Sonshine Mumma

Transporter Truck Addition 🚚

2021-05-06T06:01:00.002-07:00

Anything with wheels are a favourite with the Mini! So I base a lot of our activities around vehicles.

This one here features Transporter Trucks carrying numbered cars.

🚗 The little guy had to solve the simple addition problem in each car slot to get a number.

🚗 He had to then find the car with that number and place it in it's slot inside the Transporter Truck!

🚗 Placed a few pebbles, for him to use as counting manipulators.

The '0+1' got him pondering (as he is only just getting familiar with the value of zero) and eventually he cracked it. 😊

Foam cars from @itsybitsycraftstore

The Paper Dolls Craft ✂️

2021-05-06T05:49:00.000-07:00

One of Mini's latest favourite books is The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson. It's a simple sweet book about a little girl and her 5 paper Dolls who always hold hands.

We love adding props to our book reading sessions. The little one asked me yesterday to help him make similar paper dolls. I promised we will do it as an after school activity today and so we did!

He enjoyed watching the dolls take shape as I cut and drew the detailing. We coloured them together.

He was delighted and danced around with his paper dolls singing:

🎶 "We are Ticky and Tacky and Jackie the backie and Jim with two noses and Jo with the bow!" 🎶

I must have heard these lines a gazillion times by now 😆

Ice Cream Shop Pretend Play 🍦🍧🍨

2021-05-06T05:36:00.001-07:00

I had set this up a few weeks ago, for the little guy. He loves playdough and also ice creams... Combine the two, and it was a hit! 😄 The setup might look like a lot, but it hardly took me a few minutes to put it all together.

I already had some homemade playdough of different colours lying at home. I only made a fresh batch of playdough with a hint of vanilla essence to make the Vanilla 'Ice Cream'! :)

A little chalkboard name board for his store.

Muffin tray to hold the various 'flavours'.

An upcycled carboard box to hold the 'ice cream cones'.

What I prepped:

🍦I made little ice cream cones with chart paper and cut out holes in a cardboard box to make it a cones stand.

🍦Different coloured playdough, some beads, pompoms, scooping spoons, muffin tray, cups... And that's about it.

The little one had a ball whipping up ice creams of different flavours and servings :)

Magnetic or Non-magnetic Sensory Bin

2021-05-06T05:14:00.004-07:00

The little one was introduced to magnets earlier this month through the DIY Magnetic Fishing game, that we played at the his birthday and more recently through the Magnetic Paper Plate Maze we made last week.

So lately, his curiosity around how magnets work, is high! He goes around the house with his little magnetic stick (from the maze game) or the fishing hook trying to see what sticks to his magnet and what doesn't! 😅

So I set up this little activity for my sensory bin loving child. I dunked in a few magnetic and non-magnetic objects from around the house into our rice bin and asked him to sort them using his magnetic 'wand'. He loved it! 💛

The magnetic wand us just a popsicle stick with a little magnet stuck on one end.

Introduction to Addition ➕ a DIY maths busy box.

2021-04-26T10:39:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, something came up that made me show the Mini simple addition using my fingers. He was so mesmerized by 'plus' that he requested for a 'plus activity!'.

As much as I was delighted that he understood how I set up activities based on his interests 😀, I didn't want to, as he is yet to learn the concept of addition at school. I usually prefer going in pace with his teachers.

But next day, as soon as he came back from school, he asked if I had set up the 'plus activity'! 😁 Well then, follow the child they say! So, I set this maths busy box for him. I wanted to keep it as simple and straight forward as possible.

Here is how I made it:

➕ I hot glued two cardboard tubes on the inside of the lid of a cardboard box. Painted one tube red and one blue.

➕ Made little cards with addition problems, with first number in red and second number in blue.

➕ He had to put pebbles into the two tubes corresponding to the numbers in the card and count all the pebbles in the box to get the total. Finally, place the right wooden number on the answer section of the card.

He was thrilled with his 'Plus Box' and I loved how easy it was to make and how everything fits perfectly in that little box! It's going to be a perfect busy box to carry along for travel.

Dominos Choo-choo Train Addition 🚂

2021-04-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Going with Mini's craze for vehilce related play, I based this one around Choo Choo Trains.

➕ In a sheet of paper, I drew little trains with cabins exactly the size of domino blocks.

➕ Wrote numbers on the cabins.

➕ Placed the domino blocks beside the trains.

➕ He had to pick a block, add the dots, find the total and place it on the correct cabin.

