A simple activity you can do with your littles is decorating ornaments.
This is a great activity for the holidays. It works on the pincer grasp and your kiddos will love to see their ornaments hanging on the tree.
My older kids also made their own ornaments so it is a great activity to include your elementary aged kids as well.
This activity can take as much or little time as you want or need it to, as long as you have things to add to the ornament. You can also go as simple or elaborate as you want.
This year we just used jewel stickers and a bell, but you could use a bunch of different things. You can even make one from scratch with popsicle sticks. If you do something with cutting it will work on your childs scissor grasp skills. Whatever fine motor skill your child needs to work on you can add into the activity.
This last weekend we built gingerbread houses. The girls really enjoyed it, mostly because they got to eat a lot of candy.
This is a tradition that my mother-in-law does every year. It was great to see how the kids did. The younger kids didn’t do so well, but the older ones did a lot better.
This was an exercise in having patience. Putting the sides together you need to wait until the icing dries. Then you need to wait until the roof dries. If you don’t then you will end up with a pile of gingerbread.
Decorating the house is the most fun though. Once they are put together you can let their imagination run wild. My oldest decided to put nests on the roof, and a candy cane was stuck to the side.
It was fun, but took a lot of time. It may take less time next year, though. With the kids getting older they will need less help.
Hope your Thanksgiving was a good one! Ours was definitely busy. It is nice to spend time with family, though. Before we headed off to all our festivities, we needed some preschool-level distraction! So I pulled out the construction paper and printed off a corn template (free download by clicking here). while I was using it to cut out the cob and husk, I handed my preschooler some orange, white and brown paint and an orange and red(ish?) sheet of construction paper and let her paint.
while it was drying, I had her help me glue the pieces onto our main page. First the cob and then the husks. You could wait for the husks if you wanted to, since all the corn kernels are supposed to be inside the husk, but a)it was a good distraction while paint dried, and b) my little artist is an all-or-nothing type and would want to put a lot of “kernels” down where they’d be hidden. this made it easier to glue before as opposed to after.
After the paint was completely dried, I handed her my hole punch and told her to make me some confetti. This step was pretty hard for my preschooler, but she is working on her grip strength, so it was good exercise for her. She would do a couple on her own, and then I’d put my hand on hers and apply the pressure needed to keep going. Then it was onto working on our pincer grasp!
Once you have enough “kernels” punched out, cover your corn cob portion in glue stick or glitter glue. You could use liquid school glue but it makes the construction paper get a little wrinkly, so proceed with caution. the pro to school glue vs glue stick is that the modern idea of a glue stick is kinda weaksauce and a huge disappointment with how quick it dries. (seriously, Elmers. You fail. You don’t care. But you are not as good as you used to be). Then have your kiddo sprinkle the confetti onto the cob. Get a good coating and then press it down with your palms so that it’ll stick when you lift up the page to let anything that didn’t get glued down slide off.
As you can see, I lifted up the flaps a little so all the kernels ended up under the green husks. I didn’t do that for the title picture, if you want to compare. I also let her make it her own with a pen. She doesn’t like drawing or coloring at all, so any chance she’ll take to use a pen or pencil or crayon or anything is a score. It’s another way to strengthen her struggling pincer grasp.
Anyway, she had fun and it kept her busy instead of asking me if it was time to go yet or eat yet or any of the million other questions.
Younger toddlers love to play the pick up game. This activity takes advantage of that.
The gravity slide is just a slide for toys. This can be made with any toy and long item to make a slide. I used the lid to a big storage tub.
My younger two really enjoyed this activity, so much so that they fought over it. My suggestion is to have one for each toddler or to try to help them learn to take turns.
My youngest toddler didn’t quite grasp this but if I tried again when he is a little older I am sure he will be able to do it. He will also have more of an attention span for it as well and I won’t have to be as much a part of it.
I’ve been saving these lids for some kind of hidden prize activity or the like, but I just haven’t had time to put the game together and my kids just needed some extra lap time, today, so I handed them the lids while they hang out in my laps. I have a few different shapes and colors, but they’re all from wet wipes. They stayed sticky when I pulled off the plastic that houses the wipes so I simply stuck them together so they king of open like books. That also gave them 2 different ends that opened. It was a super simple project, but it allowed me to get my work done while still having little toddlers in my lap. And for that, I’m claiming victory. Eventually, I’ll cut out the flaps and put pictures inside the flaps and make the eye-spy or match game or whatever I finally decide to do with these, but for now, they make a great distraction and fine-motor toy.
I am always on the lookout for new ways to help my kiddos practice the different skills they need to have for school. Believe it or not, playing with shadows can help too!
There are a lot of shapes you can make. Making the normal duck shape, or any form of grasping can help with pencil grasp.
Hand dexterity is so important so practicing some of the other shapes is cool to.
You can add another layer to it and add some literacy elements by making a shadow puppet play.
As the school year began this year many parents were learning that their child had fallen behind on their reading skills. This pandemic has not been kind to those just learning the beginning sounds to reading. My child was one of those that suffered.
She really struggled finding out the way to pick out letters in the words. I thought and thought about how I could help her with her reading. Then an idea came to me.
