Activity Bag #1

Yesterday my husband took the boys to get the tires done and he asked "A" to bring something to do as he waited. I was laying in bed (my sleep in morning) and heard the lil stinker say he didn't know where any books were? What? What? WHAT?!? First off we have a basket of library books in the living room, a book shelve just for him the the bedroom, two new magazines for him by the front door, and that doesn't include the tub of learning activities in ziplocks waiting to be used! Something had to be done. I have seen activity bags or busy bags throughout the blogging world. I have always kind of done that on long road trips but I have decided to have a bag with 6-7 things in it by the front door at all times. That way if we have a doctors appt, have to wait at the tire shop, go to a restaurant he can never claim he doesn't have anything to do. I think I will change what is in the bag every 6 weeks or so...depending how often it got used. That way he won 't get bored. As "B" gets older I will most likely make one for him too. As of this moment there is no excuse for boredom when he is out!

Let me introduce to our first activity bag:

Activity Bag #1's goodies!

The bag (with name blocked out). Bag was $1 at Michaels and then painted with fabric paint and sponge stamps.

The Activities:

A few cards from Rivers, Roads, and Rails game and transportation counters. The game is a fave of "A's" that he has wanted for a long time and I just got it for $3 at Goodwill-what a find!!! I figured he could put the counters on the roads.

Another use for the counters. I found these cards at Learning Palace. The teach sorting, counting, and patterns.

A bag of markers, hidden picture book, and our Little Kids Magazine (subscription a gift from Grandma-WOOT!)

Memory Match game I made from Disney paint samples

Number match with clothespins. Wheel found at 1+1+1=1 although I don't know the exact post.

Melissa and Doug opposite cards (I only chose 5 sets for this month). Got at Goodwill for $2-yay!

Another Goodwill find for $2-Number Dominoes

Sight Word Go Fish cards that I made. I only did three of each word (instead of traditional four).

Clothespin Color Matching

I had mentioned earlier that I am now a huge fan of using clothespins for learning manipulatives. While I was at the hardware store picking up my handfuls of paint samples I grabbed some extra for a color matching activity. I purposely picked colors very similar in shade to make it more difficult for "A". Then I cut each paint sample to attach some of the card to a clothespin. The game is simply to match the clothespin to the matching paint sample. This is a great game to grab on the way out to a restaurant to keep the kiddo's entertained while you wait for your food.

Alien Party

We have been doing a lot of learning this week about outer space for this week's summer challenge. Today I thought we should do some silly crafts to lighten the mood. We made three different types of aliens. Our first alien was made from recycled juice lids and pipecleaners, the second was from recycled boxes, and the last is a green blob made from corn syrup. The inspirations for the aliens came from Craft Jr. and Makes and Takes. Then we made them have an alien party!

Soda caps, pipecleaners, poms, and googly eyes (idea from Craft Jr.)

We made them spaceships from aluminum muffin tins

Made from recycled boxes, aluminum foil, sharpies, pipecleaners, and googly eyes (from Craft Jr.)

Our green glob aliens. One fell over on my white carpet (AHHH). Looked cool though!

Green Globs all better: corn syrup, green food coloring, and googly eyes (from Make and Take)

ALIEN PARTY!!!

We needed some American Heroes to come save the day. I found a foldable rocket ship that I had saved from a Subway Kids Meal and then we made another rocket out of paper towel tube, paper, two foam circles, and tissue paper.

This Subway Rocket made by Smithsonian was a good find

Homemade Rocket Ship with a paper towel roll

Here to save the day or ruin the alien party (depending on the side you are on)

When we weren't playing I snuck in some learning from the Solar System Preschool Pack that 1+1+1=1 blog. I printed out some of the worksheets that use clothespins to mark the answer. I am newly obsessed with clothspins, so expect to see more with them. I especially like the cards she uses that has the child pick out the beginning consonant sound.

I also wanted to quickly note some fun games we found on the NASA website. My first favorite game was called Grab It : where four pictures of items and a rocket ship with a letter showing are on the screen. The child chooses the items that begin with that sound and the arm reaches and and puts the correct items in the ship. The second game (Rocket Builder) is matching shapes to create rocket ships. The child has to complete a whole fleet to win the game.