My children have been really rambunctious the last couple days. I have been trying to think of an activity that would help them learn their letters as well as get out some of their energy. And so Letter Stomp was born.
To play Letter Stomp place your letters down on the floor, preferably carpeted so that your letters won’t slip out from under their feet. Space them far enough apart that you can walk between them. Call your Kiddos over and have them take turns stomping on a letter that you call out, or if you want to have them call out the letter that would work too. Once they have found the correct letter stomp combination (have stomped on the letter you or they have named) they are allowed to pick up the letter and take it to a pile.
My girls loved stomping on the letters and picking them up to place in the pile. They still needed my help on some of them, especially my child who after a while just gives up and wants me to do all the work, but they still had fun and played a couple rounds. This is definitely one to repeat.
My house was a disaster! I needed to vacuum, but there wasn’t enough space to even push the vacuum around! I always start with the same area of the house, it’s usually the cleanest, so it’s a good way to get the ball rolling, so to speak. And I progressively move to the toy room, which, consequently is my front room while we are trying to remodel the basement (aka two rooms of stuff in one room. Not a good lifestyle vibe. Not ever to be pictured in a home magazine or Pinterest board). By the time I got one room clean and moved onto the next, the previous room was in shambles! I’ve got 3 little tornados following me and undoing everything I’ve done. I was exhausted! I just needed to catch a break! I needed to vacuum, so I couldn’t just wait until naptime for fear of waking babies up. But cleaning while they’re awake is like, as my mother loves to say, “shoveling snow while it’s still snowing.”
Sound familiar?
I was at wit’s end! I don’t like messes. My brain is a direct mirror of my house. If my house is crazy, my brain is, too (And I am not a neat freak. I’m not really good at cleaning, so my brain is often crazy). I needed this place clean and I needed it clean days ago! I needed clarity. I needed a way to keep my kids wrangled. So, I buckled my kids in their high chairs, raided my kitchen for something safe to ingest (though that wasn’t the point) but fun to play with, and landed on my oat bucket. I grabbed the paintbrushes that still weren’t put away from Halloween activities, poured a handful of oats on the trays and walked away.
Did I have a mess to clean up afterwards? Definitely yes. But a) it was dry, so the vacuum took care of it (and I had to vacuum anyway… yes, I have carpet in my kitchen. I am currently typing this while sitting on the lifeproof flooring that may eventually get installed…. I hope. I plead with my to-do lists to eventually have time) and b) it was in one spot instead of every room of my house.
But furthermore, I could give myself a little pat on the back because while I was obviously just trying to keep them busy, I was also being a good mom and giving my kids sensory play. I’m teaching them the basics of holding writing devices. I’m letting them explore taste, texture, little items to squish in their little hands. And, oats are totally good for your skin! Score, lol.
After I had the rest of the house all clean (which was surprisingly fast when I didn’t have kids undoing my progress; though it was still a little hampered because I demanded that older sister got involved and she needed coaching on how to stay on task and where things go, and oldest sister needed reminded to speak nicely and not worry about dictating and just clean up for herself while she was being “forced” to clean, as well – we’ve all been teens before. We remember), I gave the girls a drink (figured dry oats needed some moisture in those little tummies), sent them to watch a show with everyone else, wiped down their trays and vacuumed below their high chairs and celebrated my victory!
I am clinging on to each warm second of this gorgeous “second fall” weather we like to experience yearly around here. we get that super cold spell, and then all of the sudden, the weather gives us one last happy bright spot (I don’t hate winter, what do you mean? shiver, shiver).
It was so beautiful outside today, we just had to go out and play! The fall leaves are in that perfectly satisfying crunchy state so I took my preschooler out while my littles were napping (don’t worry, baby monitor in hand) and we stomped and crumbled and celebrated the joy of fall together. It was so fun to just let go of all the stress of the world right now and just let my inner kid out. I mean, really, who doesn’t like crunching leaves? There is something so satisfying about it. Maybe it’s the sensory aspect. Maybe it’s just the sunshine and fresh air (it’s so much more than that). Heck, maybe it’s just some leftover primal instinct.
