Popcorn Kernel Sensory Bin

It was National Popcorn Day on January 19th, and we celebrated by making popcorn (of course) but we did it on the stove which is WAY more fun, and we used the other half of the bag for a 

Popcorn Kernel Sensory Bin. So simple, but the boys had so much fun!

I spread a large sheet down first for quick and easy cleanup and less waste since I was able to just fold the towel and scoop up all the popcorn kernels to save for another day of fun!

In case you're wondering what the weird thing on the right is, it's a loose tea strainer. 

The boys love to use it in their sensory bins! 

 Sensory Bin Safety

I'm a firm believer that young babies and toddlers can enjoy most of the sensory activities and materials that older children do. You should always watch babies and younger children with extreme vigilance when playing with sensory bins and material. Use your parental discretion when choosing your sensory materials, based on your child's age and developmental ability.

See how we celebrated National Popcorn Day LAST year!

(Click the title link below)

Huge Popcorn Fight!

To see ALL of our Sensory Bins, click the photo below!

Click HERE to view my Kids at Play Board on Pinterest!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!

Toilet Paper Roll Heart Printing



I did Toilet Paper Roll Heart Printing with both the boys (1&4). I've been seeing this activity all over Pinterest, HERE, HERE, and HERE, and knew we just had to put this on our Valentine's Day Activity List!

If you visit the other's I mentioned who did this before us, you'll see that they pinched the toilet paper roll and some of them used scotch tape to keep the shape of their heart in place. Great idea and it made perfect little hearts! However, I let L (4) shape the toilet paper roll and I didn't bother with the tape. The prints didn't come out perfect, but perfect is never really the goal. I guess if we were making valentine's cards with these (and we still may!) I'd probably tape the tube, but we were just lazily painting on a rainy afternoon.

L made some prints and then decided he wanted to use the paint to fill them in. 

and I dipped little B's in some paint, gave him some paper, demonstrated a stamp, then he took over!

 Simple and fun!

If you like this activity, you may also enjoy....

Printing with TP Rolls

Click HERE to view and follow my Valentines Day Board on Pinterest!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!

Pattern and Upper/Lowercase Letter Matching Game

We've been focusing a lot on lower case letter recognition, so I've been making a few games to practice, such as our Letter and Number Hearts Clothesline and this Lowercase Letter Matching Game, which doubles as fun pattern matching game as well. 

I traced and cut out hearts from my card stock stash and then wrote upper and lowercase letters on the back so he could match those as well. L loved playing the pattern match. 

The Upper and Lowercase Matching Game was a bit more challenging of course, but it was really great letter practice! I helped him when he needed it and it was a great chance for me to see which lowercase letters he's currently struggling to recognize, which not surprisingly are d, b, p, and q. 

If you liked this activity, you may also enjoy our...

Letter and Number  Heart Clothesline

Fun Learning Activities with Laminated Alphabet Letters

Click HERE to view my Learning Activities Board on Pinterest!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!

Letter & Number Heart Clothesline

We've been doing a lot of fun learning activities that focus on lower case letters. I found these cardstock hearts at the dollar store and wrote each lowercase letter of the alphabet on one side, and for some extra number practice, I wrote the numbers 1-20 on the back of 20 of the letter hearts. 

To practice letter and number recognition and sequencing, I made a clothesline game using the hearts, some yarn and clothespins. 

I tied some yarn from one chair to another to make the clothesline.

I spread the letters out in random order on our table. We would sing the alphabet together and I would stop at the letter BEFORE the letter he was looking for to give him a chance to think of it himself. Once he verbalized what letter he was looking for, he had to find that letter on the table. I gave him time to find it himself and helped when he needed it. It also gave me the opportunity to see what letters he's struggling with recognizing which are not suprisingly b,d, p, and q. 

When he found the letter he would clip it on the line which was great 

fine motor skill and coordination  practice!

He was SO proud when he finished the whole alphabet that he ran to kiss his

 little brother who'd been contently watching the whole time :)

The next day we did the same thing with the numbers side of the hearts.

 L knows how to count from 1-20 but what I realized by doing this activity was that he didn't recognize what numbers 11-20 actually looked like! So this was great number recognition and sequencing practice!

If you like this activity, you may also enjoy...


Pattern and Upper/Lowercase Letter Matching Game

Fun Learning Activities with Laminated Alphabet Letter

Click HERE to view my Learning Activities Board on Pinterest!

Follow Play Create Explore on Pinterest!

More Ways to Follow the Fun!