Making a marble run with toilet rolls

As you know I am always trying to find ways to reuse items around the house. For today's idea I decided to reuse toilet rolls (as we always have them!) to make a marble run. I have wanted to make one of these for ages but have had to wait till Little Boo was old enough to have marbles and know not to put them in her mouth. I still sat with her the whole time we did the activity just in case.

Little Boo helped to make the marble run she loved it, as at the moment she loves sellotape.  I had a funnel from the scrapstore which was good fun to add in as the marble would spin around.  I cut most the toilet rolls in half then attached them with sellotape to a piece of mount card.  This was a trial and error process as we had to keep checking the angles were right in order to make the marbles go to the right place.

 Little Boo loved the idea and put marbles down and waterbeads and anything she could find.  It was good for her to see that some things would not roll down such as an elastic band!  The waterbeads were great fun to use as they bounce when they come off the marble run.  Little Boo loved chasing after them.

We started to count the Marbles as we put them down the marble run and would see which colour marble came first, second and third.  Therefore, the activity incorporated maths as well as fine motor skills to be able to pick up the marbles.

I have started Pinterest boards on crafts to make with cardboard boxes and toilet rolls I thought people would find this helpful.  There are ideas from us and from others so enjoy.

Search for the Olympic rings-learning colours the fun way

Yesterday we went to a local teddy bears picnic. It was great some really nice crafts and fun for the children. I was really impressed how Little Boo completed the free trail that was at the museum. The idea was that you had to find all the hidden teddy bears.  The bears were all wearing different coloured scarves so to win you had to get the correct number next to each colour.  We were provided with a sheet which we had to tally up the colours we found.  I have never done an activity like this before with Little Boo so thought the tally idea may be a little bit too difficult and thought that we would just enjoy looking for the bears.  I was wrong! she loved it, before I knew it she was in charge of the clipboard and pen telling me to "come on, there are more bears to find" it really got her thinking and I could tell that she actually enjoyed doing this.  I took the idea on board and considered how I would differentiate it to make it easier for preschoolers (the one at the museum was a bit too heavy on text). 

For today's post I have devised 2 Olympic themed games the idea is search for the Olympic rings.  This game is perfect for learning position words as I started giving clues like,  "you need to look higher".  It encourages learning colours as when we found one I would ask Little Boo what colour is it? After this she placed a tally on the sheet next to the colour.

Find the Olympic Rings

I have done two games as I considered that there could be an alternative whereby the tally is not needed.  For this one all we did was hide one of each colour then Little Boo matched the colour rings with the sheet.  This will help to learn colours and the concept of things that are the "same" or "matching".
Find and Match Up

I hope that you enjoy the games as much as we did.  At first I only hid a few circles just to get Little Boo used to doing the activity.  If you have older children you may wish to have more than three of each ring.  What I loved about it was how quick it was to set up I have since laminated the tally sheet as then it can be reused.  Little Boo also loves using whiteboard markers!  


Hope that you all enjoyed the opening ceremony we did!