activities for toddlers

C is for Colors

Dear Sis,

Science: Flower Dying

We placed our flowers in our dyed water before bed last night, so we could observe the changes in the morning and throughout the day.

Materials

  • white flowers
  • scissors, to shorten stems
  • 7 small jars water
  • food coloring

Our discussion went something like this…

    “What do plants eat?”

    “Sunshine.”

    “What do plants drink?”

    “Water.”

    “If we put color in the water, what will happen when the plants drink it?”

    “I don’t know Mama.”

    “You’ll know soon.”

Balloon Color Matching Mat

Parent Preparation

Our Process

  • Have student name colors as they work. 
  • Clean up, by requesting certain colors by name.

Our Daily Reading

Today’s fiction selection is The Color Kitten by Margaret Wise Brown. These little kitties start the story with only three colors: blue, red, and yellow. In a quest to make green, they learn how to make a lot of different colors:)

Today’s hands-on book is Mix It Up! by Herve Tullet. William enjoys this very engaging book about how secondary colors are made from primary colors. It was a great segue to our next activity!

Paint Mixing Shape Activity

Parent Preparation

Our Process

  • Review shape and color names of each puzzle piece.
  • One bag at a time, ask student to identify the shape, find the corresponding puzzle piece, and name the color.
  • Add a bit of paint to the bag to make the color and let the student mix and/or spread it inside the shape.
  • Once we had paint in all the bags we moved to the floor and matched the puzzle shapes with the bag shapes again.
  • Then I called out a shape name and William retrieved it and told me what color it was and whether it was a primary color or a mixed color. For mixed colors, I had him tell me which colors were used to make it.

Snack: Rainbow Fruit Kabobs

Just before we could head to the kitchen to make our snack, baby sister woke up and crashed our lesson. So we ended up having fruit kabobs with our lunch instead:)

Love,

b

C is for Car

Dear Sis,

Our Daily Reading

Today we read two non-fiction books. If you have a little boy, car books are a dime a dozen. I wanted to take the opportunity for education in an area that interests him enough to keep him focused. You might want to tone it down with a fiction selection, if your little isn’t so car enthusiastic:) 

First we read, How a Car is Made by Sam Aloian from the Engineering Our World series. This book follows car construction through a factory assembly line.

Next, we read The History of the Car by Elizabeth Raum from the Inventions That Changed the World  series. To a twenty-first century kid, the idea that people used to travel by foot or horse and wagon is a bit mind blowing. As a history lover, I love watching William connect to history in his own unique areas of interest!

Snack: Apple Cars

William was excited to see cars on his breakfast plate this morning. Apple cars paired well with our sausage and leftover Honey Apple Challah french toast, from Rosh Hashanah dinner last night:)

Apple cars are easy to make. They look more proportionate with larger apple slices:) The grapes are secured with tooth picks.

Wheels on the Car Color Matching Activity

Parent Preparation

Our Process

  • Place color coordinating wheel markers on the corresponding car, saying the color name aloud.
  • Review during clean up, by asking your student to put away one color at a time.

Shape Roads to Drive

Parent Preparation

Our Process

  • Name shape, and discuss its features. For instance, a square has four equal sides. Count them together.
  • Drive the shape roads… of course!

Car Number Tracing & Counting Cards

Parent Preparation

Our Process

  • Name the number.
  • Have student trace it with their fingers, then a car.
  • Park the correct number of cars in the adjacent parking lot, counting aloud as they work.

Love,

b

C is for Cow

Dear Sis,

Baby sister is 10 days old! She is such a great eater and sleeper!!! I got my easy baby second:) She has already fallen into schedule with our family routine. Josh suggested doing school on weekends until we catch back up to our planned timeline, so today we got back into the swing.

Our Daily Reading

Today’s fiction selection is Raisin the Littlest Cow by Miriam Busch. It is a story about a calf’s journey to acceptance upon the arrival of a new sibling. Any kid with a sibling can relate to feeling second sometimes, but the love of family bonds us together and teaches us not to be selfish:)

Today’s non-fiction selection is from Lightning Bolt Books, Baby Farm Animal series. Meet a Baby Cow by Buffy Silverman discusses the life cycle of the cow from birth to reproductive maturity. 

