I recently discovered some fun games and activities that I can make at home for my little girl.

They are called File Folder Games.

There are tons of free templates for File Folder Games on the Internet but this particular one I made is a pattern matching game.

File Folder Games are so easy to make!

I found the Heart Pattern Match Up Game at Preschool Printables.  I just printed the pages on my color printer and cut them out.   Take a look at their sidebar for lots of other fun File Folder Games you can make.

I attached one set of patterned hearts to the file folder which serves as the game board and kept the other set of matching hearts loose.

You don’t have to laminate the pieces but I know how rough my kids are so laminate is my friend.  Office supply stores can laminate but I found a good deal for large laminating at a local school supply store.  They can put all of the folders and little game pieces in the laminate and have it ready for me in just a few minutes while I wait.

The hardest part of making File Folder Games is cutting out all of the little pieces from the laminate.

One the game pieces are cut out you could present the game to your child as is and just let them place the matching piece in the correct spot.

Or if your kids are like mine and have a weird obsession with velcro, you can add a little piece of velcro to your game board and matching piece so the kids can have fun pulling the pieces on and off.

And don’t think that File Folder Games are just for toddlers.  My older son loved using this American Sign Language File Folder Game from File Folder Fun to learn to sign the alphabet.

Here are some other great sites for free templates for File Folder Games:

File Folder Fun

Enchanted Learning

Ideas for Preschoolers

Preschool Printables

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Here are a few of the ways we learn math with our colorful blocks:

Sort them.  Gather all the pieces of a certain size and color.  Make piles.

Make comparisons.  Which pile is bigger than another?  Sort the piles in descending order.

Make place holders with the legos.  Example: 1423 = a tower with 1 white lego, 4 red ones, 2 blue and 3 yellow.

Get out your flash cards.  Re-create the problem on the card with the lego cubes.  Solve the math equation.

Build a structure, and have another person try to mimic or re-create the structure – identically.

Count by twos.  How many “dots” do you have in your lego?  Counting by twos is easy with legos!

Talk while hunting for your a particular piece with word problems – ex: If you have 2 red pieces, how many more will you need to complete your project?

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How have your kids explored and learned with legos?  I’d love to hear about it!  If you liked this lego post, you might also enjoy reading How to Make a Lego Table or our tutorial on How to Make Lego Costumes.

We have been learning with pumpkins!

There are so many wonderful activities to do with young children at Halloween.  We’ve been having some pumpkin fun.

Reading

I stumbled upon this great book, “It’s Pumpkin Time” by Zoe Hall. It is a beautifully illustrated book that teaches children about seeds, planting, growing, and enjoying pumpkins. It’s the perfect book for little ones to get introduced to these concepts in a fun and playful way.

The inside cover of the book is just a green background with lots of pumpkin seeds scattered around.  We had some pumpkin seeds from making our jack-o-lantern so I let Rachel play a matching game by placing her real seeds on the seed pictures.

Color Mixing and Pouring

Pumpkins are orange.  I wanted Rachel to see how red and yellow blend to make orange so I set out some cups of water and red and yellow food coloring.  She squirt a few drops of yellow into one cup of water and a few drops of red in another cup of water.  Then she poured the two colored waters together in an empty cup to make orange.  This is  a super easy way for young children to experience color mixing.

Once we had orange water, I let her practice her pouring skills by pouring the orange water into an ice tray I bought at the dollar store that makes pumpkin shaped ice cubes.  We can’t wait to plop a few of our orange pumpkin ice cubes in our next glass of water!

Counting

I drew a simple template of a pumpkin then used that to make some orange and white pumpkin shaped pages for a Pumpkin Book.  I made pages for 1-5 pumpkin seeds then let Rachel count and glue the corresponding number of seeds on to each page.  There were also a few pages for art work and an outline of her hand.

I stapled the cover of her book on and she smiled from ear to ear as she hugged her pumpkin book close to her chest.

Improving Fine Motor Skills

I’m getting my money’s worth out of my dollar store pumpkin ice tray!  Here’s another fun use for it.

On a tray I assembled a bowl of green pom-poms to serve as the stems for the pumpkins, a plastic tong, and the pumpkin ice cube tray.  Rachel had fun using the tongs to pick up one pom-pom and place it in the pumpkin.  She sorted them by color in different rows several times.

When she tired of that, I showed her how she could make patterns of light and dark green pom-poms.  She nearly snatched the tongs from my hands to give that a try herself.

What a fun activity this turned out to be.  These types of projects are great for impoving hand-eye coordination, as well as strengthening the muscles in the hand and the pincher grip which is used so much in writing.

Don’t you just love this picture?  I can almost taste the tartness that he is experiencing.

Why would I have my child drink something that I knew would create such a silly face?

