THE STICKY NOTE WORD HUNT {Printable game!}

This game was born from my attempts to teach the Hindi alphabet! I taught him a bunch of them and before he got bored with all the coloring, I put sticky notes with letters written on them all over the house. everywhere! 

And handed him a sheet of little drawings. He excitedly looked for the ‘letter’ and posted it over the correct object. For e.g f for fish.

So here’s a little 2 part printable for all your little kindergarteners who have started learning four letter, i.e. the BIG words! 

Click for printable pdf:

 I Spy with my Little eye    |    The Sticky Note Word Hunt 

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE STICKY NOTE WORD HUNT:

• Copy the words from page 2 onto sticky notes {Alternatively, you could cut out words directly from the sheet} and paste them all over the house. Over the glass windows, behind the couch if your kid gets frustrated easily and under the bed, on the top shelf if your kid loves to burn off energy! 
• Your enthusiastic kiddo will need to hunt for the words, and re-paste/place it correctly on the respective picture on the sheet! Give him/her the page 1 and say “go!”

Fish for Easter Eggs {Practical Mondays #53}

This was a full 30 minutes of fun. Putting the egg & bunny shaped foam cut outs we decorated last week (with xmas decorations! whatever!) to further use. Punched a hole in each, tossed them into his messy sensory bin (it is *still* messy from the Where’s Waldo Activity!), to be fished out with a wire bent as a hook at the end.

Yeah, 30 minutes of fun!

Pin please

Craft Stick Tracks {Practical Mondays #51}

I might as well rename this blog as the track blog! But each type of track we’ve made is *completely different* in the eyes of my son, and that’s what matters. Here’s how we used our craft sticks. Scroll down to see how we used cotton swabs, cardboard, yarn & what not in the past!

See how we made Road Signs! 

Gnome Obsessed {Practical Mondays #50}

I live in the part of the world that is obsessed with Gnomes! There are these pretty ‘casa del bosque’ restaurants, small gnome statues for sale, large ones for decorative purposes. It’s cute!

Have a look at our homemade play dough & TP roll gnomes, and few of the ones we came across in latin america!

Name Structure {Practical Mondays #49}

We’ll be moving to another house in soon, which mean it’s time to finish off all the art supplies and sell off books that we no longer read! 

Selling off books is seeming to be harder than I thought, as I had a blubbering tear soaked 5 year old accusing poor mean mommy, sigh. I’ll probably try again next week!

But finishing art supplies equals happy child. So although his school began last week, we managed to make a name structure. Lot of cutting and sticking and happy pictures!

Where's Wally (In Your Mess)? {Practical Mondays #47}

Life imitates Art. 

Our play room sometimes imitates the Where’s Wally (Waldo) book!

Utterly messy, jumbled up and chaotic!

Imagine a sensory bin that was only supposed to have coffee beans, now has magnetic alphabets, cotton buds, UNO cards, cars, pencils, bottle caps, dice, and COINS?

Perfect to play a Where’s Wally game! Take a picture of the select few items to be hunted before tossing them back in the mess. I put some Wally (Waldo) stickers we had on coins and tossed them in too. Don't forget to set the timer before you yell "go!" 

When life gives you lemons, like they say! 

Sticks & Dots Printable Game {Practical Mondays #43}

The days are TOO hot and WAY TOO long. (Imagine my 5 year old falls off to sleep at the same time as I do?). Hot & long days demand some creativity to keep kids busy! Especially if Snakes & Ladders & Uno have bored you out of your mind. So gather whatever you have, and invent challenges! Cotton swabs, craft sticks, magnetic dots from some other game, tubes, styrofoam balls, pipes, cubes, dice, legos, stickers, sticks; you can make simple pattern cards with coloured pens and some paper.

  click here for printable pdf 

Stuff needed to play

• Coloured craft sticks
• Coloured dots (or whatever you have!)
• DIY pattern cards (I made sets using 4/5/6 sticks/dots in each)

Rules & How

• Set the timer (1 minute for 4 stick cards & 1.5 minutes for 5 & 6 stick ones) and have each player pick one card 
• They need to collect the corresponding coloured sticks & dots and make the pattern, before the timer goes off!
• The one to finish first gets 10 points
• The others get 5 points if they finish before the timer goes off
• After all cards are exhausted, the player with maximum points wins!

