Tagged with 'activities'

Think learning has to take a vacation over the holidays? Think again! With a little twist here and a little tweak there, traditional holiday activities can become fun learning opportunities for your kids. For inspiration, we turned to the Busby family of TLC’s Outdaughtered. Danielle & Adam Busby are dedicated to helping their quintuplet daughters and big sister Blayke learn through play every holi-day!  Danielle tells us how:

There’s no way I will get all five of my little ones to sit quietly while I teach them about the alphabet. So I love dreaming up ways to bring the ABCs to life for them actively. This year we’re decorating our Christmas tree with the letters of the alphabet. The girls love playing with their Alphabet Acorns from Learning Resources. Each is printed with an upper- and lowercase letter of the alphabet and has a toy inside that starts with that letter. I’m going to attach ribbons so the girls can hang them on the branches of our tree. We might even sing “L-M-N-O Tannenbaum” while we decorate!

Five kids under age three can create chaos in the kitchen! So when I want to do my serious holiday baking, I will set up a station for the girls stocked with the Learning Resources Pretend & Play Bakery Set. I’ll show them how I measure ingredients, count them, and follow steps in a sequence. They can keep busy doing what I do, but with their own safe, unbreakable, kid-size measuring cup, measuring spoon, rolling pin, and more. The treats teach shapes, colors, numbers, and more.

To keep the kids entertained in the car, we like to unplug and encourage their creativity by adding twists to classic holiday songs. Our version of The Twelve Days of Christmas says, “On the first day of Christmas, Ava gave to me... an alligator in an apple tree.” “On the second day of Christmas, Olivia gave me... 2 octopuses….” Everyone is giggling by the fifth day of Christmas, when “Parker gave me five porky pigs,” and the girls make pig noises and snort! It’s a fun and funny way to reinforce numbers and letters and develop their memories as the song builds.

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Trimming the tree with toddlers and preschoolers is as tough as it sounds. So many shiny, pretty things to touch and hold! This year, let your little ones in on the decorating fun, and save your sanity with a little learning tree of their own!

A three- or four-foot tree is plenty big. Put it on a sturdy stand so it’s sure not to tip, and place it in your playroom or other open space. Then turn this time-honored tradition into a fun, family learning activity by decorating the tree with child-safe ornaments made of everyday objects, like the Learning Resources Back in Time Dinosaur Counters.

We turned this colorful set of 72 dinosaurs into props for our holiday-themed lesson by wrapping flexible ornament hooks around each one, then hanging them on the tree. Once they’re hung, there are many ways to learn and play this holiday!

1. Color Learning

With all the dinos hung in the tree, challenge your child to find and remove all the orange ornaments, then all the blue, green, red, yellow, and purple in turn.

2. Counting

Once the dinos are down, take a careful look at each pile. Which one is the biggest? Which one is the smallest? Be sure to use early math vocabulary words like more than and less than. Next, help your child count each pile, saying each number as you move that dinosaur aside.

3. Sorting

When you’re done counting, let your little one jumble up the piles into one giant, rainbow-colored dino dig. Then see if she can sort the piles by attribute. Try sorting first by color, then jumble them up again. Then try sorting by type of dinosaur, then by size. Sorting is an important early math skill, as it helps children begin to identify and group “like” objects.

4. Matching

Next, choose four different dinosaurs. Show them to your child one by one, and see how quickly he can find a matching dinosaur in a pile. Make sure the pairs are identical in both color and type of dinosaur.

5. Letter Learning

Preschoolers can practice their letters with this dino-covered learning tree, too! Place the dinos back in the tree, and then challenge your pint-sized paleontologist to find all the dinosaurs whose color starts with the “O” sound, then the “Yeh” sound, the “Buh” sound, and so on.

6. Fine Motor Skills

When the learning and fun are done, you still have one last chance to slip in some developmental practice! Ask your child to place the ornaments back on the tree, working those fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.

The shelves are bursting with candy corn confections this time of year. The mellocreme pumpkin is a treat made of honey and sugar, simply ripe with scientific possibilities. Grab your little goblins for this ghoulish experiment: dissolve candy pumpkins in different liquids. Stand back to watch the magic! This is an experiment of testing hypotheses. What does your little scientist think will happen in each liquid? Will the pumpkins float? Sink? Dissolve? Stay intact? What happens if you add a little heat? Let’s find out!

• Candy corn pumpkins
  
• Clear glasses
  
• Water, warm and cold
  
• Vinegar
  
• Vegetable oil
  
• Milk
  
• Microwave
  
• Timer

1. Label your clear glasses for each liquid. Fill your glasses about half full.
2. Drop in each pumpkin. Observe for any immediate reaction. Grab your timer and begin to measure your observations in five-minute increments.

3. 5 Minutes: There was lots of bubbling in the warm water and little difference to the other liquids.

4. 10 Minutes: The cold water and vinegar liquids began to turn orange as the sugar “skin” of the pumpkin began to shed, but not much change for the pumpkin in milk.

5. 15 minutes: The cold water, warm water, and vinegar pumpkins all began to shed their “skin,” providing a spooky element to the experiment!

6. 30 Minutes: At last! The theory that the pumpkins might float comes true as the pumpkin’s sugar skin lifts it to the top of the glass. This might provide giggles, as your experiment now looks a little haunted. Who invited the ghost?

8. To add a little interest, put the oil pumpkin in the microwave for 20 seconds. You’ll find it will bubble and then wholly flatten out.

