Chalk Games

 If you don't have a big tub of outdoor chalk yet, go get some! There are endless games and activities you can do without having to buy every single plastic toy out there. Here are a few ideas to get you started...

Color/Shape Jumping

This is similar to one of my very first posts. Draw several different colored shapes. Call out the color/shape you want your child to jump on ("Jump on the pink heart!").

Variation: You could also have your child toss bean bags or balls onto the shape you call.

Water Balloon Toss

Draw a big, multi-colored target with chalk. Have your child stand back a few feet and toss water balloons at the target. You can play until you wash the whole target away or until you run out of water balloons. 

Variation: You could use bean bags or balls instead of water balloons for this game as well.

Letter Toss

Draw the letters in your child's name. (If they already know those letters but need to practice other letters, use those instead.) Call out a letter and have your child toss a bean bag or ball on it. Rowin doesn't know the letters in his name yet, so I included the color to help him ("Throw the ball on the blue R").

Variation: You could have your child toss water balloons on the letters like the previous game. You could also have your child jump on the letters like in the first game. 

Hopscotch

Don't forget this old classic! This is actually really good practice in coordination/gross motor skills. I had Rowin try jumping several different ways (one foot, two feet, alternating, etc.).

Variation: If you want to practice number identification, call a number and have your child toss a ball/bean bag/water balloon on the correct number. 

Multi-Colored Ice Cubes

It's been so nice to be OUTSIDE!! We've been doing lots of walks, mornings at the park, picnics, and outdoor exploring. Finally feels like summer!
We busted out the water table a few days ago and made these ice cubes to play with outside. Just fill an ice cube tray and put a drop of food coloring in each cube.

We made these a lot over the winter and put them in the bathtub. They were a little messier when we took them outside-I recommend playing with them in a bathing suit or naked. Rowin chose naked so I didn't think any pics of him playing would be appropriate. :)
Just a fun little extra to spice up your kiddos' water table!

DIY Truck Puzzles

Oh man...after getting a taste of summer weather for a few days, this week of rain has been brutal! We've been trying to get out of the house as much as possible, but here's one activity we did when we were home.

Using different colored pieces of construction paper, cut rectangles, two circles for wheels, and a cab to create several semi-trucks.

Show your child what the trucks should look like and then mix up all of the pieces.

Have your child find the matching colors and put all of the trucks together!

I stuck all of the pieces in a ziploc bag to pull out again on another rainy day. If you have a laminator, that would definitely make them last longer. You could also put magnets on the back of each piece and have your child put them together one at a time on a cookie tray if you wanted to. If you have girls, you could do the same thing with flowers (a circle for the middle plus petals) or dolls (a head/body plus arms and legs).

Rainy Day Activities

Here are a few simple activites for your kiddos to do inside when it's too rainy to play outside. :)

Paint a Birdhouse

I bought these at JoAnn's (I think for about $1). I painted the whole thing white first and then let him paint it how he wanted-of course, with mostly his two favorite colors, black and brown. So springy!

Dominoes

We have these Jumbo Wooden Dominoes from Lakeshore, but any dominoes are fun! Show your child how to match the colors/numbers and see how long of a train they can make. Rowin actually liked this more than I thought he would!

Sticker Shape Match

We had some diferent shaped spring stickers that I used for this activity.  On a blank piece of paper, draw shapes that the stickers will fit it. Mine were all squares and circles. Have your child put the stickers inside the right shapes. This is good for fine motor and shape identification.

Treasure Hunt

This was a fun toddler version of a scavenger hunt. I had some thick, multicolored yarn leftover from teaching that I used. You could use anything similar-rope, string, etc. I taped or attached the yarn to several different objects around the entire downstairs area in our house, making sure to send Rowin back and forth, in all different directions. I showed him where to start and told him to hold on to the yarn and follow it until he got all the way to the "treasure" at the end. At the very end, I had the yarn go around the corner (so he couldn't see it) and taped a bag of M&M's to the end. Your treasure doesn't have to be anything big or fancy-especially for little ones. He loved it, so I had him do it again in reverse and hid a new treasure at the other end. :) 

Ideally, you'd set the whole thing up without your child seeing, maybe during nap time. However, I set the whole thing up with Rowin watching me, but since he had no idea what I was doing, it really didn't make a difference!

Travel Pack

We are off to Florida in a couple days! YAAAYYYY!!! I am so excited! In an attempt to not completely overpack, I put together this smallish travel pack for Rowin. I wanted him to have enough things to keep him entertained on the flights and while we're there without having to pack an entire suitcase of toys.

Here's what I included:

• The felt roads (from my last post) plus a few cars
• A train play mat with mini Thomas and Friends trains (Barnes and Noble-$10)
• Noise Putty-(Dollar Store-$1)
• Mini 24-piece puzzle in metal tin-(Dollar Store-$1)
• Ring Pops-because sometimes a sucker is entertainment in itself
• Sticker Activity Books ($1 each at JoAnn's)
• Water Wow-The "paintbrush" is filled with water. When you paint the pictures, colors magically appear with no mess. We love these! ($5 at JoAnn's or Learning Express)
• Color Wonder-same idea, but it comes with markers that only show up on the special Color Wonder paper. God bless the people who created these things. 
• Extra blank paper, markers, crayons, and lots of stickers
• Some favorite books
• Some favorite DVDs
• Playaway (not pictured)-You can check these out at the library. It's like a little hand-held screen that comes with four episodes of a certain show (Elmo, SuperWhy, etc.)

Here are a few close ups so that you can see them better. 

Felt Roads

I saw this idea somewhere a while back and have been meaning to make these. We are headed to Florida this week, so I thought these would be perfect to take with us!

All you need is black or gray felt or fleece and yellow fabric paint (I found a 3-pack at the Dolloar Store). Cut the roads into whatever size/shape that you want and then use the fabric paint to add the lines on the roads. Just make sure the ends are all about the same size so that they all line up evenly. 

Two things that I love about this: 1) You can create a new "track" every time you play, so it feels like a new activity for your child. 2) You can stick them all in a gallon sized ziploc bag, thow a car in there, and take them with you!