Laundry Basket Race Car

Oh hello. Sorry I dropped off the planet for a while. No reason, I just did. I feel like we've done several fun little things since my last post, so I'll try to add a few more in the next week or so. 

Everything over here is either race cars or Frozen right now, so a few weeks ago, we made Rowin his own laundry basket race car. I dragged out the process of MAKING the race car, which I'm glad I did, because once it was done, he only played in it for about ten minutes. Ha!

First, I had him decorate his wheels (four paper plates) however he wanted. He went with the classic brown circles. Gotta love three year old boy art. I punched holes in them and he helped me string the yarn through the holes to attach them to the basket. Good fine motor practice!

Then I had him pick which number he wanted his race car to be. I wrote his number in a dotted line and had him trace over it-once for the front and once for the back. More fine motor practice, as well as number recognition.

 After we taped those on, we grabbed a helmet from the garage and a toy steering wheel that we had. If you decide to do this, make sure to include your little one in the process-that's where most of the learning happens! Plus, the anticipation is half the fun. Rowin was giggling the whole time we were "building" our race car because he was so excited!

Leaf Masks

 I saw this on Pinterest somewhere but can't find it now...we just cut out a couple of paper masks, punched holes in the sides, and attached string to tie them on. I had Rowin go outside and pick out some leaves (of course, he found all of the brown ones). :) Then we just glued them on a few different ways.

He thought it was pretty fun to hide outside because he thought that no one could see him with his mask on. Have fun! ;)

Fall Crafts

We LOVE doing crafts in the fall (possibly me more than Rowin). Here are three super simple ones for you!

Fingerprint Tree

Search Google Images for a tree you like and have your kiddo add all of the leaves with their little fingers! Done.

Ours is on display on our clipboard wall :)

Apple Prints

Cut an apple in half, dip it in washable paint, and stamp it on the paper. We turned ours into a little banner and hung it in Rowin's room. 

Painted Pinecones 

We have a huge pine tree in our front yard with millions of pinecones under it so we're always coming up with games and crafts to do with all of our pinecones. We painted some with paint brushes and the rest, we rolled in paint for kind of a tie-dye look. 

Happy Crafting!!

Nature Scavenger Hunts

What kid doesn't like to go on scavenger hunts? And fall is the perfect time to enjoy being outside and point out the details of God's creation to our kiddos.

I made three different scavenger hunts. The ones with pictures are great for younger kiddos. The one with the descriptions I actually did with my second grade students and they loved it.

We just took a clipboard and a sheet of stickers and put a sticker on for each item. If your child is a little older and knows how to make tally marks, you could have them add a tally for each item that they find. Or you could have them draw a picture of each item that they see in the box too. However you want to do it!

Nature Scavenger Hunt with Pictures

Fall Leaf Scavenger Hunt with Pictures and Color Words

Nature Scavenger Hunt with Descriptions

Ok, so I'm really a technology dummy and couldn't figure out how to download these as attachments so that you could print them. If anyone would like to tell me how to do that, I'd be happy to repost them as PDFs for you. Otherwise, you can try to print them as images...OR if you leave your email in the comment section, I'll just email you my original documents. :)

Paper Strip Pumpkins

                                   

This is a super simple, quick craft for fall. It's basically just gluing but practices fine motor skills and following directions too. :)

I didn't take any pictures of the process but you're smart. You can figure it out. You need eight strips of orange paper, a brown stem, and a green leaf. Have your child put a small circle of glue on the end of one strip, then put another strip on top of it and keep adding glue in the same spot until you have all eight strips glued together like a big star. Then fold one strip over at a time and glue all of the other ends together. Once you have all of your strips in a ball, glue on the stem and leaf. Super cute! You can make different sizes or use red and green to make apples instead. 

Number Matching Car Game

I saw this idea on Pinterest and since Rowin plays with his little Hot Wheels cars every day, I thought this was perfect for him! Here's the original link: http://b-inspiredmama.com/2013/08/numbers-game-car-parking/ 

You will need ten (or more) cars. Number them however you like.

Then use a gift box and draw ten parking spots inside the box, numbering them 1-10. Also cut an entrance for the cars in the box. 

Have your child park each car in the matching parking spot. If you want to take it a step past visually matching two numbers, you can call one number at a time and have your child drive that car out of the garage. For example, you might say, "Car Number Six, come on out and go to the gas station!" Then your child actually has to identify the number 6 instead of just matching it. If this is a little difficult for your child, remind them that the numbers go in order and have them count, starting with the number one car, until they get to the number that you called. 

Counting Mini Book

This is similar to other counting books we've made. You probably have most or all of the supplies on hand. You will need:

*Cardstock paper or 5X7 cards
*Markers
*Construction Paper
*Any kind of paper punch out (what are those called?) We used a heart.
*Hole punch
*Anything to bind the pages together (string, zip ties, metal rings, etc.)

First, punch out the shapes, using a different color for numbers 1-10. Then make a page that matches each set (write "1 red heart, 2 green hearts", etc.) Rowin liked helping me punch out the hearts. While I made the pages, I had him decorate the front cover.

 Next, we mixed up all of the hearts and I showed him one page at a time. We "read" each page together. Obviously my two year old can't read, but it's not too early to start working on number and color recognition, pointing to one word at a time as we read. After we read the page, he found the matching hearts and glued them on.

Here are a few pages from our book. When he was done, I hole punched the pages and bound them together with mini-colored zip ties, but you could use whatever you have. 

Hang onto it to practice counting, number recognition, and color words!