Category: Activities

Materials

Children’s Bible with the story of Noah
Brown Construction Paper
Blue Construction Paper
Animal Crackers
Simple Ark Template
Glue stick

Directions

Materials

Variety of rubber bands in a small bowl
Plastic bottle (i.e. glue bottle, Voss water bottle, lotion bottle, etc.)

Directions

Invite your child to choose one rubber band at a time to stretch and place over and around the bottle. Allow your child to place as many rubber bands as interested onto the bottle.

This activity helps to stengthen the fingers and supports eye/hand coordination.

Materials

Various colors of pegs or any objects suitable for sorting (i.e. pompoms, fish crackers, coins, etc.)
Tray or defined workspace for sorting

Directions

Explain to your child that he will be making piles of objects that are the same. You may want to help get him started, and then step back and let your child lead the way. Once your child understands the concept of sorting, encourage him to find other ways to sort the common household objects.  For example, if sorting coins, see if you child sort them by size or color. Sort laundry by articles of clothing – socks, pants, shirts or by family members – mommy’s clothes, daddy’s clothes, brother’s clothes.  

Common everyday activities that involve sorting are important beginning concepts of children developing math skills. Children continue sorting and classifying by organizing their understanding of language, people and objects in their environment.

Materials

Magnets
Variety of metal materials
Workspace

Directions

Set out a variety of magnets and metal objects. Invite your child to explore with the magnets.  Do all the metals stick to the magnets? What is non-metal objects are added? Do wood or plastic objects stick to the magnets? It’s fun to make a paperclip chain by sticking the first paper clip to the magnet and addind on to make a long chain.  How many paperclips can be added?

Materials

Variety of buttons in different colors and sizes
Defining workspace – (i.e. hand towel, piece of paper, small bowls, tray with sections)

Directions

Place a variety of buttons in a small container or on a tray.  Invite your child to sort the buttons into groups by their color.  Count the buttons in each group.  Ask, “Which group has the most?”

For preschool age children, encourage the children to write the number of buttons for each color.  Make a graph with the colors of each of the button groups.  Encourge your preschooler to color in one square per button.  Ask, “Which one shows the most ?”, “Which one has the least?” “How many more red buttons are there than blue buttons?”

Ask you preschooler if he can find a differet way to sort the buttons (i.e. size, how many holes, etc.)

Ingredients

White bread
Butter
American cheese slices
Griddle
Pastry brush

Directions

Melt 2 tablespoons of butter in a small dish. Place two slices of bread on a plate and invite your child to use a clean pastry brush to brush butter onto the bread. Have an adult place the bread, butter-side down on a hot griddle.  Place one piece of American cheese on top of the bread. Place the other piece of bread on top of the cheese, butter-side facing up.  Cook on low/medium heat allowing the cheese to melt and the bread to turn golden brown.  Flip to toast both sides of the sandwich. Remove from heat once both sides of the sandwich are golden brown. Cut into quarters and enjoy as a tasty snack or delicious lunch.

Materials

Construction Paper in the colors of candy Conversation Hearts
Candy Conversation Hearts
Glue

Directions

Cut out one color construction paper heart for each color of candy heart.  Glue all hearts onto a larger piece of construction paper. Place about 20 conversation hearts in a small bowl. Invite your child to take one heart out of the bowl at a time and place it on the correct color paper heart.  Once all the hearts have been sorted, ask your child to count how many hearts there are on each paper heart.  What color heart has the most?  What color heart has the least?

Lesson Extensions:
Young Toddlers:

• Simplify activity by only having two different color hearts in the bowl and two hearts cut out of construction paper

Preschool:  

• After sorting the hearts, encourage your child to make addition and subtraction problems with the hearts (i.e. 4 green hearts and 2 pink hearts = 6 hearts)
• Create patterns with the colored hearts
• Line the hearts up 2 by 2 and practice counting by 2’s
• Make groups of 10 with candy hearts and practice counting by 10’s.  Can you count to 100 by 10’s?

Materials

Duplos
1-2 Dice

Directions

Invite your child to roll one die.  Count the dots on the die, then ask your child to stack the same number of Duplos on top of each other.  Take turns rolling the die and stacking the Duplos. The first one to get to 10 wins!

Lesson Extension

Preschoolers:  To make the game more challenging for older children, use 2 dice and race to 20. Once you get to 20, continue rolling the dice and subtract the number of Duplos from your stack.

Materials

Candy Conversation Hearts
5 Clear Plastic Cups
Sprite or 7-Up
Vinegar
Water
Rubbing Alcohol

Directions

Ask:  What do you think will happen when we put candy hearts in different liquids? Lets watch and see!  Invite your child to pour a little bit of each liquid into separate cups. The 5th cup is for air (the constant for the experiment). Then invite your child to drop 3 pieces of candy into each of the cups – including the cup with just air. Observe what happens as the candy reacts to the different liquids.  Ask your child what he sees happening to the candy hearts?