9. Have an adult fish the flattened pumpkin out. You will find it is very pliable and is almost plastic-like in consistency. Your little scientists might be taken aback that this is, in fact, something we can eat!

The milk broke down the sugary pumpkin over time by dissolving it. The warm water made the reaction slightly faster, but the two water temperatures and the vinegar broke down the candy first, creating sugar “ghosts” from the outer coating. And while the oil had little effect on the pumpkin when resting in the liquid, adding the heat made the natural reaction occur. It was decided that time was the fundamental factor in this experiment: the more time the pumpkins sat in the liquids, the more chances to observe!

The chill in the air! The crunch of the leaves! The sights and sounds of autumn are here! Everything is cozy and crisp and wonderful, and…ACHOO!

As the first sneeze of the season rings through your house, it can only mean one thing: cold and flu season is upon us. Let’s prepare together by making a cost-effective, all-natural hand sanitizer to keep those nasty germs at bay.

This easy activity opens up discussions on practicing healthy habits during this germ-filled time of year. Here are a few reminders:

Wash or sanitize hands whenever possible

Germs are everywhere – there’s no way around it. But sanitizing or washing hands is the best way to prevent them from spreading. Rub in sanitizer to the palms and back of hands, and teach little ones to wash hands with soap for as long as it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice.

Clean areas children touch frequently.

Wipe down doorknobs, toys, railings, electronic tablets, remote controls, etc., with disinfectant. You obviously can’t chase after your children with a Clorox wipe every moment, but staying on top of cleaning surfaces makes a huge difference in germ transfers.

Scrub down that bathroom

A hygienic bathroom during cold and flu seasons is a must. Top-to-bottom care is essential in this busy hub in your home. The toilet handle, the sink, and the floor should enjoy frequent cleanings. And don’t forget to wash hand towels…and then rewash them.

Teach the beloved “vampire” to sneeze and cough

This one comes with some practice, but teaching kids to sneeze or cough in the elbow crook is a huge step in preventing the spreading of germs. If you stick with it, you will notice that the “vampire” move quickly becomes a knee-jerk reaction.

Lastly, call your little ones in sick.

If your child has a temperature or isn’t acting like him or herself, keep them home. No one knows your child better than you, so it’s best to err on caution if something seems off.

• 8 ounces Aloe Vera gel
• One tablespoon witch hazel
• ¼ teaspoon tea tree oil
• ¼ teaspoon Vitamin E oil
• Essential oils, a variety of scents
• Travel-sized spray bottles 

First, decide which essential oils you’d like to use. Four scents were chosen here, and we were creative in decorating each spray bottle with labels. If it’s going to be attached to you all during cold and flu season, you might as well make it nice-looking. 

Fill a measuring cup with 8 ounces of Aloe Vera gel. Aloe Vera’s job is to serve as the base of the sanitizer and to be very gentle on the skin. 

Next, add the active ingredients. Begin with the witch hazel, adding one tablespoon. Witch hazel is a natural cleanser that protects against infection.

Alcohol can be used in its place, but witch hazel is far less drying. 

Add ¼ tablespoon of tea tree oil. When it is in 0.5-1.0% concentration form, tea tree oil is powerful in killing most bacteria and is potent when preventing infection. (The other thing that is powerful about tea tree oil is its scent. The kids might not love how strong it is, but once the essential oils are added to the hand sanitizer mixture, the odor dissipates). 

For extra moisture, add Vitamin E oil. A common complaint about store-bought sanitizers is how drying they can be, mainly applied for days (and months). Vitamin E and aloe make this homemade version easier on the kids’ hands. And it is thick! 

Lastly, add the essential oil for scent. The overwhelming favorite in this house was peppermint. Pour into your cutely made spray bottles. Stash them away in the kids’ backpacks, lunch boxes, cup holders of their car seats, or anywhere in between! Best of luck this cold and flu season! 

Are you excited about the fall? Cooler weather, changing colors, and leaves and seeds on the ground make for a great time to get outside and explore nature. Bring a nature inside and set up a discovery table. Today I’m sharing five tools for your fall discovery table. These items will help your little scientists make observations and use real science tools in the process.

Questions to ask:

• What do you notice about the different leaves? (colors, shape, size) 
  
• What time of year do trees like sycamore and maple lose all of their leaves? (fall/autumn) 
  
• Pine cones and pine needles come from evergreen trees. They lose their needles a little at a time; not all at once. Compare the green pine needles to the brown ones. What do you think the difference is? (time – the green needles fell more recently than the brown needles, the brown needles are older/drier) 

Observations to make: 

• What do you notice about the different kinds of bark? (color, texture, etc.) 
  
• Look at the inside of the walnut. Compare it to the outside. 
  
• How is the small pine cone similar to the large pine cone? (look at the cone scales, or seed scales) 

Measuring is a science and math skill that is important to practice. Once you’ve taught your child how to use a ruler or tape measure properly, set them off to compare the sizes of different nature items. We used the tape measure and ruler. My kids love finding the objects on the card and then measuring them. Taking the tape measure outside on your next nature walk would also be fun. Measure the distance between trees or the length of a large rock. The possibilities are endless. 

Questions to ask: 

• How many leaves will it take to balance a walnut? 
  
• Which is heavier: a pine cone or an acorn? 
  
• Which weighs less: a hickory nut or three orange leaves?