Practical Life skills are extremely important to develop. They help your child grow into a strong, independent person. This week, here’s a fun activity that will help develop your child’s hand/eye coordination, as well as provide a lovely bit of jewellery. For this activity, you’ll need a few different varieties of pasta with holes that can be threaded through. You’ll also need string or yarn. You can dye the pasta, or paint it. After the dyed or painted pasta has been dried, your child can string it into a necklace. Be sure to keep the extra pieces for another day . . . or it can be made into a special necklace for grandma.
Video on how to dye pasta https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edw-piedlV4
Since the weather is so beautiful much of the time, we encourage you to do this outdoor activity with your child. The idea is to go for a short walk and pay attention to how many things you see. Before you go, print off the attached Walkabout sheet, or make one by drawing your own images of the things you think you might see on your walk. For younger children, you can use tally marks. For older children, see if they can remember how many things you saw and record the number after the walk is done!
Great spring number matching cards to print!
https://www.powerfulmothering.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/free-match-and-counting-cards.pdf
Walk and Count sheet: https://www.notimeforflashcards.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Nature-Walk-Count.pdf
This time of the year brings an abundance of babies! There are many wonderful picture books that focus on new animal babies. One ‘oldie but goodie’ is Are You My Mother. Click on this link to listen to Are You My Mother being read aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4Koi-RJATE If you happen to have the book at home, all the better! Your child can read it over and over again. Memorizing books is a great activity for young children. They learn many ‘concepts of print’ at this time. They learn to read a book from front to back, they learn that there is a right side up of a book, they learn the sequence of a story and they learn that the pictures or photos are connected to the words. All of these pre-reading skills are crucial in developing literacy. If your child is a bit older, we have included sequencing cards, so they can retell the story by themselves. For another story, try Is Your Mama a Llama? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9uxx1attM
Are You My Mother sequence cards: https://www.archjrc.com/childsplace/images/mothergame.pdf
Free Read Aloud stories: https://www.indypl.org/blog/for-parents/free-video-read-alouds
One of the senses that we take for granted is our sense of hearing. This great activity will focus your child’s attention on listening to a clue in order to identify which animal made it.
Here is the link for the Animal Sounds guessing game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8emJyUvl6g
For more fun, walk around your own house and record some sounds for your child to guess. Then, it’s their turn!
Listening game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8emJyUvl6g
Guess the sound game: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1m4h79JZso
This is a lovely tie-in with baby birds. You can talk to your child about how various bird nests are created. Some are created with grass, some with mud, and some with bits of string that birds find. Gather a small branch from your back yard, or a Walkabout. Have several coloured yarns ready! To begin, cut one colour of yarn into a manageable length (your child’s arm length is a good place to start). Teach them how to weave the yarn back and forth through the branches. As one colour is complete, add another, and another, until the weaving is complete. Display this fine piece of art in a vase that you place on your dining room table or suitable spot!
www.toddlerinaction.com Visit this website for loads of ideas for your 2-3-year-old. Click on Toddler Activities on the bar at the top of the page.
https://pbskids.org/ Go to this website for educational games and videos based on popular PBS KIDS shows.