Making of Alphabet on wall: Part 1

My earlier post Introducing Alphabet for Toddlers, might have given you some idea on how to help your toddlers recognize the Alphabet. I just wanted to do a detailed post on how I did and what are the supplies I used, so that you could end up in doing a craft activity with your preschooler.

Only for few Alphas we did a craft work, rest I just hung the store bought toy. So let's get into it.

A for Apple:

I just used a red and green pipe cleaner with a red color paper to fill the apple. You can simply make your kid, color the apple on a paper cut it out and paste it on wall. Other choices include Alligator, Airplane, Ambulance.....

B for Butterfly:

Just the Pipe Cleaners, bend it and craft into a butterfly. We all love Butterflies and hence I made many of them, kinda of heading towards the flowers. You can also think of Bumble bee, Bus, Bird...
Check out this Butterfly Collage.

C for Car:
No craft, just hung a toy car!

You can also hang your kid's cap, picture of cow, cat, candle,... Try this caterpillar and Christmas Tree collage.

D for Door:

I pasted the 'D' on the Door, along with a Doggy and a Duck sticker. Make a paper collage of Duck along with your kids and put it on the wall.

E for Elephant:

E is for Elephant, just took a print out of Elephant and pasted it.

Also you can go for egg, eraser, excavotor...

F for Fridge:

Paste the F on the Fridge! Try to introduce a new word which your kid is not familiar with earlier. You can have Flowers, Picture of Fox, Fairy or hang a toy fire engine. Try out this simple fish collage.

G for Grapes:

Used green pipe cleaners to make small circles, and glued it together. You can paste picture of globe, Gorilla, Goat,...

H for House:

I used colored ice cream sticks to make the house and cut pieces of heart from foam sheets. Try out this Heart collage!

I for Ice cream:

To make ice creams I used foam sheets and construction paper. Trace the outline of various layers of ice cream on different colored sheets, cut it out, glue it together. 

You can paste the picture of Indian flag or make an Igloo collage...

The post is getting too big, so let me continue in the next post.

To be continued.....

Collage with Triangles!

Teaching Shapes for Toddlers - With Paper Collage Activity
Part 4 : Triangle

Let's make collage with Triangle shape🔺. We did three collages, a Christmas tree, a fish and a kite!😊😊😊

1. Christmas tree collage with Triangle shape

Supplies:

• Green, White or Gray Construction paper
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• Star shaped stickers (Optional)

1. Cut different sizes of green triangles for the tree. This involves bit work, we need triangles of different sizes and different angles. A quick tip: If you want to make the work easier, I have a template which I downloaded from net😛 You can take a print of this, color it and use for the collage. (I didn't use this template though!)

2. After you cut the triangles, snip the lower half of each triangle to mimic the texture of pine needles and this is purely optional.
3. Make a small rectangle with brown paper for the tree trunk.
4. That's it! All set for making the collage. Let your kids enjoy making the Christmas tree. (Make sure you don't glue on the snipped strips. Just lift the strips slightly to get the 3D effect!)
5. And finally decorate!  We used star stickers. You can use gems, glitter, rhinestones,.. whatever you have.
6. In the background I pasted bits of white paper to give the snowing effect.😉

LO wanted to have "C" on it, " C for Christmas Tree"😊

At the end of this collage activity,

1. Talk about triangle shape used, like the color of triangle, number of sides of triangle and about its symmetry.

2. About Christmas and the snowy December month.

3. Sing the rhyme "Jingle bell, Jingle Bell...."

Try it out and please share your comments.

2. Fish Collage with Triangle shape

Supplies:

• Construction paper - Color of your choice
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• Googly eyes - Optional

1. Make four triangle pieces of different colors and sizes.

2. Help your kids glue it to make a triangle fish.

3. Using the googly eyes is purely optional. You can also make the eye from a white paper and black marker!

3. Kite Collage with Triangle shape

This is very simple to make, do have a try.

Supplies:

• Construction Paper - colors of your choice
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• String - optional

Cut two triangles of same size and of different colors. Then cut smaller triangles to stick on the string.

Glue the triangles to make a diamond shape. Attach the string to the diamond, and paste the smaller triangles on them to complete the kite collage.

