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With many families working and learning from home right now, it's easy to let the boredom creep in. To combat the blahs and add a little spark of creativity to your day, we've come up with a fun activity that turns your kids' toys into a creative project. Use our toy rotation guide to keep your kid's toys fresh and fun without spending extra money! Select The Toys: The first step in this process might be the most important. As you pick the toys for this project, try to strike a good balance between ones that they actively play with, and ones that they might have forgotten about a little. Try to avoid choosing any all-time favorites, as the fun of rediscovering them later might not outweigh the stress of (temporarily) losing them now. Wipe Them Down: Since these toys are going to be out of rotation for a while, now is a great opportunity to give them an extra cleaning. Wipe each selected toy down with a damp cloth, and then again with a disinfecting wipe or solution. Then, let them stand until dry to give the cleaning solutions plenty of time to work. Hold for Two Weeks: Now comes the waiting game! We recommend holding your selected toys back for at least two weeks, in order to maximize both the impact of their return and the time you have to come up with a fun idea for reintroducing them. You can plan longer or shorter time frames for your kids; do whatever works best for your family.Reintroduce: This is where it gets really fun. In order to get your kids engaged and excited about the return of their old toys, try to come up with a fun theme or activity for reintroducing them. Maybe you've put them in mystery boxes that the kids earn for answering flash cards correctly, or maybe you've hidden them around the house as a way to start a family scavenger hunt. You can also keep it simple; ask your kids to select the next round of toys that they can then swap for the ones currently in storage.(product shown: Conversation Cubes, photo credit: Stacy Flannery)Repeat!: If your first round of toy refreshing goes well, consider repeating the process as needed. No matter what strategy you employ, this is a great way to keep kids active, appreciative, and engaged with the toys they already have! At Learning Resources, we’re here to help you make the best of this challenging time. Stay safe and healthy, and check back with our blog for more tips and learning ideas as the situation unfolds.Feature image photo credit: @littlemissedenmclemore
Two-Week Toy Refresh! With many families working and learning from home right now, it's easy to let the boredom creep in. To combat the blahs and add a little spark of creativity to your day, we've come up with a fun activity that turns your kids' toys into a creative project. Use our toy rotation guide to keep your kid's toys fresh and fun without spending extra money! Select The Toys: The first step in this process might be the most important. As you pick the toys for this project, try to strike a good balance between ones that they actively play with, and ones that they might have forgotten about a little. Try to avoid choosing any all-time favorites, as the fun of rediscovering them later might not outweigh the stress of (temporarily) losing them now. Wipe Them Down: Since these toys are going to be out of rotation for a while, now is a great opportunity to give them an extra cleaning. Wipe each selected toy down with a damp cloth, and then again with a disinfecting wipe or solution. Then, let them stand until dry to give the cleaning solutions plenty of time to work. Hold for Two Weeks: Now comes the waiting game! We recommend holding your selected toys back for at least two weeks, in order to maximize both the impact of their return and the time you have to come up with a fun idea for reintroducing them. You can plan longer or shorter time frames for your kids; do whatever works best for your family.Reintroduce: This is where it gets really fun. In order to get your kids engaged and excited about the return of their old toys, try to come up with a fun theme or activity for reintroducing them. Maybe you've put them in mystery boxes that the kids earn for answering flash cards correctly, or maybe you've hidden them around the house as a way to start a family scavenger hunt. You can also keep it simple; ask your kids to select the next round of toys that they can then swap for the ones currently in storage.(product shown: Conversation Cubes, photo credit: Stacy Flannery)Repeat!: If your first round of toy refreshing goes well, consider repeating the process as needed. No matter what strategy you employ, this is a great way to keep kids active, appreciative, and engaged with the toys they already have! At Learning Resources, we’re here to help you make the best of this challenging time. Stay safe and healthy, and check back with our blog for more tips and learning ideas as the situation unfolds.Feature image photo credit: @littlemissedenmclemore
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Easter is right around the corner! This means many of you will be out there buying all of the fun things to fill your kiddo’s baskets up! As therapists working in child development, we are often asked during the holidays for a list of recommended activities, games, and products for different age groups.Below, I put together some of my personal favorites! They are all tried and true activities that are loaded with so much developmental skill stimulation for the varying age groups. I hope you will find this list helpful when choosing gifts to add to your baskets.
Infants
This is the perfect opportunity to fill up their baskets with some sensory stimulating play items! Infants love looking in the mirror, and the All About Me Mirroris the perfect size to prop up in front of them as they get their tummy time in for the day. It is also the perfect size to take on the go for some developmentally stimulating play during restaurant, park, and shopping outings!
