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.

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.

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. 

Popsicle Sticks Rainbow Puzzle

My little boy has always loved puzzles. There was a phase a few months ago, when he would pull out all his puzzles boxes one after another and sit and complete them all. His interests in puzzles has slightly dwindled since. He still sits and solves them when reminded or when they have been away for a while, but unlike earlier, it isn't a daily activity these day.

To keep it interesting and to give him more option without actually buying more puzzles, I had done made this DIY Jigsaw Puzzle using the backside of our existing jigsaw puzzle pieces. This again was much loved by the little fellow and was well used.

More recently, he has a great interest in colours. Rainbow colours attract him and he loves singing a little song related to the colours of the rainbow. When I came across this DIY puzzles idea using popsicle sticks on Instagram, I just knew my Mini would love it and got to work almost immediately.

Some jumbo popsicle sticks, colour pens and pencil is all that you need to make this vibrant looking puzzle.  The single jumbled popsicle sticks are pretty confusing to look at on the first go. So, it was a little tough for him to solve all by himself. I had to help him half way through and he would solve the second half by himself.

 I loved making it for him and he loved seeing the rainbow form as he sat working the puzzle through.

Name Hunt and Clip | Name Recognition Game

For the last couple of months, my little boy has been showing a lot of interest in spelling his name. He has a cushion cover that I had sewn for him with his name appliqued onto it. That was where I first noticed his interest in reading the letters of his name when he kept pointing and calling out each of the letters of his name. 

So, I wanted to set up an activity that involved his love to spell out his name and his fondness for cloth clips! This game was set up when the little fellow was napping one day. It took me all of 15 minutes or so to prep it up. Just some cloth line clips, paper and pen is all that you need for this game. 

I tried it with multiple names/simple words in different colours and the entire list in just one colour to see if it makes any difference. It didn't seem to. I plan to try this in lower case and a mix of cases next time. He found the wooden clips too hard, so we switched to plastic ones 

After doing it a couple of times over, he wanted to find my name... So he went ahead and pinned clips against my name on the other side of the paper strip! 

If you have a little one who loves reading out his/her name or is just about beginning reading, this game is for you! Try it out :)

DIY Sound Cylinders

Here is a simple sound matching activity that I set up for the Mini a few months back. These little boxes are actually building blocks encasing different types of lentils within! The objective of this activity is to find one red and one blue cylinder that make the same sound and pair them together. 

This is like a simple DIY version of the Montessori Sound Boxes. I am no expert in Montessori teaching and so have no idea on how such activities are explained or presented to the child. 

I just laid the boxes together on a little wooden tray and explained to him how to match the cylinders based on sound. He seemed to have understood the concept and I was pleasantly surprised to see him match the similar sounding boxes at first go! :) It is a lovely little game to sharpen the memory and also to work on the auditory senses of little ones.

DIY Memory Board Game

Since the Mini has begun showing interest in identifying letters and has always loved puzzles, I thought I will the two together and make a little game for him. Using two cardboard sheets, bottle caps and some basic craft supply, I made this Memory Board game. 

The goal of this game is to find two matching letters hidden away under the little windows. To start with, you have to open one window and read the letter written inside and then open another window to look for its matching letter. If the two letters do not match, you shut the second window and then open another one to again check if it matches the letter from the first window. The key is to remember the letters that are behind each window as you play along and thereby get the matching right as you play further.

The outer panel is like an envelope letting me use multiple worksheets to keep the interest alive and matching options endless! Currently I have made worksheet only related to letters, but I do plan on making more options as his interest widens and once he has mastered these sheets.

This game helps those little minds improve concentration, focus and attention. Identifying letters and numbers becomes fun through this game. And most importantly, it keeps the little ones busy in a fun productive way! 

