Free Tutorial and Pattern for a Portable Felt Board

Just before Christmas, I posted this portable felt board:

And now I FINALLY got my act together enough to post a tutorial WITH pictures! I know, I should give myself a raise. Another free pattern and tutorial in just a one-month span is pretty awesome and over-achieving for me.

I actually got this done just in time for Easter, as planned~ I'll be sewing up a bunch for my kiddos as Easter basket gifts. So I should probably go get started on cutting those felt shapes- it'll be a handful of late nights with my scissors, felt, and Netflix but I think it'll be well worth it! 

Also, for some very awesome quiet book or felt book templates, you should go check out 

www.imagineourlife.com. Plenty of ideas and templates to use if you ever run out of your own ideas!

Download the tutorial with pattern dimensions here. And Happy Easter Sewing to you all!

Semi-Homemade Kids Educational Games: Number, Sight Word and Letter Recognition

When we moved into our current home, we discovered that the previous owner had left behind a few old board games and playing cards. The kids totally went to town with them and tossed cards and game pieces left and right. And in the course of cleaning, either I or my partner ended up tossing a lot of the stuff we found, thinking there was no point to keeping them. Until now. =) 

With my son in kindergarten and struggling to learn his letters and numbers, I decided to come up with simple games that either he or his younger sister could play. I'm a strong believer in having fun while learning and my kids love playing games with us because it makes them feel so grown up. With these games I made up, they can learn letter and number recognition with repeated play. My son has drastically improved in the letter and sight word categories, but is still struggling with the numbers 20 and up so he and I have been focusing on the number game I created and which he loves (you'll see why below.)

These are star word pointers: sight words that he needs to recognize, read aloud, and write with minimal assistance. I keep them in a "Superman" bucket (leftover from his Superhero birthday party) and they seem to pair up really well, don't you think?











As we read together, he'll use the star pointer to call that specific word out when he sees it. So far, he's done really well here and having something in his hand and a task to do while reading with me keeps him from getting distracted (which he easily does on a regular basis.)










Here is why my son loves our counting game: something as simple as a knitting counter that clicks as you press the top and make the numbers go from 0 to 99. I discovered this at the bottom of my knitting basket while I was cleaning out my closet.








I bought some colorful plastic numbers from the dollar store for this game. As the counter is clicked, he can grab numbers to match what the clicker is showing. We say the number out loud as we click and repeat when he puts together the matching pair with the plastic numbers. With my son, I realized that sitting at a desk and writing numbers row after row just wasn't getting him to learn so I needed something to stimulate his visual, auditory and tactile senses. Since we just started this game yesterday, I have yet to see if he's really learning but I'm just glad he enjoys playing it.






This next game that I put together came about because I found these letter cards from the game "Last Word" and a letter cube/ die thingy. Yep- these were just some of the cards and game pieces that the kids had scattered around the house and luckily, I found them and put them to better use. This simple game involves rolling the die and finding a matching letter in the 5 cards that each player is given. Easy, right? When a match is found, the card can be set down in the middle and whoever gets rid of all their cards first, wins. As they grow smarter, I'll make this game and the others a little more challenging.













I bought these letter dominoes from the Dollar Spot at Target awhile back. I am still brainstorming different games to play with them rather than the usual letter matching. Hmmm...

 This is how I organize all those itty bitty games. After plastic bagging them, I stuff them into these stackable trays (also from the dollar store) and label them so I remember where their home is. I have a lot of "stuff" so labeling helps keep it all in order, for the most part.

 Here's the little bookshelf I keep it all on. Definitely need another one to hold the ever-growing pile of games, books, and craft supplies but I'm pretty happy that it's all contained for now. The kids can easily access anything that interests them and that they want to work on without needing me to constantly get it for them. I always keep old magazines around because I use them for letter or number spotting. The kids love it. They think they're reading mommy's grown-up magazines that I rarely ever let them touch until I'm done perusing them.

Hopefully, you got some good ideas for teaching your young'uns letter and number recognition. Practicing letter and number writing is well and good but it's hard to do that when you don't know what you're supposed to be writing. Recognizing and remembering the lines and curves of a letter or number should preclude writing, I think. But I'm no educational professional- I'm just creating stuff that's geared towards how my kids learn best. To each their own, right? =) Happy Friday, everyone! I'm taking the weekend off!

DIY Pizza Box Learning Game

With my oldest child in kindergarten and my middle child of preschool age, I wanted to come up with a fun, fast, all-in-one game that would encourage them to learn without realizing that they were. Tricky mama, I know. I figured a board game would be able to cover several different aspects of learning all at once so I came up with an easy to play (either alone or with me) board game that teaches sight words, rhyming, counting, patterns, and opposites. An easy play option would be to simply play by whatever color they spin on spinner. 

So here's a look at my ingenious creation:

The entire board game has 30 spaces from start to school house.

These are free rhyming cards I found at http://www.prekinders.com/2008/01/rhyming-cards/. I even colored them in myself (because I was out of ink and I made this game around midnight last night!)

I cut or punched shapes out of different colored card stock for the pattern part of the game. For the 'opposites' portion, I planned to call out adjectives and have the kids tell me their opposites. 

This picture shows the incomplete board game but it's the only one I have depicting the sight words. I bought these at the dollar store and cut them to be the same size then hole-punched them and stuck a  small book ring through them. Very handy for keeping the sight words together!

I used a lovely DiGiorno pizza box. It works great! I have two more pizzas in the freezer and I'm excited to see what I can come up with for those two boxes! =)

I used black construction paper for the background and it turned out very neat because the white crayon showed up on there like chalk on a black board! 

The die is great for helping kids to count. I may add another die later but felt they would move too fast through the board using two. Once we start playing, I'll figure it out!

The turtles are ready to roll!

To begin play, the spinner is spun first to see if they can pass the challenge of opposites, rhymes, sight words or pattern-making. If they do, they get to roll the die to move their game pieces forward.

Another simplified way to play, which would be great for 3-year olds and under, is to simply spin a color and move the game piece to that particular spot. Or just roll the die and move forward. I, personally, prefer all the learning challenges because that was the whole point of the game but depending on the age of your child, it can be played whichever way they like.

I used a spinner from an old game that the kids didn't play with anymore. I simply traced the circle onto card stock, folded it into four equal parts, cut along the folds, traced each slice onto the colored card stock, then pasted the pieces onto the spinner. 

Lastly, I used velcro to fasten the box closed when not in use. I will probably create a better cover for the game but this is just to illustrate what the game is all about: learning! I can't wait to play it with the kiddos when they get back from gramma's house! 

Enjoy!