I was looking through my ABC activities to do them again and adapt them for my little ones this year, and decided to put them together with some other ABC themed fun projects shared with me from other bloggers. Y’all are going to love these! They are all oodles of fun on top of being educational, so how could you go wrong? 😉
Which games and projects are you looking forward to doing with your kiddos? For some creatively frugal fun things to do with your munchkins, check out my roundup 10 Preschool Activities Using Household Items!
As a homeschool graduate currently homeschooling my own munchkins, I’m always looking for creative and inexpensive educational activities. I absolutely love dollar stores of all kinds for bargain educational supplies to use! They cost so little, and can cover so many different topics. One of my nifty finds has been these color sorting cubes. Being creative with them, I can come up with bunches of different ways to use these little boogers to keep my little smarty pants entertained and educated at the same time. I’ve used them for lots of different things, but I thought that I would share some of what we have done with them as fun & stimulating preschool projects.
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We started off the day simply. Since I’m a penny pincher from way back, I took two styrofoam plates we had used for our lunch, wiped them off, grabbed some colored markers, outlined and filled in half of each plate in the four different colors of her sorting cubes. I then asked her to put all of the cubes on the matching color section. As you can see, she did great. 🙂 She did this a few times before she was ready to move on to something else, so then I came up with a couple of more fun educational games for her…
Pattern and Varied Numbers
I flipped the two styrofoam plates over, and drew out the new projects with my trusty markers again. What, you thought mrs frugal was gonna use new plates? LOL On the left in this photo, I told her to follow the color pattern using two blocks in each rectangle. On the right, I asked her what each number and color was, then requested that she put the correct number and color of blocks in each rectangle. She really enjoyed this one, since it was a little more challenging. After a little while, she was ready to do something new with her color cubes, so Mommy had to come up with another challenge…
Counting and Sorting
For her last color cube project of the day, I asked her to put 4 blue cubes on the blue side, 5 green cubes on the green side, 6 orange cubes on the orange and 7 red cubes on the red. We did this same “game” with several different series of numbers. She really enjoyed the challenge of remembering how many went on which color, since it wasn’t written down.
Now that I’ve shared a few of the educational games we do with our color cubes, what are some inexpensive items you use to help kiddos learn? What do you wish you could find an educational use for?
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For anyone who is homeschooling and has children not yet old enough to participate in formal education, you know one of the biggest challenges is balancing the needs of the little ones with the ability to teach the older and allow them to concentrate. Thankfully, I had fun with a lot of preschool and baby school type activities with my oldest before she started kindergarten, and can adapt most of those ideas to use with my two year old little guy. I document a lot of them, because he has so much fun and he’s so doggone cute. 🙂 I was thinking that maybe someone else might find some of our little “baby school” activities useful in their own homeschool or quiet times with their kiddos, so I’m going to start sharing some.
One activity both of my little ones have loved is oversized animal flash cards. The exact ones I have are these Animals (Slide and Learn Flash Cards) that are really neat, but these are a nice, inexpensive set that will work for any of the activities I’m sharing using my flash cards Animals of All Kinds Flash Cards. I can come up with a lot of different activities using these, and easily keep a toddler happy with them for half an hour or more. Here are a few fun ones for you to try with your baby schoolers.
Big or Little
I have Bambam sort the cards by whether he thinks the animals are big or little. This is a good one for him to start the day with, because he’s good at it and it builds up his interest and confidence.
Another activity he enjoys is sorting the cards by whether they have fur or not. This is slightly more challenging for him, but usually not too difficult for him to reason out, which is a good thing.
Color Sorting
For variety, I have him stack the cards according to the color of the trim. This one makes him have to focus on a completely different part of the cards, so he feels like it’s a new activity and it keeps him interested for longer.
Some other things we do with the cards are sorting them by the following categories: No feet, two feet or four feet? Can they fly or not? Is the animal a baby or grownup? Scary or nice? Pet or wild (I started with farm, pet or wild, but my kids think farm animals make great pets, so I dropped that. LOL)?
Can you think of any other games you can do with animal flash cards?
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My oldest daughter is currently learning to read. She is doing an amazing job with her schoolwork, and has inherited my voracious love of learning. However, when we did our review work today, I spotted a couple of letters she was having trouble matching with their phonics sounds correctly. I decided that- instead of doing math today (which I don’t do daily with a kindergarten student, since she likes to do a lot at a time, anyway)- I would make up a fun game with multiple parts to help her get a better grasp on the sounds she was struggling with remembering. We needed some outside time to burn energy and get some fresh air, so I incorporated that in with our school time. (Gotta love homeschooling!! Learning happens everywhere!! Since I’m a second generation homeschooler, this is natural & normal for me, but I am seeing a whole different side of it now. Love it! 🙂 )
My Princess Pennypeacher was having trouble with the letters H and N. I handed her a grocery bag, and explained that we were going hunting for things that start with those letters, making the phonics sound for her. Our goal was to find at least three items with each phonics sound. She is very goal oriented, so she loved this!! As we went walking together, searching for objects, I kept repeating the letters and sounds and helping her come up with words starting with those sounds. We found a few things outside, then continued our search in the house. This kept her busily searching for a while, having a good ol’ time all the way, with her little brother following her around shouting the sounds with her without having any idea what he was talking about. 🙂 Once she found three items starting with the H and N sounds, we moved on to the next part of the game.
I had her sit down and choose two pieces of paper to write the uppercase and lowercase versions of each letter at the top of each sheet. Once she did that, I had her pull one item at a time out of the bag, tell me which sound and letter that item started with, set it beside the correct letter sheet and then I helped her write the words by breaking down the sounds in each word to see if she could tell me the matching letter. This was mostly to reiterate the sounds she was working on, but also to check for any other sounds she might be struggling with. This part was less of a hooray kind of fun for her, but she still enjoyed the challenge.