18Months – 2 Years
There is a TON of development that occurs between 18 months and 2 years, but often times you can continue to use the same toy throughout this time – just with a little adaptation as they develop more advanced skills. Some of the things this age group really enjoys are open/close concepts (containers, pots, pants, etc) – the Peakaboo Learning Farm is a fun way to engage them in color concepts, open and close, animals, as well as number concepts. The animals also turn into finger puppets which is a great way to work on finger and hand muscle development.
2-3 yrs
The “I’LL DO IT!” stage! These kiddo’s seemingly want to do EVERYTHING themselves. For this age group, I recommend activities that include lots of opportunities for independently succeeding in a task. Plastic Easter eggs that have patterns or designs so that they can find and match pairs, small bubble sets that allow their little finger to hold and blow themselves, small crayons for their small hands, chalk for outdoor play and building up those foundational handwriting skills, Alphabet Blocks are great for color identification, fine motor coordination, as well as for simple letter recognition tasks – I recommend starting with the letters of their name so that they can visually recognize their name when they start school. Peg Friends Stacking Farm is a fun way to encourage visual motor integration as well as early building and matching skills.
3-4 yrs
This age group we look at a lot of the school readiness skills. Some of the activities that I really like are fine motor strengthening skills and the Froggy Feeding Fun game provides lots of opportunities to increase intrinsic hand muscles by squeezing the froggys mouth open. As they approach 4, the Alphabet Acorns game is great for letter recognition, visual perceptual tasks, as well as more advanced find motor coordination! Try adding the letters into a sensory bin for some added visual figure-ground searching skills.
5-7 yrs
For this age group, activities that have academically pertinent tasks built into a fun game is always a sure hit! Sight Word SWAT turns sight words into a fun fly swatting game. Try placing the words on both horizontal and vertical surfaces. Or you can even hide them around the room for some added visual scanning skills. The whole family can join in on the fun making it an engaging and fun task to learn new words. Penguins on Ice turns math concepts into a fun activity using colorful penguins as manipulatives which is great for fine motor practice as well. If your 5-7’s have younger siblings, this is a fun activity for the young kiddos as well – instead of practicing math concepts, they can build patterns, work on color recognition, or even just simple fine motor manipulation!
8+ years
For the 8+ year old’s, on- the- go activities are always great as these kiddo’s tend to have busier schedules and limited “play” time. Mental Box Go! is a great visual perceptual thinking game for any downtime. Easy to carry with you and play anywhere, anytime! Geoboards are also a fun, easy activity to set up. Use rubber bands to create shapes, patterns, designs, etc. These activities also provide lots of opportunity for social participation and engagement such as problem solving together which is a great developmental skill.
While this is a short list of just some of the fun basket fillers that have great developmental value, I hope this article has helped you in deciding what fun skills you will be filling your baskets with this year!
Easter is right around the corner! This means many of you will be out there buying all of the fun things to fill your kiddo’s baskets up! As therapists working in child development, we are often asked during the holidays for a list of recommended activities, games, and products for different age groups.Below, I put together some of my personal favorites! They are all tried and true activities that are loaded with so much developmental skill stimulation for the varying age groups. I hope you will find this list helpful when choosing gifts to add to your baskets.
Infants
This is the perfect opportunity to fill up their baskets with some sensory stimulating play items! Infants love looking in the mirror, and the All About Me Mirroris the perfect size to prop up in front of them as they get their tummy time in for the day. It is also the perfect size to take on the go for some developmentally stimulating play during restaurant, park, and shopping outings!
18Months – 2 Years
There is a TON of development that occurs between 18 months and 2 years, but often times you can continue to use the same toy throughout this time – just with a little adaptation as they develop more advanced skills. Some of the things this age group really enjoys are open/close concepts (containers, pots, pants, etc) – the Peakaboo Learning Farm is a fun way to engage them in color concepts, open and close, animals, as well as number concepts. The animals also turn into finger puppets which is a great way to work on finger and hand muscle development.
2-3 yrs
The “I’LL DO IT!” stage! These kiddo’s seemingly want to do EVERYTHING themselves. For this age group, I recommend activities that include lots of opportunities for independently succeeding in a task. Plastic Easter eggs that have patterns or designs so that they can find and match pairs, small bubble sets that allow their little finger to hold and blow themselves, small crayons for their small hands, chalk for outdoor play and building up those foundational handwriting skills, Alphabet Blocks are great for color identification, fine motor coordination, as well as for simple letter recognition tasks – I recommend starting with the letters of their name so that they can visually recognize their name when they start school. Peg Friends Stacking Farm is a fun way to encourage visual motor integration as well as early building and matching skills.
