Toddler / Preschooler First Embroidery Project

My daughter sees me embroidering frequently, and she loves when I let her help, holding her hands to guide the needle where I want it, and letting her puuuuuuuull the thread taught on her own. I made this fun box activity with that in mind, after having seen it mentioned on many a preschool blog.

I used some rubbery shelf liner from Dollar Tree, an extra embroidery hoop, yarn, and a blunt yarn needle. I threaded the needle and knotted the two ends of the yarn together so it wouldn't come unthreaded. Soon I'll teach her to thread it herself, so she can switch colors on her own.

It was so sweet to watch my little one diligently working away at her embroidery, curled up in a corner of the family room. She even took the hoop to bed with her at nap time. It won't be long before she'll be ready for a sharp needle and some Aida cloth. Then the real fun begins!

(Do warn your child that if s/he pulls too hard, the backing can rip. Meg only had to do it once to figure that out the hard way.)





Other activities in the series:
Color Matching with Gift Bows
Magnetic Colored Popsicle Sticks
Magnetic Pom Pom Balls
Erasers and Suction Cups Activity
Paint Chip Matching Game
Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Color-Matching with Gift Bows - More Birthday Week Fun

Another birthday-related activity that's been popping up in Meg's fun boxes is this gift bow sort.

I used some miniature gift bows I'd gotten at an after-Christmas sale last year and matching leftover paint chips. I always try to use paint chips I have on hand rather than nicking them from the home improvement store, though the time I went to Home Depot just for paint chips for a fun box activity, I walked out $40 poorer, because I can't resist home improvement projects! Anyway, Meg matches the bows to the paint chips for the activity. The bright, sparkly bows are irresistibly festive.

Other activities in the series:
Magnetic Colored Popsicle Sticks
Magnetic Pom Pom Balls
Erasers and Suction Cups Activity
Paint Chip Matching Game
Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Birthday Play - Making cakes with play dough

Margaret's birthday is next week, and the promises of festivities have been hanging in the air around here. The other day when Meg was playing play dough, she started making "happy birthdays" for her doll, which I came to understand were in fact birthday cakes. This prompted a bit of extension on my part. I found some birthday confetti, birthday candles, and gems at Dollar Tree, dug into my cupboards for some extra cupcake wrappers (Who am I kidding? They're all extras. I'm never going to use these things!), and made up a batch of fresh play dough in cakey colors.

Meggie dug right in with zeal!

We made cupcakes:

Big cakes:

Giant cake balls:

And had a party:

"Blowing out" the candles

The birthday girl

I used just a touch less oil than usual to make the dough, so it would have a slightly crumbly texture like real cake. I also didn't mix the color completely, again for realism.

Removing the goodies made for a great fine motor activity.

Everything stores compactly, making it a great fun box activity, too.

Magnetic Colored Popsicle / Craft Sticks

Margaret was such a fan of her magnetic pom pom balls, I've been dreaming up other magnet activities for her fun boxes. Raiding her craft bins again, I stumbled upon some colored Popsicle sticks. Once again, I cut up promotional ad magnets into squares and hot glued them onto each end of the sticks.

She loves using them to make pictures and patterns on her "lap magnet board" (Dollar Tree cookie sheet).

Other activities in the series:
Magnetic Pom Pom Balls
Erasers and Suction Cups Activity
Paint Chip Matching Game
Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Magnetic Pom Pom Balls

My girl loves pom pom balls. She sorts them, pretends to cook with them, crafts with them, and stuffs all her purses full of them "just in case." I'm forever picking up packets of pom pom balls from Dollar Tree and Target's Dollar Spot to supplement her addiction.

For some busy box fun, I made a magnetic pom pom ball activity. I just hot glued a magnet to the back of each ball and provided a Dollar Tree cookie sheet to play on.

On the heavier Target balls, I used store-bought button magnets.

For the lighter dollar store balls, I cut up promotional ad magnets (you know, the kind people leave on your door or that come on your phone book) into squares and glued them on.

Margaret loves using these to make rainbows and stripes and other patterns.




Other activities in the series:
Erasers and Suction Cups Activity
Paint Chip Matching Game
Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Erasers and Tiny Suction Cups - Fine Motor Activity

Once again, Target's Dollar Spot and clearance offerings have provided a really great fun box activity for Meg.

I found large bags of cute shaped miniature erasers in the dollar spot, and some suction-cup bathtub grippies (I think they're designed to cut down on slipping, but maybe they're just to decorate the tub - the packaging didn't say) on clearance for $1.25 for a pack of 6. Add in some plastic tongs (we have a few sets of these, they actually came with a sandwich tray a family member brought for a get together a while ago), and you've got a simple fine motor activity. In the ECE world, we call this one-to-one correspondence. Meg just calls it fun.

I split them into two sets. The blue plates remind me of lily pads for the frogs, and the yellow ones match the stars.