The little Thomas train was like meant to carry domino blocks!! So perfect 😁

Since I made three trains, I kept the blocks related to each train beside it, instead of jumbling them all up (He's only just begun additions, wanted to keep it simple). I had also kept some pebbles beside incase he wanted to use them as manipulators fir adding. He didn't need them. Just added the dots by hand.

Numbers Pizza Puzzle

2021-04-26T07:54:00.001-07:00

Numbers and Value Pizza Puzzle 🔢🍕

I made a simple puzzle with craft paper, to help the little guy understand and correlate numbers with their values.

To start with, we did only till number 5. I plan to make more of these.

ABC Pizza Puzzle

2021-04-26T07:50:00.001-07:00

Mini loved the Numbers Pizza Puzzle which I had made for him earlier (a few posts back) that he asked for a letters puzzle next... So here it is! 😀

Rummaged through my stickers collection and managed to put together a few letters.

Roll - Add - Hunt - Stamp ❤️

2021-04-26T07:31:00.005-07:00

A fun hearty math activity for Valentine's week.

💗 Drew a big heart on a sheet of paper and wrote numbers (2-12) randomly. I placed a few felt hearts to be used as counters.

💗 I asked the little guy to roll the pair of dice, add the dots, find the number on the sheet, dip the stamper in red paint and stamp the number with a ❤️

That heart stamp is a DIY. I glued a foam heart on the top of a detergent bottle cap.

He used the heart counters for big numbers, for addition of smaller values though, he was happy to use his little fingers! ☺️

Somewhere midway, he abandoned the stamping mission, as the trains were way more interesting 😁 In a while he was back again to use our other stamps of different shapes. This time to just randomly stamp the numbers. He was done with the math 😅

Learning Directions with Toy Cars

2021-04-26T07:20:00.000-07:00

Car Parking🅿️: Left, Right or Center?

A simple activity to reinforce the little guy's understanding of the basic directions - left, right and center.

⬆️ Drew a little road on a sheet of paper with parking lots on the left, rigth and center.

⬅️ Stuck tiny stickers with arrows on 12 little cars (4 for each direction).

➡️ Asked the Mini to 'drive' the cars and guide them to their parking lots.

He had so much fun at the roundabout, that am glad I included it in! 😁 Anyway how can any activity with cars go wrong, right? 🚗

Playdough Kits - Some More!

2019-09-05T23:08:00.003-07:00

Fire Emergency Playdough Kit

Our love affair with Playdough Kits is going strong and with each kit, I am seeing a lot of learning through play happening. If you have missed our first post on Playdough Kits, do hop over to my previous post on it and read up on them. We have the following kits on that post:

Construction Site Playdough Kit
Cupcake Playdough Kit
City Playdough Kit
Land and Sea Playdough Kit

Farm Playdough Kit

Also, if you are looking to make your own batch of playdough, here is how we make our Homemade Playdough. Its super simple and we really love the texture! The playdough that we use are all homemade

I consider a thoughtfully put together playdough kit as a little investment in time that I am making. I may take about 15-20 minutes to put together a kit and what results in hours of freeplay and endless creative learning for the Mini. It is worth every bit of my effort.

Bee and Garden Playdough Kit

The best part? I have spent absolutely nothing to make these kits, except of course the box itself, the rest of the little items are all parts of his existing toys, items lying around the house or craft supply. I love that I am able to re purpose items from his toys that are usually lesser played with. These kits give a whole new dimension to them and rekindles his interest, while in reality, there is no new items at all. Just presented in a different fun way!

Funny Faces Playdough Kit

Here are our kits from last few days... We totally absolutely LOVE them. I do hope you get some ideas and inspirations while here and get playdoughing with your little one! It is worth it all :)

Here are the kits I put together so far, using simple craft items, existing toys and stuff lying around the house. Will share more as we go.

Fire Emergency Playdough Kit

Toy Fire Trucks
Domino blocks building (just drew windows on regular domino blocks)
Pebbles
Toy trees
Mini fireman and accessories from Cogo blocks (similar to Lego blocks)
Brown playdough.

Learning through this kit:

He got a slight understanding of the hazard cones I included in this kit.
He learnt new words such as 'Water Hydrant', 'Water Hose'.
He enjoyed playing a fireman rescuing people from a fire zone.

Farm Playdough Kit

Toy farm animals
Toy tractors
Toy trees
Toy fences
Pebbles
Plastic pegs
Duck and pig cookie cutters
FARM letters
Brown and green playdough.

Learning through this kit:

Including those letters in the kit, made him try to spell FARM by himself, only he spelt it in right to left orientation :) We spoke about how words are to be spelt in left to right orientation.
He learnt the word 'Fence' through this kit.

