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Highland Dove Homeschool |
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No Mess Activities
I really don't enjoy cleaning up after kids. It's one of the things I do strictly out of love. These are ideas that don't create more chaos (mostly). Cleaning
Up ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ¨ Make an obstacle course out of cushions and/or furniture ¨ Make a fort out of cushions and sheets ¨ Brush each other's teeth ¨ Play dress-up with stuffed animals and your child's clothes ¨ Put lipstick on child and kiss a mirror ¨ Dribble a basketball. Practice counting at the same time ¨ Make bracelets or collars for stuffed animals out of pipe cleaners and jingle bells ¨ Play hide and seek together- trying to find a stuffed animal or other object ¨ Have a splash party together in the bathtub ¨ Mirror each other ¨ Make a "Mummy Mommy" with toilet paper ¨ Practice marching on lines of Masking Tape ¨ Have a Parade ¨ Use kitchen tongs to pick up and sort small objects (beans, leggos, toy cars). As proficiency develops move to using tweezers. ¨ Give Pretend Haircuts ¨ Nonsense Sentences - One person starts “I like big fluffy...” another person chimes in ¨ Fill the sink with water and discover what sinks and floats ¨ Put your child in the bathtub and allow him/her to paint the sides with washable watercolors ¨ Put a leash on a stuffed animal and walk around the house ¨ Record each other on a tape recorder Pick-up Flowers
Flowers can be real, artificial, construction paper, felt, etc. Strew
flowers on the floor. Give your child a basket to put flowers in. Then pretend
to go on a field trip to pick them. For
younger toddlers, you may need to hold the basket.
For older toddlers, have flowers of different colors and tell your child
to collect only the blue flowers, green, large, small, etc.
For still older toddlers, try scattering the flowers throughout the house
and see how many they can find. If
your child (particlularly if he's a boy) does not want to collect flowers, try
making worms out of construction paper, felt, etc. Paper Basketball Wad up pieces of paper and toss into a wastepaper basket. For younger toddlers, walking over and putting the paper in the basket will work better. Older children can stand further away, and can keep score as well. Smelling Hunt Go on an exploration of your house together and find out how different things smell. Try lotion, cologne, deodorant, vinegar, flowers, fruit, onion, cloves, etc. Great resources include the bathroom and spice cabinet. Draw on a Mirror with Dry-Erase markers
Besides designs and scribbles, try drawing silly faces with strange hats,
mustaches and beards, etc. Line your faces up with the ones you drew to see how
silly you look! The Popcorn Game Crab and Lobster Tag . The most important rule to remember is that crabs walk sideways and lobsters walk straight! (You will probably have to remind your tots of this throughout the game.) Older tots can be the crabs, younger ones will inevitably be lobsters. Great Marble Challenge A marble, some paper towel tubes and tape can be the basis for this fun game. Challenge your kids to move a marble from one spot to another through tube tunnels. Start easy (say, from a chair to the other side of the room), then get harder (around the corner and downstairs). Clipboards Hand your kids clipboards (to set an industrious mood) and give them each an assignment. For example, they might need to draw a treasure map, invent a better flyswatter, create a secret code or write a mock newspaper article about what's happening outside the window. Foil Fun One roll of aluminum foil can provide an instant cure for the doldrums. Your kids can shape it into crowns, animal models or an army of toy knights. Surprise Bags Before winter starts, assemble a few grab bags to open in emergencies (sick days, snow days, terrible moods). Fill a paper bag with a few ingredients for fast fun and set aside until needed. Here are some suggestions: • A bunch of googly eyes, pom-poms and glue for making creatures / • A recipe for play clay and all the ingredients to make it, plus a few sculpting tools / • A set of paper dolls, plus scissors and gift wrap for making a wardrobe / • A yo-yo and a book of yo-yo tricks / • A pair of plain sneakers and some fabric markers / • A magnifying glass, a "spy notebook" and a secret code to break Play Sheepdog Find the lost sheep! (a.k.a. cotton balls) the sheep pen can simply be a large dish or small box. Toddlers will love to crawl around on hands and knees and make the