Color the Christmas Lights

 For this activity you will need

~Crayons (red, orange, yellow, green, blue and purple)

 

~Christmas Lights printable
(from Lisa Morrow on Teachers Pay Teachers)

~Color and Number Cards 

Draw 1 number card and 1 color card. Find that number on the Christmas Light worksheet and color the light the color on the card. Continue until all lights are filled in.

I didn't make as many color cards as numbers. When you run out of cards in your color pile, start over with the discarded pile.

Peg People Race Game

 

I am sure you have seen the peg color matching game around. If not, here is the set I made -

(idea from Chasing Cheerios, Gluesticks has a cute version too!)

Although they are fun for C, even J likes to play with them, I wanted the pegs to have more than one use. So I created this game for them (it is similar to one that my old preschool had called Snails Pace Race) 

 The game board is made from an old cereal box which I painted on the plain side. I also painted 2 cube blocks I found in the unfinished wood section (same area where I found the pegs and pots) at Hobby Lobby.

And because there are only 5 racers, I painted one side of the dice using all the colors.

Since I forgot to include the purple peg in the race, she is the cheerleader on the sideline :)

For this game you can have as many players as you wish and everyone plays with all the colors. There is no arguing over who gets to be a certain color and no one child is the winner.

The first player rolls both dice and moves the pegs according to what is rolled. If you roll a blue and red, you move the blue and red pegs one space each.

If you roll the rainbow, you get to move any color you wish 
 

If you roll 2 of the same color, move the pegs ahead 2 spaces

Each player continues until there is a winner -- Red wins the race!

Tot School

 When I saw this idea at The Activity Mom, I knew C would love it.  She enjoys numbers and stickers. She wanted to do more, so she did it again on the back.

 We rolled a ball to each other through a tunnel (We tried to include J, but she just wanted to crawl through it)

C loves mixing colors and is constantly asking me what color you get when you mix certain colors together. I knew she would love this, and I was right. I painted each of her hands a different color and then she rubbed them together to see what colors was made. We might do this again with other colors later. I saw this idea here, but have seen in on other blogs.


We did do this awhile ago but I wanted to try it again with her now that she has better fine motor skills. When she did it before, she just poked holes where ever she wanted, this time she had to poke holes on the letters of her name using a toothpick (I made dots on the lines where she was supposed to poke) I hung the letters in the window so she could see the sun light through the holes. Another Activity Mom activity 

 I made this "hungry green monster" using an empty elbow macaroni box. I took out the plastic window, turned it inside out, taped and glued it back together and painted it to look like a monster (I have tried painting boxes before and the paint would peel off). Both girls had to feed it. J fed it colored blocks (I said the color as she put it in the box). C fed it numbers from a puzzle (she had to say the number she was feeding him).

C wanted to do Tot School with Daddy, so he helped her play with some nuts, bolts and washers.

We made this jumping frog together,
find out how to make it at Book House Craft Projects

Quiet Box #4

 matching pon pom colors in an ice cube tray

 puzzle

 beans (painted pink with pig faces) dropped in a creamer container

 pig lacing card

 Stencils

 hair ties on the mallet of another toy

 abc magnets

 foam numbers, flat marbles and a counting sheet

 ice cream erasers and letters to trace

 I made these a long time ago, I made 1 set for every letter of the alphabet using a variety of colors. They are supposed to be double Popsicle sticks. On one side is the lower case letter on one and the upper case letter on the other. On the other side is a picture that starts with that letter on one and the upper case letter on the other. C really wanted to play with this when we came across it in my collection, so I decided to add it to her quiet box.

another one

Tot School

 C helped me start some seeds.

C traced her left hand, I traced her right hand. Then I traced over the pencil line with a sharpie. I had pieces of paper with numbers 1-10 written on them. C put them in order and glued them over her fingers. She really liked this activity. I thought it would take us about 5 minutes and it ended up lasting about 45 minutes (she traced all the numbers and colored both hands) Idea found at House of Baby Piranha

 This activity didn't go as planned (idea found at The Chocolate Muffin Tree). Instead of having C do Tot School during J's nap (like we usually do), I thought maybe I could let them both paint at the same time. That wasn't really a good idea. C wanted a washcloth, so while I was getting that for her, J made a huge mess (picture below)  While I was cleaning J, C decided finger paint instead of using the blocks. Oh well :)

 I made this shamrock game to play on St. Patrick's Day (somewhat based on this idea I found at Along the Way) I made 2 blank shamrocks on the paper and told C that each of us got 1 of each color heart (made of contruction paper). I made a shamrock that C had to replicate. Eventually she started making one so I could make one that looked the same. I tried to have her make 2 that looked the same, but she lost interest after doing that once. 

 She glued shades of green paper on a shamrock

Now that J is 12 months, I plan on including her in some Tot School posts.  I have been trying to do more during my rare 1 on 1 times with her, usually is when C is doing a quiet box.


messy finger painting


I put tape on J and let her take it off (idea found at The Activity Mom)

Shaking seed packets