3-4 yrs
This age group we look at a lot of the school readiness skills. Some of the activities that I really like are fine motor strengthening skills and the Froggy Feeding Fun game provides lots of opportunities to increase intrinsic hand muscles by squeezing the froggys mouth open. As they approach 4, the Alphabet Acorns game is great for letter recognition, visual perceptual tasks, as well as more advanced find motor coordination! Try adding the letters into a sensory bin for some added visual figure-ground searching skills.
5-7 yrs
For this age group, activities that have academically pertinent tasks built into a fun game is always a sure hit! Sight Word SWAT turns sight words into a fun fly swatting game. Try placing the words on both horizontal and vertical surfaces. Or you can even hide them around the room for some added visual scanning skills. The whole family can join in on the fun making it an engaging and fun task to learn new words. Penguins on Ice turns math concepts into a fun activity using colorful penguins as manipulatives which is great for fine motor practice as well. If your 5-7’s have younger siblings, this is a fun activity for the young kiddos as well – instead of practicing math concepts, they can build patterns, work on color recognition, or even just simple fine motor manipulation!
8+ years
For the 8+ year old’s, on- the- go activities are always great as these kiddo’s tend to have busier schedules and limited “play” time. Mental Box Go! is a great visual perceptual thinking game for any downtime. Easy to carry with you and play anywhere, anytime! Geoboards are also a fun, easy activity to set up. Use rubber bands to create shapes, patterns, designs, etc. These activities also provide lots of opportunity for social participation and engagement such as problem solving together which is a great developmental skill.
While this is a short list of just some of the fun basket fillers that have great developmental value, I hope this article has helped you in deciding what fun skills you will be filling your baskets with this year!
Discover the possibilities Gears! Gears! Gears! brings to your early STEM curriculum. Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities from STEM.org will help your little learners discover the world of engineering games as they discover endless building possibilities.
Discover the possibilities Gears! Gears! Gears! brings to your early STEM curriculum. Aligned to CSTA standards, these printable classroom activities from STEM.org will help your little learners discover the world of engineering games as they discover endless building possibilities.
The Learning Resources Peekaboo Learning Farm is my daughter's new favorite toy, and I can't say that I'm surprised! It makes learning so much fun, and there are a multitude of ways to play with it. Her favorites include making me sing Old McDonald while she opens up each barn and matching the animal finger puppets to the pictures in one of her farm themed books (Click here for our favorite!). Like I said...so many opportunities.
The Peekaboo Learning Farm includes numbered, colorful barns that can be used to work on color identification, counting, matching, sorting, and more. Children are able to develop their fine motor skills by opening the colorful barns to find a farm animal finger puppet inside. The Peekaboo Learning Farm even encourages children to engage in imaginative play.
Where can I find it?
You can find it at Learning Resources HERE or at Amazon HERE.
How can you use the Peekaboo Learning Farm to encourage speech and language development?
For receptive language development?
Following directions: Make following directions fun with the Peekaboo Learning Farm. Have your child follow directions, such as, "give me the chicken," "open the blue barn," or even "take out the mouse and make him eat."
Answering Yes/No questions: Before having the ability to answer Wh- questions, your child must be able to answer yes/no questions regarding things they want, objects, and actions. If your child is working on the concepts of yes and no, ask your child, "do you want the blue barn?" You could also make it a little silly to see if your child can answer yes/no questions regarding the function of the Peekaboo Learning Farm (Examples: should I eat the barn? should I kiss the cow? should I open the barn?). Want another fun idea? Pair this toy with a farm themed book. Look at the animals on the pages of the book, and ask your child if they match the animals in the barns (i.e., "Is this a pig?").
Answering Wh- questions: Work on who, what, where & why questions while playing. Build comprehension by asking your child questions like "what is the mouse doing?," "who is in the red barn?," "where is the pig?," "why is the pig sleeping?" etc.
Understanding spatial concepts (in/on/off/out): Work on these early developing spatial concepts by having your child take the roof off the barn, putting the roof on the barn, taking the animals out of the barn, or putting the animal back in the barn.
Building memory skills: Play a memory game! Hide the animals in the different color barns, and see if your child can remember which animal is in which barn. Then have your child hide them for you to guess!
