Cognitive Development

Beaded Snowflakes

January 12, 2012 by Jenae — 3 Comments

Big Brother is a bit under the weather, so making this beaded snowflake was the perfect activity to do to take a break from all the TV watching! This is the fine motor activity for our snow thematic unit.

Here’s what you’ll need: Fuzzy sticks (aka pipe cleaners) and pony beads…both of which were sent to me free from our wonderful sponsor, CraftProjectIdeas.com.

1. Arrange 3 white pipe cleaners into a basic snowflake shape.

2. Twist them together at the center.

3. Pick out all the white beads you can possibly find.

4. Let your child get busy adding the white beads to each strand!

We chose to add 10 beads to each strand. It became an excellent activity in one-to-one correspondence as well!

5. Twist the ends of each “strand” into a loop shape…or let your child choose a different design.

(Side note: At this point in time, Little Brother was really wanting to participate. I knew he didn’t have the attention span to finish an entire snowflake (nor did we have any more white fuzzy sticks), so I just gave him his own pipe cleaner and a few beads and let him have it. He LOVED doing this…we will be doing this frequently in the future now that he isn’t putting small objects in his mouth anymore.)

Continuing the hard work…

All done!

The boys were so excited to show their bead creations to each other!

Snowflakes are fun to make. Maybe winter isn’t so bad after all, even with its cold, yucky weather and highly contagious germs…

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Filed Under: 3-5 years, Crafts, Fine Motor, One-to-One Correspondence, School Age, Snow

Snowy Shape Hunt

January 10, 2012 by Jenae — 8 Comments

I’ve been working with Little Brother on identifying some basic shapes and I thought this would be a good opportunity to use up the bag of fake snow that I used with our snowy sight words. Instead of cutting out shapes, I used the pieces from our Melissa & Doug Shape Puzzle.

Here’s what you’ll need: fake snow (or the real stuff, if you have it) and some pre-cut shapes (or puzzle pieces).

1. Put all the shapes into the ‘snow’ and then bury them underneath.

2. Let your little one ‘hunt’ for the shapes, making sure to repeat the shape names whenever he/she finds them!

Yes, this activity did make a mess. But it took less than 5 minutes to vacuum up…which was totally worth it for the fun time that LB and I had ~~playing~~ learning together!

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Filed Under: 2-3 years, Cognitive Development, Shape Recognition, Snow

Snowflake Matching

January 4, 2012 by Jenae — 3 Comments

This activity is not only great for cognitive development and visual discrimination, but it can also be used as a decoration after the activity is over!

Here’s what you’ll need: coffee filters, scissors, clear tape, and either a laminator (I use mine ALL the time!) or contact paper.

1. Stack two coffee filters on top of each other. Fold the filters four times until it looks like the above picture.

2. With the two filters folded, start cutting various shapes into your triangle!

3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 with the remaining 6 coffee filters. When you’re finished, you should have 2 of each design.

4. Unfold and separate each filter and then place inside the laminating pouch (or sandwich it between two pieces of contact paper).

5. Run each snowflake through the laminator and cut out.

6. Mix them up and tape them onto a nearby window or door.

Have your child pull one snowflake off the window and then start trying to find its match!

He found his first match…doesn’t he look thrilled???

Hang them back up with each match side-by-side or find another place to use them!

If you don’t have a use for your laminated snowflakes, consider donating them to your local nursing home. As the wife of a nursing home administrator, I can tell you with absolute certainty that such decorations would be graciously received and greatly appreciated!

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Filed Under: 3-5 years, Cognitive Development, Snow

Angry Birds in 3D

January 2, 2012 by Jenae — 12 Comments

Whenever Big Brother sees his Uncle Chris, he always asks to play “Angry Birds” on his phone. And as a doting uncle does, Uncle Chris will always oblige. Because of Big Brother’s love for Angry Birds, Uncle Chris thought these two stuffed ‘angry birds’ would be a great Christmas present for Big Brother.

And they were!

Receiving these stuffed angry birds naturally led us to using our Jumbo Cardboard Blocks (one of our favorite ‘toys’) to have some Angry Bird 3D fun!

First, the boys and I built a tower taller than both of them…

Then, they each threw one of the angry birds to knock the tower over!

After that, we built another tower…

And we knocked it over again!

This fun game lasted for about 30 minutes, time that was full of building towers and knocking them down! And before you think this was just ALL fun and games…did I mention that it’s great for gross motor (throwing) and cognitive development (stacking blocks)? :)

Since I’m guessing most of you don’t have stuffed angry birds lying around your house, you could just draw a face on a regular ball (or simply pretend) and have an equally amazing time!

Enjoy!

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Filed Under: 2-3 years, 3-5 years, Cognitive Development, Gross Motor Development

Christmas Memory Game

December 5, 2011 by Jenae — 4 Comments

One of Big Brother’s favorite games to play is Memory. I thought it would be fun to make him a memory game with things we see this time of year…wreaths, lights, Christmas trees, etc.

My only problem was that my printer is running low on ink, therefore leaving the cards looking dull and faded. Here is how both pages should look:

Big Brother didn’t seem to mind, though…the game was a hit! He loved it and begged to play again and again…both by himself and with me.

Click on the links below to print your own! I suggest printing the first page on cardstock, then feeding it back into your printer and printing the second page. They have been created to align when printed on one page (front and back).