Toddler Fun!

"It is not what you do for your children,

but what you have taught them to do for themselves,

that will make them successful human beings."

~Ann Landers

As a busy mom throughout the week you sometimes miss out on the fun things with your kids.  My weekends are reserved for catching up from the week.   I love having those lazy weekends around the house with my family.  Our little one will be turning 3 in about a week and she is a bundle of energy that sometimes is very hard to keep up with.  Keeping her engaged, learning and having fun can be a challenge.

I'm always on the lookout for fun and different things for her.  Today's project was no exception.  It was easy; took me about 10 minutes and she is already having fun.  Something so simple that brightened up her day.

Let's jump in .... 

Supplies are minimal and I had all of this in my craft supplies. 

• Scissors
• Sharpie
• Popsicle sticks
• Velcro

It's pretty easy to throw together.  You could do this with numbers or letters, but at home we are working on letters and words so we opted for letters.

You may want to plan a little in advance and think of words to fit your child's level.  My daughter is three so we are working on easy words, (e.g. STAR, PIG, MOM, DAD, RAT, BOP, etc.).  You just want to put the prefix on one side of the Popsicle stick and the suffix on the other.

You can see we now have a nice combination of words to create.  Now we need a way for them to be formed.  Bring on the Velcro!

The Velcro I keep in my crafting supplies is a large roll.  You can see there are two strips: one is the sticky side and the other is the soft side of the Velcro.  If you cut into strips you just have to match up on your ends.

Here's a close up look at the Velcro strips.  The soft side goes on the suffix side (on top) and the sticky side goes on the prefix side (underneath). 

When you do it this way you can see that now we can then stick them together to form words.  Easy peasy.

I'm not biased or anything ... but this was my favorite combination of letters. 

Once you've done this on all your Popsicle sticks you are complete!  For older children you can make this a match game.  One side has the animal name, the other has the sound it makes, (e.g. PIG on one stick; OINK on the other).  Do it with math by putting the math problem on one side and the answer on the other, (e.g. 1 + 1, on one side; 2, on the other).  The possibilities are endless. 

And just like that, it's play time.  She is already having fun by attaching the words and likes to shout out the letters.  Of course she has also discovered this is a fun way to make shapes, (we've experimented by making a square and a very large circle!). 

Have fun with your little ones.  Enjoy your moments. 

Crafter Level: Novice

~Jacqui