Bean box – I dumped a bag of pintos and a bag of black eye peas into a plastic bin with a lid and added 2 small bowls and some small measure spoons and scoops.
Counting Sorter – I took an old ice cube tray and labeled the compartments 1-12 with my label maker. I’m going to dig up some pony beads to go in here or better yet, small rocks.
Printed a few activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler re. to abc’s and numbers.
These will help get us started when added to what we have.
I’ve got a post and pictures here to add on to the bean play idea. Add some plastic bugs to hide in the “dirt” (black beans) and add some fake flowers, pot shovel, they can arrange flowers! There are some other ideas listed under “Let’s Pretend” section of the blog:
My DD’s all-time favorite toy right now is a recycled parmesan cheese shaker. She uses one in the bathtub, one at my parent’s pool, one with the bean tub, etc.
I am into recycling and reusing to a point of it being a bit OCD LOL! If it scoops or sprinkles, I most often save it (spice containers, laundry detergent scoops).
I also have some plastic tongs in DD’s bean/pasta tub. I LOVE the idea of hiding bugs and/or plastic flowers in it. I need to make a run to the dollar tree.
I also have a sand tub (another plastic tub with a lid). All three of our littles like this. Actually I use it with 12YO and 9YO for a different way to practice spelling words.
We use it only outdoors, but that is another idea if you school outside some. Can use the same manipulatives you would have in your bean/pasta tubs.
I have hidden coins in it for DS and DD to find, and then we work on naming the coins as they find them. You could use that idea with many things.
I just finished my little cheat sheet for my School Notebook. It is complete with ideas to pull out for our 2YO and also some general guidelines for what to work on in Math (very basic and I envision this going on for several years).
Using pianogirl’s link, I made the popsicle stick puzzle and it is so cute! I pasted a family picture on the sticks and followed directions accordingly. After drying for 24 hours, it was easily cut and I wrote numbers on the bottom to show dd3 the order of sticks. I plan to do more using old Dover artist postcards. I have a lot of these of previous studied artists and this is a perfect opportunity to use them!
Must be the hot weather, but my creative juices started flowing lately (which rarely happens anymore believe me!) Since my dd9 is wanting to learn sewing, we sewed a cute pocket purse of felt that houses letters of my preschoolers name (the letters were cut out of different colored felt too). On the front of the pocket is her name outlined with a permanent marker to show what order to place letters.
None of that probably makes sense, but it was super cute and fun to do! I think this will make a fun gift for little kids too!