Check out this kite rhyme video.

Happy Parenting!

'Heart' Air Balloon Collage

Teaching Shapes for Toddlers - With Paper Collage Activity
Part 3 : Heart 

The next shape in this series is Heart. After lot of surfing ended up with these two. Fun and Simple to make collage for kids, but this time not for me, since I had to cut the heart shaped pieces.😭 I will tell you an effortless way around, you can buy this heart shaped punch online. These punches are available for all shapes and sizes. They are also available on amazon.in. Just surf for the best brand and buy according to your need. I'm yet to buy these!😛

1. Hot Air Balloon with Heart

Supplies

• Construction Paper - Pink, White, Brown, Yellow or Blue
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Marker or Pencil

1. If you don't have punches, cut the heart shaped pieces from construction paper, bit time consuming! 

I will give you a small tip in drawing symmetrical heart. 

a. Initially cut a heart shaped piece from a cardboard, so that you can use this as a stencil. 

b. Fold the paper length-wise, and draw half of the heart. Ensure the top and bottom of the heart always start and end up with the crease. (Thanks to symmetry concept!💗)

c. Draw the hearts along the length-wise of the paper, finally cut them out. 

2. I have cut hearts in two colors, pink and white, you can use colors of your choice.

3. On a yellow or blue sheet trace out a big hot air balloon. For the basket of the balloon, I have cut brown squares and used small strings for the rope.

4. Now the preparatory work is over, let your kids have fun in making the collage.

5. LO is now bit well versed in making collage, he is aware of the fact not to cross the outline while gluing the pieces. 

6. If you have punches of smaller size and or could have the heart pieces cut in smaller size, this collage might look more prettier.

At the end of this activity,

• Talk with them about the heart shape.
• Relate with them any previous experience in playing with heart shapes or any book you read about heart shape.
• Sing with them the rhyme "My red balloon, flies high flies high".
• Inflate a balloon and give them as a surprise.

2. Heart Collage with Heart shape

  Supplies

• Construction Paper - Colors of your choice
• Scissors
• Glue Stick
• Marker or Pencil

How do we make it:

1. Get the hearts ready using the punches 😁or cut using the scissors!😭
2. Draw a biggg heart on white paper using the symmetry concept. 

3. Thats it.. we are good to go. Let your kids stick the hearts pieces to the heart💕 The final collage is gonna be fabulous!

4. I just guided LO, to not stick the same colored hearts in cluster, now and then.

All through the activity LO imagined the heart pieces to be butterflies, and he kept saying "yellow color butterfly, orange color butterfly..." Before sticking each heart piece, he took it and flapped the two sides like the two wings of the butterfly, made it fly high in the air... 😊I'm sure he enjoyed playing with the heart pieces more than making the collage😛

Happy Parenting!😊

Igloo and Train with Squares!

Teaching Shapes for Toddlers - With Paper Collage Activity 

Part 2: Square 

In this Shapes Collage series, the second shape is square. We did two collages, an igloo and a customized train.

1. Igloo Collage with squares

Supplies:

• Construction paper - White and Blue
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• Marker

How do we make it:

Draw an igloo onto the white paper. Cut out small pieces of square from the white paper. Hand over the glue to your kiddo, and let the fun begin!

At the end of this activity,

• talk about the square shaped bricks used to make the igloo,
• you can show them the picture of  an Eskimo, 
• talk about the snowy winter climate,
• say them its "I for Igloo"....

Put your kid's creation on their wall and let them feel proud of their master piece!

2. Customized Train Collage with Squares:

We did a Train collage with LO's name on it. Kids gonna love this, since they have their own name on this. 

Supplies:

• Construction Paper of different colors
• Scissors
• Marker
• Glue stick

How do we make it:

1. Trace out a train on the white paper, I drew six boxes, to fit LO's name. 

2. Cut pieces of square from the construction paper, with the count corresponding to your kiddo's name.

3. When all the cutting activity is done, write the name of your kiddo on the square pieces. 

4. Let your kiddo glue the square pieces on to the train. Write the name of your kiddo on a paper, as a reference for them to put the pieces in correct order.

5. For the wheels, I drew circles on white paper, LO colored it with black crayons, cut it and glued.

I did this way since we didn't have black paper.