As a kid, I was obsessed with erasers like these, and any tiny things for that matter. It must be the age, because Meg can't get enough of these little guys either.




Other activities in the series:
Paint Chip Matching Game
Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Paint Chip Shade Matching - Fine Motor Activity

This activity was a bit fiddly to make, but I just plopped down in front of the Olympics one night last week and banged it out. It's a two-part "grow with me" sort of activity, which I love.

I got a rainbow of paint chips from Home Depot, 2 of each sheet. I first cut one of every color in half vertically. This provides a really simple introduction to shade matching. I started with just one chip of each color, so she only had to match blue to blue, green to green, and so forth.

Once she'd gotten the hang of matching the cards the right way - dark with dark and light with light - I added the clothespins I'd made. With some of the scraps from the cut paint chips, I Mod Podged each color shade onto its own clothespin. The activity is then to clip the clothespins onto the matching shade on the card.

I started by giving her just a few colors - red, blue, and yellow. Once she's mastered the concept, I gave her more and more cards and clips in her fun boxes.

This activity is great as it combines color recognition, shade grading, and fine motor skills.





Other activities in the series:
Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Uppercase and Lowercase Matching Eggs Toy

I've mentioned before that I have no real desire to incorporate "academics" into Margaret's life right now. She'll be three at the end of the month, and I feel she has much more important things to be exploring than math and writing and reading. Desk time and workbooks and traditional flashcards just aren't our thing around here.

I've also mentioned before that Margaret loves signing. So much so that her ASL vocabulary and grammar is beginning to far exceed mine (I haven't taken a real class in almost 10 years). As a result of her signing, she's learned the manual (fingerspelling) alphabet. This triggered a passion for letters in her. She gets so excited when she sees "ABCs," and she loves naming and matching letters. Since this is something she has a personal interest in, we incorporate letters into our play frequently, just as we do shapes and colors and other symbols.

With that in mind, I decided to have a shot at uppercase/lowercase matching eggs I've seen numerous times on Pinterest. Meg loves Easter eggs, and she always has a few dozen floating around her playroom. I nicked a few and wrote an uppercase letter on one half and its lowercase partner on the other half. I did each letter on the same colored half as a control of error, and it would add an extra challenge to do them on different colors with older kids.

I started by just giving her a few, so she wouldn't be overwhelmed, but she immediately asked for more, and she quickly matched up all 26 pairs. She loves cracking them all apart and matching them back up, naming the letters and colors of the eggs

It would be fun to match other things for extension activities. Dots to numerals, two halves of stickers, pictures to sight words.





Other activities in the series:
Animal Matching Game
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Animal Matching Game

For this activity, I raided Margaret's animal figures and matched up as many as I could with animal flash cards from Target's Dollar Spot. There ended up being 12 matches, which is a perfect starting amount.

Margaret lays the cards out in rows and matches the animal figures on top. She enjoys doing this activity on her own, and it also gives us an opportunity, when I have a chance to get down and play with her, to talk about the animals. Sometimes she asks me to read some of the interesting facts on the backs of the cards.

If you don't have a set of animal flash cards, you could easily print out pictures from the computer. You could do extensions for any collections of small figures your kid has - cars, puzzle pieces, shaped blocks.





Other activities in the series:
Pool Noodle Art
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Pool Noodle Segments and Toothpicks - 3D Art Activity

For this activity, I simply cut some pool noodles purchased at Dollar Tree into rings and provided toothpicks.

The toothpicks can easily be poked into the noodles at any angle and fun 3D art can be created. Margaret calls it "making rainbows."





Other activities in the series:
Button Snake Toy
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Button Snake Toy - Fine Motor Activity

I love this toy because it's so simple to make and play, and you can change it up easily for different holidays or units of study.

The "snake" is made from a ribbon with a large button sewn to one end and a piece of felt sewn to the other. The activity is to string pieces of felt with buttonholes in their centers onto the snake.

I'm thinking orange and red and brown leaves in September, pumpkins in October, turkeys in November, planets and stars, color/size grading, animals, shapes...

Meg's not crazy about most lacing/threading activities, but she did keep coming back to this one the day it popped up in her fun box. That's good enough for me!







Other activities in the series:
Memory Matching Toy
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Homemade Memory Matching Toy

This is the activity I was most sure would flop, and it's turned out to be one of Meg's favorites.

I made a memory/matching game out of old frozen juice lids. I simply cut out 2 circles each of different scrapbook papers and decoupaged them onto the lids.

Margaret can play memory with a friend or by herself, or she can sort and arrange the pretty lids.

It's pretty cute to watch her play memory with these by herself. *flip, flip* "Nope." *flip, flip* "Nope." *flip flip* "Same-same! I did it!"



Other activities in the series:
Ribbons in a Bottle Toy
Clothespin Clipping Toy
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes