Hey Connie!

Former pre-school teacher now stay at home mom. Sharing fun activities and child development resources. Have a parenting question? Send me a message.

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Pictures for the Bathtub

Supplies: window stickers and a bath tub

I thought of this activity when my son kept pulling the stickers off of the window. I had stuck them on the bottom of my glass door hoping he would enjoy and learn from them. Boy was I wrong! My son found more enjoyment peeling them off of the window and no matter how many times i stuck them back on he would once again take them off. Finally i had an idea. I took the hearts in the bathroom and to see if they would stick to the bathtub and sure enough they did. This worked out really well for me because at the time I was also trying to think of more bathtub actives to do with my son. Once I stuck them in the tub my son loved them! We looked at them everyday discussing their shape, colors, size, and patterns. We also counted all of them and counted them only by size. This was a great learning activity and i’m hoping to continue with other window stickers.

This activity teaches shape recognition, colors, patterns, size, sorting, and language skills.

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Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Activity

You will need: 

The book “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom”, Some sort of magnetic board (I used my dishwasher), and magnetic letters.

While reading “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom” we put the magnetic letters on the dishwasher. We put the letter on as they were named in the book. I only used capital letters with my toddler, but you may want to use lower case letters as well with children in preschool or older.

My son is only one year old, but he did pretty good sticking the magnets on. I did not expect them to be perfectly straight or in the right order. At this age he is just learning that letters exist. I also handed him the correct letters and named them again after reading from the book. I look forward to doing this activity with him when he is in preschool. Then i will let him find the letters himself.

We made it all the way through the book! 

This activity teaches Language skill, alphabet recognition, rhyming, and fine motor skills. I really love this book and hope you will too.

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Easter Sensory Bin

Sensory tubs provide great opportunities for children to explore, feel, and use their senses in a safe environment. i love changing my son’s sensory tub into different themes each month. There are many options for themes that you can use for sensory tubs, giving many different textures for children to feel. Since Easter is coming soon I wanted to make my toddlers sensory tub Easter themed. 

He hasn't had much practice finding eggs yet and the Easter Bunny will soon be arriving with eggs for him to find. This sensory tub theme is a good way for my son and other young children to practice finding the eggs they are not able to see. 

Supplies You Need:

A plastic tub

Different colors of Easter grass

Plastic Easter eggs

Most of the eggs i put in the sensory tub were sparkly colored eggs, but I also found a few holy eggs at the Dollar Tree. These eggs provided an opportunity to talk about the reason why we celebrate Easter, while my son enjoyed looking at the eggs.  Additionally, one of the eggs had a cross on it, we talked about it and compared it to the cross we have hanging on our living room wall.

My one year old found the two holy eggs first that I had put on top.

After observing and discussing the holy eggs for a while I encouraged my son to dig for the other eggs. 

I do recommend finding a small room to do this activity in. I started in my living room, but after cleaning the grass up several times it did become tiring. The Easter grass gets EVERYWHERE, and also produces static that sticks to wood floors making it more challenging to clean. I moved our sensory tub into our small mud room where the grass does not get spread out as much. 

My son and I had a blast playing with this activity. it is so much fun digging through the grass to find the eggs. There were plenty of learning opportunities with activity as well. 

Learning Opportunities: 

Discussing colors

Sorting and Counting

Discussing the meaning of Easter

Shape of the eggs

Searching and exploration by finding objects we cannot see

If you have an older child such as a preschooler you may want discuss how you are not able to see the eggs but they are still there, just like God and Jesus. 

Thanks for taking the time to read about my activity and i hope you enjoy it yourself.

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For the Easter egg activity, can you use white vinegar instead of plain, and will food coloring gel work instead of the liquid ones?

Yes the white vinegar should work just fine. The gel food coloring will work, but make sure you stir it up really well. :)

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Baking Soda and Vinegar Eggs

I recently did this activity with my one year old that turned out to be a cute idea for an Easter gift (see above image).  Most people only think of baking soda and vinegar as ingredients for science experiments, but I have found that these ingredients can also make a great art project. Why not add a little science to your art? :)

Supplies You Need

Food coloring, Vinegar, baking soda, Glue, ice cube tray, medicine dropper, spoon, scissors, construction, paper, and coffee filter. 

Activity Steps

The first step is to pour baking  soda all over the coffee filter.

Mix the food coloring and vinegar together in the ice cube tray. Then use a medicine dropper to drip it over the baking soda. Have fun watching it fizz! The color will also spread along the coffee filter.

After your child finishes putting the vinegar colors on the coffee filter you can let it dry. When the colors are dry, wipe off the left over baking soda and place the filter onto a piece of construction paper. Then cut along the filter and paper to make them into an egg shape (If your child is old enough they can do this part as well). Afterward glue the filter egg to the construction paper egg. When applying the glue, I found it was better to add small drops rather than long lines because the glue showed through.

This activity helps teach children fine-motor skills, colors, science using cause and effect, and shapes  I hope you enjoy doing this activity as much as we did.