More St. Patty's Day Game Ideas

St. Patrick's Day has come and gone, but I thought I'd post a few more activities my boys enjoyed.  Better late than never, right?

I added some plastic shamrocks and green gems to our dried peas and gold/green coins in our sensory tub.  The boys especially liked using the little rake and scoops to uncover the treasures in the box.

I found this fun place value game to use with Mr. One.  You pick a coin and have to place it on the mat to make a 4 digit number.  Once you place your number, you cannot move it.  Whoever has the biggest number wins.  Confession time:  We haven't played this one yet, but I think my first grader will like it.  We'll have to try it out sometime this week before I put it away for next year.

We played roll a rainbow again.  Anything that involves candy is pretty much a sure-fire hit at our house.

Mr. Three loved throwing our split pea shamrocks into a pot (or just at his brothers...).

Looking for more St. Patty's day fun?  Check out my pinboard here, or my side label for St. Patrick's Day.

Jumping Frogs

 
I found a set of 24 plastic jumping frogs at The Dollar Tree last week, and couldn't resist.  We had lots of fun just making them hop around the house.  Mr. Three giggles whenever we get them to jump very far.  Here's a little activity we did with our frogs.

I marked each section of a plastic tray with a number, ones on the outside sections, and two on the middle section.  Each person chose a frog color, then we took turns making them hop.  Then we counted out our points, zero for any frogs that hopped outside of the tray, one point for each frog in the outer sections and double points for any that landed in the center.  Simple and fun. 

If making the frogs hop is too difficult for your little one, try standing up and dropping them into the tray placed on the floor, then adding up the points.

 

Try and jump the frogs onto the blue felt "pond" for a simpler variation as well.

These little hoppers are great for sorting (try using tongs or a spoon to transfer them) and patterning as well.

Or just have fun playing with them any way you wish!

Christmas Tree Lights Game and Some Sewing

Yesterday, I pulled out this Christmas game for my boys to play before bedtime.  It was such a hit that Mr. Two immediately pulled it out and wanted to play with it again this morning!  Thanks to Joyfully Weary for some great activity ideas here.

I found the green foam cone and some plastic light pegs at Michael's for half off.

I put 25 light pegs into each glass custard cup and had the kids take turns rolling the dice and putting that number of lights on the tree.  Whoever uses all of their lights first wins.

Mr. Three had lots of fun rolling the dice while the others played.

After the older boys went to school, Mr. Three tried to play the game on his own.  It was so cute to see him roll the dice, stick a light in the tree and roll again.  Then he discovered how much fun it was just to play with the lights, letting them jingle in the bowl and spill through his fingers.  I forget how much he is growing into a little boy.  Not a baby anymore.

The only drawback to this is that the pegs leave large holes in the Styrofoam, so I don't think it's going to survive more than one year.  Maybe I'll try covering it in play dough or clay to reuse it. 

On another note, I got back into sewing mode last night and finished my boys' bow ties for church.  I think they'll look very dapper indeed!

Beginning Sound Blackout

Mr. Two is really into beginning sounds right now.  We played a Christmas blackout game today that I had already made up.  We took turns drawing a card and matching it on our board if we had the beginning sound for the card (I used stickers for my cards).  If we didn't, it went back to the bottom of the stack.

Keep playing until one player has all of their letters covered for a blackout.  To make my game self-checking, I wrote the name for each picture and the beginning sound letter on the back of each card.

Then I thought about all of the little Christmas miniatures I had on hand.  For a different variation, place one object in a small bag to match each letter on the game board, then instead of drawing a card and matching it onto the board, choose an object to match.

Christmas (Playing) Cards

We have several sets of Christmas playing cards in our house.  Mr. Three loves to open things up like that and dump them all over the floor.  While I was cleaning up one set of cards, I noticed that the Christmas shapes that were used for the suits were all shapes that I had foam stickers of as well.  That got the wheels turning in my head.  For once, I'm happy that my little mischief-making Mr. Three made a mess, because I came up with a fun little preschool game.

First, I dumped out all of the foam shape stickers and had Mr. Two sort them, putting any shapes that didn't match the suits of the cards in a little bowl to the side of the sorting tray.

After we had our four shapes, I placed the set of playing cards (the snowmen) in the center section of the tray (pulling out all of the non-numerical cards and putting them aside first).