Bee and Garden Playdough Kit

Yellow pegs bees (just drew stripes and eyes on plain yellow plastic play pegs)
Hexagon shape peg (from a shape sorting toy)
Wooden blocks (flowers, butterflies and ladybird - from an old balancing toy)
Wooden honey spoon with a cute bee on it.
Black lentils
Yellow and green playdough.

Learning through this kit:

We talked about how bees collect nectar from flowers and make honey.
We learnt that bees stay in bee hives that have hexagon patterns in them.
This evolved into a fine motor activity when he used his little tongs to pull out the 'bee eggs' from the hive! :)

These are some of his existing toys and household items that I re purposed for this kit.

A closer look at these cuties!

Funny Face Playdough Kit

Googly eyes
Craft sticks
Beads
Straw bits
Cookie cutter
Purple and orange playdough.

Funny Hairdo - Straw Blow Art

2019-09-01T01:49:00.003-07:00

Every now and then I try to set up an artsy craftsy activity for the little guy. He shows as much interest in these, as with the other games that I plan for him. So that makes it even more fun for me to put these together for him. I look for ideas and inspirations that require minimal prep and simple to execute craft projects for him, as hes only 3.6 currently so it should be doable by him with minimal help from me.

This art project really caught my attention and I immediately set it up for him. I did have to help him all through - drawing the face, splotching on paint dabs onto the paper and also with the blowing! But he enjoyed the process and we had fun together :)

Here is how we did it:

I drew an outline of a face on craft paper.

We then dabbed on some paint on the hairline. Make sure the paint is slightly watery in consistency (as the coloured water needs to drip away when blown on, in the next step!)

Now, using a straw, we blew as hard as we could at the watery paint pointing away towards the top of the head.

We blew blew blew,

Till we got a funny hairdo,

On the little face I drew! :D

Playdough Kits

2019-08-31T04:44:00.001-07:00

Construction Site Playdough Kit

Recently I came across this interesting concept of Playdough Kits and we love them! It's basically putting together loose parts along with playdough based on different themes, as open ended play invitations. Playdough has always been loved by my boy, with these kits I am primarily trying to tingle his creativity and give new play dimensions to good old playdough!

Cupcake Playdough Kit

I am big on organizing and absolutely love a good storage solution! The box I use for my Playdough Kits is a dry fruits box I got on Amazon. The mat is a silicon baking mat from Ikea. It is perfect for playdough play, zero mess!

City Playdough Kit

I let these kits sit in his play shelf for a couple of days until the interest is alive. He pulls them out himself and sits to play. I have a box full of loose parts that I store away, and intent to use in these kits on rotation. After play, we ensure everything is back in its place until next play session.

Land and Sea Playdough Kit

These have worked great for us, so sharing here for anyone else who may be interested! :)

Do check our newer post, "Playdough Kits - Some More" for a few more kits that we put together! :)

Here are the kits I put together so far, using simple craft items, existing toys and stuff lying around the house. Will share more as we go.

Construction Site Playdough Kit

Toy construction vehicles,
Toy signboards and cones,
Pebbles and stones,
Roller
Truck shaped cookie cutter
Brown playdough.

Cupcake Playdough Kit

Plastic candles
Beads
Pompoms
Cupcake liners
Tiny spoons and bowls,
Cupcake tray
White, orange and yellow playdough.

The play eventually evolved into a fine motor skills activity when he used his little tongs to pull out beads 'chocochips' out of his cookie! :)

City Playdough Kit

Domino blocks building (I just drew little windows on regular domino blocks using a CD writer pen)
Plastic trees
Straw bits
Toy city vehicles
Pebbles
White and blue playdough.

Land and Sea Playdough Kit

Pebbles
Plastic trees,
Animal and birds figurines
Craft sticks
Roller and Cutter
Blue and green playdough.

Loose Parts Storage

I have a partitioned storage box in which I store away all random loose parts, which I feel would go well with playdough play and intent to use in these playdough kits on rotation.

When not in play, the playdough kit just sits in his play area with its lid on!

Playdough Imprints Match Puzzle

2019-08-30T05:07:00.000-07:00

A few days ago, we tried a fun little game with playdough and a few small toys. This is almost a no prep activity as its just way too easy to put together. We always have a batch of homemade playdough lying around in the fridge. So that one evening, when we had nothing else planned, I just pulled them out and decided to set this game for the little guy.

If you haven't tried making your own batch of playdough yet, please please do give it a try! Here is how we make our Homemade Playdough.

Its absolutely simple, needs very basic ingredients, its taste safe, its super soft and lasts for months if stored well! Well, we love it and have never ever bought readymade playdough till date.

