Transporter Truck Addition 🚚

Anything with wheels are a favourite with the Mini! So I base a lot of our activities around vehicles.

This one here features Transporter Trucks carrying numbered cars.

🚗 The little guy had to solve the simple addition problem in each car slot to get a number.

🚗 He had to then find the car with that number and place it in it's slot inside the Transporter Truck!

🚗 Placed a few pebbles, for him to use as counting manipulators.

The Paper Dolls Craft ✂️

One of Mini's latest favourite books is The Paper Dolls by Julia Donaldson. It's a simple sweet book about a little girl and her 5 paper Dolls who always hold hands.

We love adding props to our book reading sessions. The little one asked me yesterday to help him make similar paper dolls. I promised we will do it as an after school activity today and so we did!

Ice Cream Shop Pretend Play 🍦🍧🍨

I had set this up a few weeks ago, for the little guy. He loves playdough and also ice creams... Combine the two, and it was a hit! 😄 The setup might look like a lot, but it hardly took me a few minutes to put it all together. 

I already had some homemade playdough of different colours lying at home. I only made a fresh batch of playdough with a hint of vanilla essence to make the Vanilla 'Ice Cream'! :)

A little chalkboard name board for his store. 

Muffin tray to hold the various 'flavours'. 

An upcycled carboard box to hold the 'ice cream cones'.

Magnetic or Non-magnetic Sensory Bin

The little one was introduced to magnets earlier this month through the DIY Magnetic Fishing game, that we played at the his birthday and more recently through the Magnetic Paper Plate Maze we made last week.

So lately, his curiosity around how magnets work, is high! He goes around the house with his little magnetic stick (from the maze game) or the fishing hook trying to see what sticks to his magnet and what doesn't! 😅

Introduction to Addition ➕ a DIY maths busy box.

A few months ago, something came up that made me show the Mini simple addition using my fingers. He was so mesmerized by 'plus' that he requested for a 'plus activity!'.

As much as I was delighted that he understood how I set up activities based on his interests 😀, I didn't want to, as he is yet to learn the concept of addition at school. I usually prefer going in pace with his teachers.

But next day, as soon as he came back from school, he asked if I had set up the 'plus activity'! 😁 Well then, follow the child they say! So, I set this maths busy box for him. I wanted to keep it as simple and straight forward as possible.

Dominos Choo-choo Train Addition 🚂

Going with Mini's craze for vehilce related play, I based this one around Choo Choo Trains.

➕ In a sheet of paper, I drew little trains with cabins exactly the size of domino blocks.

➕ Wrote numbers on the cabins.

➕ Placed the domino blocks beside the trains.

➕ He had to pick a block, add the dots, find the total and place it on the correct cabin.

 The little Thomas train was like meant to carry domino blocks!! So perfect 😁

Numbers Pizza Puzzle

Numbers and Value Pizza Puzzle 🔢🍕

I made a simple puzzle with craft paper, to help the little guy understand and correlate numbers with their values.

ABC Pizza Puzzle

Mini loved the Numbers Pizza Puzzle which I had made for him earlier (a few posts back) that he asked for a letters puzzle next... So here it is! 😀

Rummaged through my stickers collection and managed to put together a few letters.

Roll - Add - Hunt - Stamp ❤️

A fun hearty math activity for Valentine's week.

💗 Drew a big heart on a sheet of paper and wrote numbers (2-12) randomly. I placed a few felt hearts to be used as counters.

💗 I asked the little guy to roll the pair of dice, add the dots, find the number on the sheet, dip the stamper in red paint and stamp the number with a ❤️

Learning Directions with Toy Cars

Car Parking🅿️: Left, Right or Center?

A simple activity to reinforce the little guy's understanding of the basic directions - left, right and center.

Playdough Kits - Some More!

Fire Emergency Playdough Kit

Our love affair with Playdough Kits is going strong and with each kit, I am seeing a lot of learning through play happening.  If you have missed our first post on Playdough Kits, do hop over to my previous post on it and read up on them. We have the following kits on that post:

• Construction Site Playdough Kit
• Cupcake Playdough Kit
• City Playdough Kit
• Land and Sea Playdough Kit

Farm Playdough Kit

Also, if you are looking to make your own batch of playdough, here is how we make our Homemade Playdough. Its super simple and we really love the texture! The playdough that we use are all homemade

I consider a thoughtfully put together playdough kit as a little investment in time that I am making. I may take about 15-20 minutes to put together a kit and what results in hours of freeplay and endless creative learning for the Mini. It is worth every bit of my effort.