For expressive language development?
Practice animal sounds: Learning animal sounds is fun, plus animal sounds are often comprised of early developing sounds, making them easier for children to say! Encourage your child to imitate you saying each animal sound. You can even try singing Old McDonald while opening up each barn. Be sure to pause at the end of the song, and wait for your child to fill in the blank (Example: here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a....)!
Farm animal vocabulary: Talk about the different farm animals in each barn, and see if your child can label them.
Requesting: Have your child request for the barns, animals or to open each barn. Depending on how much expressive language they have, they could use a simple word such as, "open" or "more," or a phrase or sentence like, "I want open" or "Can I have the purple barn?"
Commenting: Encourage your child to comment throughout play. Model appropriate comments while playing with your child. Use language like, "I see a blue barn, what do you see?"
Use of prepositional phrases: Place the animals in different locations and have your child use phrases to describe their locations. Put them in the barn, out of the barn, on the roof, or behind the barn.
Vocabulary of action words: Pretend that the animals are doing different things and ask your child what each animal is doing. Depending on your child's vocabulary, you can focus on simple verbs like eat, sleep, and drink, or be more creative and use of verbs like swing, hop and slide.
For play development?
Pretend play: These barns provide so many pretend play opportunities. Children can use their imaginations to pretend that the animals are eating, sleeping, playing, or even having a birthday party! The possibilities are endless!
For social language development?
Turn taking: Develop turn taking abilities by asking your child if you can have a turn opening the barns.
Asking questions: Model appropriate questioning during play by asking your child questions like, "What barn do you think the cow is in?" or "What is your favorite color barn?" Encourage them to ask you questions back!
Toys for Talking- Peekaboo Learning Farm The Learning Resources Peekaboo Learning Farm is my daughter's new favorite toy, and I can't say that I'm surprised! It makes learning so much fun, and there are a multitude of ways to play with it. Her favorites include making me sing Old McDonald while she opens up each barn and matching the animal finger puppets to the pictures in one of her farm themed books (Click here for our favorite!). Like I said...so many opportunities.
The Peekaboo Learning Farm includes numbered, colorful barns that can be used to work on color identification, counting, matching, sorting, and more. Children are able to develop their fine motor skills by opening the colorful barns to find a farm animal finger puppet inside. The Peekaboo Learning Farm even encourages children to engage in imaginative play.
Where can I find it?
You can find it at Learning Resources HERE or at Amazon HERE.
How can you use the Peekaboo Learning Farm to encourage speech and language development?
For receptive language development?
Following directions: Make following directions fun with the Peekaboo Learning Farm. Have your child follow directions, such as, "give me the chicken," "open the blue barn," or even "take out the mouse and make him eat."
Answering Yes/No questions: Before having the ability to answer Wh- questions, your child must be able to answer yes/no questions regarding things they want, objects, and actions. If your child is working on the concepts of yes and no, ask your child, "do you want the blue barn?" You could also make it a little silly to see if your child can answer yes/no questions regarding the function of the Peekaboo Learning Farm (Examples: should I eat the barn? should I kiss the cow? should I open the barn?). Want another fun idea? Pair this toy with a farm themed book. Look at the animals on the pages of the book, and ask your child if they match the animals in the barns (i.e., "Is this a pig?").
Answering Wh- questions: Work on who, what, where & why questions while playing. Build comprehension by asking your child questions like "what is the mouse doing?," "who is in the red barn?," "where is the pig?," "why is the pig sleeping?" etc.
Understanding spatial concepts (in/on/off/out): Work on these early developing spatial concepts by having your child take the roof off the barn, putting the roof on the barn, taking the animals out of the barn, or putting the animal back in the barn.
Building memory skills: Play a memory game! Hide the animals in the different color barns, and see if your child can remember which animal is in which barn. Then have your child hide them for you to guess!
For expressive language development?
Practice animal sounds: Learning animal sounds is fun, plus animal sounds are often comprised of early developing sounds, making them easier for children to say! Encourage your child to imitate you saying each animal sound. You can even try singing Old McDonald while opening up each barn. Be sure to pause at the end of the song, and wait for your child to fill in the blank (Example: here a moo, there a moo, everywhere a....)!
Farm animal vocabulary: Talk about the different farm animals in each barn, and see if your child can label them.
Requesting: Have your child request for the barns, animals or to open each barn. Depending on how much expressive language they have, they could use a simple word such as, "open" or "more," or a phrase or sentence like, "I want open" or "Can I have the purple barn?"