How I set it up:

I first flattened all our differently coloured playdough balls on a silicon mat.
Then, I gently, but firmly pressed in animal figurines onto each dough ball and then took them out.
I placed figurines in a plate and just asked him to match the figurines with their imprints!

He did this over a few times and then repeated with his vehicles!

Bubble Wrap Art - Rainy Day | Toddler Art

2019-08-27T04:23:00.001-07:00

This a fun little art project we did recently. I found this idea on Pinterest and gave it a try. We made it as a part of an activity for school, for the theme Rainy Season. We used a sheet of bubble wrap for this and the whole process was pretty fun for the little guy.

Read on to see how to create this super simple art at home with your mini.

Things Needed:

White Paper
Bubble Wrap sheet of the same size
Blue paint and brush
A bit of new paper sheet
A muffin line (we used it as we had it with us) or any craft paper.
Glue
Pen

How we did it:

Paint the sheet of bubble wrap blue all over, on one side.
Meanwhile, cut the newspaper paper piece in the shape as shown in the picture and place it on top of the white sheet of paper as shown (I forgot to take a before picture!).

Now, carefully turn the painted bubble wrap and place the painted side down on the white sheet and gently press all over to ensure the paint transfers evenly.

Carefully remove the bubble wrap sheet and then the newspaper bit.

Cut a little semi circle using the craft paper (this semi circle should be exactly in line with the shape you had given the newspaper earlier) and give it a little shape like an umbrella top.
Glue the semi circle onto the white space where you had kept the newspaper.

Now finish off the umbrella by drawing a little handle. That is it! Your bubble wrap art is ready!

DIY Pushpin Board

2019-08-27T03:45:00.003-07:00

Pushpins are great for little hands to work on and develop their pincer grip. A good amount of pressure is required to push a pin down onto a board and the more the little hands practice this, the better for them. Its a fun pre-writing activity to keep minis entertained.

I wanted to try a few activities that needed a pegboard and a geoboard. We don't have both, so I DIYed a Pushpin Board, that now serves as both! I mounted it on a little box for ease of use and am very pleased with the results!

This is definitely going down as one of my favorite and most productive DIYs. So much learning is a single toy! This is a long post with tonnes of pictures, but definitely worth scrolling through if you are a DIY fan like me who has a little one at home, who you want to keep busy creatively :)

Here are a few activity sheets for our pushpin board. These are great for developing pincer grip and fine motor skills.

Colour Match - poke the pins on the coloured dots based on colour.

Colour Match

Number Sequencing - wrap rubber band around the pushpins (0-1,1-2,2-3...etc) in order of numbers.

Number Sequencing

Letter, Shape and Pattern Tracing - poke pins along the outlines.

Pattern Tracing

Letter Tracing

Sticker Match - wrap rubber band around the pushpins of similar stickers.

Sticker Match

Count and Match - wrap rubber band around pushpins of pictures with their corresponding number.

Count and Match

The Mini came up with a new activity as well... Random pattern making the pushpin and rubber bands.

How I Made the Pushpin Board:

Wrap a cardboard box like you would wrap a gift.

Cut a piece of thermocol and cardboard sheet, to size of one side of the box. Stick these two together, making sure the cardboard is on top. (push pins will sit better on cardboard than on thermocol but need the height of a thermocol)
Wrap it in laminated sheet (easy to stick with activity sheets on top without damaging the cover), again like you would a gift.

Stick the thermocol - cardboard wrapped box on top of the wrapped cardboard box. That's it!

The DIY Pushpin Board is ready!

With our pushpin board ready, lets get to the various fun things we can do with it!

Colour Match

This is the most simplest of the activities and so this was what we began with. For this activity, I drew random dots in blue, red, green and yellow all over a sheet of paper. I then taped this sheet onto our pushpin board and placed a plate full of pushpins beside.

The little man was to pin in the pins onto their respective dots.

That concentration though ! :)

Number Sequencing

For this activity, I wrote numbers from 0-10 in the correct order, but not in a straight line. I then poked in pins beside each number. I placed a few rubber bands beside the board.

He was to pair two pins at a time with the rubber bands in the sequence 0-1, 1-2, 2-3 and so on. Until he reached 9-10.

Oh the joy! :)

Letter, Shape and Pattern Tracing

For this activity I made two work sheets, one with shapes and one with letters. I drew 4 shapes in one and wrote 4 letters in one. I taped one sheet at a time on the pushpin board and placed a few pins beside.

The little guy had to punch in the pins all along the shapes and the letters. This one in particular is an excellent pre-writing activity.

