A Few Easter Games

Here are a few Easter games that we have created they are so easy and really versatile as there are a few games that you can play with each one.  The great thing is that Little Boo practised her cutting when making these.  The number game we made up to 15 as I think this will be enough for a while. We used up to ten when we used them for the first time and the aim is to add a number on each time we play.

Little Boo counted the right amount to add on to each egg and helped me to add the pictures which were from Twinkl. She then cut the egg  in half as I told her she had to help me crack the egg by cutting it.  We had fun playing with the games. 

Little Boo matched the pattern eggs easily so I decided to make it a bit more difficult and play a memory game. 

I laid out the eggs and turned them over (pattern side down) so Little Boo and me had to find the matching pairs. The matching pattern game was really easy to make as we have loads of papers in the house so all we had to do was choose the ones we wanted and cut out eggs!  I hope that you enjoy this idea. 

 

Learning Shapes- Decorating a felt Easter Egg

I thought that I would share this with you a great way to learn shapes and decorate an Easter Egg at the same time.  It is so simple to make just cut out some felt eggs and shapes then all is left is to decorate! We talked about the shapes that Little Boo was using and the colours that they are.  We have the big, medium and little egg so this meant there was lots of discussion about their sizes.  I asked Boo to put different amounts of the shapes onto the eggs so this meant she was practising counting as well. I decided to add in some wool and scissors so Boo could cut up some wool to use as well. Lots of potential with this simple activity.

The ABC cafe

I found this wonderful printable called ABC Cafe  it is fantastic Little Boo spent ages playing.  The idea is that the customers make their orders by all having letters which represent the food they want to order.  The printable then has foods which begin with each letter of the alphabet so all you do is match the correct food to the letter of their order or vice versa. Little Boo wrote down their orders, then had fun finding the correct food.

To help her I placed a choice of three foods for her to match as having all the foods was a bit overwhelming. As you can see from the picture we used Little Boo's Dolls to play but the printable does provide customers as well! We had about three tables in the end.  Hope that you find this idea fun.  I love it when I find something for free.

Numbers and Letters Box

A few months ago we sorted out all Little Boos toys and placed them into categories. Sad, I know but this has really helped me with our day to day activities. I know if she wants to play at fancy dress that the box is ready and waiting we also have ones for sticker/colouring books, play food and dolly things .  I just wish that all my stuff was this organised! Anyway, I wanted to share with you what we have in the Numbers and Letters box.  This is used to inspire Little Boo with numbers, letters and colours.

In the box we have things that we have collected over time such as free toys from magazines.  These we use as a matching activity or to count.

Buttons can be used for a multitude of things counting, sorting the biggest from the smallest, sorting into colours, making patterns or counting out a set amount. More ideas are on The Activity Mom .

Pebbles these we have used to count and to place around letters. I am also going to paint/collage a few with Little Boo and place letters on them so she can spell out her name.

We have a leap frog fridge magnet alphabet set . Little Boo has had this since she was really Little in the old house we had it on our fridge and she used to play with it loads and often dance to the tune.  Unfortunately this seems out of stock at the moment but leap frog also do a Letter Factory which looks really good and the same sort of concept.

There is a large tub of colour animal counters which I got from the education show last year at a very good price.  These have been great to sort into colours and group or count them.  There is also a tub of play animals that Little Boo likes to match up and place in groups then count them.

There are some animal dominoes in the box which Little Boo is getting really good at playing. This is great to learn matching and also learning to take turns whilst playing games. The musical instruments are included as very often we play a beat then Little Boo tries to copy what I have just done.

The wooden fruits are a fantastic threading set that I brought from the education show a few years ago (again at a much cheaper price) when Little Boo was just learning to thread.  They are lovely to use and are made for younger children to practice threading we also use them to make patterns with now.

The bus is a laminated sheet from twinkle where we count the people onto the bus. I have printed some flash cards with different amounts of pennies on them as well from Twinkle.

The most important thing is to make it all FUN! and keep adding things to it as your child progresses. 

Playing a game Boccia

I have recently been lucky enough to have someone come into work and play Boccia here is some info about the game.  This game is usually played by athletes in wheelchairs with cerebral palsy or other related disabilities.  Boccia is explained more on the Paralympic website.  I thought that this would be an excellent game to share with Little Boo as it is fun.

First a jack must be thrown.  This is usually white but in our case was yellow (did not have a white ball) Then there are two teams which are either Blue or Red Little Boo chose Red then the game began!

We need three more. 