Mr. Two drew a card, and placed the corresponding number of shapes on the rectangle tray.  When he was finished, he put the shapes back in the sorting tray and the card in the small dish, then drew a new card.  This was a fun way to practice counting.

I may try and pull this out later and have him play with his older brother or myself, each person drawing and card and counting out the number of shapes to compare.  Or maybe we'll just play war with the cards!

Christmas Game Fail

I found this cute Christmas tree game last year, laminated it and had it ready for my boys to play.  They weren't interested then, so I pulled it out for the family to play tonight.  It started out fine, but Mike and I soon realized that there were just as many "go back" cards as "move forward" ones.  Needless to say, we were stuck at start and not really moving as we went through the cards a few times.  Not fun.

Game fail.

I'm ditching the cards next time.  I'll either be making my own (with just 3 or 4 bad luck cards and at least 12 good cards), or just using a cube with numbers 0 to 4 and one lose a turn space to determine how many spaces to go.  So, fair warning:  If you want to print this game out, the game board is cute, but be prepared to do some modifying.

The Great Race

During Curriculum Night, this is the game that Mr. Two's preschool teacher had out to play and take home.  Although Mr. Two didn't want anything to do with playing it at the school, he really enjoyed playing this one at home.  Go figure.

Here it is:  (I take no credit for this idea, but I'll take credit for recognizing a good thing when I see it! :))

 

The Great Race

You will need:
one lima bean "die", with a 1 on one side and a 2 on the other (write with a sharpie)
game board (The game board is a line of ten boxes, numbered one to ten on a half sheet of cardstock.)
game token(s), which could be just another unmarked bean (oh, a tiny car would be fun as well)

How to play:

 

Each player takes a turn shaking and dumping the lima bean die.  The player calls out the number that is face up on the bean, then moves the token accordingly.  The first player to get their token to the number 10 wins.

Here's the most important part:

When a player moves his/her token, he/she doesn't count the number of spaces he/she is moving.  Instead, he/she names the numbers on the spaces through which he/she moves.

Example:  Let's say that my token is resting on the "3" box and I have "rolled" a 2.  As I move my token along the game board, I say, "4, 5."  If I "roll" a 2 on my next tun, I move my token and say, "6, 7."

This is a bit counter-intuitive, and kids will sometimes forget the rule.  If a child makes a mistake or forgets the name of a number, give him/her a reminder and hep him/her repeat the move correctly.

Have fun with this simple activity that creates stronger number sense.

Simple Logic Game

I have about an hour to an hour and a half of time in the morning where Mr. Two and I have some one-on-one time together, during Mr. Three's nap.  I do love this little bit of time to play games and do chores together with Mr. Two.

Here's a fun little game we played this morning.  You could easily adapt this to use any small items you already have in your home.

What's in my Hand?

You will need:

two matching sets of small objects (we used turtles and frogs, but you could also use plastic dinosaurs, beads, pom poms, buttons, etc.)

a small bag to hide the objects in

Here's how you play:

First, divide your two sets of objects, placing one set in your bag and the other on your table, floor, or  wherever you are playing.

Have one person reach into the bag and choose one object to hide in their hand.  Leave the remaining objects hidden in the bag.

The other person needs to ask yes or no questions to determine which item is hiding in the other person's hand.

As each question is answered, the person asking the questions removes all of the items that are now not possibilities for what is in the other person's hand.

When the questioner has narrowed down the items to one, the answerer opens their hand and they check to see if they match.

Here's one round of play with Mr. Two to give you a better idea of how this is done.

I didn't take a picture of the group of turtles and frogs all together, but at the start of the game, Mr. Two has selected one creature, which is hiding in his hand, and the other animals are hidden in a bag.  The second set of turtles and frogs is on the couch.

Me:  Does your animal have spots?
Mr. Two:  No.
I remove all the animals with spots from the group.

Me:  Is your animal a turtle?
Mr. Two:  No.
I remove all of he turtles.

Me:  Does your frog have two colors?
Mr. Two:  Yes.
I remove all of the solid colored frogs.

Me:  Does your frog have a skinny stripe on its back?
Mr. Two:  No.
I remove the frog with the skinny black stripe.