That face of concentration, again! :)

I just love the expression! :D

Sticker Match

For this activity, I used pairs of stickers and pasted them in two coloumns, with one from each pair on their columns. I pinned pushpins beside each sticker on both columns. I stick this sheet of paper on the board and placed some rubber bands beside the board.

The tiny had to match the stickers on both columns and pair the pins beside the pair of stickers, using a rubber band.

Can you tell, much fun was had!? :)

Count and Match

For this activity, I drew 6 little objects on the left side, of different numbers. And wrote numbers from 1-6 in random order on the right column. I punched in pins along each drawing and number on both columns. I taped the sheet on the board and placed a few rubber bands beside.

The Mini had to count the number of objects in the left column, find the number on the right and match them, by pairing the pins using a rubber band.

Some quick math exercise along with fine motor skill play :)

Random Pattern Making

So this one was done all by the little guy. He went about randomly pinning the pins on the dots (form the first worksheet) and even in spaces with no dots. And then went on to put in rubber bands across the pins in random order thereby making random patterns! Kept him busy for a good amount of time!

Please Note!

I was constantly monitoring while he was working with the pins. Please make your own judgment to decide if your child is ready to work with it.
Make sure the rubber bands are not too small. If it's too small or tight, it could rip off the pin from the board.
Keep it out of reach soon after play.
Over time the top surface will get riddled with a lot of holes from all the poking. I just plan to add another cardboard sheet when that happens.

Spray the ABC!

2019-07-26T11:29:00.003-07:00

Here is yet another fun little game related to letter sounds and this one involves a spray bottle! Need I say more!? :D

The 3 activities we did on letter sound identification were much loved by the Mini. Listing them here, in case you have missed them.

For this activity, I first secured our wall behind, by taping a water resistant sheet on the wall over which I taped a sheet of paper. On this I had randomly written letters. Along side was a basket filled with random objects and a little spray bottle. The Mini had to pick an item, find the first letter of that item on the paper and spray it! Then move on to the next item until all are done and all letters are sprayed on!

The glee on his face says it all! :D

He had a blast with this one. Along with learning his letter sounds, he was also working his finger muscles by using that spray bottle - double whammy! :) I love such fun filled learning activities.

This activity took me less than 15 minutes to set up and minimal effort to clean up. I left the sheet on after he had completed one round of the activity. In just a bit, the paper dried up and was all ready for another round! I was delighted that the paper held for 3-4 rounds of play until the mini decided to attack it all over and sprayed every inch of it with water when it finally gave up and tore! :D

How I Set it Up:

I first gathered random items from around the house. I made sure the items have different starting letters. I put them all in a tray.

I then prepped our activity wall! As water play is involved, I first taped a water resistant sheet on the wall and then taped a sheet of paper over it. On this sheet, I wrote the starting letters of all the items that I had gathered from around the house.
I placed the tray filled with objects and a spray bottle filled with water near the sheet.

The little guy had to pick one object at a time, identify its starting letter, find it on the sheet and spray! Move on to the next item until all the items are done and all the letters are sprayed!

Can you tell, much fun was had! :D :D

DIY Car Wash

2019-07-26T11:05:00.002-07:00

Here is another super simple DIY toy that I made using an empty cardboard box - A Car Wash! With the level of obsession my little boy has for vehicles, I knew this one is going to be a super hit with him and it definitely is! :)

This little handmade toy is often played with love, by the little one for hours and it is a joy to see him lost in his little world of pretend play. The joy of DIY toys is unparallelled! It gives me such a sense of satisfaction when I am able to make something for my son to play with, using not much but scraps and simple stationery. I am thankful for my constant urge to create and for my passion for DIYing.

If you do have a little vehicle lover at home, and an empty cardboard box lying around, do yourself a favour and make a Car Wash right away! Hours of play for the little one and some me-time for you guaranteed :)

How I made it:

I first cut open the top and sides of a cardboard box, leaving them attached at the bottom, thereby making a long path like at both openings.

Then, I cut up some crepe paper in slits and stuck them on either ends of the opening of the box. I made slits on the crepe sheets. These will make the entrance and exit of the car wash.

Then, I dressed the box pretty with some wrapping sheet.

Stuck a little piece of thermocol and a little name banner on top using a bit of craft paper and toothpicks. Voila! Mini's little Car Wash is ready! :)

Hours of free play followed! And 2 months later, it is still being played with :)

DIY Fuel Pump | Play Fuel Pump

2019-06-27T11:11:00.003-07:00

I love a good cardboard box DIY! It makes me so happy to convert an unused, old cardboard box that is just lying around, into something fun and pretty! This is one of my favourite cardboard box DIYs, if I am to choose one from the ones I have made so far.

