Homemade Marble Maze

I made this activity for my son this week. It was easy to make and just difficult enough that he had to work on it.

Supplies:
Gallon size plastic bag
Duct tape
Dish washing liquid or Hair gel
Marble or Bead(s)

I opened the plastic bag well and then I cut 4 strips of duct tape. Do not make the strips too long, they have to sit horizontally in the bag.

Now, taking one strip at a time, fold the tape strips upon themselves so that there is sticky side out all around. Put the strips in the bag, alternating the bag edge. For example, the first strip goes one inch from the bottom of the back, lined up against the right side of the bag. The next strip is an inch above the first strip, lined up on the left hand side of the bag.

Repeat this until you have all of the strips in the bag. Once all of the strips are in the bag, apply pressure to the bag to seal the tape to the front and back of the bag.

Now squirt dish washing liquid into the bag, you will have to use your fingers on the outside of the bag to move the liquid along the tape strips to the bottom of the bag. Once you have the liquid in the bag, add in your marble, zip the top of the bag and apply a strip of tape over the zip top to keep prying hands form opening the bag back up and making a mess. I will say, prior to applying the tape along the top edge of our bag, we tried it out first. I could not find our marbles, so I used a pony bead. I then thought the bead was too small, so I added about 5-6 beads.

Now, hand the bag over to your child and let them use their fine motor skills to move the marble along the maze. Encourage finger isolation, by showing them how to use their pointer finger to move the bead along the slippery dish washing liquid. We then proceeded to do this activity, one finger at a time, until all fingers had been isolated.

Making Bird Feeders

I have seen this idea all over the Internet and we decided to give it a try this week. It is easy and economical!

Supplies:
Cheerios or other round cereal
Pipe Cleaners

Two supplies! Now that is my kind of activity! We just threaded the cheerios on to the pipe cleaners, and bent the pipe cleaner into the desired shape.

Most of the time when I have seen this online, the pipe cleaners are bent into a heart shape. I do love those, but I wanted my son to make his own shapes. He has circles, ovals and abstract shapes.

We had lots of fun doing this and then we hung them up in the tree right outside the playroom window. We also hung some off the deck railing in the backyard. Each day, he runs to the door and window to see if there are any birds eating his cereal!

Wordless Wednesday - Draw the Winner

Who is the big winner? Kids are always the winners in our eyes!

Tuesday Teachings - Gingerbread Man

I am on a big math kick this week. We did another fun math activity.

I cut out a gingerbread man from brown construction paper. We then decorated the man with markers and crayons. Next we decided to work on circumference and area.

Time to pull out mini marshmallows, if I had any. Since I only had large marshmallows, we used Trix cereal. We laid the gingerbread man down and after we discussed exactly what circumference was, we started measuring. We laid the cereal side by side all the way around the gingerbread man. We then counted all of the cereal pieces (65).

Next we took the cereal pieces off of the gingerbread man and had a discussion about the area of the gingerbread man. Once we had an understanding about area, we talked about whether it would take more or less pieces to fill up the area. Once we decided, we used cereal to fill up the area of the gingerbread man . We then counted all of the pieces (118).

After all of that hard counting, we had a feast of cereal. I would like for you to learn from my mistakes. Do NOT use a round cereal for this activity. My son had a hard time keeping them from rolling all over the place. Marshmallows would have been much easier.

Monday Meanderings - Dr. Seuss

Dr. Seuss's birthday is celebrated on March 2, so I thought I would start posting some activities to celebrate the big day. As far as authors go, there is no more well known name, than that of Dr. Seuss! Children and adults love his work. I even have a poster of a Dr. Seuss quote framed and hanging on my office door!

First up is The Family Kitchen with an adorable Cat in the Hat marshmallow hat snack.

Here is a Cat in the Hat activity from Teaching Two. I love this stacking idea. If you do not have the Styrofoam discs, they could be made with red tape around pool noodles too.

I would not normally encourage my child to jump on his bed, but this is too cute to pass up. obSeussed drew a picture of Pop, from the book Hop on Pop, onto her child's bed sheet and they hopped on Pop while reading the book. What fun!

Last but not least, we have I Can Teach My Child showing a great activity for Ten Apples Up on Top.

Have fun with your kids and with Dr. Seuss. He is my favorite Dr.!

Valentine Craft

Well, if you read the blog Tuesday, then you know that I cut out several hearts from construction paper. I was then left with the heart stencils and hated to waste them!

Next, I pulled out clear contact paper, the heart stencil shapes and a variety of craft supplies. My son sat down and made Valentines for family members.

I cut out a piece of contact paper and taped it sticky side up on the table. Next we laid down the heart stencil on the sticky side.

He then used the craft supplies to fill in and decorate the heart.

Once he completed one, we would put another piece of contact paper (sticky side down) on top of the heart, securing all of the craft supplies in the middle.

I then trimmed around the heart shapes and cut off the excess contact paper. Ready for gifting!