Hole Punch Letters

There was initially no "invitation" for this, but if I had set one up (which I did AFTER the fact), it would look like this....

Using hole punchers to identify letters and letter sounds.

As my son and I were playing in the playroom, he started cutting "tickets" out of construction paper.  He asked me to write the word "ticket" on them, and then he used his hole puncher to punch my ticket to get on the train.  Then he said, "now I need to punch the letters" and he sat and followed the line of the letters in the word "ticket".  I asked him if he would like to punch out more letters and he said yes - so I made more.  It seemed quite tedious to me, but he was really enjoying it and he was very engaged.  The tickets led to a letter game where I would write letters on a "ticket" and he would find the letter either by its name or its sound and punch a hole in it.

Tracing letters with the hole puncher and identifying letters with the hole puncher.

_______________________________________________

I later created a letter board for him and again I would say the name or the sound of the letter and he would punch it out.  He used his snowflake puncher for this....much more fun.

I used a paper cutter to cut out the "game board".

Finding a letter.

 This is such a great activity for strengthening the muscles in the hands and fingers, bilateral control, motor planning, visual motor skills, and coordination.

There are many other ways to create games similar to this....

number recognition

punch holes correlating to amounts

sight words

math facts

colors

shapes

etc...

- AK (MESE, MECD)

TNT Letter Sounds

My girls love these little Pop-Its.  You can usually find them in local stores around Memorial Day and July 4th.  However, if you have a hard time finding them you can always order them online.  Amazon has a pretty big selection.  

POP-ITS... found at our local grocery store.  

I drew 10 letters on the driveway with chalk and put a circle around them.  I only started with 10 because I didn't want them to be overwhelmed.  

My girls can recognize all the letters of the alphabet so we've been exploring letter sounds.  I would say the letter sound, and then they would throw a Pop-It inside the circle with the corresponding letter.  

"Look, it's   /K/   /K/  K."  

Throwing a Pop-It on letter D.

My 3 year old loved this.  She would get so excited every time she found a letter. 

"Over here, over here!!  It's  /V/  /V/  V!!!!!

AK was inspired by this post, only she did it with water balloons.  She wanted to incorporate bother letter names and sounds, so she stated - "The name of the letter is __, and the sound is __.  Can you find it?"  She also included the words 'off' and 'on', because her son recognizes these two words thanks to their blender and all of the green smoothies he makes.  :)

Water balloons!

MORE IDEAS:

Sight words
Numbers
Math facts
Counting
Name recognition
Colors
Shapes
etc

RL 

Bouncy Ball Basics

I don't have too many pictures of this because my 18 Month old help me set it up.  

What is needed:

Paint Palette

Balls that will fit in the slots (we used bouncy balls)

However, you could use:  Ping Pong balls, golf balls, etc.

Dry erase markers

You can set this up many different ways depending on the interests of your child.

Matching...Counting...Color Recognition... Patterns

Here are a few we tried.  

Here is my 18 Month old just randomly placing the balls in the slots as I counted for her.

Color Recognition... Yellow

"Look, they are all yellow."  

"You made a yellow circle!"

Color Match

Make a colored circle with the dry erase marker on the paint palette and present the coordinating balls.  

Number Match/Counting

I used a permanent marker on the balls for the numbers so it didn't come off as they held them in their hands.  If you scrub hard enough it will eventually come all the way off... at least mine did.  

For a short video of my youngest enjoying this activity click on the link below...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbZDeq_-mLA

RL

Backyard Games

My girls are very interested in letters lately... especially my 3 year old.  We did an INDOOR LETTER HUNT a few months back that we play often.  Since the weather has been warmer I thought we would take the hunt outside!  

To make the letters I purchased Marking Chalk from Amazon.

I created an alphabet checklist they could use to mark off the letters they found.  

"I found letter P!  Let me see here.... where is it?"

"I found it!"

Letter P in the grass

Letter S in the mulch.

The girls searching for letters. 

"I found letter V under the trampoline.  That was a tricky one."

We also made some fun games.  

Backyard Hopscotch

I also buried a few letters in our garden.  

X marks the spot!

My oldest loved digging for "treasures".  We plan to do a treasure hunt dig next.  :-)  Stay tuned!  

RL 

Glass Gem Compilation

Glass gems have been a staple in our playrooms since our children were 6 months old.  We love how one "toy" can become so many different things.  Below, you can see some ways that we have explored them.  

Glass gems can be purchased at any craft store, Dollar Tree, Walmart, Target, etc.
**They present a choking hazard and should only be used with young children under close supervision.**

Most of these pictures have a blog post with more detailed information.  To see the entire post, click on the links below the pictures.  