“C” is for Cow Letter Craft

Parent Preparation

  • Print C is for Cow Letter Craft Printable. I found this jpeg on Pinterest, but was not able to trace it back to its original source. 
  • Provide crayons, scissors, glue stick, and a sheet of green craft paper.

Student Assembly

  • Cut our or ask your grown up to cut out the C, cow head, and tail.
  • Paste the C to a sheet of green craft paper.
  • Paste the cow head and tail.
  • Color as desired.
  • Write or have your grown up title, name, and date your work, for your homeschool portfolio. 

How Many Spots? Counting Activity

Activity Materials

Our Process

  • With the number cards shuffled, we practiced number identification and names as we placed each card near it’s corresponding number on the puzzle.
  • Then, we chose a number to place on our How Many Spots? counting mat and counted out the correct number of spots. 
  • Count aloud together to check the answer.

William enjoyed eating two chocolate chips each time his work was correct!

Cow Size Sequencing Cards

These Cow Size Sequencing Cards are part of Simple Living Creative Learning’s Cow Life Cycle Printable Pack. We laminated ours for durability. First, William lined them up biggest to smallest. Then, we reversed the process and lined them up smallest to biggest.

Science: Butter Making

For our final lesson, we went to the kitchen and took out a high sided bowl, to help prevent splashing, a whisk, some heavy whipping cream, salt, a bowl of ice, and a pack of crackers.

I started by asking William what animal makes the milk we drink. Then, I explained after a cow is milked the thick cream is skimmed off the top of the milk. It can be used as is or beaten until it separates into butter and buttermilk. He was very eager to try it for himself.

We added the cream and a pinch of salt to the bowl and started whipping. William was not able to beat the cream with as much speed and zest as an adult, so we took turns whipping to speed the process along.

Once the butter and butter milk separated, we set the butter on ice to firm it up and rinse away any remaining buttermilk. 

The final step… the taste test:)

Baby sister woke up for her next feeding just as we finished our lessons. I don’t expect her timing will always be so perfect… lol. 

Love,

b

C is for Cat

Dear Sis,

William is very excited for your arrival later today. It motivated him through lessons very quickly, so he can play with Baby Em when she gets here:)

Our Daily Reading

Today’s fiction selection is one of William’s favorites right now. Max the Brave by Ed Vere is about a kitty who is going to show his bravery by chasing mice… too bad he doesn’t know what mouse looks like.

Today’s non-fiction selection is from The Cat in the Hat Learning Library: What Cat is That? By Tish Rabe. In true Cat-in-the-Hat style, the book is written in rhyme and is loaded with great information about wild and domesticated cats.

Breakfast: Cat Bagel

Cat Bagel
Serves 1
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Ingredients
  1. half a bagel
  2. 2 T flavored cream cheese
  3. 2 strawberry slices
  4. 3 raisins
  5. 6 pretzel sticks
Instructions
  1. Spread cream cheese over bagel, taking care to fill in the center, so it doesn't show.
  2. Add strawberry slice ears, eye and nose raisins, and pretzel whiskers.
Tag Sis, You're It! http://www.tagsisyoureit.com/

“C” is for Cat Letter Craft

Activity Materials

  • Print C is for Cat Letter Craft Template from Miss Maren’s Monkeys Blog, on card stock. 
    • Cut out “C,” ear, and nose portions of the template. We skipped the paper eye and whisker portions of the template.
  • Supply a sheet craft paper for cat (black, brown, gray, orange, white), a second sheet of craft paper for mounting, pink craft paper for nose, 2 large wiggly eyes, a pipe cleaner cut into six portions for whiskers.
  • Crayons optional to add pattern to cat. William wanted to add white stripes to his orange cat.