My older kids love to play I spy. I had a brain spark about using this to help with the sounds of letters.
Stock Photo by Ekaterina Belinskaya from Pexels
Basically played the same way as the original, “I spy with my little eye, something that…” Instead of saying a color here I decided to change it to “something that starts with the sound sss.” You could do start with, ends with, or if they get really good you can do middle sounds. Also when they get really good at the sounds you could change it to the letters.
My oldest did well at this game but my next oldest didn’t want to play it that way. It was the difference between first and kindergarten age and knowledge I think. My second oldest is just starting out on her journey to learning letter sounds and names, whereas my oldest (who is behind) has a little bit firmer foundation.
All in all I think it is one we will play every once in a while, and keep revisiting when my second oldest gets a firmer foundation with sounds.
Edit: my kids are spontaneously starting this game as we wait for the bus, so they seem to like it.
Our berry choice was huckleberry, raspberry, and nanking cherry juice. They’re all tart berries so I added 1 cup sugar. My mom probably would have added more but she also said that she can always add more sugar when it was made up but I wouldn’t be able to take any out. Also, I modified the recipe to what I wish I had done as I sat waiting for it to process. This time around we divided the juice evenly between the jars and then added water to get a better headspace; but, I really feel like the berry lemonade could have had more lemon, so the recipe reflects an extra cup of lemon juice I wish I had added in processing. It will probably need more sugar that way, though.
10 cups of lightly masserated berries
6 cups of water (you may need more)
Peels from 10 lemons (instructions below)
5 cups lemon juice
6 cups of sugar (plus more to taste)
Simmer berries and water 20 minutes.
While the berries are simmering, peel 10 lemons with a peeler so that they are large chunks. You don’t want to zest them, but you’re after the whole yellow part. Set aside.
Transfer 3 cups of liquid (try to get just liquid!) into a separate saucepan. Add 6 cups of sugar. Stir and simmer until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat and add lemon peels, and cover to steep for 10 minutes. When it has cooled a little bit, return to the heat until it simmers and then let steep 10 more minutes. Re-heating the liquid helps release the rest of the oils and infuses it in the syrup better.
Strain out the peels and turn them into candied lemon.
Put syrup and lemon juice back in the stockpot. Simmer until desired flavor is achieved (can take a few hours). Add sugar to taste. And remember it’s a concentrate, so it should be strong!
Put 2 tablespoons of the reserved mash of berries into 7 warm sterile jars and then spread the rest evenly throughout. Pour warm liquid over the berries (you need about 1/2″ headspace, but it can vary based on how much liquid you have). You may have to add a little water.
Process for 20 minutes, adjusting for altitude (I live at 5000 feet).
To reconstitute, it’s about one part concentrate to one part water or soda, but adjust it to taste. You can also add sugar to taste if you need to.
I made this recipe because in reducing the amount of corn in our food, it became necessary to eliminate bouillon (that stuff has some scary ingredients). But so many recipes call for Bouillon! Mostly, I use it for my SOS mix.
2 c nutritional yeast flakes
1/3 c salt
1/4 c dried basil
1/4 c garlic powder
2 T rosemary that has been run through my food processor (my family won’t eat it otherwise)
1/4 c onion powder
2 T oregano
1/2 T marjoram
1/4 c parsley
2 T black pepper
I leave mine flakey, but shake the jar I put it in rather vigorously. I know a lot of recipes tell you to blend it, which might be helpful. I still use it as an even trade-off in recipes, even though I know by not blending it I’m getting less flavor in my measurements. Honestly, I don’t notice much difference. It’s a preference thing.
I’m gonna start this post with a disclaimer: anyone that is also allergic to corn will know, anything claiming to be corn-free probably isn’t. My family is only considered “corn-lite.” Some things don’t bother us (mostly corn starch, corn syrup, and sometimes citric acid), and we fall in the “bucket” category (as in, if we don’t overfill our bucket, we don’t have to be too careful).
And a lot of it will come down to your individually sourced ingredients. But, this is a lot better than what you find at the store. It’s based on the S.O.S. mix you see all over the web, except I’ve eliminated the cornstarch and used my own version of “chicken” bouillon.
My chicken bouillon (purple) and my S.O.S sauce (before I added the onions and mushrooms that were still in the dehydrator)
I won’t make some long story, I hate blog posts for recipes that do that. Don’t even read them, usually; but I use this sauce for anything that calls for a can of “cream of…” I also sprinkle some in gravies or sauces I just want a little thicker or creamier.
1/2 T salt (optional, but the tapioca doesn’t taste as salty as corn starch)
Mix it all together and store in an airtight container. I stick with the same usage as the original instructions and it usually works out okay for me. Start there and you can get a feel for if you feel like anything needs changed.
To use: wisk 1/3 c mix with 1 1/4 c water or chicken stock.
I’m sure this recipe could also use arrowroot starch. It would require about half the starch and then less salt, but tapioca starch is readily available in my small town and arrowroot would require a more intentional purchase. And my bouillon is a little less salty anyway, so the additional salt helps there as well. Anyway, make this recipe your own this is how I make mine.
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