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.

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.

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.

Spray the ABC!

Here is yet another fun little game related to letter sounds and this one involves a spray bottle! Need I say more!? :D 

The 3 activities we did on letter sound identification were much loved by the Mini. Listing them here, in case you have missed them. 

• Letter Sounds and Object Match
• Letter Sound (of colours) Car Park 
• Object Hunt and Letter Sound Match - Sensory Play

For this activity, I first secured our wall behind, by taping a water resistant sheet on the wall over which I taped a sheet of paper. On this I had randomly written letters. Along side was a basket filled with random objects and a little spray bottle. The Mini had to pick an item, find the first letter of that item on the paper and spray it! Then move on to the next item until all are done and all letters are sprayed on!

The glee on his face says it all! :D

He had a blast with this one. Along with learning his letter sounds, he was also working his finger muscles by using that spray bottle  - double whammy! :)  I love such fun filled learning activities.

This activity took me less than 15 minutes to set up and minimal effort to clean up. I left the sheet on after he had completed one round of the activity. In just a bit, the paper dried up and was all ready for another round! I was delighted that the paper held for 3-4 rounds of play until the mini decided to attack it all over and sprayed every inch of it with water when it finally gave up and tore! :D

DIY Car Wash

Here is another super simple DIY toy that I made using an empty cardboard box - A Car Wash! With the level of obsession my little boy has for vehicles, I knew this one is going to be a super hit with him and it definitely is! :) 

This little handmade toy is often played with love, by the little one for hours and it is a joy to see him lost in his little world of pretend play. The joy of DIY toys is unparallelled! It gives me such a sense of satisfaction when I am able to make something for my son to play with, using not much but scraps and simple stationery. I am thankful for my constant urge to create and for my passion for DIYing.

If you do have a little vehicle lover at home, and an empty cardboard box lying around, do yourself a favour and make a Car Wash right away! Hours of play for the little one and some me-time for you guaranteed :)

DIY Fuel Pump | Play Fuel Pump

I love a good cardboard box DIY! It makes me so happy to convert an unused, old cardboard box that is just lying around, into something fun and pretty! This is one of my favourite cardboard box DIYs, if I am to choose one from the ones I have made so far.

The little fellow has a big collection of toy vehicles of all sizes - tiny, medium and big! He loves each one and engages in a lot of self play with these vehicles, at least for a few minutes every day. 

He have different props and accessories to pair up with the different sets of vehicles. The tiniest set of vehicles are best played in our sensory rice bin. The medium sized ones are used to play along with play dough. I try to encourage him to keep them separate as much as possible, to avoid messing them up too much and also to up the fun factor! A sticky wheel after a play dough play session is not going to be fun in a rice bin!

So, for the big vehicles, he didn't have any particular prop to pair up as such. He would just run them over cushions pretending it to be speed breakers. Since I had two boxed that seemed just perfect to make a big enough fuel pump to suit the big vehicles, I decided to make it as a play prop for them.

Honestly I am not sure who had more fun - me making the cute little pump or he playing with it! It was just super fun to put this together. I had planned on using the cap of his spray bottle for this DIY, but when I found a store that sells only the spray bottle cap, I was super delighted! The pump turned out way better than I had expected and it is still as good as new, after a month of play.

Clips (Paper and Clothes Clips) Activity Ideas

Last couple of days we have been doing a few simple fun activities using chart paper, paper clips and clothes clip. Primarily for improving fine motor skills while also reinforcing numbers and letters recognition and colours matching. These tiny little clips or pegs as they are also called, are great for developing a good pincer grip in little fingers.

When I first introduced the wooden clips to my little boy, a few months ago, it was for a name recognition activity. He found it really hard to work them. He was unable to open the clips. His tiny fingers were not ready for them and so I kept them aside for a few months and we used plastic clips for the activity instead. 

More recently. we again tried our hands at the wooden clips and this time he was able to work them perfectly! This time around, I first let him work on an activity that used plastic clips, then paper clips and finally we moved on to wooden clips. The difficulty level increased step by step and I am guessing that helped him get the hang of it.

Sharing here, the simple games we played and enjoyed using paper clips and clothes clips.