Thanksgiving is just around the corner! Below we’ve outlined a fun and creative way to show your kids how to give thanks and gratitude this holiday season. We’ve named this craft, “Gratitude Pie”. We hope that making this pie will be a memorable and heartfelt activity everyone can enjoy.  At the end of this craft have the kids share what they are grateful for and why. While sharing, each child will have a chance to focus on communicating their ideas and thoughts. We hope you can carve out some time in your day to share some gratitude with your little ones!

Supplies:

• Paper plates
• Paint Brushes
• Construction paper (your choice of color)
• Bowl (for tracing)
• Glue
• Scissors
• Washable markers
• Push pins
• Brads

At the end of this craft your paper plate pie will reveal each thing you are thankful for! Let’s get stated.  

Pie Making:

1. Create your pie crust by painting a tan circle around the edge of your paper plate.
2. Take a sheet of construction paper, and use your bowl to trace a perfect circle. The circle represents the center of the pie (we used orange for a pumpkin pie).
3. Apply glue at the center of the plate and place down your circle “filling”.
4. Attach the “pie” plate to another plate. To do this, use a push pin to create a hole at the center of the plates.
5. Take your push pin out and push your brad through the hole. Now, your plate should be able to rotate.
6. Use your scissors to cut a piece of your pie. Only cut the top plate!
7. Across the top of the pie write, “I am thankful for…”
8. In the blank space where you previously cut a pie slice write what you are thankful for. Rotate the plate to list more things that you are thankful for.

Tips:

• The color of your construction paper determines the type of pie. In our Show Me How Episode we went with orange for pumpkin pie!
• Having your younger kids hold the marker and trace helps build fine motor skills.
• If your kids are too young to handle scissors you can help them cut.

This craft focuses on social and emotional learning. Ask the children what it means to have gratitude. While making the craft the kids can also practice reading and spelling as they list each thing they are grateful for.  We hope this holiday craft inspires joyful learning! It’s not required, but we strongly recommend real pie to be eaten during this activity.

Share With Us!

There is so much potential for memorable creations from these activities, we hope you will share some of them with us! Snap a photo of the fun your child had and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.

Today, we will teach you how to play an early literacy inspired bean bag tossing game called, ABC Slam Dunk. It’s a fun game that will improve hand-eye coordination and get your kids moving around.  If the weather is nice, you can even bring this game outside. 

The learning goals of this game can vary from child to child depending on their age and reading level. Younger kids will have more practice recognizing different letter and colors. For older children, this game can help them with spelling and expanding their vocabulary.

Materials

• Letter and word cards
• Sealable bags
• Dried beans, rice, popping corn, or wooden beads
• Scissors
• Tape
• Colored felt swatches
• Glue

How to make the bean bag:

1. Cut the bottom of a sealable bag to create 2 smaller bags about 5in.
2. Use a piece of tap to seal the open slits in the bag
3. Fill you bag with dried bean. Leave about 1in (2cm) of room along the edges.
4. Place your bag on a piece of felt
5. Apply glue around the edges of the felt and press down to secure the glue.
6. Allow glue to dry before using.

Once you have the bean bags you can also use them for other games like hopscotch or Tic-tac-toe.

How to play:

1. Use a paperclip to attach a letter or word card to the bin
2. Call out a word or letter and then have your kids toss the bean bag to the corresponding bin

Tips:

• Depending on the type bins you have in your house you can attach the letter or words with a clamp, or you can use tape.
• This game has many variations to make it as challenging or as simple as you want. To make the game more challenging, you can ask the kids to come up with a word for the specific lettered bin they are tossing to.  You can also keep score or throw the bean bag from farther away.

We hope that you enjoy this educational and fun game. Snap a photo of the fun your child had and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.

This activity is a perfect blend of crafting and play. We’ll show you how to make the shape monsters and then give you instructions for a game that you can play with your children with their monsters. Beyond the game, there are also so many opportunities for an imaginative play here! Have your kids name their monsters and create their own “make believe” game.

While creating the monsters your kids will also practice recognizing shapes and colors. Recognizing the attributes between multiple shapes will strengthen their ability to categorize items and communicate. And, if your children are very young you can supervise them as they cut with a scissor and glue down the different shapes. This practice will help them develop their hand-eye coordination.

Materials:

• Construction paper
• Scissors
• Glue
• Googly eyes (optional)

How to make hungry shape monsters:

1. Have your child choose what shape they would like to include. You can cut out the shapes in advance or have them cut the shapes themselves depending on age and experience using scissors.
2. Glue the shapes together and design your monster.

Tips:

• Make big shapes to create the body and smaller shapes for the mouth, nose and eyes.
• Ask engaging questions as your kids are crafting like, “How many sides does a pentagon have?”

Game: Feed the hungry monster!

Instructions:

1. Create the hungry shape monsters, but now include a empty cutout of a shape in the center.
2. Cut smaller shapes and hide them in a room.
3. Have your kids find the shapes.
4. Once they find the shapes, they can then feed the hungry shape monsters!  

Tip:

• For added fun, let your kids pretend to be the hungry shape monsters.

Share With Us!

There is so much potential for memorable creations from these activities, we hope you will share some of them with us! Snap a photo of the fun your child had and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.

We are excited to share a simple craft that incorporates math practice into everyday play! Most of the supplies you will most likely have home, but even if you don’t, there are plenty of easy substitutions you can make.

This activity is versatile for different age groups and math levels. The use of manipulatives is helpful for children who are just recognizing numbers – it’s a visual tool to explain simple mathematic functions such as addition and subtraction. And for older children, manipulatives can be used to explain slightly more challenging math operations such as division or multiplication.