He is learning about strength and concentrations of a solution.  I tried drawing pictures explaining how we can take a can of concentrated orange juice, add 3 cans of water and get a perfect ratio for orange juice.  But if we only used 1 1/2 cans of water with the same amount of concentrated orange juice then that would be too “strong” or too “concentrated”.

His eyes were kind of glazing over after listening to me as I drew it all out for him.

Yes, my eyes glaze over too from just looking at it.

Well, I scrapped that piece of paper.  What better way to teach him about the strength and concentration of a solution than a hands-on activity?  Where he tastes and experiences the differences for himself?

We got out some concentrated orange juice, several cups, a spoon, and a measuring cup and water.

We measured and mixed up 3 different ratios of orange juice…Full strength, 3:2 water and orange juice, and 3:1 water and orange juice.

My son loves sour and tangy foods but as you can see from the earlier picture, he thought the full strength orange juice concentrate was way too strong.  I was surprised that he still didn’t like the 3:2 ratio because he has eaten some really tangy candy before and love it.  He liked the regular 3:1 ratio of orange juice and decided that he would play around with mixing the other ratios together and adding more water to them to try to make them taste better.

I love it when he wants to take an experiment and do more with it on his own.

By tasting the different strengths of a concentration and experimenting with diluting the drinks, my son was able to build on the basic concepts we had discussed.  It really helped him to understand and learn what we were studying.  And when he learns with hands-on projects, he always remembers it so much better than if he just tried to memorize a definition or a list of facts.

What do you need to have a ball of a Friday?

A Beach Ball
A Permanent Marker
Room to pelt gently toss a ball to each other.
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Here are some of the words we have put on our ball (taken from the book Kid Writing – great resource for nurturing our students to literacy):
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a, an, and, but, if, that, the, this, is, was, has, had, have, been, be, by, bye, hi, at, am, are, not, it, its, or, of, to, on, the, in, into, you, your, our, my, me, I, he, she, they, their, there, those, these, other, here, were, for, with, who, what, when, then, than, how, why, from, go, went, no, not, yes, can, say, said, will, each, about, which, would, could, should, up, down, out, in, on, on top, over, under, only, side, some, many, like, see, make, made, very, after, before, little, big, find, did, do, done, don’t
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Ideas on learning with a sight words ball:

• If your child is already reading, have them read the words on the color they catch.
• If your child is not yet reading, have them point to a word and you tell them what it is before they toss the ball.
• If your child knows all the words, have them create a sentence with as many words as they can from the color they picked.

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This game has been a huge hit with my non-reading kiddos, with my newly reading kiddos and with the neighbors who are reading independently!  I got the inspiration from this activity from a reader, thanks bunches Habeebee Homeschooling she advised (in a conversation on the Quirky Momma Facebook page) to help our kids learn to read by writing sight words on a balloon and bouncing the balloons around the room.  A beach ball is our “more permanent” variation.   Thanks Habeebee!

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We all have books that are so loved and cherished they are falling apart.  Catherine over at Sun Hats and Wellie Boots upcycled a book by cutting out the characters, and “accessories”, adding some fun photos of her kids, sticking magnets on the back of them and now her fridge tells a story.  I love her finished product!

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We have toilet paper tubes in abundance, and kids who are learning the “emotion” sight words.  Caz over at A Little Learning has a fun TP Expressions activity.  If only I could draw as well as she can!  They look great!

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This is on my bucket list!  Maggy made some story cubes.  This is a great way to help direct your child.  Some of the cubes can be characters, or items, others can be actions or favorite things to do.  What a great way to help our kids add structure to their stories.   I can easily see us re-crating these using photos or mod-podge and clip art!

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Darcy of No Monsters reviewed some story cards.  I love the concept and can totally see these being a great source of entertainment on a long car ride!  I bet I could make my own.  If any of you do, let me know how they turned out and if your kids enjoyed them.

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Another take on the story “cubes” are story stones from Childhood 101.  We have stones in our sensory tub, why not give them another purpose!   Thanks Christie for the idea!  Go check out her blog or her Art Ebook for more ideas – her website is one of my all-time favorites!

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Do you have any ideas, posts or tips on how to get your kids to tell stories?

Anybody ever tape or make a video of your child telling a tale?  I’d love to hear about them!  Leave a comment or email me!

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Homemade Learn-to-Read resources:

Phonics Flip Chart – Make this nifty tool to help your kids learn the way that letters sound together.  We have several.  Once for three letter words and another for blending consonants.

Letter Wheel – These are a great way to practice a specific family of words or word sounds.  We have a few of these one for each of the vowels to practice short vowel words and another for words that begin with typical blends like: “th-” or “sh-”.  We find them useful.

Story Cubes – We created a set of blocks with different words written on each face of the block.  Each time you roll a block you change a part of the sentence.   This is a great activity to use to practice and reinforce words your child already knows.