The little fellow has a big collection of toy vehicles of all sizes - tiny, medium and big! He loves each one and engages in a lot of self play with these vehicles, at least for a few minutes every day.

He have different props and accessories to pair up with the different sets of vehicles. The tiniest set of vehicles are best played in our sensory rice bin. The medium sized ones are used to play along with play dough. I try to encourage him to keep them separate as much as possible, to avoid messing them up too much and also to up the fun factor! A sticky wheel after a play dough play session is not going to be fun in a rice bin!

So, for the big vehicles, he didn't have any particular prop to pair up as such. He would just run them over cushions pretending it to be speed breakers. Since I had two boxed that seemed just perfect to make a big enough fuel pump to suit the big vehicles, I decided to make it as a play prop for them.

Honestly I am not sure who had more fun - me making the cute little pump or he playing with it! It was just super fun to put this together. I had planned on using the cap of his spray bottle for this DIY, but when I found a store that sells only the spray bottle cap, I was super delighted! The pump turned out way better than I had expected and it is still as good as new, after a month of play.

Things Needed:

Cardboard Boxes - 2. (Both rectangle in shape, one big and one small.)

Wrapping Sheet

Spray Bottle Cap / Spray Gun

Rope

Craft Paper

Tissue Paper Roll

Glue | Glue Gun | Cello Tape | Scissors

How I made it:

I kept the bigger box as is, sealed the openings shut.
The smaller box, I opened on one side and tucked in the flaps so as to make it an open box. You may leave this as is, but I wanted the top box to be able to sit on the bigger box without having to paste it on it.
I then wrapped both the boxes with paper, the bigger in a grey coloured paper and the smaller one with red craft paper.

Now the basic structure is ready. See how the red box sits on top of the grey one? I liked this setup and it was easier to dismantle and move it around.

One one side of the red box, I stuck a tissue paper roll (which I had covered with a black paper).
Through the roll, I secure tied a rope, the other end of which I inserted in to the straw of the spray bottle cap/spray gun. The spray bottle gun fitted perfectly into the tissue paper roll handle when not in use. This was our cute little 'pump' holder!

Finally, I added on some wordings to the pump and it was all ready! I was overjoyed with the end product and was so happy to see the little one pretend play with it, along with his big vehicles. :)

Clips (Paper and Clothes Clips) Activity Ideas

2019-06-11T22:49:00.005-07:00

Last couple of days we have been doing a few simple fun activities using chart paper, paper clips and clothes clip. Primarily for improving fine motor skills while also reinforcing numbers and letters recognition and colours matching. These tiny little clips or pegs as they are also called, are great for developing a good pincer grip in little fingers.

When I first introduced the wooden clips to my little boy, a few months ago, it was for a name recognition activity. He found it really hard to work them. He was unable to open the clips. His tiny fingers were not ready for them and so I kept them aside for a few months and we used plastic clips for the activity instead.

More recently. we again tried our hands at the wooden clips and this time he was able to work them perfectly! This time around, I first let him work on an activity that used plastic clips, then paper clips and finally we moved on to wooden clips. The difficulty level increased step by step and I am guessing that helped him get the hang of it.

Sharing here, the simple games we played and enjoyed using paper clips and clothes clips.

Read, Count and Clip

The first activity was based around counting and using paper clips. I cut strips of an A4 sheet into about 2 inches in width. On each I wrote a number on top (from 1-10). I placed a little box full of paper clips next to these paper strips and presented it to the Mini. The little fellow had to read the number and insert as many clips onto the paper as the number asks to.

This is Mini's first encounter with paper clips and so he had to be taught how to properly insert it into the paper. I told him 'the small u and the big U need to be together' when he inserts the clip into the paper. That little line helped him a great deal and he very quickly got a hang of it.

He added his own little criterion to this game. He tried to colour code the clips for each number! Red for 1, Yellow for 2, Pink for 3... etc! So in addition to a fine motor and a number activity, he included a colour sort aspect to it as well! Triple whammy! :D

Hairstyle Colour Match

For this activity, I made little happy/funny faces using different coloured craft paper, and googly eyes. I made sure the paper colours I chose are in line with the colours of cloth clips we had at home. (Green, Blue, Yellow and Pink).

I presented these faces and a box full of plastic cloth clips to the little one. All he had to do was identify the colour of the happy face, find matching clips and clip on, to give the face some pretty hair! This is my personal favourite activity. So silly, yet so fun! :)

It was an instant hit and the little one loved giving the happy faces some pretty hair! :D

These plastic clips are not too hard to work with and can be easily opened and closed by little hands. I wanted him to get used to them before I re-introduced the wooden clips, which are a tad harder to operate.