Student Assembly

  • Trace and cut out or have your grown up trace and cut out the “C,” 2 ears, and a tail from cat colored sheet of craft paper. Trace and cut out nose from pink craft paper.
  • Paste “C,” ears, and tail to the mounting sheet of craft paper.
  • Optional: Add stripes, patches, or spots with crayons, as desired.
  • Paste on wiggly eyes and whiskers.
  • Write or ask your grown up to title, name, and date your work, for your homeschool portfolio.

Cat Matching Memory Game

Print Cat Matching Memory Game from Sunny Day Family, on card stock. To finish the game for use, cut cats out, back them with scrapbook paper, and laminate them for durability.

Matching Game

  • Place half of the cards face up and half the cards face down.
  • During turn, player flips a face down card and finds its face up match.

We played this version once before moving onto small scale memory game play.

Memory Game

  • Choose 4-6 pairs of cards. Shuffle and place all face down.
  • During turn, flip two cards. If they match, the player keeps them and has the opportunity to flip two more cards in search of another match. Continue until a match is not made.
  • Play transfers to the second player. Process is the same. 
  • When all cards are collected, they player with the most cards wins.

Cat Whisker Lacing Cards

Print Cat Whisker Lacing Cards form Your Therapy Source, on card stock. Cut out cats, laminate, and punch two holes on each side of nose with hole puncher. Supply pipe cleaners cut in half, for lacing.

Love,

b

C is for Caterpillar

Dear Sis,

Our Daily Reading

Today’s fiction selection was the children’s classic The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. William has loved this book since he was about 7 months old. He knows it so well he counts the fruit by himself and says, “but he was still hungry” on each page.

Today’s non-fiction selection was From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Camilla de la Bedoyere. It is a life cycle book with just the right amount of text and wonderful photography!

“C” is for Caterpillar Letter Craft

Parent Preparation

Student Assembly

  • Color letter C with crayons.
  • Cut out or ask your grown up to cut out the C and the caterpillar head.
  • Paste the letter C to a sheet of craft paper.
  • Paste caterpillar head, eyes, and antenna in place.
  • Paste pom-poms as desired.
  • Write or have your gown up title, name, and date your work, for your homeschool portfolio.

Butterfly Color Sorting Mat

Activity Materials

Our Process

  • Begin by asking student to name the color of each flower.
  • Then, naming the color of each butterfly as they go, have student place butterflies above the color match flower.

Butterfly Life Cycle Wheel

Activity Materials

Our Process

I handed William the life cycle wheel and started asking him questions. His responses were a mixture of verbal and visual using the wheel. Prompt ideas:

  • How does a caterpillar enter the world? 
  • Once a caterpillar is large enough, what does it become?
  • After a few weeks as a pupa, what emerges?
  • How do adult butterflies make new baby caterpillars?

Caterpillar Egg Counting Mats

Activity Materials

Our Process

  • First, we discussed that zero meant their were no eggs anywhere.
  • Then, we matched the puzzle numerals with the numbered leaf cards. 
  • Next, we placed the correct number of egg counters on each leaf, counting with each addition.
  • For leaf 10, we moved the one and zero numeral puzzle pieces before adding egg counters.

William worked out of sequence, on his own accord, and I didn’t try to correct him. He still successfully placed the proper number of egg counters on each leaf:)

Love,

b

B is for Buttons

Dear Sis,

Our Daily Reading

The first fiction selection is the widely popular book, Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons by James Dean and Eric Litwin. As Pete’s favorite shirt loses buttons, your students gets some counting practice, and learns from Pete’s positive attitude that rotten luck is no reason to cry.

The second fiction selection, Grandma’s Button Box by Linda Williams Aber, is a story about a girl who spills her grandmother’s button box, while she is out. She and her cousins work together to find and sort all the buttons before she returns. Another great math story!

 “b” is for Button Letter Craft

Parent Preparation

  • Print b if for Button Printable from Tag Sis, You’re It!
  • Supply crayons, scissors, glue stick and liquid glue, assorted buttons, and a sheet of craft paper.

Student Assembly

  • Color “b” with crayons.
  • Cut out or ask your grown up to cut out your “b.”
  • Paste “b” to sheet of craft paper with glue stick.
  • Glue buttons to “b” with liquid glue.
  • Write or ask your grown up to title, name, and date your work, for your homeschool portfolio.

