Play At Home Mom LLC (2024)

My girls love these little Pop-Its. You can usually find them in local stores around Memorial Day and July 4th. However, if you have a hard time finding them you can always order them online. Amazon has a pretty big selection.

POP-ITS... found at our local grocery store.

I drew 10 letters on the driveway with chalk and put a circle around them. I only started with 10 because I didn't want them to be overwhelmed.

My girls can recognize all the letters of the alphabet so we've been exploring letter sounds. I would say the letter sound, and then they would throw a Pop-It inside the circle with the corresponding letter.

"Look, it's /K/ /K/ K."

Throwing a Pop-It on letter D.

My 3 year old loved this. She would get so excited every time she found a letter.

"Over here, over here!! It's /V/ /V/ V!!!!!

AK was inspired by this post, only she did it with water balloons. She wanted to incorporate bother letter names and sounds, so she stated - "The name of the letter is __, and the sound is __. Can you find it?" She also included the words 'off' and 'on', because her son recognizes these two words thanks to their blender and all of the green smoothies he makes. :)

Water balloons!

MORE IDEAS:

Sight words
Numbers
Math facts
Counting
Name recognition
Colors
Shapes
etc

RL

"Embrace their childhood."

What does that mean?

Does it mean let them run wild with no boundaries?

No.

Does it mean take them to the beach to play while you read?

Well, we all need some down time, but no.

It probably means different things to different people and on different levels.

For us here at Play at Home Mom, LLC it means following their lead, saying "yes", and rediscoveringour ownchildhoodwith our children. It means doing the best we can to take advantage of every playful opportunity - every day. It means never having to look back and say "I wish I had played more with my children".

Okay, so there may be other ways to improvise and recreate this activity, but our hopes are that after a hard rain we all think outside the box a little and take advantage of mother natures gifts.

RL brought out some rubber ducks to send down the "river". FUN!!

Catching the rubber ducks and enjoying splashing in the water.

I caught two rubber ducks!

Running down the "river" was just as fun as sending the ducks down.

Woo-hoo!!

Crawling through the tunnel after the ducks.

My girls are very interested in letters lately... especially my 3 year old. We did an INDOOR LETTER HUNTa few months back that we play often. Since the weather has been warmer I thought we would take the hunt outside!

To make the letters I purchased Marking Chalk from Amazon.

I created an alphabet checklist they could use to mark off the letters they found.

"I found letter P! Let me see here.... where is it?"

"I found it!"

Letter P in the grass

Letter S in the mulch.

The girls searching for letters.

"I found letter V under the trampoline. That was a tricky one."

We also made some fun games.

Backyard Hopscotch

I also buried a few letters in our garden.

X marks the spot!

My oldest loved digging for "treasures". We plan to do a treasure hunt dig next. :-) Stay tuned!

RL

"Ifit's not in the hand, then it's not in the head or the heart!"

~Bev Bos

Strollingalong a nature trail, throwing rocks into a lake, or playing on a playground iswhere you will find us on most days. Wetypically get out to a park or playground every day, and allow our children totake us on all kinds of adventures. Whata gift it is to see the wonder of the world through their eyes. On one such trip recently, we came upon alake brimming with tadpoles.

YES– We can bring out our nets and catch some for you all to explore.

YES– You may walk into the water with your shoes on (or off).

YES– We can catch more than one.

YES– We can take them home for further exploration and learning.

YES - You may hold them.

Thistype of hands-on learning is ideal -

to spark interest

for better retention

and because its fun.

Thus it begins – the life cycle of a frog adventures.

Catching tadpoles

Watching tadpoles

Scoop 'em up!

Got some!

The wonder!!

YES - You may hold them.

Growth of a Tadpole

"Look, this one is the smallest."

"This one hashind limbs!!! He must be the oldest. Will he be a frog soon? Let me pick him up for a better look."

We watched a short video about the Life Cycle of the Frog

An invitation to explore the tadpoles.

He put one in a petri dish for a better look.

Using a magnifying glass.

"I'm drawing the whole tadpole family."

Our hopes are that thetadpolescontinue to grow and our children get to watch themetamorphosis Once they are frogs (fingers crossed), we will take them back to their lake and set them free.

How rewarding!

Tell me and I'll forget;

Show me and I may remember;

Involve me and I'll understand.

- Chinese Proverb

I think summer play season is here! We are always looking for fun ways to play with water as the temperatures here get HOT and HUMID! A few years we back we did this water play post....

We expanded off that a bit and instead of just squeezing, pouring, etc into the sensory bin I thought I would give them a "canvas".... AKA our driveway.

Some of the items we used.

Watering Ducks (Target Dollar Spot)

Paint Brushes

Bucket

Condiment Bottles

Spray Bottles

Our refill station.

This is much easier than using the hose and having the water running constantly.

My oldest (4.5 years) twirling around with a wet paintbrush.

"Look at the design I am making!"

My middle girl (3 years) making a circle with her paintbrush.

Condiment Bottles

The girls asked if they could add some color to the water.

My oldest discovered that you can mix colors by placing them on top of each other and spraying them with water. So cool!!! I love watching them experiment.

Above is a small blue color tablet on top of a big yellow tablet.

"Look!!!! I'm making green!!!"

We placed some tablets in front of our refill station.

The picture doesn't do this justice! We had a "rainbow river"!

It was also fun to "clean" with the brushes.

Watering the flowers.

RL

A few weeks ago he wanted to be a fireman.

These days, he proclaims:

"Mommy, I don't want to be something when I grow up. I just wanna have fun. I just wanna pick up trash off of the sidewalk. Then I will come home just to eat, and then go back and pick up more trash. Yep, that's what I'm gonna do!"

And then:

"I'm going to make my own food, though. How am I going to know how to do that when I'm bigger?"

I was relieved to know that when he grows up I wont be cooking all the meals anymore. LOL ;)

When it comes to our children, its not about pushing them to "be something" when they grow up, its about supporting who they are in any given moment. Loving them is about giving them the feeling that they can be whatever they want to be by following and nurturing their interests. This is how we foster a love of learning. This is how we send those wonderful underlying messages to our children - you are capable, I trust you, etc.

"That's a lot of trash I got!"

He even collects trash in stores - like Barnes and Noble.

In an effort to support him and his love of picking up trash, we bought him a trash stick for Easter.

Click HERE for a video.

Using his trash stick to pick up trash.