Springtime and Easter Activity Shelves

Because of our Disneyland trip at the beginning of March, we pretty much skipped any St. Patrick's Day fun this year and went straight to Easter and the onset of spring.

This month, along with the usual toys, our kitchen activity shelves are stocked with:

• stuffed bunnies, ducks, and lambs
• generic springtime books (we really haven't collected many books in this category, so I don't have any recommendations for you)
• uppercase/lowercase matching eggs
• plastic eggs shaped like bugs, nets, and a pail - We scatter the eggs around the kitchen floor and scoop them with the nets to return them to the pail.
• sound shaker eggs - I filled two eggs each with pennies, sand, beans, and other noisy filler and hot glued them closed. The kids shake them to match the sounds.

Inexpensive, Easy Valentine's Mailboxes

I found these sweet metal mailboxes in Target's Dollar Spot and the sparkly stickers at Dollar Tree. Together, they made for a quick and easy after preschool wind-down activity for my girl. She made one for herself and one for her baby brother.

February Fun Box Fine Motor Activity

For the month of February, I've had a simple fun box transferring activity available to Meg on our kitchen busy shelves.

Basket with heart-shaped silicone ice cube molds, tongs, and Valentines erasers

Provides opportunities for fine motor practice, sorting, and pattern-making

More fun box activities
First Embroidery
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

Freeform Festive Art Explorations - A Way to Reset a Rough Day

I had a hard day with my kids today. We've spent the past couple weeks taking turns passing around a bad stomach virus, the kids have been having a number of sleep regressions, and just general the responsibilities of managing a household during the holidays all ended up piling together and made for a very trying Tuesday. I lost my temper. Multiple times. Both kids went down for naps with tears, and I dropped a few of my own on the couch while I caught my breath. And then I decided, you know what? I'm the only one here who really has the power to turn this day around.

So I set the scene for a calm and pleasant afternoon to greet the kids when they got up from their naps (hopefully) rested and cheerier. I tidied up the kitchen - 'cause Mama doesn't function well in chaos, set a pot of good smelling things to simmer on the stove, turned on some Christmas music, put out some snacks, and then went hunting in my craft room.

My only direction in mind for this afternoon activity was "festive." I gathered some baskets, raided the gift wrap center, then finished up with a few supplies from Meg's craft shelves. (Please forgive the poor lighting. It's that time of year where the days are shorter, nights are cooler, and lighting is artificial.)

The spread.

Papers - dollar store holiday cards that have been languishing in my closet for years, pages from a ruined holiday picture book, construction paper halves, toy catalogue

gift bows and ribbons

white glue, glitter glues, and scissors

"Strings 'n Things" bin - bits of yarn, ribbon, elastic, etc.

As with most art explorations in this house, Meg decided to take things her own direction when she awoke. She pulled out a number of papers and asked to use my scrapbooking paper cutter. I pulled it out, reminded her which part was sharp and how to use it safely, and she went to town, cutting everything in her path into strips. She even attempted cutting one of the gift bows and found out on her own what was and wasn't possible to cut with the tool.

Her first try.

So proud!

I'd like to say this turned the whole day around and there were no more tears and tantrums and sharp words. But that isn't true. We're all human and this has been an exhausting and trying time. But those 3 happy, giggly, singing, creating, wonderful hours were enough to get us through the rest of the day. And tomorrow we'll all try to do better.

"Shiny Stuff" Treasure Tin for Winter

Our autumn treasure basket was such a hit, I decided to make a new one for winter and the holidays. These baskets are inspired by traditional heuristic baskets and are great fun for both my infant and preschooler. I enlisted the help of my 3 year old, and together we gathered all manner of shiny and sparkly things hanging around my craft room and tucked them into a pretty tin I'd gotten on clearance after Christmas last year.

Inside the tin are three glass jars (they once held bullion cubes) filled with silver tinsel, metal bottle caps, and rhinestones. I hot glued the lids shut, and they make interesting shakers and discovery bottles for the littlest one. I also added a large gift bow, an empty tart pan, a jingle bell ornament, and holographic foil tissue paper.

As with our autumn treasure basket, this tin is kept on the entry way credenza alongside a basket of seasonal books, magazines, and music. The kids love playing with it in the evenings while dinner is cooked and many other times throughout the day.

These treasure baskets are inexpensive (free!) to put together from recycled materials and dollar store finds. It's simple to change up the content to keep them fresh and engaging. They really draw my kids in, and I like that they're attractive enough that I don't mind leaving them out in "entertaining" areas of my home.

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

Ribbons in a Bottle Toy - Fine Motor Activity

When my daughter first started exploring this toy, she kept shouting, "Oh, my! Oh, my!"

It's, well, a bunch of ribbons stuffed in a bottle. It was interesting to see how difficult it was for her to get the ribbons back in the bottle. Fine motor skills are her forte, but holding the bottle, feeding the ribbon in, then continuing to stuff as she fed was very challenging for her. A little challenge is a great thing, though. It kept her busy for quite some time.



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

Clothespin Clipping Toy - Fine Motor Activity

A clothespin clipping activity is a fun, easy addition to a fun box, and it has limitless extension activities.

I used a small canister similar to a formula can and decoupaged scrapbook paper around and on top of it. The activity is to simply clip clothespins around the edges of the can. They can then be stored inside.

Some extensions I plan on doing with it:

• adding a hole in the lid for depositing the clips
• coloring the clothespins and adding stickers around the edge of the can for color matching
• numbering the clothespins for sequencing
• adding cards to clip onto the sides of the can with the clothespins

For now, Meg seems to be enjoying the base activity very much.




Other activities in the series:
Pom Pom Push Toy
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes

Pom Pom Push Toy - Fine Motor Activity

Next in the series of handmade fun box toys, a pom pom push toy.

I simply took an empty powdered coffee creamer container, slapped on some stickers and ribbon to fancy it up, and provided pom pom balls to push through the hole. Pom pom balls are a close second to pipe cleaners in Margaret's "favorite art material" lineup. They store in the container between uses.

If you don't have a container like this, try cutting a slit in the lid of a cottage cheese/sour cream/formula/etc. container instead.




Other activities in the series:
Pipe Cleaner Poking Toy
Fun Boxes