'Let's go Outside!' Board Game Printable! {Practical Mondays #42}

WHY on earth would children need further entertainment outdoors? Aren't the grass, swings and slides enough? 

They are! But it's too darn hot. So instead of staying indoors, I thought it made sense to keep them in the shade! Putting leftover stickers from the Where’s Wally book our brand new color pencil set to use, I made this impromptu game one morning, before a playdate at the park. 

Other than the usual move 2 steps forward, back & miss a turn, I made stuff up like:

Hide the toy and make others look for it (Which stirred up a good deal of excitement, both hiding and hunting!), tattoo a moustache on another player’s face, find a flower, collect 10 leaves, climb a ladder, climb a ladder, run to a tree & back etc! The 5-6 year olds thoroughly enjoyed it!

  Click here for Printable pdf 

Additional stuff you’ll require: pawns, die, a toy & face paint

No printer? No problem! You can draw one within minutes!

Road Signs! {Practical Mondays # 41}

2016 ended with another road trip down to the south of Chile. Rented a quaint little forest cabin in a biological reserve in the middle of the Patagonian Rain forests. It also had a chimney, so it was perfectly magical, waiting for Santa to come over at the stroke of midnight! {for travel pictures, click here}

It took us 12 hours to drive down though (One way!) and it was absolutely worth it. By the time we were back, my son was fluent in road signs! Unsurprisingly he made some road signs of his own for  his Yarn Track when we got back.

Bragging about 2016!

2016 was the year of making up games at home as we go. But by November, toys flowed in, with his birthday, Christmas, Santa and presents from our home country. Sigh. Too many toys and a lot less creativity!

Here are the popular posts from the last year for keeping little preschoolers busy!

      

        

       
   

      

     

      

Travel Busy Bag: Road Map (Practical Mondays #20)

It's vacation time! And also the last Practical Monday of the month! Here's a printable of a Road Map to Keep Kids Busy. For road trips, plane rides or vacationing at grandma's.

Cotton Swab Car Tracks, Mazes & Cities (Practical Mondays #17)

What do you do when the power goes out? (i.e. when you suddenly, unexpectedly have no internet access for a full twenty minutes? *shudder* …*gasp*!!)

Well, THIS is what I did. Made use of two boxes of 200 cotton swabs (ear buds/ Q tips / cotton buds) each to build a track for my son’s little toy car! We improvised further, to add on features likes bridges and tunnels and houses to make cities. And made mazes, with an agenda! To pick up all the pom poms and stickers before exiting the maze!

It has certainly been an exciting after school activity this week.  Like the yarn tracks, this is easy to clean up too! 

How my 4 year old turned into an Environmentalist! (Practical Mondays #9)

Have you seen any adult excited about taking out the garbage? Little kids can be obsessed! Have a look at my ebullient 4 year old religiously emptying our recycle bin:

And picture this:

He is rushing out for school with a sniffy nose. Our maid hands him a few tissues and he yells “NO! Tissues are a wastage! I’ll go get my hanky instead!”

Or picture this:

We’re having lunch with a nice family and my son points out that we don’t need the light on, since it’s day time and “we’re wasting electricity”

And later our host let the tap run (only to let the warm water out!) he chimes in again “you’re wasting water!!”

Kind of like Jesse Eisenberg in his guest appearance in Modern Family. Remember? The one where he was all high & mighty about the environment and his last words were: “No one wants to be friends with me…I can’t remember the last time I had someone for dinner. Which is probably a good thing since solar power takes 4 days to roast a chicken, If you want it cooked all the way through. You know I had salmonella three times?” !!

I blame the “Let’s Go Green” Series of books that I’ve been reading to him the past 6 months. In the past 6 months, we’ve read their 6 books over and over again, till their lines were drilled into his tiny brain and poured out like a walking talking environmentalist.

Well.. Maybe it’s not really a bad thing. Maybe when he grows up he’ll save paper and use normal cooking gas to cook his meats?

Earth Day Ice Slabs

Paint on slabs of Ice NEVER gets old! I keep at least one slab in the freezer to pull out impromptu! Its a bit 'sciency' too, as he gets ice melting into water and how salt speeds up the process. Many times the glistening combination of paints create a magical effect! 

