Gingerbread Roll and Stamp

 

Materials:

• Paper
• Bingo Marker or any writing utensil
• Dice

Instructions:

• Make or print out a gingerbread man and write numbers 1-6 if using one dice, or 1-12 for two (great way to work on adding)
• Roll the dice and count what number you rolled
• Find the written numeral that matched the quantity and stamp (or mark it out)

 

 



Printable Gingerbread Man

Starfall Gingerbread Man Activity

Starfall has many great educational games for kids to play that really target good pre-academic skills (this is one of the many great online resources listed on Bridgesearlylearning.com). The Gingerbread Man Activity is one of my favorites and goes right along with reading "The Gingerbread Man".

Link to Starfall

Potato Turkey

Material:

• Potato
• Orange, red and white construction paper
• Two golf tees
• 8 Frilled Toothpicks

Potato Turkey is good for fine motor skills and also makes a great centerpiece on the Thanksgiving Day table! 

Fun Thankgiving Turkey Craft

Materials:

• Brown Paint
• 4 paint colors of choice
• Your hand
• Your foot
• Google eyes
• Orange Paper
• Scissors
• Glue

Happy Thanksgiving!



Use Your Noodle!

 

Material-

·         5 Different types of noodles
·         Food Coloring
·         Ziplock Bags- 5
·         Rubbing Alcohol or Vinegar
·         Paper towels

What we are learning-
·         Colors
·         Sorting by one and two attributes
·         Measurement
·         Classification

How to dye the noodles-

1)      Fill each bag ¾ full with different types of noodles

2)      Cover noodles with rubbing alcohol or vinegar

3)      Add food coloring, I prefer the drop type. Add to the intensity of color you like.

4)      Place bags out of the way

5)      Allow bag to sit over night or at least 8 hours. Mix the bag occasionally to make sure all the noodles are getting color.

6)      Drain out the liquid

7)      Lay flat on a paper towel for at least two hours to dry

Sorting noodles-

·         Easy- Start by shorting noodles out by colors

·         Intermediate- Sorting by type of noodle

·         Advance- Sorting by noodle type and color

 What to do after…..

Make some beautiful noodle art!

Left over Pumpkins? Take a hammer to it!

My children and student's LOVE this activity. It targets fine and gross motor skills and is great for children that need a little extra sensory input! Just grab a few golf tees and plastic hammers. It helps to make the holes first before letting the kids hammer away! Have fun!

Mommy's Speech Therapy

Here is an amazing resource I stumbled across that has so much information and materials available for helping your little ones at home with speech! This is also a great resource for SLP's! Have fun exploring this website!

http://mommyspeechtherapy.com/

ABC Parking Lot

Identify and match all upper case and lower case letters.

 

When my son was struggling with letter identification and letter sounds I took to the internet looking for fun activities that would help him with this skill. What's better then driving your matchbox cars around to match uppercase and lower case letters? He loved this activity and would even ask to play it every night! You can get this activity at Teachers Pay Teachers, but will need an account or you can make it yourself. All you need to do is make upper case letters (or use flash cards) and spread them out on the floor. Place some masking tape on the top of each car and write the lower case letter on it. Have your child drive the lower case letters to park on the upper case letters! You can even have them make the letter sound as they drive the car to match the letters up!





GoldFish Cracker Math

Goldfish Cracker Math

 

 

Kids of all ages love using Goldfish for counting activities. You can’t beat learning numbers and math with a yummy snack!

Material-

·         Egg Carton

·         Bag of Goldfish Crackers

·         Marker

What we are learning-

·         Counting 1-12

·         Written number match a certain quantity of crackers

What to do-

1.       Number the egg carton 1-12 in sequence

2.       Have children count out the right amount of Goldfish to match the written number in each space.

3.       After…..enjoy a yummy Goldfish snack together! You can work on subtraction skills by counting how many you start out with and how many are left after each bit. Great and easy way to introduce a new concept.

Additional fun-

Use the attached worksheet to work on graphing skills using colored gold fish. Graph and count out how many of each color you have in one handful of fish by coloring in the graph.

..\FishCrackerGraph.pdf

 

Water Blob

Sensory fun! We just made two of these for my son’s 4^th birthday party and the kids had so much fun. Followed the directions and it turned out perfect. Little tip from an Arizona gal….keep it in the shade. It started off nice a cool and by the end of the party the water was really HOT!!

Leak-Proof Water Blob Directions

 

 

Looking for more fun ways to cool down this summer, click here..

 

No Mess Color Bags

This is a fun way to explore color mixing, while enjoying finger painting with no mess! What's better then a no-mess painting activity? My teaching assistant brought this activity to my classroom and the kids LOVED it! Have fun!

Materials-
*Freezer Bags
*Set of tempera paints
*Tape

 

Add what ever colors you want to the bag, seal up tight, and tape to the table! Have some color mixing fun! It is also a great fun way to work on writing letter!

 

A little reminder....

And some cool new colors to create.....

Dot, Dot, Not A Lot

Don’t Smear it, Don’t taste it, Don’t wear it, and Don’t waste it!

The creativity and mess a youngster can make with glue is amazing! A really hard concept for kids is that it does not take a lot of glue to make things stick! To a kid nothing beats grabbing that glue bottle and squeezing away. This activity will work on teaching our kiddos that a little dot holds a lot!

Material-

·         Worksheet Printout

·         Bottle of Glue

·         Optional- Paint or food coloring to color the glue

Worksheet

This is a fun book about a little boy who LOVES glue and the mess it makes!

 

What to do after……..

Make some textured name cards or work on making glue lines!

 

Welcome to the Activity Blog!

Welcome to our Activity Blog. You will find fun, educational activities to do at home with your children. Our activities focus on all areas of development. Let me introduce myself and the two boys you will be seeing quite a lot of throughout this blog! My name is Mary Cliff. I am the owner of Bridges Early Learning Specialist LLC and have been teaching early childhood education for 11 years. I graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.S. in Special Education and Rehabilitation and from Northern Arizona University with a M.ED in Early Childhood Education.  My two boys, Cooper (5) and Carter (4) are my inspiration in life. As an early childhood special education teacher and mother of two young children, I realized how hard it is for families to get proper, quality services for their young children and are constantly looking for activities to do at home to keep their little ones busy and learning. This website was carefully designed to be a resource for you and your family, to get the understanding and support you need to help your child be the most successful they can be and provide them the best start to learning. Enjoy our learning activities and most important have fun together! Happy learning!