No matter why it just feels so good, it was definitely cathartic and I am so grateful for the excuse to track these memories with my girly in her childhood.
Letter recognition is an important step towards literacy. As my preschoolers near the Kindergarten age I want them to be able to recognize more of them. Right now the knowledge is limited in this regard.
This activity you can use either lower case or upper case letters. As your children get better you can even have them match the lower case to the upper case or vice versa, maybe even mix which is where (have some upper case on the paper and some be stickers and the rest of both be lowercase).
Once you have all the letters on the paper and stickers you start out by asking your child to match one letter at a time so that they are hearing the name of the letter.
This is an activity you will want to do one on one with your child. I made the mistake of having too many children doing it at once and one of my children decided to just place the letters where ever they pleased.
If you would like to see how I adapted this activity for toddlers see: Sticker Shape Match.
As a 2 year old my toddler is beginning to learn about different shapes. In order to help that along I decided to try this activity.
On a piece of paper I drew different shapes that she should know or be able to learn. She knew the circle, square, and the triangle but wasn’t sure on the name of the star. It is just a simple find the shape and place a matching sticker on the shape.
As you can see she didn’t always make it directly on the shape but she was able to get it near the shape. As she pulled off the stickers from the sheet she was working on her pincer grasp as well as learning her shapes.
If you would like to see how to adapt this activity for Preschoolers see this post: Sticker Letter Match.
I have been wanting to take the girls to the zoo for a while now and just never got around to it, but since our zoo closes for the season in the middle of the month, I decided we had better go before we have to wait until the next year. I have always felt like there is something magical about toddlers and the zoo. There is something so charming about preschoolers absorbing the experience. Animals are such a novelty at that stage, it’d be a shame not to take them to see some.
I know that normally, it’s better to go see animals first thing in the morning, but we didn’t make it there until mid-afternoon. We had one of those spin-your-wheels kinds of days that we just couldn’t get going! Honestly, though, I felt like that was the best time to go! Sure, in the summertime, I can see the benefit of morning, but in the fall, I think the animals were cool enough they weren’t conserving energy and hanging out in the shade. They were all pretty active. We got there right before the lions were anticipating an afternoon meal. They were pacing by the gate. Which was right by a great vantage point, so we spent a long time watching them. The pelicans are usually in the middle of the pond when we come, but this time, they were hanging out by the bank, right next to the trail! They’re *much* bigger in person than I anticipated. They were much taller than our kiddos – almost as tall as me!
Furthermore, in the morning we would have been racing naptimes. But mid-afternoon, our littles were fully rested from their mid-day nap, and not “starving,” having just had a snack (and lunch before naptime), and not needing more food until dinnertime.
Another perk to going in the fall that I never realized before: not only is it not super hot in mid-afternoon, it’s not super crowded either. Although we passed other families, and even had to wait at some popular exhibits (with Covid, we wanted to give plenty of space between us and everyone else), for the most part, we had each animal viewing area to ourselves. I could definitely get used to that!
Toddlers really eat up animal sounds. They roar when we roar at them. they’re currently obsessed wit howling because a book we read frequently has a coyote in it and we make the sound, so they do, and they love that first little line of communication. Plus the animals in the zoo are new to them! the only giraffes they’ve seen are in books. Books are great, but a real animal in front of them is a totally different experience. The same is true for preschoolers, though! Animal sounds haven’t quite lost their charm, but more importantly, they see an animal move and act and react. It is right there in front of them! And it creates questions and conversations, and expands their understanding in a way a show or a book couldn’t capture.
The girls have been begging me to take the van to a car wash for weeks now. I didn’t really think that it needed one, but I decided it would be the perfect thing for them to do themselves.
Did I think that my van would get truly clean? No, not really. I just wanted to let them have some outside fun.
Even the youngest got in on the fun and “scrubbed” the bumper. It was really cute to see my one year old rubbing the bumper with a sponge. I am categorizing this as a Preschooler though because while it was fun to see the toddlers try it is more of a preschooler ability range to clean the car.
The travel dough has been a hit with my kiddos when we have to wait in the car for long periods of time, like when we are waiting for grocery pick-up or sister to get out of therapy.