Here are some EARTH DAY themed Ice Slabs!

Method: 

• Freeze water in a large round shaped container. When rock solid, bring it out and place it on a plate. 
• Sprinkle salt over it and wait for a bit. The salt will melt holes on the ice slabs! 
• Bring out blue & green paints and few droppers and watch your kid be thrilled to transfer paint via droppers into those tiny holes! 

Origins of Easter Traditions on Practical Mondays #6

Have you wondered what’s the deal behind eggs and bunnies and WHAT do they have to do with the resurrection of Jesus? Well, NOTHING, actually. Although Easter is a Christian Holiday, it’s famous traditions apparently have pagan origins. Like various carnivals such as Mardi Gras or world’s largest one in Rio de Janeiro are celebrated *before* Lent, Eggs were decorated and feasted on with delight *after* the fasting period. (Since I recently realised I’m allergic to eggs in Chile and sorely miss this breakfast staple, I can imagine myself painting and feasting on them when I can have em again!!)

One theory of the origin of the name “Easter” is traced to the Anglo-Saxan Goddess of Fertility “Ēostre". And the deal with bunnies? Rabbits are ancient symbols of fertility & life: both associated with Easter & Spring!

And why are jellybeans popular? and what about the famous jeweller goldsmith that made eggs as part of royalty? Watch this 3 mins video for a quick history!

While these traditions were carried on by immigrants from Europe to the Americas in the 18th century, Chile kinna just recently got the memo, in the 21st Century! Usually you have ‘seasonal’ items available for sale a good month or two before season (I almost DIED listening to all the christmas music that played on & on for the full November & December- everywhere I went!) I only recently saw Easter related candy. Plastic eggs were nowhere in sight. 

BUT, I found this awesome paint & eat pack at the mall! Food colors obviously, with a brush too! My 4 year was more interested in the eating part though, uh oh.

Punch by Number Busy Bag

I made 17 Busy Bags for our trip from Trans continental trip to Chile. These were used *a lot* and some of these bags are still around! So this busy bag is a lil addition to the list. 

Prepare

Cut random strips of paper and write a number on one side. Keep these strips with cute little paper punches in a small zipper bag or tray. 

Use 

When your kid needs to be kept "busy", give him this bag. He/she has to punch by number. i.e. 9 punches on the strip with number 9!

That's it! Let 'em punch away to glory! Punch with a purpose!

Our Summer in Chile

As summer approached I got asked by anyone and every one about my vacation plans (it's a thing). You know, "to spend summer" is actually a verb in the Spanish language (veranear!). As a Latin America virgin (not my husband - who travels a lot for work!) my mind buzzed with around 7 plans simultaneously. None of them materialised. (What. ev. er. Maybe next time I'll "veranearé" in 3 different countries!). But turns out chilling out in & around Santiago's a wonderfully relaxing vacation anyways! 

Solar System Art: With Forks & Bubbles

Mix paint in the bubble mix and blow on paper. When they land, they make delightful circular patterns! Here's our previous project (with gorgeous prints!) And here's taking it a bit forward. (Was my 4 year old's idea btw!) 

Our DIY Solar System Mobile

Our nice big square dining table is now officially our recreational table- thanks to our breakfast table in the kitchen where we do all the eating. I recently bought a plastic-y table cover to protect the table from paint and scratches and laid out our various pens, brushes, and what not in the many many Pringle cans turned into pen stands on the window sill. I love window sills. We have a large bookshelf on the other side. We also have another kid sized table and chair which we keep far far away in the terrace area- for messy paint and glitter. - So the mess is out of sight and out of mind. 

Art with Playdoh & Powder

I really miss ink droppers /pipettes and it is *really* weird that I've looked for it in every stationary shop I've been to in Santiago and have not yet found even one! How strange is that! Maybe I'm asking it wrong, who knows! 

We have *so* many art projects that simply cannot be done without pipettes!! Esp our most fave: salt & glue designs! (For how thats done, you can visit one of my old posts by clicking here)

So one day I replaced salt with baby powder. Just for fun. Just to see what happens. and Just to try out something new! Like wise play doh is an all time favourite material and is a big hit when added to Art work.