appropriate sheepdog noises as they perform their task. Snowball Toss A fun indoor game that uses folded socks as snowballs. Simply gather several pairs of folded socks and have the children throw them into a clothesbasket. To help minimize fuss over which snowballs belong to which child, give each child a different color of sock, or put colored elastic bands around each pair of socks to mark them. i.e. Johnny gets all the snowballs with the red elastic, Mary gets all the brown socks. Make Orange Have the students make orange by Squirting white shaving cream inside the ziplock bag, add a few drops of food coloring and close the bag, making sure that all the air is out. This gives your children the opportunity to explore mixing colors and there is no mess to clean up. Wall push-outs. Stand with feet about 6 - 12 inches from wall. Place palms flat on wall. Bend at elbows and bring face toward wall. Push out. Practice counting while doing it. Puzzle Hunt Hide all the puzzle pieces Have them search for the pieces and fit them into the puzzle as they find them. Older children will delight in being allowed to take a turn in hiding the pieces for the younger children Apple Bobbing This variation uses no water and is suitable for toddlers- as long as they have teeth! Put several apples with stems on them in a large, DRY container. A large Tupperware container will work well. Let the children get an apple out by using their teeth to grasp the stem of the apple. Afterwards, try slicing the apples and letting the kids dunk them in caramel for a special treat. Apple Bobbing Cut apples out of red construction paper. Next make a loop of masking tape to put in the center of each apple. Put the apples in a dry container and let your little bobbers retrieve the apples by touching their noses to the tape! Make a Camera and go on a Safari Make a camera out of a small animal cracker box by wrapping in plain paper and decorating. (I like to use the inside of a paper grocery bag) For a lens, glue a lid from a milk gallon. For a button to push, glue a piece of sponge or a button. For an eyepiece, bend the opening tab upwards and cut a whole in it to look through. When the camera is complete, set stuffed animals or pictures of real animals around the house. Then go traveling from room to room "taking pictures" of your Safari trip. Tubular Tunnels
Take cardboard tubes from wrapping paper or from tin foil/wax paper. Hold
them at an angle to the floor and drop marbles down them. (Golf balls work great
if your cardboard tubes are big enough) It is fun to watch them come shooting
out the other end! Helpful tips:
Position wooden blocks or cereal boxes to act as a "corral" for the
marbles so they are easy to find again. / Try taping several tubes together for
more fun. Personal Picture Puppets Take photographs of your child in some of his/her favorite places. (doing activities) When the pictures are developed, photocopy them in black and white and have them color the pictures. Then, cut them out and glue onto Popsicle sticks Play Games with Frozen Juice Lids
Many games can be played with these metal tops found on frozen juice
cans. Putting "in" and
taking "out" is always fun. Try
counting them, writing numbers on them, or writing the alphabet on them.
Paint them to learn the colors For
another game, use a can with a plastic lid. Cut a slit in it wide enough for
tops to fit in. Use it as a bank- the juice lids become play money. (and a full
bank makes a neat musical instrument!) Draw
a circle on the floor with string. Play "toss into the ring".
Make more complicated toss games as your child gets older. Make binoculars Take two empty toilet paper rolls and glue them together. If the eye pieces are too close together for your little one, try gluing something between the two rolls... a piece of a sponge is one idea. You may also have to wrap the rolls together with construction paper, tape, or yarn to hold them in place. Act out a story from a book Often times, just
reading a story may not interest your toddler. To get your child more involved,
help your child become a part of the story. This can happen by:
Acting out events
Making animal sounds every time an animal is mentioned
Saying a special phrase everytime a character is mentioned
Doing movements every time a key word is said (i.e. on the word snow,
children can clasp their arms together and shiver, saying, "brrrr!")
More than one event/keyword can be used for each story. Picture Puzzle Enlarge a picture of each child. Laminate. Cut up for puzzle. |
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