Pete the Cat Groovy Buttons Game

Game Play

2-4 Players

Set Up for Each Player

  • Cat figure place marker
  • 1 Button Jar
  • 2 Buttons (to place on Jar)

Rules of Play

  • Youngest player spins first.
  • Land on Green: add suggested number of Buttons to Jar.
  • Land on Red: remove suggested number of Buttons from Jar and place them on Pete’s Shirt.
  • Land on Blue: trade Jars with Player of choice.
  • Land on Blank Green Space of Pete’s Shirt: take all the Buttons on the Shirt.

Game End

  • Play ends when all buttons are collected.
  • Any buttons remaining on Pete’s Shirt are divided among players, starting with the youngest player.
  • Player with the most buttons wins!

Pete the Cat Groovy Buttons Game helps your student practice counting and number recognition for numbers 1-5.

Button Shape Sorting Jars

Activity Materials

Our Process

  • Review shapes using Shape Puzzle.
  • Read shape names on jars to student and have them place the corresponding shape over the name. The Flower Jar will be the only one without a shape.
  • Ask student to short buttons into the correct jar, saying the color and shape of each button as they go.

Lunch: Button Sandwiches

I used a glass to cut circles of bread and a drinking straw to create the button holes. William wanted PB&J, so I cut the bread first and then made the sandwiches. For ham or turkey and cheese, it would be easier to make the sandwich first and then cut it into a round. Just pull off the top slice and create the button holes before serving.

Love,

b

B is for Bear

Dear Sis,

Our Daily Reading

Our fiction selection for the day was, There’s a Bear on My Chair by Ross Collins. Poor mouse has an uninvited guest in his chair! Mouse rants in rhyme until finally, he gives up. When mouse leaves, bear goes home to find mouse asleep in his bed. Even little ones find the humor!

Our non-fiction selection for the day was, Brown Bears by Kate Riggs. This book is a quick read, so your little won’t be over whelmed with information. 

Breakfast: Bear Toast

Bear Toast
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Ingredients
  1. 1 slice bread
  2. 1 T peanut butter
  3. 3 banana slices
  4. 3 blueberries
Instructions
  1. Lightly toast bread.
  2. Spread with peanut butter.
  3. Top with banana slices and blueberries to make bear facial features.
Tag Sis, You're It! http://www.tagsisyoureit.com/

We had a midwife appointment today, so I made William’s toast to go. He was eating and listening to his daily reading during my 38 week check up. What can I say? Moms multi-task! Midwife Linda and the receptionist couldn’t get over how cute his breakfast was!

“B” is for Bear Letter Craft

Parent Preparation

  • Print Bear Parts and Upper Case B Templates from DLTK’s Educational Activities. Color and Black and White versions are available for both. We opted to bring the B is Black and White and the Part Parts in Color.
  • Cut out the Bear Parts. We didn’t use all the bear parts. We skipped the eye brows and tongue and traded the paper eyes for wiggly ones.
  • Supply a brown crayon, glue stick, and 2 large wiggly eyes.

Student Assembly

  • Color the letter B with a brown crayon.
  • Paste the dark ear circle onto the larger ear circles and paste the dark nose circle to the oval snout. 
  • Paste the ears, snout, and paws in place. 
  • Paste the wiggly eyes.
  • Write or ask your grown up to title, name, and date your work, for your homeschool portfolio.

Bear Counting Clip Cards

Activity Materials

Our Process

Today we didn’t incorporate our numeral puzzle because we were in a mall lounge waiting for Build-a-Bear to open. 

  • Shuffle cards.
  • First, ask student what color the bears are.
  • Then, ask student to count the bears.
  • Next, ask student to find the correct numeral. My student has little to no number recognition at this point, so I read the numbers to him slowly, pointing to each one, and then asked him to identify the correct number.
  • Finally, we put the cards in sequential order.

