Little Pintesters: Toilet Paper Tube Fun!

Here are two activities you can make using empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes.

The first one is a fun game my boys absolutely loved. Found HERE. You take the tubes and cut them up into different sizes and you tape them onto a cookie sheet or tray. Then you take a small ball and the kids have fun tilting the tray and making the ball go through the "tunnels." To make it more complicated you can add more balls. FUN!

Our Score: 10

The second activity found HERE (This a great website if you're teaching your preschooler at home). You take six tubes and cover them with colored paper. Then you glue them onto a long piece of cardboard or cardstock and onto each other. I used a glue gun and it worked very well. You label each tube with its corresponding color. You can have your little ones sort all kinds of objects. We've used popsicle sticks, pompoms and beads so far.

Our Score: 10

 

The best part of these activies is that they cost little to nothing to make! 

 

Five Little Pumpkins Free Printable

Found a cute little book here on this website I love! DLTK'S Crafts for Kids has coloring pages, craft ideas, worsheets, etc for Holidays, and teaching. Great resource for early elementary grade levels and toddlers. This is a great little mini book the kids can color and learn the rhyme too. You can also print it out  in color if you'd like. 

Little Pintesters: Acorn painting

 This fun activity was found here as I was browsing Pinterest. 

You will need:

An empty oatmeal canister

construction paper

acorns

paint

 Line the oatmeal canister with your paper and add some dollops of paint to the inside or the canister also. Toss a few acorns inside. Close the lid and shake it up. That's the really fun part!

 I loved that this was a mess free painting activity. I also liked that my 1 and a half year old and my four year old could both do it. I often try to find activities that they can both do so neither of them feels left out. This was PERFECT! It's definitely a do over. My four year old especially liked it. For some reason he is really into collecting acorns and playing with them. Fun, fun, fun, fall activity! This can also be done for other occasions using marbles, similar to this activity we did a while back. 

Score: a big 10! 

Halloween Glass Jar Lanterns

This a less sleek and less perfect looking "kid" version of the jar lanterns found on one of my favorite websites here. 

What you will need:

empty glass jar

mod podge

brush

tissue paper

black construction paper

tea light

 Instead of cutting in strips like the original post we decided we would rip our tissue paper apart into little pieces. Then we "mod podged" it onto our glass jar trying to cover every empty space. We then we cut out eyes and mouths out of construction paper and also adhered them with mod podge. 

We let the mod podge dry and then put a battery powered tea light inside to make it more safe for kids. Spooky, don't you think!

Little Pintesters: Homemade Finger Paint

 Back for another Little Pintesters post where our little ones test out pins we find on Pinterest. 

This recipe was found here. 

Ingredients:

3 T. Sugar

1/2 t. salt

1/2 c. cornstarch

2 c. water

food coloring

Combine ingredients in a small sauce pan. Mix and warm until mixture reaches desired consistency. Let cool. Pour into containers. Add food coloring to make desired colors.

The verdict: this was easy to make. I like that you can adjust the consistency to make it thicker like finger paint, or less thick for painting with brushes. The blogger of the original post suggests doing so if desired. It came out pretty thick. Next time I'll add a little more water if they will be using sponge brushes. 

This activity actually really entertained both my four-year-old and my 1 and a half year old. They were entertained for almost 45 minutes. Which is a long time for them!! So much fun.

Score: 10 out of 10 !!

That's all for now! Let us know if you try this activity and if it's successful for you :)

Chalk Roads

Here's a quick and easy idea my little ones enjoyed for several days. They still ask for it now! All you need to do is draw roads using sidewalk chalk. They had a great time playing with their trucks and cars. If your little ones are a little older you can even have them help draw the roads and maybe even add stop signs, lights, houses and buildings.

Little Pintesters: Wacky Sacks!

I found THIS fun idea I wanted to try for the kids I teach in the nursery at my church. It looked simple and fun so we gave it a shot.

All you need are balloons (larger are better), playdough (I made my favorite recipe. Found HERE), and a permanent marker

You start by stretching the balloon open as much as you can. The adult has to do this. It's too hard for little hands. The orginal post said to shape the playdough into a snake and have the child stuff it into the balloon. We just did little chunks. It was easier for the little ones.

 Now close the balloons and draw some funny faces with a permanent marker.

 Now have fun with them! Squish them, toss them, play hot potato, play catch, shape them into funny shapes, and when you're done playing with them you can take the playdough out and let the fun continue!

I would give this project a 9 out of 10.

Why? They were super easy to make and the kids loved them so much we had to make more for siblings. My little ones even wanted to keep them during their nap. It doesn't earn a perfect 10 because the faces started to wear off. My little one kept asking me to redraw it.

There you go! Wacky Sacks! So fun!



How Many Gum Balls?

I bought a cookie sheet at the dollar store and wanted to find a way to incorporate it to our preschool Tot tray weekly activities or "juegos" as my little one likes to call them. I once saw a printable on this blog that I thought my little one would enjoy. I decided to draw my own and hot glue some magnets to  pom poms and, voila! We now have a fun activity to practice numbers and counting. The numbers we used are just made from old milk jug lids and I used a sharpie to write the numbers.