Again my colours obsessions little one, began to match the coloured faces with similar coloured paper clips from our prev activity! He went on to insert the clips on the faces to give them beard this time! :D

What is Missing?

For this activity, we used wooden popsicle sticks and wooden cloth clips. I wrote series of letters and numbers on the popsicle sticks, leaving out one or two of them blank. These missing letters/numbers I wrote on the wooden clips. The little one had to take one popsicle stick at a time, read the series, find the missing letter or number from the series written on the popsicle stick, find the clip that has the missing item and clip it on!

I was guessing this would take him a few attempts to get a hang of, but no! He dived right into it and did it like a pro. I was pleased to see him being able to work his way around the wooden clips, with so much ease this time!

He was all done at the very first attempt and was happy to do them over a few more times.

Find Your Name

This final activity, was something we did a while ago. It was not a part of this set but I am putting it here to group them all as clip activities. This game is based on name recognition. The objective was to find your name and clip. I had written his name along with ours and a few other easy to read words on sheets of paper. He had to find his name and clip the cloth clip exactly on it.

This was a few months ago, when he wasn't ready for wooden clips. So we had moved to plastic clips for the activity. You can have a look at the original post of this activity here: Name Hunt and Clip.

Papa Bear - Father's Day Card | Toddler Craft

2019-06-01T03:03:00.004-07:00

With Father's Day approaching, I though this is the right time to share what we did for last year's Father's Day. Mini and I made this cute little Papa Bear card for Mini's dad. I found this adorable card idea from Pinterest and was so happy with how easy it was to make something so cute!

He was only 2.4 years old and so this was mostly done by me under his close supervision! Oh well, he did help stick the little eyes and pompoms! :)

This is a fun little project to do with older toddlers who have just about gotten control of their scissor skills. Maybe this year again I will try making the same with him, only this time I will draw a circle and let him cut it out by himself!

Things Needed:

Craft Paper - Two A4 sheets of paper. One dark and one light shades of any colour of your choice.
Googly Eyes
Pompom
Glue
Scissors
Pencil

How to make it:

Fold the darker shade of paper in half.
Starting at the fold of the sheet, draw a 3/4th circle, leaving about 2-2.5 inches of the folded area in place (that going to be where the card opens up)
You can choose to cutout a piece of the lighter shade of paper (in the shape of the 3/4th circle) and stick it in the inside of this folded 3/4th circle just to give a different pop of colour when the card is opened. I used dark green for the front of the face and light green for the inside.
Cut out two rounds of the darker shade of paper and two smaller rounds of the lighter shade of paper. (These will make ears).
Cut out a slightly bigger round of the lighter shade for the mouth.

Now, just glue all the pieces together as shown in the picture. Glue on the googly eyes and pompom for nose.
Your card is almost ready. Add in your personalised message and there you go... a very cute handmade Father's Day card is ready for Papa dearest! :)

Popsicle Sticks Rainbow Puzzle

2019-05-28T23:19:00.003-07:00

My little boy has always loved puzzles. There was a phase a few months ago, when he would pull out all his puzzles boxes one after another and sit and complete them all. His interests in puzzles has slightly dwindled since. He still sits and solves them when reminded or when they have been away for a while, but unlike earlier, it isn't a daily activity these day.

To keep it interesting and to give him more option without actually buying more puzzles, I had done made this DIY Jigsaw Puzzle using the backside of our existing jigsaw puzzle pieces. This again was much loved by the little fellow and was well used.

More recently, he has a great interest in colours. Rainbow colours attract him and he loves singing a little song related to the colours of the rainbow. When I came across this DIY puzzles idea using popsicle sticks on Instagram, I just knew my Mini would love it and got to work almost immediately.

Some jumbo popsicle sticks, colour pens and pencil is all that you need to make this vibrant looking puzzle. The single jumbled popsicle sticks are pretty confusing to look at on the first go. So, it was a little tough for him to solve all by himself. I had to help him half way through and he would solve the second half by himself.

I loved making it for him and he loved seeing the rainbow form as he sat working the puzzle through.

Things Needed:
Popsicle Sticks - Jumbo size, I used 10.
Colour Pens - Rainbow Colours
Pencil
Cello-tape
Scissors

How I made it:

I first laid all the popsicle sticks next to each other in a line and taped them together in the middle. This would be the underside of the puzzle and was to keep them in place while making the rainbow on the other side. We will remove the cello-tape once done.

Now, I flipped the taped popsicle sticks over and used a pencil to draw a rainbow.