Muffin Tray and Balls - Colour Pattern Matching Actvity

The Mini has been quite fascinated by colours, just like any other two year old. Colour matching activities interest him a lot and I have been putting together a lot of simple little games using our bunch of colourful plastic balls, play-dough, Popsicle sticks, his toy cars or whatever else that I can find around the house. 

Being a baker Mumma, I have a fair bunch of baking material stocked with me at home. So this particular activity needs a 6 cavity muffin pan. However, if you do not have a muffin tray but do find an equivalent item, maybe six paper cups, six steel cups or whatever you feel will suit the requirement, feel free to use it. Early learning is all about simple fun stuff for me, using simple items and nothing expensive or specially bought material. 

My son was 25 months when I introduced this activity to him. He couldn't get the hang of it at the first go. He just had fun with grasping the balls and placing them randomly in the muffin tray :) Its fine. If an activity engages a toddler for a good amount of time, it is time well spent. Eventually after a couple of attempts, he got it and enjoyed doing it over and over. Try it with your little one!

DIY Picture Matching Activity with Flip Covers

With a young toddler a home, there was this time at home when I had collected so many wet wipes flip covers that I began looking for DIY ideas just so that I could use these up!! :D I loved how sturdy these flip lid covers were and did not have heart to discard them once the wipes packet was empty. So had hoarded almost a dozen at one point!

On one such ideas hunt on Pinterest, I chanced upon a very simple and interesting memory game board that was created using similar flip covers. I tweaked the idea to suit the materials I had at hand and to suit my little boy's interest. 

At 19 months, I did not expect him to understand the concept of finding matching images and actually match them. I just wanted him to experience the joy of flipping open the lids, finding colourful stickers under each, explore and just have fun! And fun he did have! :)

I used a few craft paper, some foam stickers and some glitter stickers to create a couple of different work sheets. It did keep him entertained and curious for a while and in the process helped develop his concentration and also gross motor skills.

Objects Matching Activity

This is probably one of the easiest activities to set up to keep a toddler entertained and busy for a while. You need just a sheet of chart paper and a few objects from around the house, a pen and you are good to go! Its as simple as that. 

The object of this activity is to match the items with their outlines which are traced on the chart paper. Make sure to gather objects that are differently shaped and coloured to make it more attractive and fun for the minis.

My son has a fondness for puzzles and this is a very basic puzzle of sorts. So I knew this would be a hit with him. It was! He enjoyed placing the objects to their respective outlines and then after a couple of rounds, he turned the chart paper around and began matching the objects upside down! :D 

These little humans definitely know how to entertain themselves at times :) 

DIY Jigsaw Puzzle | Two-piece Toddler Puzzles

After having introduced my little man to chunky puzzles, next up on my list was to create simple two-piece jigsaw puzzles. I wanted to keep it really simple, attractive and fun for him to play with. I have a few shop bought 2,3 pieces puzzles, but I wanted to begin with homemade ones first.

So after looking around for some ideas I came up with this idea. Using cardboard scraps, coloured paper bits some googly eyes and coloured pens, I was all set to create my own little pack of jigsaw puzzles for my toddler. 

It is super easy to put together that it was all completed in a single nap time, that is around 1 hour or so. My 16-month-old couldnt solve the puzzles, but enjoyed the googly eyes and loved handling the cardboard 

DIY Chunky Puzzle

At 15 months, I had not yet introduced chunky puzzles to my little boy. I was not sure if he would understand the concept or if he would really like it. I was not sure what kind of puzzle to start with as he is yet to identify objects, fruits, veggies etc and yet to relate to them. 

So I decided to make my own frugal puzzle with bright attractive colours and simple basic shapes. I used cardboard scraps, bottle caps and colour paper to make this. This is really simple and took me just one nap time (Yes naptimes are my new measure of time these days!) 

My mini loved it and to my surprise was able to put in place most of the pieces. He struggled a bit with the triangle. I am very happy with the way this has turned out and the bottle caps, oh they make for perfect little handles for tiny chubby hands to hold on to :)