Simple Fun With Pom-poms

We've been playing with our pom-poms a lot lately. A couple of years ago an educational supply store in my city was closing and I took the opportunity to get lots of great stuff for really low prices. One thing I got was a bag that had pounds of pom-poms. That is a lot of pom-poms! We've used them, and used them, and I still have lots left.

The other morning, I grabbed a couple of handfuls of them and an empty egg carton and gave them to my two year old for a little play time.

First he dumped them out and put them back in, with one pom-pom being assigned to each spot - no doubling up.

Then he began sorting them by colour. He did really well at this. After he had them all into piles, I started asking him questions. "How many purple ones?" "Can you find me a small blue and a big blue?" etc. He is really into colours right now, so he loved this part.

And he put them into the egg carton in pairs by their colours.

Then he began playing with their sizes. In this picture he is putting a small one on top of a large one and calling it a 'snowman.' So cute.

Then he lined them up by colour AND size. No, I didn't prompt this. I was so impressed. He had finished off the oranges and was just starting the purples in this picture.

Anyway, it was a super easy little activity that took no prep, and he played with them for fifteen or twenty minutes for sure.

Felt Gumball Machine

I made this felt gumball machine a few weeks ago for my middle son's fifth birthday. We used it as a game and played Pin the Gumball in the Machine, as pictured above. But since then, my two year old and I have had a good time with it as a learning game. (That is my two-year-old in the picture. So cute!)

We have used it for colour recognition: "Let's put all the green gumballs on."

Counting: "How many gumballs are there?"

We've combined both concepts: "How many orange gumballs are there?"

We've done simple math: "Three gumballs in the machine, now we'll put on two more. How many do we have? What if we take off a gumball?"

We've made comparisons: "Are there more red gumballs or more yellow gumballs?"

We've also made patterns with the gumballs as we put them on. "First blue then green, then blue, then green..."

Who knew there were so many ways to learn and play with a felt gumball machine?

*PS: his favourite is when we play with it, and then gets a real gumball when we are done!*

Simple Heart Puzzles

I made a very quick and simple game for us to play on Valentine's Day.

I just made some hearts of different sizes from pink and red paper, then cut each in half. Done.

My two-year-old did really well finding the pairs that went together.

Sometimes it was tricky to get the cut sections to line-up,

But when he got it, he was so proud! (and so was I!)

Candy Memory Game

My kids like memory games, and we have several versions of them around our house. And, actually, we often turn non-memory games into memory games just for fun because we like them so well.

For my son's recent birthday party, (full blog recap to come) I made a candy memory game for he and his friends to play.

I wanted it to be bright and colourful, since it was for a party, so I went to the dollar store and bought bright green poster board, and then arranged inverted disposable bowls in blue and yellow. Having two colours of bowls not only increased the visual appeal, it also added a memory cue for the kids, ie "was it under yellow or blue?" Then, to add another way for them to remember, I wrote numbers on the base of each bowl as well.

Now for the fun part: after spacing out the bowls on the paper, I lifted each, one at a time, and taped a miniature chocolate bar under them.

Then as the players made matches, they also had a fun little prize to keep.

See, memory games are awesome.

Big and Little Game

This is an easy one. I bet you can throw it together and have it ready to go in 5 minutes. Less even.

All you need for this game are two boxes (one big, one little) and a selection of items that you have in a big version and a little version.

My items: a big ball, a little ball, a big spoon, a little spoon, a big Cookie Monster, a little Cookie Monster, a big toy car, a little toy car, a big crocodile figurine, and a little crocodile figurine.

Oh, and you'll need a toddler to play with!

Here we are, ready to play.

To play, all you do is take turns sorting the items. The big ones into the big box,

And the little ones into the little box.

He had a great time with this today, and kept dumping out the boxes over and over to play it again. Later, when I went to clean it up, he caught me and insisted on a few more rounds with mommy. Ha. You gotta love when the easy, quick, and free things are their favourites!

Muffin Pan Puzzle

Who knew you could have so much fun with a muffin pan and a few tennis balls? My little guy played with this for about 30 minutes this morning.

I don't have 12 tennis balls, but I wouldn't even recommend that you had one for each hole. He had lots of fun moving balls from one space to the next and applauding himself after each.

I think that if I had a ball for each space, he would fill them all up and then think the game was 'done' and leave it.

