Fall Scavenger Hunt

On this chilly and rainy weekend, it's hard to remember back a week to the gorgeous fall days we've been having up until now. But, really, we've been pretty lucky this fall season. We've had so many incredible weather days.

It was on one of these beautiful days that the boys and I took a quick walk up a local trail after school. As we hiked we used this printable scavenger hunt to collect some fun fall items! 

Comb Painting with Kids

Comb painting is one of those cool kid activities that has been around for a while and yet it is still classically loved by many. In our house we discovered it several years ago, although I had seen preschool teachers and art teachers use the technique before trying it ourselves.

One of the best parts about comb painting is the materials are likely ones you already have on hand, and if not they are pretty cheap to buy.

Colored Gems on the Light Table

Several years ago we got a light table for free by posting through a local email list group. Our light table is an old, homemade, wooden photographer's box, and it's perfect for the type of play we do. I'm always on the lookout for cheap or free objects we can use on the light table, so I was excited last month when I spotted these colored gems.

I found these gems by chance in the pet section of Walmart. These colorful gems are actually made of plastic and they are a great size and weight. There are some specific color sets, or you can buy one set with several mixed colors. For our play I bought two multi-colored bags. 

Playdough Invitation to Build a Rainbow

The other day we had a friend over and I decided to set up an easy and colorful playdough invitation. Although the boys all created their own versions of a rainbow, because of the high energy they had that day, it wasn't quite as peaceful as imagined when I set it out. (There was a lot of monster and smashing talk while they built the rainbows . . .) But, there creations were colorful! And we were a little bit calmer afterwards.

Earlier this winter we adapted our basic cooked playdough recipe to make a white sparkly snow playdough for our snowmen at work playdough invitation. This white playdough has been a great base for other playdough invitations, including this one. 

Crepe Paper Rainbow Collage

We're stuck in this funny place: winter but not really winter at the same time. Very little snow outside but enough so that we can not go out without snow pants. Too cold to really spend the day out there, but nice enough to feel like we have to get outside for something. Everything is brown, white, and gray. So this week we've decided we need to add some color to our world which has included some fun rainbow play.

Last year around this time we made St. Patrick's Day Windsocks using crepe paper streamers, and as we still have the crepe paper, we put it to use again.

For this project we not only used the crepe paper, but another favorite material: contact paper. We've used contact paper to create a rainbow before too, in an original Sticky Rainbow Collage project. For this collage we used a similar process, although we knew we wanted it to hang the finished product in the window. 

Heart Play on the Light Table

Valentine's Day is coming, which means it's a great time to create and play with hearts. A few years ago I bought these fun plastic hearts at The Dollar Tree. We've used them in other sensory play ideas before, like this Valentine's Day Sensory Bin.

But the other day I was inspired to try them on the light table. 

Little Brother and I were home on a pretty dreary and rainy afternoon, looking for some ways to brighten up the rest of the afternoon when we got out the Valentine's supplies and remembered these colorful hearts. 

Painting Shiny Fall Leaves

This has been one of the best foliage years I can remember, colors just popped all around us. So while the trees were showing their beautiful colors, we were inspired to create our own fall leaves at home.

To create colorful and shiny fall leaves, we used an unusual painting material I've enjoyed using with students before: corn syrup. 

Jelly Bean Math (3 Preschool Play Invitations)

Big Brother was under the weather this week, and looking for a pick me up, which meant it was the perfect time to introduce some of the jelly bean math play invitations I'd had up my sleeve.

In the past we've enjoyed using candy hearts at Valentine's Day to practice early math skills. So with Easter coming up jelly beans made lots of sense for more candy math play invitations. For our play invitations we used Teenee Beanee American Medley Jelly Beans , which comes in six colors. 

Toddler Color Sort Box

As I've mentioned before, I'm often looking for ways I can capture Little Brother's attention with a "quieter: activity. He has loved "drop" activities for quite a while now. Other drop activities we've created before include a pom pom can drop, the simple straw drop, and a big bottle ball drop. For this activity I was inspired by my husband's poker chip set (because he's not using them anyway) and a small shoe box to create a Toddler Color Sort Box.

We've tried some color sorting activities with Little Brother before, including a pipe cleaner color sort, but this was our first time using three colors. The poker chips were a perfect sorting material because of their size and distinct colors. 

Mess Free Color Mixing on the Light Table

We love participating in the Virtual Book Club for Kids, and this month the author is Ellen Stoll Walsh. We enjoy several of her books, but particularly love the story of three little color mixing mice in Mouse Paint.

A while back we did a color mixing wheel based on the book, so this time I was looking for a different idea. As we're still in the dark days of winter I decided to incorporate the light table in our play. 