Sorting out the balls ready for play.
(I knew I would find a use for that subway platter box! )

Really the game should be played seated but
as long we are having fun 

Aim for a target 

When we were playing Boccia at work we also went over some of the ways that the players would learn and practice.  This was one of them the idea is that the athlete has to roll the ball into a designated area.  This was difficult Little Boo had to learn the art of rolling instead of just throwing it.

Hitting the target 

This game I have shared with you before on the No more odd socks posts.  The idea is that you have to knock the large ball out of the area using the other balls.  This is a good tactic to learn when the athletes need to knock an opponents ball out the way of the jack. 

When looking on the internet I found some great Paralympic resources

Colouring in sheets  
ability v ability great resources for schools and parents and where I found the link to explain the game at the start of the post.
GB Boccia - A link to all the GB Boccia Athletes
Paralympics website  all the official information and TV coverage.


I hope that you enjoy a game of Boccia! We certainly did and can not wait to see it on the television.

Feely box- guess the underwater animal

Sometimes the quickest ideas are the ones that bring the most fun and laughter.  That was definitely the case today all we did was make a feely box out of a shoe box and an old pair of Little Boos trousers.

We first of all felt all the underwater toys and made sure Little Boo knew the names for them all.  Luckily we managed to borrow these from the toy library this week and they are really nice toys.

Little Boo starting the game feeling the animals in the box 

Little Boo then started to put the animals in for Mommy to have a go .  She even told me how many animals there were in the box. 

s is for...

I have decided to start creating initial sounds tubs for Little Boo.  The idea is that each tub contains items that begin with the initial sound.  We will be sharing these tubs with you every week and our progress on learning the alphabet.  I really want learning the alphabet to be a fun and interesting activity for Little Boo so I think that this will really help.

I am hoping that this can be a joint venture as creating the tubs will hopefully be really interesting as well. Today we are starting with the letter s for seaside.  I also wanted to start learning the alphabet firstly covering all the letters in Little Boos name.  Even though I am not a preschool teacher I use a lot of sensory activities at work to teach the alphabet as I find that this is very effective when working with adults with severe learning difficulties.  The ability to be able to feel and handle a 3D letter is more engaging.  Being dyslexic myself I also think of ways that I would of liked to have been taught the alphabet basically we need to have fun!

We first of all decided to make pretty the letter s that I made ages ago.  I have been waiting to decorate this the idea is at the end we will have a full set of our own alphabet.  I realise that I have not detailed very well how I made these so will revisit this post and take more pictures. I made my own purely for the fact that I wanted lower case letters and wanted them in a suitable typeface.

The letter s had loads of stars stuck to it and it looked very sparkly by the time it was finished!

Then just a few simple games to reuse those cd cases! I made these up in a few minutes and they were a hit! I was unsure about the finding the letter s one but Little Boo did really well. I am going to get a box set up of these all ready to play with.

I managed to pick up these lovely pebbles from a local shop to be honest we love the noise they make but they were also great for placing on the letter s.  We later placed glow in the dark stars in the shape of the letter s and looked at this in our den, great fun.

We have made a start on our letters book.  For this I have used a sandpaper and bubble wrap letter s in the centre. The idea with this is that Little Boo can feel the letters with her hands and feet.

There was a selection of images that Little Boo could choose from which all begin with s.

Very keen to feel the letters 

After all of this we then had fun choosing what to put in the initial sounds tub

A while ago I posed about sparkly letters this activity could also be done to help write the letters.

When it came to bed time I asked Little Boo to spot the s in the book she did really well.

Whilst doing the crafts today we listened to music and it really helped Little Boos concentration. Why have I not thought of this sooner?

We have also now done letter a activities as well  hope that you enjoy this as well.  The letters are now a Weekly feature so be sure to check back whilst we share a letter a week.

Some animal apps!

OK so here is where I confess that I do love technology.  I realise that the use of ipads and iphones with children is quite a controversial some people love the idea some people hate it.  I found this article online  which suggests that if the technology is used correctly for example with an adult facilitating the app then it can be beneficial and add to talk time with younger children.  I use my ipad/iphone in this manner very often me and Little Boo will sit down and play with them together. Often we have quite a giggle! So today I share with you our top animal apps all downloaded yesterday for FREE. 


Make a Scene Farmyard
This is great you can make your own farmyard scene.  Little Boo especially liked the farmers wife as she says "Hello my dears".  We had a giggle about that.  It also encourages counting as I asked Little Boo to count out the animals as she was placing them onto the screen.  This would also be a great way to make your own story!