Bee and Garden Playdough Kit

The best part? I have spent absolutely nothing to make these kits, except of course the box itself, the rest of the little items are all parts of his existing toys, items lying around the house or craft supply. I love that I am able to re purpose items from his toys that are usually lesser played with. These kits give a whole new dimension to them and rekindles his interest, while in reality, there is no new items at all. Just presented in a different fun way!

Funny Faces Playdough Kit

Here are our kits from last few days... We totally absolutely LOVE them. I do hope you get some ideas and inspirations while here and get playdoughing with your little one! It is worth it all :)

Funny Hairdo - Straw Blow Art

Every now and then I try to set up an artsy craftsy activity for the little guy. He shows as much interest in these, as with the other games that I plan for him. So that makes it even more fun for me to put these together for him. I look for ideas and inspirations that require minimal prep and simple to execute craft projects for him, as hes only 3.6 currently so it should be doable by him with minimal help from me.

This art project really caught my attention and I immediately set it up for him. I did have to help him all through - drawing the face, splotching on paint dabs onto the paper and also with the blowing! But he enjoyed the process and we had fun together :)

Playdough Kits

Construction Site Playdough Kit

Recently I came across this interesting concept of Playdough Kits and we love them! It's basically putting together loose parts along with playdough based on different themes, as open ended play invitations. Playdough has always been loved by my boy, with these kits I am primarily trying to tingle his creativity and give new play dimensions to good old playdough!

Cupcake Playdough Kit

I am big on organizing and absolutely love a good storage solution! The box I use for my Playdough Kits is a dry fruits box I got on Amazon. The mat is a silicon baking mat from Ikea. It is perfect for playdough play, zero mess!

City Playdough Kit

I let these kits sit in his play shelf for a couple of days until the interest is alive. He pulls them out himself and sits to play. I have a box full of loose parts that I store away, and intent to use in these kits on rotation. After play, we ensure everything is back in its place until next play session. 

Land and Sea Playdough Kit

These have worked great for us, so sharing here for anyone else who may be interested! :)

Do check our newer post, "Playdough Kits - Some More" for a few more kits that we put together! :)

Playdough Imprints Match Puzzle

A few days ago, we tried a fun little game with playdough and a few small toys. This is almost a no prep activity as its just way too easy to put together. We always have a batch of homemade playdough lying around in the fridge. So that one evening, when we had nothing else planned, I just pulled them out and decided to set this game for the little guy.

If you haven't tried making your own batch of playdough yet, please please do give it a try! Here is how we make our Homemade Playdough.

Its absolutely simple, needs very basic ingredients, its taste safe, its super soft and lasts for months if stored well! Well, we love it and have never ever bought readymade playdough till date.

Bubble Wrap Art - Rainy Day | Toddler Art

This a fun little art project we did recently. I found this idea on Pinterest and gave it a try. We made it as a part of an activity for school, for the theme Rainy Season. We used a sheet of bubble wrap for this and the whole process was pretty fun for the little guy. 

Read on to see how to create this super simple art at home with your mini.

DIY Pushpin Board

Pushpins are great for little hands to work on and develop their pincer grip. A good amount of pressure is required to push a pin down onto a board and the more the little hands practice this, the better for them. Its a fun pre-writing activity to keep minis entertained.

I wanted to try a few activities that needed a pegboard and a geoboard. We don't have both, so I DIYed a Pushpin Board, that now serves as both! I mounted it on a little box for ease of use and am very pleased with the results! 

This is definitely going down as one of my favorite and most productive DIYs. So much learning is a single toy! This is a long post with tonnes of pictures, but definitely worth scrolling through if you are a DIY fan like me who has a little one at home, who you want to keep busy creatively :)

Here are a few activity sheets for our pushpin board. These are great for developing pincer grip and fine motor skills.

• Colour Match - poke the pins on the coloured dots based on colour.

Colour Match

• Number Sequencing - wrap rubber band around the pushpins (0-1,1-2,2-3...etc) in order of numbers.

Number Sequencing

• Letter, Shape and Pattern Tracing - poke pins along the outlines.

Pattern Tracing

Letter Tracing

• Sticker Match - wrap rubber band around the pushpins of similar stickers.

Sticker Match

• Count and Match - wrap rubber band around pushpins of pictures with their corresponding number. 

Count and Match

• The Mini came up with a new activity as well... Random pattern making the pushpin and rubber bands.