Build around a story.

Today, in our "preschool time" with my four year old son we built our activities around a book. We read the Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. We have some magnetic letters and a magnet tray. We used those materials to spell out "tree" and "boy." If you don't have magnetic refrigerator letters, you can just spell them on a piece of paper. I then read the book to him. Every time "tree" or "boy" showed up in the story I would point to the words we had spelled and had him recite them.

When we were done reading the book we colored a picture of the boy and the tree. We used torn pieces of green contruction paper for the leaves and glued them on. It took no prior preparation on my part because he could do all the tearing.

Try it out and use your child's favorite book to build around. You can make a food that is mentioned in the book, sculpt the characters out of playdough...the possibilities are endless! Have FUN!

Welcome to the Activity Corner

We had a request from a reader to save all the crafts, snacks, and other exciting ideas from our activity corner. Up to now we have just been deleting the posts as we do a new one, but from now on we will transfer the activity corner posts to this blog. That way if you miss one you can always check here! Since we have deleted all our past activity corners we do not have them posted here. :( However, if time (and memory) permits, we will try to remember the activity corners from the past and post them. Thanks so much and keep reading!

White Mud

Finally, your child can play with toilet paper with your approval! :) This concoction is fun to explore and play with! I would recommend taking it outside in an empty kiddy pool or playing with it inside a large container inside. Toddlers love mashing it like mud; and with the help of soft-sided cups and other molds, older kids can shape it into towers, castles, and more.

Step 1: Ask your child to help you unravel about 1 1/2 rolls of two-ply toilet paper, then tear it into 2- to 3-square pieces. Put all of the pieces in a plastic tub.

Step 2: Grate half of a 3.1-ounce bar of Ivory soap into the tub.

Step 3: Slowly add about 6 cups of warm water, 1 cup at a time, while you and your child blend the mixture together by hand. It'll take about 15 minutes to mix it all up -- hang in there, it's worth the wait! Stop adding water when your mixture feels creamy and saturated. (You can always add more TP if yours gets too runny.)

Step 4: Help your child mold the mud into mountains, towers, and other shapes.


Step 5: Store the mud at room temperature in a covered container; it'll last for several weeks. (Dispose of it in the trash.)

Teaching Tiny Tots

Thank you to Sharon for sharing her website. It is a great resource, full of great ideas, to help us teach our small children. To visit the site just click on the crayon button on the sidebar.

Click here to see one of my (Delia) favorite activities from her blog:

Hungry Caterpillar Book