I filled up the rainbow in pretty rainbow colours using the Mini's markers. This was the most fun part for me! :D

Then, I just flipped the popsicle sticks over and removed the cello tape. The popsicle sticks are all individual pieces now.

I jumbled up the pieces and presented them to the little guy to solve. See how confusing the pieces all look!! It was hard for him to solve all by himself. He needed my help half way through. After which, he was able to solve the second half by himself.

Well, more than solving the rainbow puzzle, he was more delighted when he made an 'A' using a few of the popsicle sticks!! :D

Object Hunt and Letter Sound Match - Sensory Play

2019-05-28T03:37:00.003-07:00

The little one's fondness for letter sounds is still very fresh and so am trying to make the most of it by thinking up new activities and games related to phonics. Our first two letter sound activities were much loved by the Mini. Listing them here, in case you have missed them.

For this letter sound activity, I brought in some sensory play as well. I collected random items from around the house (Onion for O, Fork for F, Garbage Truck for G, Road Roller for R... etc). I used our rice bin as a base, in which I hid in these random objects. The little guy had to search through the rice bin and find these items one by and one and then match them with the letters written on sheets of paper, based on the starting letter of the items.

He was able to figure out the the starting letter of most items, while need a little bit of help with some. This is a very easy to set up game for toddler just starting out with letter sounds. They not only get familiar with everyday object and their names but also learn letter sounds and eventually to spell the names of these objects.

How I Set it Up:

I first gathered random items from around the house that were not too big in size. I tried to make sure the items have different starting letters. In some cases, I picked multiple items with the same starting letters, just to get him thinking.
I then wrote the starting letters of all these items on two sheets of paper (making sure all the items were included.)
Like in all our sensory play set ups, I first laid out our plastic sheet on the floor. Then I kept a big tray with rice in it. I dunked all the items that I collected into the rice bin and hid them the best I could.

I taped the sheets of paper on either sides of the tray and invited him to come and play!

He had to fish out the items one by one from the rice bin, identify the item, figure out the starting letter of the item, find the corresponding letter written on the sheet of paper and then place the item over the letter on the sheet of paper.

He had to repeat this till all the items were taken out of the rice bin.

DIY Car Parking and Ramp

2019-05-23T00:31:00.003-07:00

Oh look what I found! This DIY car ramp is from over two years ago, one of my first craft projects that I made for my little guy. He was just about 15 months old when I made this for him and was already a little car lover :) He had a handful of little cars that he enjoys playing with. So sheets from an empty cardboard box, had decided to attempt making a little car parking and ramp for him.

Back then, I used his nap-times as a measure of time as that was all the free time I had at hand!! :D So this project costed me all of just one nap-time to make, which was about 2 hours. It was quite therapeutic and fun for me as it was after ages that I was actually sitting and painting something. I enjoyed the process.

Of course the little muffin loved it! Oh just look at that happy face! He placed his little cars atop the ramp and pushed them down the ramp using his chubby pudgy fingers!

How I made it:

I actually did not have a set plan in my head when I started it. I was not even sure if I would manage to get one made. Hence, I do not have step wise pictures from the very beginning as I did not plan on blogging it while making it! Only about half way through, I realised it was shaping up pretty well and so decided to click a few pictures then. So this is from half way down.

After this, I just painted it all pretty and added on a few stickers.

Hope these pictures give you some idea on how I made it.

I love how small he was! Oh and LOVE the joy on that muffin face! Blurry, but sweet pics. I just cannot not share them! :)

DIY Mini Construction Site

2019-05-23T00:16:00.001-07:00

My boy loves LOVES vehicles. And I LOVE DIYs !! This one is an awesome combination of both :)

I had a huge cardboard box lying around that I decided to convert into a simple construction site for the Mini. With some inspiration from Pinterest and some own ideas I made this Mini Construction Site.

First off, I taped the bottom of the cardboard box shut so that it cannot be opened from below.

Then, I painted one side blue depict the blue sky and stuck a few cotton balls randomly to make cute little puffy clouds. Once the paint dried, added a sun on one top corner and using a black sketch pen, drew little birdies and a few buildings.

Also drew some roads and lanes on the base of the cardboard box to depict little roads for the vehicles to go on. I placed a few trays here and there and filled them with chickpeas, cotton balls, pompoms to depict various construction materials.

Then, in came all the little construction vehicles, randomly placed across the roadways that I just drew. I also placed a few cotton balls and some chickpeas on his mini construction vehicles as well, as play prompts.

That was it! A mini construction site was ready for the little one. He happily plopped himself right inside box, at the heart of the site and began exploring the various items I had in there for him.

Looks like the little construction engineer is on a dream break :)