Time Game

I went on line to find pictures of clock faces and digital time clocks.  I decided to do an assortment of clock faces since not all clocks look the same in the real world.  One of them (8:00) was blank and I drew hands for the time I wanted.  Since Lillian is new to telling time I followed a few guild lines: All the clocks have numbers for every hour, there are no extra marks for the other minutes, and all the times I chose are on the hour.  Later, when she's mastered this skill, I will do some time to the half hour.  Cole enjoyed helping us play the matching game.  He would choose the clock face and Lillian would find the digital time that matched it. 

Placemats

When the kids were younger I used place mats with the ABC's or shapes on them.  Last week I found one with addition facts on it.  Lillian has enjoyed using it.  I just leave it sitting in the middle of the table.  When she's in the mood she'll quiz us on the math facts, other times she'll read us the problem, and sometimes she wants us to ask her some of them.  This exposes her to addition facts, how to read a table, and how to read the equations.  We don't push it at all; its her instigating it and choosing to play with it.  If you have a play kitchen the kids enjoy using the place mats in there also.  In addition, sometimes when Lillian is wanting to write a word and has asked how to make a letter, I will get out our letter place mat so I can show her the letter on the place mat, model how it is written, and then she writes the letter.  The mats are a good learning tool and are usually only about $3.

Addition Dice Game

This evening Lillian and I played a very simple dice game together.  I got out two regular dice for us to use.  We took turns rolling the dice and then adding the dots on the two dice up.  Sometimes she knew the answer by looking, other times she counted on her fingers, and sometimes she counted the dots on the dice to come up with the answer.  All of these solutions are perfectly fine.  A couple times we rolled two even numbers, so after coming up with the answer, I pointed out that we could count by two's and still come up with the same answer. She enjoyed the game and we played it for about 10 minutes.  At this age (5 years old now), most activities will be short due to their short attention span and that is ok too!  I loved that their wasn't any prep required and that the only supplies needed were two dice.    An idea for an extension or older child: after playing the game a few times so they could get the hang of it, they could make a tally sheet/graph as the game is played so they could see what sum came up the most!

Marbles, Marbles everywhere

Cole has been especially interested in playing with marbles lately.  Obviously you wouldn't give marbles to someone young or a child who puts things in his mouth, but luckily I don't have that problem with him.  As he's playing with them he is learning. For instance, he hauls them around in his semi and likes to stop and start quickly and move the semi quickly to see how they roll and the noises they make.  He also likes to put them in his dump truck; however, since it doesn't have a tailgate the marbles wouldn't stay in.  So  1 row of duct tape on the back of the truck was added to hold the marbles in.  He discovered that most the marbles stayed in but if he was going fast he lost some, so a second row of duct tape was added - problem solved!  Other times the marbles are used in the play kitchen and they are discovering that different size containers hold different amounts.  Granted, at times I get tired of finding a marble here and there and sometimes they get dumped and are everywhere.  When I get tired of them they will disappear for awhile!

A is for Animals

This was an activity I did with both children at the same time.  I have some animal magnets that I used, but you wouldn't have to use magnets; even just pictures of animals would work fine.  After putting all the animals on the refrigerator we took turns asking questions about them.  For instance:  "each of you find an animal that has stripes, what is the tallest/smallest/biggest animal, what animal lives in water".  We also talked about the sounds they make and how they move.  From the age of 4 or 5 your child can also tell you the letter each animals name starts with and write it down.

Marshmallow Fondant

I used this recipe to cover Lillian's birthday cake a couple weeks ago.  The colors were so bright and fun.  As I worked with the dough I thought to myself "the kids would LOVE this stuff!"  Luckily I ended up with left overs of three different colors.  I got out plastic knifes, cookie cutters, spatula's etc and let the kids go at it.  While the dough really isn't to messy or hard to clean up I had the kids work on baking sheets just to make it a little easier and I sprayed the toys, table, and their hands with Pam (I also taped wax paper on the table and we did it in the garage for easy clean up).  Of course they were thrilled that they could eat the dough while they worked.  It was a fun activity to do and the recipe I used follows.  I got this one on line and there were lots of variations so you might want to see what else you can find.  This was really simple and fast to make though.   Note: we storedsome of  the dough in the freezer for 2 months and it still did fine.

Put one large jar marshmallow cream in a mixer and slowly beat in about 3/4 bag of confectioner sugar.  You may want to add up to 4 T water; it depends some on the weather that day.  Add coloring if you wish.  Grease Saran Wrap, roll dough into ball, put it in the Saran Wrap and place in freezer for 30 minutes.  Dough is ready to use.

Exploring with sugar

Any child is going to love this activity and since it is perfect for any age its a good group or after school choice.  The recipe for Edible Sugar Decorations follows.  After awhile I added extra water to the concoction so the children could see that, while the recipe still smelled the same and tasted the same, it had a completely different consistency.  It is perfectly ok to introduce these bigger words - just explain as you go what they mean and don't use a lot of them close together.  Then try using the same word a few times during the next week or two.  I sat a table up outside and gave Cole and Lillian each a cookie sheet for them to make their creations on. If you follow the recipe and don't add lots of water the children can use containers as molds - its like damp sand on the beach.  You can also use food coloring to color the "sand" if you want.  Here's the recipe:
2 cups Granulated Sugar, 4 tsp water, and 1/2 tsp Meringue Powder; just mix together.