But it was a simple activity we did with materials on hand, and he had a great time. Alternatively, you could use a mini muffin pan, and those tiny little balls from the dollar store if that is what you have around your place.

Tornado in a Bottle

My oldest is into science experiments. They are cool. He is also a reader, which often leads him to find ideas for science experiments.

This happened again in our home today.

He read a book about tornadoes, (which both fascinated and frightened him) and in the back it had instructions for how to make your own mini-tornado in a bottle. Of course, he ran down to the basement and riffled through the recycling immediately to get the required materials.

It was quick and easy, and he loved it. So I thought I'd pass it on.

You need:
-two 1L (or larger) plastic bottles. Clear is best so you can see
-water
-food colouring (optional)
-duct tape

Fill one bottle about half-way with water, add food colouring if you want. Tape the other bottle to the first so that the spouts line up. Use lots of tape to make it strong. Tip the bottles upside down and swirl them in a counter-clockwise motion for a second or two. Then stop and watch the tornado funnel appear inside the bottle.

You may want to do this outside, just in case you have a leak!

Kite Matching

Here is a quick game I whipped up when we had an unexpected late spring snow storm not too long ago that foiled my plan to go fly a kite that day.
First, I took several different colours of construction paper and cut lots of diamond shapes of various sizes. (To make the game more challenging, you could use all one colour.) Then I used markers to draw simple patterns and designs on the kite shapes to make sure that no two kites were identical.

Then I snipped them in half, shuffled them up, and set them out all over the table.

To play, we took turns trying to find a match and putting the kites back together again.

Easter Egg Matching Games

Hinged plastic eggs are so great to play games with. Any dollar store will have them this time of year. Go stock up! Here are three matching games I played with my kids this afternoon. Version One: Basic Matching Game *fill plastic eggs with any small item you can find around your home. Lego, small toys, hair elastics, whatever you can find. * To make it a little more challenging, I don't put the matches in matching-coloured eggs. *Set your eggs up in rows and columns so they are ready for the game to begin. *Take turns opening two eggs at a time to find the matching items inside. Version Two: Sound Matches *This time, instead of filling the eggs with whatever I could find that fit, I filled them with things that would make an interesting sound when the egg was shaken. Examples: rice, popcorn kernels, marbles, dimes, etc. *Again, I mixed up the colours of the eggs with the fillings. *Set out the eggs in tidy rows again. *Then take turns picking up two eggs and shaking them to find the matches.

*If you think you've found two eggs that sound the same, open them up to check if you were right.

Version Three: Matching Goodies

*In this version, when I filled the eggs, I filled them up with happy little surprises for the kids. Examples: mini eggs, cream eggs, jelly beans, smarties, marshmallows, chocolate chips, etc.

* Set up the eggs in rows, and rotate taking turns again.

*Of course, this time when they got a match we stopped to enjoy the sweets we found inside. Version Four: Prizes Matching Game *We didn't play this game, because I only thought of it right now as I was blogging these other ones. But wouldn't it be fun to go to the dollar store and get some little toys and gizmos to put in the eggs? Then when a match was found, they could keep it's contents as a prize. I've totally got to do that!

Mystery Bag Game

Here is a quick little game we played this morning, and I am sure that you will have all the materials you need to play it on a moment's notice.

All you really need are two non-transparent bags, I used two brown paper lunch sacks, and pairs of similar items. Two golf balls, two pennies, two toy cars, and so forth.

To get ready for the game, gather your items and put one of each pair into each bag so that their contents are identical. Give one to your child, and keep the other bag for yourself. (You could also play this with more than one child if you were to made more identical mystery bags.)

Then reach in, and without looking, select one thing that is in your bag and describe it as well as you can (good for building descriptive language skills!) and the other player, also without looking, tries to find the object you described.

Once you think you've found the match, count to three, and pull out the items you are holding. If you have a match, give yourselves a point!

Then switch turns and let the other person describe something they feel in their bag. Can you find what they are describing?

It was a hoot to listen to him think of sensory words based on touch. Soft, hard, smooth, bumpy, prickly, squishy, round, square....etc.

The items we had in our bags were a set of keys, a bean bag, a ball, a scrabble tile, a spoon, and a small toy lion.

To make it more challenging, you could add more items. Or you could fill your bags with things that are more similar, like crayons, pencils, and markers. They are all long and thin and hard, and could be trickier to differentiate.