Tin Foil Christmas Ornaments

 You will need:

A recycled cereal box

foil

cookie cutters or stencils

tape

glitter glue

hole punch

ribbon

1. Trace Christmas shapes using your cookie cutters.

2. Cut them out and cover with foil and secure with a piece of tape on the back.

 3. Have your little ones decorate the ornaments using glitter glue.
4. Punch a hole at the top or your ornament and put a ribbon through the hole and tie it.

5. Hang your new creations on the Christmas tree!

Bento Box Picks

My sister sent my little ones these adorable bento box picks. They are just so cute! They made snack time extra fun! She also uses them for lunch time in those cute little plates for poaching eggs. They make great compartments for little diced up food. 

Beginning Sounds Balloon Game

You will need: two ballons, a sharpie, minimal artistic skills

Blow up two balloons. One one write letters, and on the other draw pictures of things that start with that letter sound. 

To play throw the balloon with the letters up in the air and have your little one catch it. Have him choose a letter he is touching when he catches it and tell you what sound the letter makes. Then throw the second balloon with the drawings and have him find the object that begins with that letter sound. We began with letter A-I and then gradually added more letters and drawings. 

This was a great activity for my active boy. He wanted to keep playing and playing!

Little Pintesters: Junk Match Busy Bag

 

We love Pinterest! I recently pinned THIS activity and threw it together in less than five minutes with stuff I had lying around the house.

They're called Junk Match bags. You pretty much grab an assortment of small objects you have around your house, trace them on cardstock and put them all in a gallon ziploc bag. That's it! Easy! Then have your little ones match the object to its outline.

Outline all the random objects

Place them in a large ziploc bag. You may need to trim the cardstock a little bit to make it fit.

 

Let your kids have fun!

This is probably the easiest activity to put together!
TIP: The cardstock can be laminated to make it last longer.

We give it a BIG 10!

Here are some more ideas to make this activity even more fun and educational:

• Make themed bags for holidays with small holiday objects from the Dollar Store
• Make alphabet bags each with objects starting with a certain letter for practicing letter sounds
• Bags can be themed around shapes or even color

Please let us know in the comments if you try this activity and if you come up with more fun ways to use it.
 

Falling Leaves ABC Game

You will need: 

Construction Paper

Scissors

marker

Basket

I made 26 leaves by cutting construction paper and wrote upper and lower case letters on each leaf. Then I gave them to my little one and had him throw the leaves and high as he could. He loved that part! He then made sure all the letters were facing up. I would call out a letter and he would put it in our little basket. Then we would talk about what words began with that letter sound. Great game for letter recognition and sound recognition. 

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.