Valentine Toilet Roll Paper Craft
This is one of those “crafts” that requires you to do the majority of the work with your child pitching in for a complete minutes on a very specific task. I posted last week on my Facebook page about an…
Heart Capital and Lower-Case Letter Matching
Big Brother can identify most of the capital letters, but has a harder time with the lower-case. So we decided to make a matching game that incorporated hearts seeing that Valentines Day is only 5 days away. Identifying capital and lower-case letters…
Stained Glass Valentine Cookies
I think these just might be the prettiest cookies ever. I have had this recipe filed in my recipe box for almost 4 years…a mother of one of our first grade students made them for the Valentines party at school….
Lickety Stickety Valentines
Want to do something a little different for Valentines this year? How about making these lick-and-stick stickers with your child to give to all their friends! After all, every child loves stickers…especially ones that they can lick first. :) I…
"Heart Breaker" Number Game
I’m finally accepting the fact that scrapbooking is not for me. Not in this phase of life, anyway. So, I’ve decided to use some of my scrapbooking “stuff” for our activities. This fun “Valentine-themed” game was so easy to make!…
Christmas Present Patterning
Patterning is an important skill for preschoolers…it helps their cognitive development by encouraging them to visually discriminate the differences between 2 (or more) objects, order them according to a pattern, and predict what will come next. Even though we typically…
Puffy Snowflakes
I’m sure much of the country is sick and tired of SNOW…but we haven’t had any so far, so we decided to make our own snowflakes. When I was teaching first grade, we would make these snowflaks every winter and…
Silver Bells Memory Game
This idea is pure genius. I can say that because it’s not mine! I first saw this game on The Activity Mom (who got it from here) and instantly knew it would be a HUGE hit for Big Brother since…
Make It: Homemade "Snowballs"
Last week I posted about using cotton balls for pretend snowballs. Today I’ll show you how you can make “snowballs” out of white yarn. These super light-weight balls are excellent for teaching your baby to throw. Plus, they make for…
Santa Says
I might have mentioned before that for almost 3 WEEKS now, either one or both of the boys have been sick. We all have MAJOR cabin fever! While Little Brother was napping this morning, I decided Big Brother needed some…
Christmas Sticker Letter Tracing
This was our first attempt to get Big Brother to write the letters in his name…and it worked beautifully. He was SO EXCITED that he wanted to keep writing the names of everyone in our family. As you can see,…
12 Days of Christmas Giving
We’ve been on a quest this year to instill family traditions that reflect the true meaning of Christmas…a celebration of the birth of our Savior and a reminder of our calling to be a light in this world because of Christ’s gift. So…
throw a "snowball"
A sweet reader, Anna, e-mailed me with the idea to use cotton balls as pretend “snowballs”. Both of my boys loved this! We have all been “sicklings” for the last several days…so it was nice to do something fun together….
Handprint Christmas Wreath
httpI just love anything that involves children’s handprints. I loved making handprint crafts with my first graders because I knew it was a gift their parent’s would treasure. And I myself already treasure the few handprints we have of our…
Homemade Snowglobe
I love finding ways to repurpose things that would otherwise be thrown away. This snowglobe is made from a baby food jar we had lying around and a small piece of garland I trimmed off (shhh…don’t tell Prince Charming). :)…
Advent Boxes
A few weeks ago, my mom and I were talking about some Christmas traditions we did as a family growing up. As we were talking, she remembered a special gift that a dear friend had made her when all of…
Countdown to Santa!
This Santa Countdown was inspired by an activity Crystal, my friend and fellow first grade teacher, introduced me to my first year of teaching. I didn’t have a copy of the printable teddy bear that was on her original Christmas Countdown,…
Christmas Box Counting & Number Matching
This “game” is wonderful on so many levels…cognitive development, number recognition, one-to-one correspondence, and fine motor development (opening and closing the boxes)! This is one activity that works on many different skills…all while your child is having a GREAT time. :)…