Fun Learning Activities Kids
One of the things I love about Texas is the crazy winters. Two weeks ago we had two days of highs in the mid-80s and the kids had a blast learning about maps and following directions, all while pretending to be Dora and Deigo on an “Animal Rescue Mission”. This was such a simple activity [...]
We just put our house on the market – while prepping for a hopeful move, we decided it was a good time to weed through the collection of videos. What should we do with all the empty cases? My son is going through a building phase. He had a blast creating these towers! Do your [...]
Do your kids enjoy making a mess? I know that mine do! We got a really fun book in the mail from Penguin books, Mess: The Manual of Accidents and Mistakes, by Keri Smith. This is such a fun book filled with activities and ideas of ways to make art from messes, or rather to [...]
We love to read and love to do art & are participating in Michelle’s st+ART activities found in her blog, A Mommy’s Adventures, with the book, My Purple Toes, by Blair Hahn. My Purple Toes is about a Dad who decides to be silly and enjoy being different by painting his toes purple . He [...]
This post idea, to test our sunscreen by painting on our paper with sunscreen and leaving them out in the sun, was inspired by the comment by Lady in a Small Town in my earlier post, Sun-bleached Alphabet Puzzle. She said that she’d heard of an experiment where they painted with sunscreen and watched the [...]
What do you have when you mix school glue, cornstarch, water, food coloring and a tiny bit of borax? Goop! This homemade silly putty is marvelous stuff! We use it like playdough as it doesn’t leave residue! Yay for mess-less play! Last week a friend came over and we popped the goop. Many of our [...]
My preschoolers love to color with crayons and love to paint – why not do both? This post was adapted from the post on resist crayon paintings on The Activity Mom several months ago. It has been mulling around in the back of my brain as a craft activity waiting for the perfect moment. This [...]
Anna of The Lawrence Girls and Daddy, has three crafty girls. The stories of their lives and interactions has me laughing almost every time I read her blog! In 2-3 weeks our little girl will arrive and I am both terrified and curious what life with three girls is like – curious, read her blog! [...]
Painting with toddlers can be a challenge. Our youngest wants desperately to participate with her older siblings during craft times, and yet, she still has a tendency to put things in her mouth. Time for edible paints! French’s sent us some honey mustard (yummy!) and Quirky kid A has had fun playing with “paint” while [...]
One of the things I love about blogging is meeting people who become the friends I have never met. Debbie is a mom/grandma who blogs about her life and experiences with her preschooler. I love how she incorporates learning into play! Debbie collected a bunch of doll houses, barns, and cars and trucks to create [...]
I loved discovering these homemade wooden houses and building blocks! They are so colorful and inspirational! My hubby is going to have to replace a portion of our fence soon and I am already daydreaming about the scraps we’ll have and the fun blocks we’ll get to make! This is even more fun as this [...]
I was inspired to make these paper puzzles after reading the post by S.B. of, S.B. Creatively, she took advantage of the summer sun to create a mat where her kids practiced letter identification. We adapted it to create a few puzzles for my youngest. We created one with alphabet magnets and another with different [...]
My kids love going to the grocery store, me not so much. I can totally see this idea, from JDaniel’s Mom, entertaining my kids as we shop! Thanks for another great guest post – I think this would be great for my youngest who is still learning her colors. It would be a great way [...]
The gals over at Mom Loop are helping keep me accountable this week! We are spring cleaning and I get to show before and afters of our Quirky House. Yesterday’s assignment was the dining room. As with everything, we had to think of a way to make cleaning the dining room a fun family affair. [...]
I first found out about Shakey Bottles from a stay-at-home Dad/friend, he made them for his son to enjoy and also gave them out as gifts. I loved the concept and have had my eyes peeled for a number of weeks, looking for the perfect bottles! I finally found some at during a trip to [...]
I got the idea to create cereal box puzzles from a lady at my church. She was discussing how her kids learned early reading skills through interacting with and recognizing brands, that this “recognition” was the first step for them in sight reading. One of her children has special needs and helping that child learn [...]
My daughter came home after Easter Sunday thrilled with the lesson she had learned! She made a Gospel Fuzzies glove. I need to preface this post by saying it is not original! Her Sunday School teachers didn’t remember where they first found out about this activity, so if you are the creator, let me know [...]
Do your children ever find it hard to read faces? I know that some kids, especially those in the Autism spectrum, struggle with identifying emotions that they see in others. This is a fun activity that might help your kids learn about how their emotions are visible to others and maybe will help them practice [...]
My kids love to paint and I hate to waste stuff. Every Spring we weed through the cabinet under the bathroom sink and get rid of all the expired lotions and what-not. Sunscreen isn’t effective if it is old (and one of my kids burns badly – I learned this the hard way!). So what [...]
This pouring activity was a HUGE hit with my preschoolers! I was inspired by my friend Jen, from TV-Free Toddler Time. I love her blog! She has so many simple entertainment ideas from years of experience raising ten kids. . What you will need to pour with you kids and keep your sanity: A variety [...]
Learning to make categories, to tell how things are alike and yet different is a great toddler/preschooler skill to help your kids develop. If you are like us, you may have several animal toys. Collect them and join us in practicing sorting, recognizing differences and patterns with your toys. … Ways to practice sorting: divide [...]
As my younger children napped, one of my preschoolers and I grabbed a bunch of little items and played a game of “What is missing?” using our used Easter Egg casings from the weekend’s festivities. . . . . . . . . How to create your own “What is Missing?” Game: We used Easter [...]
Does your preschooler love foamy bubbles? Last year my kids and I went to the town square where the kids were amazed to have discovered a prank (here’s a picture of the Quirky kids with Bubbles). Some kids (I’m assuming) dumped soap suds into the fountain and there were bubbles everywhere! Since then we have [...]
Are you looking for a quick, interactive treat to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day or another celebration? Combine vanilla pudding with M&M candies for green goodness kids will gobble up happily. This is a fun way for a younger toddler or preschooler to learn about colors and color mixing. Thanks Julia for inspiring us to have [...]
Combine play sand with cornstarch and you get lots of sand fun! What is great about this mixture is that unlike regular sand, it cakes together when slightly damp. Almost becoming hard, but smashes back into sand. All of my kids enjoyed playing with there new “outdoor only” tub! I will warn you though, they [...]
Super easy and Super fun! This is a really easy edible art project! Instead of boring plain old syrup on your pancakes, why not paint them! I was surprised by painting their pancakes the kids actually used less syrup than when they drizzled their pancakes or dipped bites in a syrup puddle. This activity actually [...]
I got this idea from chatting with Kellie, from Chicks With Kidz, she had a great idea/suggestion to include my kiddos in making our own variations of trail mix. We eat granola regularly for breakfast, but I have always been the one mixing it up! With her encouragement my one year old now has a [...]
This is my preschoolers favorite way to paint! Basically, it is what it sounds like; shaving cream mixed with paint. We usually mix the shaving cream with tempera paint as it has the smoothest consistency and is the cheapest! We have three tubs of primary colored paint: red, blue and yellow that we mix to [...]
I love our fun activity box, well, actually we have two of them, one for when we travel with the kids and one for when I need to occupy them say at Church or another event where they have to sit quietly for a few hours. Depending on how you use the box and how [...]
This is a super simple activity I remember playing when I was a kid. Basically, we created a stop/go sign and one person got to be “in charge”. When the sign said go we ran around like crazy banshees! When it said stop, we’d stop. Super simple! Kept them entertained for quite awhile. I even [...]