To finish up, we took a silly photo of my kindergartener, her project, and her loyal assistant! 🙂
Do you think your little ones would enjoy this game? It cost nothing whatsoever, so that made my pockets happy. It definitely helped her get a better grasp on the letters she was getting confused on, although I think we will need to do a couple of more fun reviews to make sure she really has it. I love having fun learning with my munchkins! 🙂
I am so excited to tell y’all about a points reward program for earning free books online called My Reader Rewards (part of Tyndale Publishing)!
I was able to order a book using 90 points I racked up on my first day actually utilizing the site! I was given 25 points right away for following a referral link. The first day I was active on the site, I earned points doing the following: A survey about bibles gave me 15 points, and a short survey about E-readers earned 10 points. Signing up for a newsletter got me 10 points. Signing up to get a free gift through the birthday club earned me 15 points. I also joined their Focus Group, for 25 points now and 25 points for each survey I participate in. This took hardly any time at all, and I’d already earned enough points to get a free book!! 🙂 You can also earn points through referrals, sharing links, asking questions and doing reviews.
This is a super easy way to earn some wonderful free books for your family!
I’ve ordered several books from them so far, and have never been disappointed. The most recent book I received is the one pictured, and will be a beautiful Christmas present for one of my children. I have been pleasantly surprised at the simplicity of the program, and the quality of the books available to buy with my points. I definitely recommend this program for anyone with readers in the household (which I’m guessing includes most folks who read blogs…LOL).
We were given a few of the best Halloween books from my mother in law’s expansive collection of all things autumn.
Halloween was her favorite holiday, by far. We lost her recently, so even though I don’t generally go all out for this particular holiday, I decided to do a Halloween themed story time with my munchkins in her honor, complete with a craft, game and treat. She also loved all things crafty, and was a retired Head Start teacher, so I know that she would have enjoyed it.
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It’s quite the cute little book, and not the least bit scary. My little girl is strongly opposed to all things “creeeeepyyyyy”, as she says, so that was a must. 🙂 This book and activity would be fun any time of the year, but especially for fall and Halloween. I love that it fits the season without being too scary for little kids.
Pipe cleaner arms and legs
First on our agenda are ghost and monster puppets!
To make these, you just need craft sticks like Loew Cornell 1021254 Woodsies Craft Sticks, 1000-Piece (or popsicle sticks), Crayola Construction Paper, Assorted Colors, 240 Sheet (99-3200)or cardstock, pipe cleaners like these Creativity Street Stetems/Pipe Cleaners 12″ X 4mm 100-Piece Assorted Colors, tape and something to color with. I sketched the requested outlines for their ghosts and monsters, but if you don’t have a knack for drawing, just print or trace the outlines. While I let my five and two year olds loose to decorate their respective puppets, I grabbed a couple of pipe cleaners and snipped them into four pieces each for the monsters’ legs and arms. You need one pipe cleaner per monster. I just twisted loops at one end of each to make hands and feet. Once they were finished coloring, I cut out their creepy (bahaha!) creations and helped them tape the arms and legs on the monsters and the craft sticks on all of the puppets. See? Super simple, easy peasy!! As I mentioned, even my two year old could participate in this activity.
If you don’t want to bother making your own puppets, this set of teeny tiny finger puppets is super inexpensive and awfully cute Monster Finger Puppets – Collect all 8!
Halloween Monster Back
Below you see my munchkins proudly displaying their one-of-a-kind ghosties and monsters. Quite the colorful creatures, aren’t they? 🙂 They get all the credit, since Mommy literally left them to it while she finished the legs and arms and worked on dishes.
Monster and Ghost Puppets
Now for the next part of our freaky fall fun fest!! Halloween storytime, with a game!
I settled them down in our oversized chair, and instructed them to hold up their ghost puppets when they heard the word “ghost” and their monster puppets when they heard the word “monster”. As you can see, they had to concentrate to hear those key words, but they did really well and thought it was the neatest way to read a book together.
Halloween Game
We weren’t ready to be finished with that, so the kiddos put on a Halloween puppet show for me using their new monster puppets.
While I won’t pretend that the script was riveting, they were pretty doggone cute in their attempts at a story line. My two year old really didn’t get it, and wound up watching his sister’s puppets more than doing anything with his own, but they had a blast, anyway. Puppet time is great for creative children!
Monster and Ghost Puppet Show
For the grand finale, I brought out their trick or treat buckets from the fall festivals we attended the other day and let them both pick out a sweet treat. As you can see, they were quite pleased with that finish! 🙂
Do your little ones enjoy books and puppets? What are your favorite books for autumn? For a fun pumpkin activity to do with your little ones, try No Carving Pumpkin Family!
by Kay Winters for our fun Halloween themed activity time.
or cardstock, pipe cleaners like these 
, tape and something to color with. I sketched the requested outlines for their ghosts and monsters, but if you don’t have a knack for drawing, just print or trace the outlines. While I let my five and two year olds loose to decorate their respective puppets, I grabbed a couple of pipe cleaners and snipped them into four pieces each for the monsters’ legs and arms. You need one pipe cleaner per monster. I just twisted loops at one end of each to make hands and feet. Once they were finished coloring, I cut out their creepy (bahaha!) creations and helped them tape the arms and legs on the monsters and the craft sticks on all of the puppets. See? Super simple, easy peasy!! As I mentioned, even my two year old could participate in this activity.
Penny Pinching Peach 