Me:  Does your frog have blue on it?
Mr. Two:  Yes.
This narrows it down to one frog.  We check to see if this is the same frog Mr. Two has in his hand.

We made a match!  Now we can switch roles and play again.

You can increase or decrease the level of difficulty by controlling the number of objects you are using.  You could either use like or not alike items in your sets.  You could make sets with only plastic dinosaurs, or you may have many different small plastic items in your sets, such as beads, farm animals, wiggle eyes, pom poms, and dinosaurs.

For very young children, you will want to use items that only have one or two differences to make the questioning easier for them to begin.  (Example:  you could use colored bears that are large and small, so they would only have to ask about color and size, instead of being overwhelmed with too many variables.)

Have fun building logic skills through play!

* Linking here and here.

Pizza Post

At storytime this week with Andrew's previous preschool teacher, we had a pizza day.  Here are two of the fun activities we did there.  If you wanted to do these at home, why not add making your own pizza(s) for lunch or dinner afterward?

Pete's a Pizza by William Steig

My kids loved this book and activity.  As the teacher read the book, which is about a grumpy boy whose father decides to cheer him up by making HIM a pizza (rolling him out, sprinkling him with cheese...), we acted out the story with the kids.  There were so many giggles and squeals of delight!  You could not finish making your kids into a pizza without smiles on faces all around.  So clever, and the author was 90 years old when he wrote it!

This is an adaptation to the "Five Brown Buns" chant, but changed to "Five Slices of Pizza"

Draw five pizza slices on a white board and add your own interesting toppings (shapes, letters, sight words, numbers, etc.).  As you repeat the chant, have your child erase the corresponding pizza slice.

Down around the corner at the pizza shop
Were slices of pizza with interesting things on top
Along came (insert child's name) with some money to pay
and saw the one with (insert chosen topping) on it and took it away.

This story time made me hungry!

Make a Match Game

Here's details to one of the games we played together during our game day from my previous post:

I found the original idea for this game in this book, to use with the funtastic frogs* bucket.  I have adapted the game to play without a game board and to use more manipulatives.  It can be played as a partner game or with more players (2-4 players would be best).

Take a small handful of frogs and count out 10 frogs.  Put the rest back into the bucket.

The first player places one frog on the table.  The second player has to make a match with one of their own frogs.  You can match them by color or size.

Players continue to match one of their frogs to the last frog played.  If a player does not have a frog to match, their turn is skipped and the next player can match their frog.

Play continues until either both players cannot match any of their remaining frogs or a player matches all of their frogs.

* If you don't have the frogs, don't worry.  You can adapt this game to use a variety of items you have on hand, just make sure that the objects you are using have two attributes that you can match them with.  (Size and shape, color and shape, etc.)  Here are some things you could use:  buttons, colored pasta shapes, plastic beads, or foam shapes.  This was a game that was fun for both my six and three year old to play.

-linking to ABC and 123 Show and Tell

Game On!

Last week, one of our activities was to create some new game boards and play games together.  I have several game board pattern books from teaching.  I had the boys look through the books and choose a game/ game board they wanted to use, then copied them.  I had them switch game boards, so that they worked on making the game for their brother.  They colored and then we played together.

Mr. One liked making Mr. Two's board, but Mr. One wasn't so thrilled with the coloring job that Mr. Two did on his board.  We had to have a talk about being appreciative and encouraging.

Mr. Two's board was simply a matching activity (they matched the same colored and sized frogs on the board).  Mr. One's board was a race track with two lanes that you could play a variety of games on (more on this in another post).  The third board was one I chose, and it was a matching and critical thinking game that I thought would be appropriately challenging for Mr. One (more on this in the next post).  Mr. Three enjoyed a nap while we played.

The boys had so much fun making new games and playing.  We will have to repeat this activity.

Calendar Puzzles

We pulled out our homemade puzzles this week, and my boys are getting more interested in them now, especially my five year old.  I know this may not be a new idea for some, but it was such a clever and budget-friendly activity that I learned about when I started teaching, that I had to share it.  The dollar stores always have calendars around the holidays, and you can get nicer ones after January at regular department stores as well.