September Field Trip

Built-a-Bear Workshop

As part of our schooling process, I decided that I wanted to make sure we had a field trip each month. Family friends John and Susan gave us some Build-a-Bear Workshop gift cards a few months ago, so I thought B is for Bear day would be the perfect opportunity to put them to use. Ironically, William chose a dinosaur for himself and a rabbit for baby sister… neither of which begin with letter B!

Afterward, William played in the mall play area for the better part of a half an hour and we had food court pizza as a special treat for lunch. It was toddler heaven!

Gummy Bear Pattern Strips

Activity Materials

  • Print Gummy Bear Patterns from Pre Kinders, on card stock.
    • Cut out and laminate for durability.
  • Supply gummy bears. I bought two bags because I realized there were hardly any green and white in them!

Our Process

  • Sort gummy bears by color.
  • Work through as many pattern strips as your student has patience for. I bribed mine with the promise of 3 gummy bears to eat after the completion of a pattern:)

When William was all tucked in for nap today, next to his new dinosaur, he smiled and said, “We had a good day Mama.” Afterward, I went to my room, to make the bed, since we left for our appointment before Daddy was up. When I was done making the bed, I tidied a few other things, and realized that William had placed baby sister’s new rabbit in her crib. Sometimes that kid makes my heart melt!!!

Love,

b

 

B is for Boat

Dear Sis,

Our Daily Reading

Today’s non-fiction selection was Boat Book by Gail Gibbons. It talks about all the different kinds of boats, broken into categories by how they are powered and what jobs they perform. A great toddler book… that is simply factual, without being condescending. 

Today’s fiction selection is the Golden Book Classic, Scruffy the Tugboat by Gertrude Crampton. If you don’t remember from when you were a kid, Scruffy is a toy boat that longs for adventure in the great big world. Once he has his adventure, he realizes that he is better off in his small section of the world, with the man in the polka-dot tie and his son. 

“b” is for Boat Letter Craft

Parent Preparation

  • Print b is for Boat Letter Craft by Tag Sis, You’re It, on white card stock.
  • Provide paints, brushes, painting smock, scissors, blue sheet of craft paper, and a glue stick.

Student Assembly

  • Choosing different colors for each part, paint the trapezoid boat, triangle sail, and “b” mast. Set it aside to dry.
  • Once your painting is dry, ask your grown up to help you cut out your boat parts.
  • Paste the boat parts to blue craft paper.
  • Write or ask your grown up to title, name, and date your work, for your homeschool portfolio.

Colored Sail Apple Boat Float

Activity Materials

  • 10 different colored sheet of craft foam, cut into squares. We used red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, black, gray, and brown.
  • 10 lollipop sticks, trimmed skewers, or similar narrow craft stick, to thread sails onto.
  • 5 apples, sliced in half.
  • A dish bin, half filled with water.

Our Process

  • As your student hands you sails to poke into apples, ask them what color it is, reminding them if they forgot, and having them say the color name back to you. 
  • Have them review color names again as you place the boats into the water. Only 7 of our 10 boats were sea worthy, but that’s okay. It presented the opportunity for more practice.
  • First, we counted all the sea faring boats. Then, we counted the boats that sank and had to be docked.
  • Finally, we named the colors of the sea faring boats. Then, we named the colors of the boats that sank.

Three of our boats were not sea worthy. The first one, I accidentally pieced through the skin on the bottom of the apple. It floated for a while, until too much water got into it. The other two weren’t symmetrical enough, and tipped themselves with their own weight. William decided we should just eat the boats that didn’t work:) 

Song of the Day

We printed this lyric sheet by downloading the PDF from Children Love to Sing. We sang to our sailing apple boats before cleaning up.

Transportation Counting Puzzles

Activity Materials

Our Process

  • Lay out all the number cards at random. Counting between each addition, match the wooden puzzle numeral to the corresponding card number.
  • Using the puzzle as a reference, and counting between each addition, line up the number cards in sequence.
  • Working with shuffled transportation counting cards, ask student to count the number of vehicles on each card.
  • Then, count down the number row, and place the vehicle card in the correct location.
  • Finally, we discussed that number ten was made with two numerals… the one and zero. 

We even finished our lesson early enough to go to library story time!

Love,

b