Commenting: Encourage your child to comment throughout play. Model appropriate comments while playing with your child. Use language like, "I see a blue barn, what do you see?"
Use of prepositional phrases: Place the animals in different locations and have your child use phrases to describe their locations. Put them in the barn, out of the barn, on the roof, or behind the barn.
Vocabulary of action words: Pretend that the animals are doing different things and ask your child what each animal is doing. Depending on your child's vocabulary, you can focus on simple verbs like eat, sleep, and drink, or be more creative and use of verbs like swing, hop and slide.
For play development?
Pretend play: These barns provide so many pretend play opportunities. Children can use their imaginations to pretend that the animals are eating, sleeping, playing, or even having a birthday party! The possibilities are endless!
For social language development?
Turn taking: Develop turn taking abilities by asking your child if you can have a turn opening the barns.
Asking questions: Model appropriate questioning during play by asking your child questions like, "What barn do you think the cow is in?" or "What is your favorite color barn?" Encourage them to ask you questions back!
Kids may rejoice when school’s out of session, but as a mom, you may be wondering how you can balance their day’s activities between guilty pleasures (hello, screen time!) and wholesome activities. Whether your kiddo is under the weather, or you’re stay-cationing this Spring Break, here are 4 mom-approved activities that feed your child’s brain AND are easy to do when you’re staying in.
Fine Motor Foto Fun
Are your kiddo’s scissor skills just OK? Here’s a fun way to practice the fine motor movements that help them make the cut, with the added benefit of puzzle play that enhances critical thinking and problem solving.
Here’s how:
Find a collection of photos from magazines or family snapshots, or even by printing images from your computer. If you wish, glue the photos to cardstock or laminate them for extra durability.
Help your child draw guide lines on the photos to divide them into two or more large pieces, depending on their age and skill level. Lines can be freehanded or traced using stencils, like those included in our Trace Ace Scissor Skills Set.
Have your child cut the pieces out using child-safe scissors, practicing following the guidelines.
Have fun playing with your new puzzles. The more photos in your collection, the more of a challenge it will be to put each individual puzzle together!
(Photo Credit: Lina Awshee)
Letter Look and Learn
Reinforce letter recognition and sounds while building critical thinking skills with a letter scavenger hunt around the house. Plus, this activity will get them up and moving!
Here’s how:
Give your child a set of letters A-Z. Use Letter Blocks, Magnetic Letters or DIY your own set by writing each letter on an index card.
Set your child loose inside the house to find items that start with each letter of the alphabet and mark them with the corresponding letter.
Have your child take you or another family member on a tour of their letter hunt as they collect up their letters from A to Z.
Other ways to play:
If you have more than one child to play, challenge them to complete their letter hunt first. Once an item has been marked with a letter, it can’t be used again, so they’ll have to find another item for that letter!
To make the activity a little more challenging if your child is ready, have them carry a notebook and write out the name of the items they find to practice handwriting and spelling skills. Then, ask them to use each word to write a complete sentence or create a story using all of the words!
Dual Dice Duel
Everyone’s played the card game War – time to give it a math-tastic twist. If you have four dice around the house, you can have yourself a math duel. Here’s how to play:
Give each player two dice – or for extra fun, try using one Jumbo Dice In Diceper player instead!
Depending on the player’s math skill level, decide if you’ll be practicing number recognition/value, addition or multiplication.
Each player rolls their dice.
If playing for number recognition and value, each player calls out their number rolled from left to right. For example, if you roll a 4 and a 5, your number for that round is 45. The player with the higher number wins that round.
If playing for addition or multiplication, add or multiply your two dice together. The player with the higher total wins that round.
The first player to get 10 points wins!
Other ways to play:
Add more dice to the game to make it even more of a challenge!
Try Polyhedral Dice with 8, 10 or more sides for more complex challenges!
Use multi-colored dice, and assign each color a function – Add your red dice number, subtract your blue dice number, and so on, to get your total for the round.
Magnet Match
While the kids are circling the kitchen for their fourth round of snacks, put them to work at the fridge with Magnetic Uppercase & Lowercase Letters and a homemade worksheet!
Here’s how:
Using a blank sheet of construction paper, write the alphabet A-Z in marker. Create one sheet with the letters in order and another jumbling them up at random. You can also create and print this out on your computer!
Attach the paper to your fridge using a magnet, clip or removable tape.
Using magnetic letters, have your child match the letter to a magnet, covering the letter on the paper with the corresponding letter magnet.