You will need:

2 identical calendars
glue (rubber cement works best, but you can use a glue stick as well)
cardstock or construction paper to back your puzzles
manilla envelopes
laminator (optional, but this will really make your puzzles last)
dark permanent marker
paper cutter or ruler and scissors

To make,

You may need to cut down your calendar pictures to fit them on your backing paper.  Make sure if you do this, that you cut both pictures the same.  Glue one of the two identical pictures to the front of a large manilla envelope.  Back the other calendar picture with your cardstock or construction paper.  IMPORTANT:  You need to really coat the back of your calendar with your adhesive, don't just glue down the edges.  If you don't get the whole surface glued, when you cut your puzzle, it will fall apart.

Next, you need to laminate your folder and your puzzle.  I prefer to laminate the whole puzzle before cutting the pieces so that you have a nice clean edge.  If you really want to seal the edges, cut the puzzle first and laminate the pieces, but it's not necessary.  My puzzles were used for several years and are still in good shape.

Next, measure your puzzle and cut into twelve equal sized squares.  (I found this to be the best number of pieces for younger children- preschool to first grade, but you could make more squares if you had older kids who need more of a challenge)  You may wonder why to cut identical squares, and not unique shapes.  I had a good educating mentor tell me that this forces children to pay attention to the picture and helps with visual-spatial learning.  They are forced to focus on the details of the picture and orient the squares in order to form the picture themselves.  This is more challenging than it seems.  Another bonus is that it is much easier to cut simple straight lines with a paper cutter than to form jigsaw pieces by hand...

If you are making multiple puzzles, label your envelope with a number or letter of the alphabet and label each piece with the same number or letter.  When I taught, I had 26 puzzles, one for each letter of the alphabet.  This made for easy clean up when they were in a center with multiple children.

Place your pieces into the corresponding envelope.  Now, for just a few dollars, you can have twelve new puzzles for your kiddos!

Puzzle away!

Linking to ABCs and 123s.

Jump Frog Jump

This month, we have been attending a family story time each Monday and Wednesday morning. It's taught by Mr. One's preschool teacher and another preschool teacher.  We have loved all of the stories, activities, crafts and fun.

Frog day was one of our favorites.  We read lots of fun frog books, sang "Five Little Speckled Frogs", made puppets to act out the song, then made this little game.  We had so much fun playing it at home, I thought I'd share it with you, along with two frog book recommendations.

Jump, Frog, Jump!

You will need:

one game board (I laminated mine for extra durability) 
four different colored frogs (or another colored manipulative of your choice, just make sure you have four different colors, such as four bear counters)
one die

To make your game board, create a grid on cardstock.  You will need 4 boxes across and six boxes down.  Bold the line under your first row of boxes and your last row of boxes.  Write "Finish Line" across the last row of boxes to indicate your ending point.  Laminate for durability.

You can find a template to make your own die here.   Color a circle of color that corresponds to the colors of your manipulative colors on four of the sides of your die.  Write "Roll Again" on the other two sides.  For our game, we had a blue, green, pink and yellow frog, so our die had blue, green, pink, and yellow circles and two "Roll Again" spaces.

Place all of your frogs in the top boxes, behind the bold line.  This is the start.

Each player takes a turn rolling the die and moving the corresponding colored frog one space.

If a player rolls a "Roll Again" then they roll until they get a color.

Take turns rolling and hopping the frogs until one reaches the finish space.

I love this game for several reasons.  First, it is non-competitive.  No person is a winner or loser.  Everyone plays together to see what frog reaches the finish line first.  It is simple enough for my two year old to play and short enough to keep his attention.  It is easily adaptable to other themes.  You could race bears, or ocean animals, etc.  by just changing your die and your manipulative.  An added bonus is being able to chant "Jump frog jump!"  each time we move a frog!

Speaking of Jump, Frog, Jump!...

Read the book, by Robert Kalan

This is a simple story with the refrain "Jump, frog, jump" throughout the book.  Find out what Frog must jump from.

Frogs by Nic Bishop

This book has amazing photographs of frogs from all over the world, from the jungles to the deserts, exotic and rare to the common bullfrogs.  This is a more wordy read, too long for the younger preschoolers, but full of fascinating facts.  At the end is a two page explanation from the author about his work that is just as interesting as the frog facts.

"Hoppy" reading and playing!

*book images from amazon.com