Letter Matching Activity

This is a super simple activity to keep little hands busy while helping stretch their growing minds!

Supplies:

Foam Letter Stickers

8 1/2x 11 cardstock or sheet of paper

Marker

Set up: Adult writes the alphabet A-Z on sheet of cardstock or paper. This can be done in uppercase to match the letter stickers as I have done, or you could write the lowercase letter and have the child match the uppercase letter sticker to the lowercase letter on the paper.

To make this a portable activity, place 1 of each letter sticker in a zippered plastic bag and staple to the paper. To do the activity, the child simply chooses a letter from the bag and then matches it with the corresponding letter on the paper. Doesn't get much simpler than that!

My 3 1/2 yr old loves stickers and is loving learning her alphabet. She stayed busy with this activity for quite some time!

Painting with Veggies!

I cleaned out the fridge earlier this week and when I gathered these veggies that were well beyond their prime, I remembered a Toddler Art Party that my mom's group did when our kids were around 18 mos old. The host of the party set up a free painting area and had all kinds of veggies for the kids to paint with. I decided to do this again with Taylor. She loved it!

Basically, I just covered 2 cookie sheets with foil, laid out the cut fruits and veggies on one of the cookie sheets and put puddles of paint on the other cookie sheet. As always, we used our muffin tin to mix our paint colors. Then Taylor chose her fruits/veggies and dipped them in the puddle of paint, then stamped then onto the paper. By the end of her art session she was using the veggies as "brushes" and dragging them in various ways on her paper.

Learning to sew

This project was inspired by Mary Ann Kohl and Amanda Soule. I want to get Taylor more involved in sewing and she likes to "play" with my sewing supplies. So, we tried this simple art project the other day...

Start with the materials in the photo above: paint, paintbrush, cardboard shapes, and a piece of burlap. You'll also need an embroidery needle and yarn or embroidery thread. They make plastic needles that are perfect for little sewers! I got mine at JoAnn's.

Paint the shapes. Take a break while they dry :)

Once they're painted and dried, use a hole punch and punch 2 or 4 holes in the center of the shapes to make cardboard "buttons"

Guide your little one and start sewing by bringing the needle through the back of the fabric and through the hole in the shape.

Be very proud of how quickly your little one catches on!

Taylor was content to sew just one button, but I've got a mindful of ideas now for simple handsewing projects we can do together. This is just the beginning!

Mary Ann Kohl

Have you heard of her? I Love Her! Love Her, Love Her!!!! She is an author of several art books for kids. I heard of her for the first time when I read an article in Mothering magazine about a Toddler Art Party. My fearless, artsy friends in my mommy & toddler group (you know who you are and how much I love you!) decided to throw a toddler art party of our own. We had soooo much fun (and made such a mess!). Of course we always did on those mornings we spent together. So that was well over a year ago. I bought Kohl's book, First Art - Art Experiences for Toddlers and Twos back then and it has given us hours an hours of creativity, exploration and just plain fun. Her whole philosophy is that art is all about the process, not the product. This philosophy has really helped me lighten up when doing artsy stuff with Taylor. I tend to need structure and rules and creating and exploring with Taylor helps me let go of that and enjoy a little freedom.

Now that Taylor is ready for some more advanced art experiences, I looked up some more of Kohl's books. WOW, she has written a whole lot of books!!! I was incredibly delighted to discover Math Arts - Exploring Math Through Art. Seriously? Math through art? I have serious math issues. Really. There are some fundamental math concepts that I never mastered which have caused math to be a major challenge of mine. It impacts my crafting, too. Sewing is a challenge with all the measurements and calculations. If my husband and I ever get divorced (we won't) I will have to stop sewing because I'm not able to do the math or logical thinking necessary to complete many projects. Seriously. It's a challenge. But, we all have our challenges. Anyway, I tell you all this so you will understand why I was so delighted to discover the Math Arts book. I do NOT want my children (yes we only have one right now, but at some point we hope to have more, God help us all!) to struggle with math the way I always have.

As I continued to browse her books, I came across 2 more that we just had to add to our craft library: Preschool Art and Science Arts. Thank you to my wonderful mother who is supportive of all my creative endeavors and all of my attempts to enrich Taylor's learning. She was so generous is giving us all 3 of these books!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!! Thank you!!!

The books arrived on Tuesday and I cannot even tell you the rush I felt when I opened the box! They were shiny and new, colorful covers, just waiting to be opened. I've been pouring over the pages in all my spare time since I got them. We are going to have sooo much fun doing these projects for years to come. There are a few projects in the Science Arts that are age appropriate for Taylor but many of them are aimed at children 3 - 9&up so this is definitely a book that we'll revisit as she grows.

I urge you, if you have young children in your life, buy these books. They are wonderful!!!

To learn more about Mary Ann Kohl, her other books and her work with young children, read this great interview or check out her website.

Spring Nature Collage

I thought it would be fun for Taylor to create a spring collage. She loves playing with glue so I decided to gather together a few spring like materials and let her play. I gave her, leaves, dried moss, artificial flowers, sand, and very small pebbles.

She had so much fun and stayed busy with this for quite awhile. I love watching her play and explore.

In the end, she started playing with the wipes and wiped away everything she had glued onto the collage. She just made a big sticky mess that ended up in the trash. Ah well, like I said, she had fun. So much for the collage. Preschool art is all about the process, not the product.

Sidewalk Paint

Taylor and I had fun making sidewalk paint this weekend. The recipe is simple:

1/2 cup of cornstarch

1/2 cup of water

Food coloring

Stir together cornstarch and water and add a few drops of food coloring to get desired color.

I divided the recipe into thirds and made 3 different colors.

The paint is really cool! It's liquid, so it goes on like paint but dries like chalk. Very cool.

Note: This paint will wash off easily from the concrete but it will stain clothing because of the food coloring, so be sure to wear a smock or play clothes that are OK to get messy!

Letter Recognition

I'm working on letter recognition with Taylor. She goes to preschool and gets a lot of great learning experiences there, but of course, the learning doesn't stop once she gets home! Magnetic Alphabet Farm is a very simple book that I picked up about a year ago (LOVE the Bargain Books section at Borders!). It's a magentic book. It comes with the letter magnets and each page has places for the magnets as you read the story. The back of the book has this 2 page spread of the alphabet in order. Taylor loves this book.

I just discovered another super cool blog! It's called Teach Mama and she has lots of super cool activities for preschoolers to teach letter recognition (and just about anything else you could want to teach them!). Check it out!