpensive to create and set up. Learning is so much fun with sensory bins!

 

-Deborah

Classifying Objects By Color - Simple Toddler Activity

 

My son has been doing a great job sorting pom-poms by color, so I decided to create a new activity where he could classify objects by color. I found one object around the house to match each color bowl for this activity. Right away my son began classifying the objects into the correct color bowl.

 

He loved this activity:

 

Of course, more items could be added as an extension to this activity. That is our next step!

This activity was adapted from an older blog post:
http://www.fortheloveoflearningblog.blogspot.com/2013/01/diy-color-recognition-sorting-learning.html

-Deborah