Other ways to play:
Ready to learn upper and lower case letters? Mix in both cases using our Magnetic Uppercase and Lowercase Letter set.
Take the game to the next level by creating additional sheets spelling out short words, or print out photos of words and have your child spell them in letter magnets.
Kids may rejoice when school’s out of session, but as a mom, you may be wondering how you can balance their day’s activities between guilty pleasures (hello, screen time!) and wholesome activities. Whether your kiddo is under the weather, or you’re stay-cationing this Spring Break, here are 4 mom-approved activities that feed your child’s brain AND are easy to do when you’re staying in.
Fine Motor Foto Fun
Are your kiddo’s scissor skills just OK? Here’s a fun way to practice the fine motor movements that help them make the cut, with the added benefit of puzzle play that enhances critical thinking and problem solving.
Here’s how:
Find a collection of photos from magazines or family snapshots, or even by printing images from your computer. If you wish, glue the photos to cardstock or laminate them for extra durability.
Help your child draw guide lines on the photos to divide them into two or more large pieces, depending on their age and skill level. Lines can be freehanded or traced using stencils, like those included in our Trace Ace Scissor Skills Set.
Have your child cut the pieces out using child-safe scissors, practicing following the guidelines.
Have fun playing with your new puzzles. The more photos in your collection, the more of a challenge it will be to put each individual puzzle together!
(Photo Credit: Lina Awshee)
Letter Look and Learn
Reinforce letter recognition and sounds while building critical thinking skills with a letter scavenger hunt around the house. Plus, this activity will get them up and moving!
Here’s how:
Give your child a set of letters A-Z. Use Letter Blocks, Magnetic Letters or DIY your own set by writing each letter on an index card.
Set your child loose inside the house to find items that start with each letter of the alphabet and mark them with the corresponding letter.
Have your child take you or another family member on a tour of their letter hunt as they collect up their letters from A to Z.
Other ways to play:
If you have more than one child to play, challenge them to complete their letter hunt first. Once an item has been marked with a letter, it can’t be used again, so they’ll have to find another item for that letter!
To make the activity a little more challenging if your child is ready, have them carry a notebook and write out the name of the items they find to practice handwriting and spelling skills. Then, ask them to use each word to write a complete sentence or create a story using all of the words!
Dual Dice Duel
Everyone’s played the card game War – time to give it a math-tastic twist. If you have four dice around the house, you can have yourself a math duel. Here’s how to play:
Give each player two dice – or for extra fun, try using one Jumbo Dice In Diceper player instead!
Depending on the player’s math skill level, decide if you’ll be practicing number recognition/value, addition or multiplication.
Each player rolls their dice.
If playing for number recognition and value, each player calls out their number rolled from left to right. For example, if you roll a 4 and a 5, your number for that round is 45. The player with the higher number wins that round.
If playing for addition or multiplication, add or multiply your two dice together. The player with the higher total wins that round.
The first player to get 10 points wins!
Other ways to play:
Add more dice to the game to make it even more of a challenge!
Try Polyhedral Dice with 8, 10 or more sides for more complex challenges!
Use multi-colored dice, and assign each color a function – Add your red dice number, subtract your blue dice number, and so on, to get your total for the round.
Magnet Match
While the kids are circling the kitchen for their fourth round of snacks, put them to work at the fridge with Magnetic Uppercase & Lowercase Letters and a homemade worksheet!
Here’s how:
Using a blank sheet of construction paper, write the alphabet A-Z in marker. Create one sheet with the letters in order and another jumbling them up at random. You can also create and print this out on your computer!
Attach the paper to your fridge using a magnet, clip or removable tape.
Using magnetic letters, have your child match the letter to a magnet, covering the letter on the paper with the corresponding letter magnet.
Other ways to play:
Ready to learn upper and lower case letters? Mix in both cases using our Magnetic Uppercase and Lowercase Letter set.
Take the game to the next level by creating additional sheets spelling out short words, or print out photos of words and have your child spell them in letter magnets.
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(product shown: Conversation Cubes, photo credit: Stacy Flannery)Repeat!: If your first round of toy refreshing goes well, consider repeating the process as needed. No matter what strategy you employ, this is a great way to keep kids active, appreciative, and engaged with the toys they already have! At Learning Resources, we’re here to help you make the best of this challenging time. Stay safe and healthy, and check back with our blog for more tips and learning ideas as the situation unfolds.Feature image photo credit: @littlemissedenmclemore 