It's not often these days I get any time alone with Little Brother, but last weekend Daddy and Big Brother were on their own adventure so we had some down time together. Perfect opportunity to do a toddler focused color mixing activity.

Indian Corn Sensory Play

Last week we explored Indian Corn. This material has proven to be great for exploring different types of sensory play. The textures and colors have been just one way we've been able to get into our explorations.

First we painted with the corn cobs, which gave us colorful, textured prints. Later, after the cobs had dried, we created a different type of exploration: Indian Corn Sensory Play.

In getting ready for this play experience, I started reading a little about indian corn, also called flint corn. There is a great article over at the History Channel which gives a little more information about the story behind the corn. 

To set up for our play experience we put the ears of corn into a our large, plastic tub. With it the ears we added a miniature muffin tin, large tweezers, and a magnifying glass. 

Leaf Color Match Walk

Our Quick Pick and Project of the Week involved another nature walk. Nature walks have really been a great activity for us this fall as it involves all of us, being outside, and enjoying a place we're so lucky to live in. 

Leaf Color Match Walk

For this walk I wanted to link it to the approaching season and the leaves which are beginning to change.   

Dot Sticker Coordinates (with free printable)

Big Brother has been interested in board games for quite a while, and it's been really fun to explore different games with him. Lately he's wanted to try playing the game Battleship, but we're still finding it hard to modify that game for him to really be able to play. (It's really meant for older children.)

In the meantime, I created this Dot Sticker game which helps practice reading and using coordinates so he can work towards playing the game and also practice this math and science skill.

Pipe Cleaner Color Sort

One of my goals for this fall is to create more purposeful learning opportunities for Little Brother.

As he gets older we have more skills and concepts to explore. Although we've done activities which involve "dropping" or "pushing" objects into containers, this was the first time I've added a sorting element for Little Brother. Although I knew he was a little young, I wanted this to be an activity he could grow with, so I made it a two color sorting activity.

I was inspired to use pipe cleaners and spice containers together from a toddler activity post over at Teaching Mama. (She used a parmesan container, but it looked a lot like our spice containers.) 

Sticky Rainbow Collage

This is definitely the time of year when we need a little color in our world. It feels like it will be forever until spring arrives. As we were in search of a little color, and I was feeling inspired by all the St. Patrick's Day rainbows I see popping up online, I decided to set up a Sticky Rainbow Collage.

In January we discovered the fun of sticky collages, and now we've tried both a used wrapping paper collage and an arctic collage. But this was the first time I've drawn on lines for our work.

Ribbon Rings

Little Brother is an early walker; he's been walking since just before Thanksgiving which means that by this point in time he is really cruising. These days we're often looking for ways to entertain Little Brother as he only wants to be moving and can often find himself getting into things that we don't want him discovering.

I noticed the other day he liked dragging blankets behind himself and thought he might find something with ribbons fun to pull. Today as I watched him play with some mason jar lid bands, I realized they were the perfect thing to tie ribbons to.

Materials include four to a dozen pieces of ribbon, at least a 18 inches long each, and mason jar bands. (I used wide mouth bands.) 

At first I just used some ribbon scraps. I folded each piece in half and looped it through itself around the ring. After I completed the loop, I again tied the ribbon on the outside of the ring. 

After I made a few rings with scraps, I couldn't resist making a "rainbow ring" with new pieces of ribbon. In the end we had three rings.

Little Brother did enjoy walking around the with the rings, dragging them, and even trying to put it on his head like a hat. 

Big Brother also couldn't resist the ribbon rings, which is why we made more than one. He decided to start a dance party with the rings. 

By the end of the evening, they were hanging on our bedroom door knobs awaiting some more fun tomorrow.

On a side note, you've probably noticed that for the past month Little Brother has a large band-aid on his forehead in most of our posts. Unfortunately, as a casualty of being an early walker, he took a spill into a hard object and needed to get stitches, twice. Although the stitches are out, the cut is still healing and the tumbles still happening, so we've decided it's just safer to keep it covered. We're looking forward to some pictures without the bandages soon. 

This post may also have been shared at some of these terrific link parties. 

"Mouse Paint" Color Wheel

Earlier this year we discovered fun, color changing bath tablets. These fizzy tablets come in blue, yellow, and red and are great for breaking up bath time boredom. We find them at a local pharmacy at a great price. We've loved exploring what colors we can create when we drop two tablets into the bathtub.

The other day inspired by our bath time color fun, we read Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh. We also had my Little Niece visiting (who's the same age as Big Brother) and both three year olds loved the book. Three white mice dip themselves into three different paints and then dance in different colored puddles. In the end they wind up with even more colors than the three they started with! It's a great way to help teach kids about color mixing.