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! 

 

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.  

Introducing. . . Little Pintesters!: Dying Rice and Pasta

Hi! This is Angela. We're starting a new kind of post on this blog. We will periodically write all about activities, projects, learning games etc. we have found on Pinterest (our favorite resource!). We'll have our little ones test them out so you won't have to! Then we'll rate the activity and how well it worked with our kids. And we'll give suggestions for improvement and whether it would work better or worse with kids of different ages. Your comments are appreciated!

 

Dying Rice and Pasta

I found this activity here: http://thebakerbee.com/2011/09/28/crafts-for-toddlers-rice-noodles/

 

You'll need:

rice or pasta

rubbing alcohol

parchment paper or foil (I used foil- it worked well)

food coloring

a large bowl (preferably one that will not get stained)

spoon for stirring

 

put a couple tsps of rubbing alcohol and 6-10 drops of food coloring into a bowl

add 2 cups of rice or pasta of your choice and stir until it is fully coated

 

set it out to dry on a piece of foil for an hour or two

 

Use it to do art projects, beading, sorting, or in sensory bins like my kids did here.



 



They seriously loved it!! They spent at least 30 min digging out little pompoms and beads and burying plastic dinosaurs and cars. After lunch they asked to play again for another half hour! It was huge a success!

 

I give this project a big 10 out of 10!

It is so versatile that it can work for kids of all ages. The possibilities are endless!

If you've had success dying your own pasta and rice please comment and tell us how your kids played with them.

 

Little Pintesters. . .signing out.



 



Scratch and Sniff Watercolors

Here's a great art activity you make with Kool Aid. So fun and it smells good too. I found the idea here.

ABC Monster Game

I found this idea here. Practice capital and lower case letters or letter sounds. 

Juegos de Eric

I have struggled to really find a method that would help my active three year old learn preschool topics. I think he wasn't ready for some of the things I was trying to do with him, and my method wasn't meshing with his hands-on learning style. I really didn't want to force him or make it seem like a chore. I wanted him to start learning and have a good experience from the very beginning.

I month or so ago I found out about Tot trays. I lay out 5 trays every day on the counter with different learning activities about letters, numbers, handwriting practice, cutting, sorting, and other topics. It really has been a success so far. He calls him his "juegos" (games). He gets to choose which activity to do and how long to do it. He loves having a choice and usually does them all in one day. I switch one or two out every day to add variety.

The activities pictured above can be found here:

Number recognition bingo marker

(I made the printable, but got the idea on the website)

Name puzzle popsicle sticks

Name puzzle on cardstock

Foam numbers with beans

Pre-writing practice strips

Letter "C" sensory bin