Chug Chug Choo Choo train is ready! Hope at the end of this activity kids get familiarized with the square shape. Amidst this activity,

• spell the word 'square' several times to your child, 
• talk about the circle shaped wheels of the train,
• sing a train rhyme, 
• spell out their name, 
• talk about the colors used in making the train,
• talk about your recent experience on a train journey....

Hope it would be an interesting activity for you and your kids.

Happy Parenting!

Snowman and Caterpillar Collage

Teaching Shapes for Toddlers - With Paper Collage Activity
Part 1: Circle

The next few posts are gonna be series of shapes based collage activity. In that first shape is the circle. We did two collages, a Snow man and a Caterpillar.

1. Making of Snowman collage with Circles

Easy to do for a beginner, consumes less time, so need not worry about having your toddler sit for long time!

Supplies:

• White and Blue Paper
• Scissors
• Black and Orange Marker
• Stacking cups or any other circular objects
• Glue Stick

1. Draw three different sized circles on the White Paper. I used the stacking cups to trace out. Cut the circles and have them ready.

2. Trace the figure of snowman using the same stacking cups on the blue paper.

3. Your kid is ready to go! Give them the glue stick and the three white circles. After they finish sticking them, help them to draw the eyes, nose, mouth and hands. 

4. Cut a semicircle, color them with black marker and the snowman's hat is ready.

In between this activity talk with your kids about the circle shape or make a count of number of white circles used in the snowman. Cool snow man is ready in few minutes. 

2. Making of Caterpillar Collage with Circles

Colorful Caterpillar Collage, sure this would be your kid's favorite. 

Supplies:

• Color Papers
• Glue Stick
• Scissors
• Marker Pen

1. Cut small circles of desired size and number using available color papers. Even two colored circles would suffice.
2. Trace out the figure of caterpillar roughly on the white paper, making it easy for your toddlers to glue the circles at the right place.
3. You can use googly eyes if you have, or simply cut it out from paper as I did.
4. Then rest you can draw with the Black marker pen like the mouth, legs, etc.

Funny Caterpillar is all yours! Talk with your kids about the colors and number of circles used in making the caterpillar. Paste the work on your kid's wall and make them feel proud of their work.

Happy Parenting!

A-Z Occupation

I have already compiled a post on A - Z alphabetical list of animals, fruits, vegetables, country, body parts, Vehicles... Now this is an add-on to that list. Alphabetical list of Occupations. Got inspired from the book "LMNO Peas" by Keith Baker, I have complied this list...

A - Astronauts, Artists, Acrobats,
B - Builders,Bikers
C - Climbers, Clown, Campers
D - Drivers, Dancers,
E - Electricians, Explorers,
F - Farmers, Fire Fighters,
G - Gardeners, Goldsmith
H - Hikers, Hairdresser
I - Investigators, Inventors,
J - Judges, Jugglers,
K - Kayakers, Kickers, King
L - Listeners, 
M - Miners, Musician,
N - Nurses, Neighbors,
O - Officers,
P - Painters, Plumbers, Pilots,Policeman, Parachutists,
Q - Quilters, Quaterbacks,
R - Readers, Road Worker,
S - Swimmers,Sailors, Scientists,
T - Teachers, Truckers
U - Underwater divers,
V - Voters, Volunteers,
W - Weavers, Waiters,
X - X-ray Doctors,
Y - Yogis,
Z - Zoo Keepers, Zoologists

Please share your own experience with ABCs in the comment box.

Happy Parenting!

Vehicles Puzzle

This post is about a vehicle puzzle which is store bought. You can take this as a product review but I personally want to share this stuff, just to give an idea like, what is available in the market for the new mothers here.

This is a "Transport" puzzle, and you can find it online or in your local baby/toy shops. Since my Little One is fond of vehicles, I bought this to encourage his Vocabulary.

He loves playing with this puzzle off and on, and this time he gave a new dimension to it which I thought would share here.

 LO combined the puzzle cards and the vehicles, matching the cards to the vehicles available with him.

There are lot of similar cheap stuffs available in the market, which you can buy to engage your demanding toddlers, rather to download an app from the play store!

Happy Parenting!