I Spy

Whenever we go to Chick-Fil-A (our favorite fast food restaurant), the girls share a kids meal and I typically get one as well.  I love reading to the girls and they love listening to stories, so the idea of books coming in the kids meals is appealing.  Unfortunately though, we are never that impressed with their books.  Occassionally the books will get exchanged for ice cream, but more commonly they will get tossed into the trash after looking at them once or twice.  Last night, Andy and I were cleaning out the car and I saw two identical books from Chick-Fil-A.  I was going to throw them away, but decided I would turn them into a game for Arin instead.

I left one book in tact and cut several pictures from the second book.  I then, randomly glued the pictures onto cardstock.  I had enough pictures for five pieces of cardstock.  I covered one piece of the cardstock with clear contact paper, which I thought would give it a write and wipe type surface for dry erase markers, but that didn't seem to work out so well, so I am glad I tested it with only one piece. 

Once the pictures were on the cardstock, I gave one to Arin, along with the book.  She was then able to look through the book to "spy" the pictures on her paper.  Once she found the matching picture, she put an x over it and went on to look for the next one.

Ella was the official cheerleader!

Arin really enjoyed this activity, so we will be making more of these "I Spy" games with our Chick-Fil-A books!

Each Peach Pear Plum

Last week, we checked out Each Peach Pear Plum from the library (100 Books Before Kindergarten). Arin loves this book. It is an easy read because it rhymes, but more than that, Arin loves it because it is an "I Spy" book.

For our activities, I was planning on making a fruit salad using peaches, pears and plums, but (poor planning on my part) I forgot to get those fruits at my weekly shopping trip and I didn't want to go back out for three pieces of fruit, so maybe next time.

Instead, I made an "I Spy" picture for Arin. I got out a magazine and the scissors this morning and as soon as Arin saw that, she said, "You making a game for me, mommy?" She was very excited when I told her "Yes". I had made her an "I Spy" game board one other time, but I didn't put enough stuff on it. This time, I crowded the pictures on there. She loved it. I would say to her, "I spy a whale" or "I spy the word blue" or "I spy something yellow" etc. Of course, Ella decided to wake while we were playing the game, so I told Arin we were done playing for a while. She said, "You have to ask me this one and this one, momma". I guess I hadn't gotten to the things she really wanted to find!

Unplug Your Kids: Hard

This week's Unplugged theme is Hard. First, I hard-boiled an egg for Arin. Then I let her peel it. This is something that she has never done before. She thought it was fun. Next, I let her cut the egg. Also, something that she has never done before. She does not like to eat eggs. I kept trying to get her to try it. She kept replying with "Nope!"

After peeling and cutting the hard-boiled egg, we played "I Spy" using the board that I made for the "soft" theme. This time, Arin searched only for hard items, such as a crayon, buttons, coins, a shell, a rock, a bottle cap, etc. I think I need to add more items to the board because it is just so easy for her to find the items, even though it is very rare that we ever play this game.

Unplug Your Kids: Soft

This week's Unplugged theme is soft. First, I wanted to make sure that Arin knew what soft was. So I laid two objects in front of her, one soft the other not soft. Then I had her pick the soft object. We did this activity four times and she did really good with it every time.

Next, I let Arin paint. Instead of using a paintbrush, she used cotton balls. For our last project, I made an "I Spy" board. For every object that I glued on the board, I glued an identical object on an index card. Although I glued several objects on the board, I only had Arin search for the "soft" things this time. I would show her the index card and she would find the identical object on the board. She really liked this game. We'll play it again using different cards, this way it will feel like a "new" game for a while.

Spying a Teddy Bear

Spying a Cotton Ball

Spying a Pipe Cleaner

Spying Gauze

Spying a Piece of Baby Yarn

Spying Felt

Spying a Felt Bear Sticker

Unplug Your Kids: Cylinder

This week's Unplugged theme is cylinder. The only project that I came up with that we didn't do this week was to make a drum out of a cylinder shaped oatmeal container. We may still do that in the future, but not as part of this project.

The first project I had Arin do was to paint a cylinder shaped toilet paper roll. She loves to paint, so this was great for her. She's so particular about everything. It was really entertaining to watch her.

While we were waiting for the toilet paper roll to dry, we moved on to the next project. I had Arin "sew" a pasta necklace. We were in luck because we already had cylinder shaped pasta (rigatoni). I was planning on dying the pasta first, but we slept in this morning, so we just went with undyed, unpainted pasta. She still had a blast with this. She was disappointed that she wasn't able to eat the pasta like she could eat the Fruit Loops when we made the cereal necklace, but she wore the necklace until it was naptime.

Arin loves to color and we always have her crayons out so that she can color any time that she wants to, which is quite often. However, I am tired of her not picking up her crayons when she is finished with them. I am tired of finding them all over the place and stepping on them. Last week, I had bought some frozen juice concentrate. Some of the juices come in a plastic cylinder shaped container now, so I had the idea of making a crayon holder out of the container. This is something that I remember doing in kindergarten or first grade. I love that the containers are plastic now. Last week Arin had made three very nice paintings. I love all of her artwork, but it just isn't practical for me to keep everything. Instead of just tossing the paintings into the trash, I decided it would be nice to use them on this project. I cut one of the paintings into a strip that would fit the juice container. Then I cut circles out of the other two paintings. Then, Arin used her glue stick and put glue on the backs of the circles and stuck the circles where she wanted them on the long strip of paper.

When she was done gluing on the circles, I put glue on the back of the strip and started rolling the paper around the juice container. I let Arin finish this once it was started. After it had dried for a little bit, I covered the paper with clear contact paper, to help deter Arin from pulling the circles back off of the paper. So far, Arin has been carrying this cylinder shaped crayon container with her from room to room since it has been finished.

Once the toilet paper cylinder dried, we used it to play hide-and-seek. I would hide the cylinder and Arin would find it. I remember playing this game with my mom when I was about 5. She would hide a button or a penny and tell me if I was hot or cold when I was trying to find it. This was the first time that I had played the game with Arin. She would leave the room while I would hide the cylinder and then she would come back in, all excited, and find it. She loved this game!