Homemade Matching and I-Spy Game Using a Photocopier

Homemade games are even more appealing when kids are involved in the process of creating them.  When I invited my girls (3 years old) to make their own games, they were ecstatic.  They got a lot of creative freedom to choose their own objects, lay them out, and photocopy them.  I was not at all surprised that they really enjoyed playing the activities they created over and over.  Here's what we did ..

Animal Matching Activity

The kids have quite a collection of little plastic animal models.  One activity we do involves matching the animal figures to animal cards.  A month or two ago, I found some flashcards in the Target $1 section for North American Animals and another for Insects.  They went perfectly with our North American Animal Toob and the insect tub (from Oriental Trading).  After laminating the cards that had matching figures, I presented it to the girls as an animal matching game:

The Shape of Me and Other Stuff - Seuss Activity

Yesterday;s Seuss activity was fairly simple.  The original idea was to make sun-prints out of various household objects and construction paper (put objects on paper, lay in the sun until the paper around the objects fades and an impression of the objects is left).  However, I think our construction paper was already old and faded and after a couple hours in the sun with no change, I decided to go for Plan B.

I traced the outline of the objects on the paper, and gave it to the girls as a puzzle where they match up the objects with their outlines.  This was not too challenging for L and E (31 months), but since it was a new activity they were excited to try it.   Each girl took her turn sitting nicely at the table and concentrated on completing the task.

As much as kids need repetition to learn, they really want variety, so I'm glad we did an activity that was new to us.

Today the girls found the paper with the object outlines and wanted to do the activity again.  Since I had already put the objects away, it turned into a scavenger hunt, for a little extra challenge!