Word Card Game Ideas – Every other week we make a set of word cards.  This is a link to a bunch of the games and activities we do with that weeks collection of words.

Word Slides – This is a tool we created to help create new words, especially blending consonants together to form new words.

Short Vowel Hand Game – This is a spin-off of the cootie catchers from my JR high days, only this one teaches my daughter short A sounds.  We also made one to work on Short O and hope to make one for U later this month.  My kids love hands-on manipulatives.

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Online and Free Additional Resources:

Starfall – Great online and free learning program.  All of my kids have learned their alphabet, sounds even a number of sight words with this terrific website.

Progressive Phonics – These are like Bob Books, only they are online and free.  You have to print them up yourself.  They are great to reinforce the learning your kiddo is getting with the Bob Books program

Hubbard’s Cupboard – Does your child need extra help with a particular family of sounds/letters?  These books are also free and online.  You can print them up for more reinforcement!

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Resources we have paid for and love:

Bob Books – The best books for an emergent reader that I have ever found!  These are a collection of books.  The beginning series start with three letter words with a different short vowel sound emphasized in each book.  More advanced books include blending consonants, long vowels, sight words and much, much more!

Victory Drill - Once your child has learned how to sound out the letters and make words, this system helps our kids learn to feel more comfortable reading and to learn to glance at a word and recognize it.  Basically, these books are filled with lists of words that our kids try to read as fast as they can.  It sounds like a huge nonsensical tongue twister!  I used these when I was a kids to help me learn to read quickly (i.e. speed) and was amazed to find out they are still out there!  You can make your own Victory Drill mini-books using the word sheets that we provide each month with the Activity-A-Day Calendars.

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Another Resource we have used and love but is not “in” the Learning Activity Calendar:

Headsprout – It is pricey, but worth every penny.  If we are having a “mommy is sick day” or when life is just too busy for me to have the kids school time, we play this online curriculum.  This reading program is set up with tons of games.  My kids are glued to the computer during the games and I love that this “babysitter” teaches them!

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Thanks to Kenny for the image.

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Items needed for the preschool germ experiment:

• Bread
• Kids tongues
• Pocket Purifier
• Ziplock baggies

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Preschool Germ Experiment:

We cut a homemade pita into four pieces and then each of the kids and I licked a piece.  We talked about how there are germs in out mouths, in our saliva, and how they can make us sick and how we need to be careful not to drink/eat after each other and wash our hands before we eat, after we go to the bathroom, etc.  We also talked about the consequences of sharing germs (rotavirus is rampant at the time in our house, so we talked about who was sick and how they need to be careful not to spread the virus).    After licking the bread we sprayed each piece with some water then, two pieces were ziplocked and bagged (to be our control group) and the other two pieces got “light treatment”.  The Pocket Purifier UV light from Purely Products is really handy to use.  My four year old was responsible for making sure the bread pieces were lit for 15 seconds each (roughly, her counting is not exact).  Then we bagged those pieces too and set them on the counter to watch the germs grow!

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Gross!  Gross!

All of the pieces were moldy a week later, but you can see the obvious differences between the pieces that received the light treatment and those that hadn’t!  It worked!  And, after using the light on our stuffed animals, legos, and other porous toys that were hard to adequately wipe off with antibacterial wipes, the virus did not spread further in our house.  We had two people with Rotavirus before this light came in!  And no one else got it!!!  Our baby got to be born into a healthy home!  Thank you Purely Products!

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Do you want your very own germ-killing nifty light?  Tell me how gross your kids can be in our Mom Loop Community!

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This activity was included in the Blog Hop at Abc123, they have a great show and tell school time.  Check it out!

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How to make a bleached puzzle?

• You need construction paper.  The cheaper the better.  I used high quality art paper the first time and it didn’t bleach well.
• A sunny day, being in Texas, we have lots of those!
• Shapes (alphabet magnets, blocks, coins, etc.)

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I love how the block shapes helped my toddler work on early geometry skills.  It was fun watching her rotate the blocks to try and replicate the image.   Hope your kids enjoy puzzle making!

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Thanks to Nicole of Activity Mom for sharing this post with us!

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Together we looked at the map and I explained how to figure out where we are on the map and where the “landmarks” were (our couch, the dollhouse, the ktichen table, etc.).  The kids then went to the play room to count while I hid a snack in the livingroom.  When they came back I would mark where I hid the snack on the map and the kids would go “find” it.  They were fast!  After they found one snack they went back to the playroom and we repeated the process till all the snacks were found.

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This was a yummy geography lesson.  Next time we do this I am going to try and map our entire house and the backyard to add some complexity.  I thought the map of my living room/kitchen would be complex enough for my almost 3 & 4 year olds, but really, they got the concept of how to read a map in seconds!  I wish I had their intuitive directional skills!

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