15 Activities with an Alphabet Puzzle Mat

When the girls were 5 months old, they received a Foam Letter & Number Floor Mat Puzzle.  It was useful to keep them from getting hurt as they learned to crawl, stand, and walk, but they soon discovered that they could take the pieces out (and throw them / put them in their mouth), so it was retired shortly after their 1st birthday.  Recently we re-discovered this puzzle mat when cleaning out a storage closet.  I was debating whether to even keep it, but L and E (35 months) have been asking for their Alphabet Mat every single day this week.  Accordingly, I've been making up tons of new activities with this toy, and wanted to share some of these ideas...

Misc Preschool Activities

When I was going through my photos I realized I've taken a few pictures of activities that we've been doing this week that either I've already blogged about, or are not really worthy of their own blog post.  Here's a glimpse of some of these miscellaneous preschool-level learning activities that L and E (35 months) have been doing ...

Yogurt Dots and Banana Ice Cream

Last week I tried out two snacks that I found on Pinterest: Frozen Yogurt Dots, and One Ingredient Banana Ice-Cream.  Initially I was planning on having the girls help me make these for our weekly Cooking Day, but I was low on time, so I made them myself while the kids played with play-dough (making their our meals for their 'babies').  Both treats were fairly easy to make...

Fine Motor Skills Practice with Playdough and Whole Cloves

I love activities that involve multiple senses.  This one combines fine motor skills work with the lovely aroma of cloves.  We've been going through the Story of the World, and just finished the chapter about the start of farming in the Nile Delta.  I decided that it would be fun to invite L and E (almost 3) to plant some 'crops' next to a playdough river using whole cloves...

Caps for Sale Activity: Dramatic Play with Hats

Dramatic play with hats is an activity we've done many times before (nothing's easier than taking a bunch of hats out of the closet and letting the kids have fun with them), but I haven't blogged about it yet, so I thought I'd share.. Today we read Caps for Sale by Ephyr Slobodkina.  We have an audio version that has sound effects and songs in it, and L and E (almost 3) love to sing along.  After the story, we did a number of activities.  I contemplated printing out some of the free printables for this book, but playing with hats sounded like a lot more fun than doing worksheets!  So here's what we did...

Baby H Update (9 months old)

I'm really excited about Baby H's current age (9 months) because it is so much fun watching him explore his world. I'm so lucky to be blessed with a quiet, content, smiley baby.  I love how he can transform things like measuring cups, plastic spoons, and large lids into hours of entertainment (yes, you heard me right, this boy can play for over an hour by himself with just a handful of toys!).  I'm constantly on the lookout for miscellaneous containers and other objects for him to play with, and I'm starting to think up more ideas for homemade games.  Here are some photos of Baby H in action..

Preschool Science: Experiments in Buoyancy

This morning, the girls enjoyed doing some basic science experiments to explore buoyancy: Dancing Raisings, and Egg Floating.  The experiments did not go quite as planned, which gave them an even more important lesson in the scientific process...

Art Inspired by the Book Swimmy

This morning we read the picture book Swimmy by Leo Lionni and made our own artwork inspired by the beautiful illustrations in the book.  Here's what we did..

Cooking with Kids: Process not Perfection

The girls and I made banana bread the other night as an early Fathers Day present for their dad.  Now that I've left my job, I feel a lot less stressed in general, and I had a really good time just observing how much the kids enjoy the process of creating something new..

Exploration with Bottle Caps and Lids

When I realized how many bottle caps and lids we throw away on a weekly basis (3 gallons of milk, 6 bottles of soda water, 12 squeezable applesauce pouches, etc...), I started saving them.  It wasn't long before my little collection had grown large enough to provide an entire morning's worth of entertainment for L and E (34 months)...

Nomads Game - Story of the World Activity

I recently started reading The Story of the World Volume 1: Ancient Times to L and E (34 months).  Before we went on vacation, we discussed history and archeology, and today we read about how ancient people were nomads.  I made up a simple Nomad Game, which the girls were very excited to play after dinner.  I wanted them to know that ancient people lived in caves, hunted and gathered food, and moved from place to place when the food ran out.  So that's exactly what we did...

Back from Vacation

We've come back from a much-needed vacation to my in-laws' house.  Their internet is slower than dial-up (yes, that's possible!), so no blogging for me.  It was nice to spend time without being glued to my computer, to catch up on sleep, and to get time alone with my husband while grandma watched the kids.  The girls did amazingly well considering that it was a new environment and they only had about 3 toys to play with for over a week.  Baby H let so many new people hold him and even smiled and giggled at them (at the same age, his sisters had a bad case of 'stranger danger' and would scream whenever someone new even said hi to them).  We visited a Children's Museum, swam in a zero-entry pool for kids, went for many walks, fed baby goats, and had lots of great family fun. 

I am now officially done working at my job!...

Motor Skills Activities with No Setup Time

I'd love to have the time to create beautiful Montessori-style trays which the kids can use to practice certain skills, but in the meantime I have to come up with fun activities on the fly.  I want to share two activities that the girls enjoyed immensely, both of which took mere seconds to set up..

Scarf Pull - Homemade Baby Game

Using a $1 plastic bag dispenser (from Target), I made Baby H (8 months old) a new game.  I filled the dispenser with silk scarves and invited him to pull them out of the holes.  H found this very entertaining, especially when I showed him how to keep pulling and pulling the longer ones.  L and E (almost 3 years old) also had a good time with the scarves.  Here are some of the games we played...

Paint Exploration

What do we do when my mess-averse husband is away all morning?  We paint!  The girls and I had fun exploring different ways to paint, from golf-ball painting, to painting with cars, to making bubble-wrap prints.  It wasn't so much about the final product, but the experience of exploring this medium in different ways...

Learning About Plants

The girls (34 months old) planted some pinto beans in a clear container with some wet cotton balls last week.  Within a day, two of the beans started growing.. and growing.. and now one of them is over a foot tall already!  L and E were very excited to check on their beans every day, and I was amazed at how quickly they grew.  Today we learned more about plants...

Homeschool Preschool Weekly Update

Apologies for not blogging more - I've been trying to wrap up my project for work so I can be done with my job and focus more on homeschooling and other projects.  We've actually been doing a lot of fun learning activities this week, but I haven't been good about taking photos.   Here are some of the things we've been up to...

Changes

Working a demanding full-time job at home while raising three kids under three and sleeping in 2-3 hour intervals has been a big challenge for me, but somehow I've managed to do it for the past year and a half.  I constantly find myself nostalgic, however, for the days where I could play with my kids without having to check my work email every ten minutes, or when my daily schedule didn't revolve around conference calls. The stress has just been building up and affecting my physical and emotional well-being.  So earlier this week I talked to my boss about leaving the company.  Here's what this means for our family...

Decorative Picture Frame and Painting Wooden Objects

On a recent trip to the craft store, I bought a bunch of wooden frames and other wooden objects for $1 each, and the girls (33 months) have been having such a wonderful time painting and embellishing them over the past couple weeks.  I wanted to share the process for making this lovely sparkly picture frame because it was so much fun, and actually ended up looking pretty neat (the photo doesn't do it justice)...

Early Learning Fun with Unit Blocks

We have a big tub of unit blocks (each is one centimeter square, weight one gram) which I've been using with the girls when we play with our bucket scale (see our Blocks in Socks activity).  This morning while I was trying to catch up on some work, I let L and E (33 months) do some exploration and play with these unit blocks.  Later, I joined them and made up lots of fun math, spatial vitalization, and fine motor skills activities.....