Busy bags 4

Little Boo loves Charlie and Lola so I was really pleased when I found this dress up game on Cbeebies website. I coloured In the images but older children would probably enjoy doing this themselves. I then laminated it ready for use. This game was never intended for use as a travel game but rethinking the idea and having used it (in the car) I think I needed to add some magnets onto the pieces if we intend to use it as a travel game again. It was good fun but the pieces were slipping everywhere in the car which got frustrating.

There are some other busy bag items which I brought all rather cheap. The first a small magnetic sketch board. A Mr potato head where you attach his facial features. This was a good game to learn where parts of the face go using a lot of position words to explain as Little Boo was playing. The last brought item is shoe lacing.

As mentioned earlier on the blog I wanted to make Little Boo some more threading cards with all the letters of her name. I have done this as a busy bag idea and it has worked well. I am hoping this will help with learning the letters of her name.      

                                                                         

No more odd socks!

I do not know about you but where do all our socks go? especially Little Boos, I have an ever increasing pile of odd socks, so set to work to think of something useful for them.  Whilst cooking the tea I had inspiration, lets make them into bean bags .  Little Boo just recently has started to really enjoy playing football and throwing the ball.  I also knew that I had a stash of popcorn kernels and various seeds which had gone out of date, they had been used previously for a pouring activity but I knew they would work to make the bean bags.

The pile of odd socks or ones that are too small. 

Turn the sock inside out . 

Fill with seeds of your choice 

squash the seed down then place an elastic band around, fold over the remaining top section of  sock

The completed bean bags they look really pretty.

We then played games with them in the garden

Daddy did some juggling 

Little Boo made up her own game trying to throw the bean bags into the peg basket 

We then had to try and knock the ball out the square with the bean bags. 

Then Little Boo and Daddy had a competition who could be first at throwing the bean bag at the letter Mommy calls out.  The letters used were those in Little Boos name as I want to get her familiar with these first.  

Then we had to throw the bean bags at the correct shape 

After all that fun it was time to pack away and count the bean bags back into the basket. 

Hope that you enjoy that activity.  Have you reused socks to make something?

Home made travel eye spy

I am so glad I blog as it has really encouraged me to start to research other peoples ideas and adapt them to suit Little Boo.  This week when doing my usual Link up with No time for Flash cards I noticed this scanner collage eye spy from another blogger.  I loved the idea and started to think how I could adapt this for Little Boo.  At the moment I am trying to reinforce colours and shapes so have created the collages to assist with this.  The idea is really simple I basically grabbed anything I thought was interesting scanned them (be careful not to break your scanner or scratch the glass) with a towel over the top.  

I have created a collage with coins as it will be interesting to see if Little Boo can distinguish what is money .  I did this one for work as well. I have created something very similar for the students but capturing the image this way is much more fun. I can not wait to play this game with Little Boo as I think she will love the items that I have picked.  The game will grow with her as the questions that are asked can become more and more complex.

At first I am going to ask questions like

Which one is a square?
Which one is Blue?
Where is Peppa Pig?
What colour is the flower?

The questions can then be developed to

How many squares are there?
How many animals are there?
Where is 1p?


Another way I will try to develop this is encourage Little Boo to ask me questions.   I am sure once I have modelled how this is done that she will try to do this.  

The scanned collages I have provided as a download I have tried to make them interesting and hope that some people will enjoy using them.  I am going to laminate ours then they can also be used with a board marker and the items circled this will also help with fine motor skills. May even add this game to our "Travel Buddy".


eye spy

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.

Playing in the sunshine!

Today we had a very rare opportunity to play in the sunshine.  The weather has been miserable lately so we were well excited.  I came across some water balloons a few days ago and picked them up glad I did now as we have had a great time with them.

The balloons were ready!

We had great fun with the balloons Little Boo enjoyed chasing me and her Dad around the garden.  To be honest think that me and my husband enjoyed the activity just as much it got rather competitive and Little Boo kept laughing at us both.  It has been so nice to actually have a family afternoon it does not happen often enough.

We also played with our chalks on our slabs.

I wrote out Little Boo's name in chalk then she went over the chalk with water.  It was really nice as the chalk just turns into paint. It does also come off the slabs with water and a brush.

We did the same with numbers.

The letter a was really good.

and of course we did loads of hand prints!

It was a great activity as Little Boo was having fun all the time and not realising how much she was learning about colours (when picking up the balloons she would keep commenting on the colour), numbers and letters.  After all the fun she had even more fun with the hose pipe cleaning all the chalk away and of course running after Mommy and Daddy with it.  We were soaked!

Sparkly letters

I feel that the best activities are those that your children just do naturally.  This is an activity that came purely from Little Boo herself (after the pig creation). There were loads of sequins in the boxes which she just started grabbing and moving from one box to the other.

Moving them one box to the other

Pouring them

First making a circle

Then a letter e

Then making marks with a lolly pop stick

When pouring apparently the sequins "look pretty" and "make a nice noise" Then with the ones that had spilt she started drawing. I realise this can get messy but she loved it! We put down a sheet of foam so she could easily see what letter or shape she was making. I would write something in the sequins then she would copy. It started a brilliant conversation about letters as Little Boo suggested what the letter b looked like.

Sunny day slab painting

Today has been a lovely sunny day so plenty of opportunity for water play! I set up lots of things to do with pouring such as different containers, jugs, a watering can and spoons to stir etc. However, today I put some paint brushes in and little Boo loved them! We spent most the afternoon painting the slabs however she did get confused when the picture of daddy had gone (thanks to the sun). Next time I am going to try some crushed chalk and see if this works with a little bit of water to paint outside with.

Engaging children in letters and numbers

After purchasing some 3D numbers for little Boo to paint I decided to try and make her name from 3D letters. I am hoping that this will be a good way of her learning the letters that spell her name. I thought that making them may be a bit difficult for her to join in. However, she really enjoyed spreading the glue on the pieces of newspaper used to cover the letters and then asked for scissors so she could "cut out the paper" just shows how I should never underestimate her many talents! I am hoping the letters will be all dry and ready to paint in time for Easter holidays will be a great activity.