This was the finished masterpiece! that was emailed to Nanny

Find Them all looking for animals 

This is a great app you have to find the animals that are on the farm.  Some are quite difficult to spot though but they make noises and the nearer you get to them the louder they get.  The mouse was quite difficult to find.  Once you have found so many animals you win a camera and can take photographs.  After 12 animals are found night time comes and the animals have to be found before it goes dark, Little Boo found this good and was rushing to find them "before it went to dark".  The farm world is free but other worlds are £1.49 each.  We are happy with just keeping the free one for now though.  


Make an Animal

Please do not let the image put you off this is so funny as you can  make your own animals up. This is a simple tap of the correct part that you want to change.  They can then be emailed to you once completed.  A great way I think to make some characters for story telling! Little Boo liked it and it got her talking about the different animals "that is the pigs nose".




Animal Zoo 

This is an interactive flash card app with 40 wonderful animal noises.  We used this to play the guess the animal game.  We took it in turns to hold the i pad and pressed the noise whilst the other had to guess what animal it was.  




Animal Zoo Puzzle 

There are 8 drag and drop puzzles in this app.  After placing the pieces into the correct shape you are told the animals name and it is then spelt out.  Little Boo liked this as it was like "stickers" at first she was a bit frustrated that the app slowed down the drag and drop process by telling you the name of the animals but after a while she started to repeat back the animal name and the letters.

Animal Find 

This is a simple app we used it on the tik tok mode where you are given a set amount of time to find the animals.  An animal is said then Little Boo had to find the animal in the grid.  The grid is never full and only displayed about six animals at a time.  The only concern was that some of the animal images were difficult for her to distinguish. 



Animals I spy Junior 

Another drag and drop activity there are seven scenes where Little Boo dragged and dropped the different animals into the correct shapes.  The only problem is that the animals were floating all about the screen not in a designated area.  Often this made the animals themselves difficult to spot. Once all the animals are placed in the correct areas Little Boo then had to answer questions such as "Find the pig" she then tapped on the pig and once all the questions were asked was awarded a gold, silver or bronze star.   

Animal pairs 

We used this on easy mode and took it in turns to try and match the cards.  A very simple idea and Little Boo enjoyed trying to win! Can be used in more difficult modes for older children as well or as the child progresses. 

Squiggles

I admit that I also love this app myself it is really good fun Little Boo had to draw loads of things including making squiggles for  the sheep's wool.  After this has been done you press go and the image is animated. 

Well I hope that you like this post love it or hate it let me know.  I would like to share more apps with you in the future and possibly e books that we have found for free thanks to No Twiddle Twaddle blog.  I will keep checking the comments as this will hopefully give me an indication of whether readers have enjoyed this. 

Music about animals and noisy balloons.

Today we listened to some music and made our own instruments out of balloons!   The balloons were filled with various different items that made them noisy.  These included water, rice, cous cous, pasta and spaghetti.  It was great fun and very noisy in the house as Little Boo has found the dial to turn  the music up.  We have a CD which I recently brought this has some great tracks on it our favourites are In the Pink and Down in the Jungle. However you do not need to buy CD with the internet now it is easy to get music.


Some animal music that we found on line

Walking through the jungle- Makaton signed version
Five Monkeys jumping on the bed
The Jungle song  this is so funny the video had me and Little Boo laughing the Little dog is so funny!
Bare Necessities 
Elephant march Jungle Book 
These are the sounds the animals make 
The animal Boogie - great video.
Animal sound with questions

Loads of shaking going on and kicking! Little Boo was even able to guess what was in the balloons. 

Hope that you enjoy sharing this.  Sorry that it will not be a quiet activity but it will be good fun!

Peg out the Alphabet

Whilst doing our Bear Hunt activity I thought about using the washing line for an alphabet theme. Little Boo loved pegging out the letters. At first we just pegged out the letters then I thought we could add items that began with the letters.

I went into the kitchen and emerged with an apple, banana and Little Boos Crocs! Little Boo did well and may even be able to match them herself after a while. We only did up to d (as I happened to spot Dogger in the living room). To do the activity I just printed out some letters (comic sans is probably best font to use due to formation of the letter a) placed them in the plastic wallets (with a little help from Boo, it also makes it easier to peg them on) placed two of our dining chairs in the living room then used wool around them to make the line.  I stayed with Little Boo the whole time we did the activity for safety as well at to help her complete it. Hope this has given you some inspiration it is a really simple activity.

Our completed line

Improving Fine Motor skills using pegs.