Creative Play

Use gems with our letter/number templates.
LETTER/NUMBER TEMPLATES

Enlightening Math
ENLIGHTENING MATH

Sorting

Sensory Bin
SENSORY BINS

Illuminated Ornaments
ILLUMINATED ORNAMENTS

Color Recognition

Creative Play on the Light Panel

Great Big Giant Tree of Light
TREE OF LIGHT

Glass gems on a mirror.


Framed mirrors can be purchased at Dollar Tree.  

Glass Sculptures
GLASS SCULPTURES

Window Art
WINDOW ART

Glass Gems on clear plates. 

Clear plates can be purchased at Dollar Tree in a pack of 8.
Great for classrooms!  

Glass Pumpkin
GLASS PUMPKIN

Exploring Spacial Patterns
EXPLORING SPATIAL PATTERNS

Getting Creative with Push Pins

**You can purchase the letter templates at the bottom of this post**

My girls are always in my husbands office playing with the push pins on his cork board.  The other day my oldest started making some designs with them.  It's always great to see their minds at work!  During our next trip to the store we picked up some extra cork board and push pins.  We found some in Walmart (they also have them in target).... 4 boards for $6.00.  They are a little thin, so we just put two boards together.  We placed a piece of white paper on top of the board for a base.  My girls seem to do well with white backgrounds.  It also creates a fun print when you take the pins out!  I have no clue why I didn't take a picture of that (mental note to add one later).  There are so many different push pins out there.  We found some fun things on Amazon... butterflies, ducks, stars, etc.  They haven't arrived yet, but we are excited.  :-)  The pictures pretty much speak for themselves..

My 3 year old adding pins.  She usually HATES stuff like this.  It was a big hit for her!

My 4 year old

Her person taking a dog for a walk.

She always falls into such deep concentration.  A perfectionist for sure!

"I need to go put this up in my bedroom by my bed."

Warning... have plenty of pins/cork/foam/cardboard ready.  Neither of my girls wanted to disassemble their work.  

My oldest made an apple tree and a flower....still a work in progress.

My 3 year old working on the letter templates we created 

***Please see below for more information on the templates.*** 

Its always great when you find something both siblings love!

                         

WE ALSO CREATED PUSH PIN ART ON THE LIGHT PANEL USING TRANSLUCENT MATERIALS AND TRANSLUCENT PUSH PINS. 

We used a frame to create a "canvas" for the light panel push pin activities.  We used a cut piece of shower curtain liner for this one (Dollar Tree), but some other materials we thought might work are:  a piece of tarp (the same tarp we used to make our WATERBED), a page protector, panty hoes, or maybe even a piece of transparency paper.

Another thing to note is the depth of the frame.  It needs to be deep enough to accommodate the push pins.  I actually used the frame to a shadow box here.

wrap frame with chosen material

use a staple gun to affix material to frame

ready to go

The invitation - including transparent push pins as well as a new twist - sewing push pins with beads.

open ended push pin art

a truck

a better view of the sewing push pins through beads

our push pin circle sheet letters 

There are several options to stick the pins in.  After we ran out of cork board I searched the garage.  Any cardboard box will do.  

A soda case box

                           

An old postal box

                           

Since my girls loved this activity and LOVE their sticker circle sheets that you can see

HERE,

we decided to create new templates for the push pins. 

The document is 27 pages in length and includes the following:

UPPER CASE LETTERS:

LETTER/NUMBER SEARCH:

For this sheet, you write in the letters and numbers and create the KEY at the bottom.

LOWER CASE LETTERS:

NUMBERS 1-10:

COUNTING SHEETS 1-20

SHAPES:

BLANK SHEET FOR PATTERNS, DESIGNS, CREATIVITY:

COLOR MATCH:

The templates also work great with Q-tip painting....

and finger painting.

You can also make a busy book.

These are wonderful for a road trip, a gift for a new mommy with older children, or just to keep handy to pull out if you need to cook dinner, take a shower etc.

The book above contains both the push pin document and our letter/number templates.  I added Q-tips, paint, label stickers, and I am going to add a bingo dabber as well.  

The total price for the document is $5.00

It will be emailed to you from ejunkie and you will be able to download it instantly.  

To add Push Pin document  click on the Add To Cart Below.

This document will work with push pins and Q-Tip painting

To add the Letter/Number Template click on the Add to Cart Button Below

This document will work with Label Stickers, Bingo Dabbers, Bingo Chips, etc.