Fine Motor Skills: pom-poms in a bottle

Easy one for younger tots - grasping pom-poms with finger and thumb and putting into a bottle.
We also tried with tongs but although B could grasp them initially he let go straight away so we will be trying this again.

Letter A: a is for apple magnet page

Following on from this post  we have created an "a is for apple" magnet page.
The file can be downloaded from here as a pdf.

Making Learning Fun has an uppercase A for free here

Related Pinterest Boards:
Homeschool
Alphabet
Magnet Pages
Plants/Seasons

Learning Letters: Reinventing the Wheel

Why reinventing the wheel? Well the ultimate aim of teaching your little ones letters is to get them to read and write- obvious isn't it.  Alongside letter recognition we have been watching phonics DVD's  (Fun With Phonics and Alphablocks - both from the BBC) and using Jolly Phonics Workbooks 1-7, all of which use lowercase letters.  We even managed to find Chicka Chicka Boom Boom on YouTube  which starts with the lowercase letters (although some uppercase letters make an appearance).   Even your average piece of type nearly all the letters are lowercase.
But when you look at the learning resources I have been using like the magnet pages from Make Learning Fun

they are uppercase. How confusing must that be to a 2 year old?  So in the interest of consistency we are starting again and using lowercase letters first.  Of course this means producing my own magnet sheets etc.  (hence re-inventing the wheel) but there you go.  Resources to follow shortly (I hope - I'm nothing if not the laziest person on the planet sometimes).

Science Sunday: Fun with magnets

This is kind of a learning activity for B that developed a life of its own :)
The original idea - (whilst the older two are at school) Fish shapes in different colours, each with a paper clip on their nose, pick up the fish with the magnet say the colour (we are keeping it simple for our 27 month old and using orange, green and blue).  Simple, classic done by billions of people since the dawn of time - well OK at least since the invention of the paper clip!
Here is what it evolved into:
This magnet thing sticks to these too!

and this

have you seen what happens when you put it in an entire box of these things

"Wow cool!" yep that is a direct quote!

The really interesting thing is that I let him run with it and choose all the objects to test with the magnet and they were all without exception made of metal.
Maybe colours can wait for another day!

Head on over to Adventures in Mommydom for more Science Sunday ideas