I decided to put a little twist on the travel bags though. All you need is shaving cream, food coloring, a Ziploc bag and tape.
First fill about a third of the bag with shaving cream. Second place a few drops of the food coloring. Next fill the another third of the bag with more shaving cream. Finally seal the bag closed and tape it shut (I put a lot of tape on there knowing shaving cream is not the best thing to have spill out in the car).
The girls loved it, though we did have one mishap. My oldest likes to twist the bags until what is inside squishes out from the pressure. My suggestion to combat this is to make sure to get the bags that are thick and maybe even tape down the sides to strengthen them.
After a week focusing on harvest, my preschooler was really excited to do another craft. We all love tomatoes (except the teen. She’s broken) but after so many days spent toiling in the kitchen, I think we are all wanting to work on some other thing. So, with paint, a paintbrush, a plate, some string, and a holepunch, we made a spider in it’s web.
To make your own, start by poking holes around a plate. I totally lucked out on my first guess, and every 4 grooves worked out perfectly to go evenly around.
then, we painted her hand. Don’t do the thumb, but do all the fingers and the palm. put her hand down on the plate, then paint again and put her hand down again the other way, so that your spider has 8 legs. Some spiders, ours included, are wiggly and you somehow randomly end up with a 9-legged spider. Roll with it. Love your spiders no matter the deformities, haha. My daughter was determined to stick the paper punches on as eyeballs, but one got lost pretty quickly, so we also have a 1-eyed spider.
Then, take a long piece of string, find the middle, and tie it around one of the punched holes in the plate, so you have two shorter strings (less knots) let your kid weave through any holes on the plate, crossing the front of the plate as much as possible. We do a lot of “sewing” so it was kinda hard for my preschooler to cross the plate when she knows sewing is supposed to go through consecutive holes. Isn’t that the way it goes; you try so hard to get her to learn a skill one way, just to need to do it another way later.
I actually really enjoyed making this with my kiddo. I think she enjoyed it, too. and, even if we do one every year, they’ll be different because her handprint will change as she grows. It was really just fun to slow down for a second and work on something together.
I mentioned a while ago that I wanted to focus on finger isolation with my toddlers, so I went on a pinterest search for activities with poking being involved, and when I came across this activity I got kinda excited because it is also a fun halloween activity! There aren’t many specifically Halloween activities for toddlers.
It took them a while to get the hang of poking the tissue paper. They weren’t quite sure it was okay to tear it at first. And then they were afraid to press hard enough to break the paper. Maybe if I had propped up the pumpkin, it would have felt less awkward to them; leaning over and poking made them unsure of their balance. But every time I tried to glue the cups to the veneered wood, it just slipped off! Maybe duct tape rolls or a real poster board would have been a better solution. But I forgot to grab the poster board and this veneer wood was just so cute when my husband was helping me come up with better solutions than running back to the store.
To make the activity, you need orange tissue paper (I only used 2 sheets), plastic cups, glue (hot glue if you have poster board, other glue and maybe rubber bands for each cup, if you need to be creative), and green paper for the stem. Optionally, you can use pipe cleaners to make a curly vine. You will also need some prize or token in each cup (or at least in 1 cup so they have to find the prize, but for toddlers it’s definitely better for the prize to be in each cup). And whatever you want to attach it to (because I forgot that, myself). You’re gonna want to use the stuff poster board, I think. Because the veneer (and I think even regular wood, but I don’t know. It probably depends on how heavy your cups and prizes are) wasn’t worth the fight, but a regular poster board will be too flimsy.
Arrange the cups so you have an idea on how you want the pumpkin to look, cut the tissue paper to cover the cup (use at least 1 inch extra on each side if you intend to use the rubber bands instead if glue), 1 square for each cup. Place a prize in the cups and then glue or rubber band the tissue paper to each cup. Glue the cups into place. Add the stem and any decoration. Then, just set it up and let them play.
I have to say, between the preschooler (you know she wanted in on that action) and the toddlers, it got kinda crazy, but I think everyone enjoyed it. And it was easier than I suspected to practice taking turns.
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