Working with manipulatives also builds fine motor skills. If you’re eagerly looking for an activity that will be fun for your kids while practicing some math, read on!

Materials

• Paint
• Pom-poms
• Construction Paper
• Scissors
• Paint Brushes
• Plate or Palette
• Stickers

Step 1: Print out numbers and cut them out.

Step 2: Glue down the numbers on a sheet of construction paper.

Step 3: Put down stickers that correspond to the number.

Step 4: Get your paint ready on either a plate or palette.

Step 5: Grab a brush and paint on or around the numbers.

Step 5: Peel off the number to reveal the outline.

Tip: Try asking, “how many dots go along with this number?” Working with stickers as manipulatives in this activity teaches children number sequencing and subitizing.

Number sequencing means that numbers follow a certain order, and the act of counting teaches children this.

Subitizing is the ability to recognize the number of objects in a set without counting.

Another variation of this activity is to use pom-poms instead of stickers.  We encourage you to use different materials and get as creative as you want with this one.  We can’t wait to see what you create.

Share With Us!
There is so much potential for memorable creations from these activities, we hope you will share some of them with us! Snap a photo of the fun your child had and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.

Reading doesn’t have to be a tedious chore!  We’ve detailed instructions below for a fun and creative craft that will get your little ones excited to make letters and spell.

This activity is suitable for young children just starting to recognize letters and older kids who want to get crafty while expanding their vocabulary.  The kids will have so much fun creating the letters and we promise many fun teaching moments along the way.

This craft also works to develop other skills that aren’t explicated explained the in the instructions. The process of figuring out how to make the letters can boost problem-solving skills and working with different materials can help improve fine motor skills.

Pipe Cleaner Play

Twist and turn the pipe cleaner to form the letters of the alphabet. Use scissors to make different sized letters and clip where it’s needed.

Tips:

• Spell names! Kid love spelling their own names.
• Get creative and form other shapes!

Play-Doh Tracing

Step 1: Stary by writing the letters on the construction paper.

Step 2: Then mold the Play-Doh to trace over the letter

Tip:

• Ask what sound each letter makes.

Felt Letters

Step 1: Use scissors or box cutter to cut letter shapes out of cardboard.

Step 2:  Wrap felt around the letter shape cut outs and glue it down. We also encourage using other craft supplies like pom-pom and pipe cleaners to decorate.

We love the flexibility that this craft provides. You can also consider making letters out of glitter, beads, straws, or even dry pasta. Get crafting and start spelling.

Share With Us!
There is so much potential for memorable creations from these activities, we hope you will share some of them with us! Snap a photo of the fun your child had and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.

Organize, have fun and sort through the clutter!

Parenting requires multitasking! So why not kill two birds with one stone by having your children participate in a neat sorting game? You’ll get a hand with cleaning up and organizing while your little ones learn some basic and useful math skills!

Thinking about the attributes of different items builds early math and science skills. Identifying, comparing and ordering helps children develop the problem-solving skills necessary for higher level math operations such as addition and subtraction.

The key to this game is to get your kids thinking! Look at what items need to be sorted around the house, and ask them how the items are similar and different. You can suggest sorting by color or shape and see what other ideas they will come up with! Let their creativity run free and have fun with it.

We suggest sorting items like crayons, markers, and pom-poms. Stuffed animals can also be grouped by type of animal and size. Make sure to have some bins ready to put the like items together.

Tips:

1. Create a space designated for sorting. You can tape the floor area or draw lines on a big sheet of paper.
2. Another idea is to draw or make a Venn diagram by overlapping two hula hoops. Make sure to explain to the kids that some items can share the same attributes but also be different.
3. Setting a timer to sort all the items adds another level of excitement to the game.

We promise this fun and engaging activity will help your kids clean up the next mess while also flexing those early math skills!

You know those claw machines at the arcade that kids go crazy for? Fishing for ABCs is basically that game, but instead of spending $5 to (most likely) not get a toy, why not play this far more rewarding AND educational version using vocabulary words and letter tiles instead?

Kids decorate their own “fish bowl” using an ice cream carton or tissue box. Parents (or older kids) build a “fishing rod” using a wooden dowel and some magnets, and then fill the fish bowl with letters and early vocabulary words. Kids go “fishing” for letters to create words, or simply to practice saying the letters of the alphabet. Older kids can fish for words and create sentences. There are endless ways to play!

Especially in the early stages of learning, kids crave sensory play to help connect mind and body. Physically handling the fishing pole and fetching the letters keeps them engaged, while also practicing fine motor skills. This game is also great practice for letter recognition (I know this shape is a letter “L”) and letter sound correspondence (The letter “L” makes the /l/ sound).

Ayla (age 7) was excited to paint her fish bowl, fetch words to make sentences, and sort her letters by color (sorting is another awesome skill to flex in this game).

Lennon (age 3) had a great time spelling her name and winding up the fishing pole.

Did you try this activity out with your kids? Let us know how it went! Tag us on social media @mothergooseclub #ShowMeHow.

SHOW ME HOW!

Supplies:

• Cleaned ice cream carton, tissue box, or similar
• Paint in various colors, including white for priming
• Paint brushes
• Construction paper
• Marker
• Drinking straw or wooden dowel
• String
• Small magnet
• Paper clips
• Use our free printouts:
  • Fish printout
  • Shapes printout
  • Squares printout
  • Alphabet printout

Instructions:

Step 1: Prepare the fishing container: Find a suitable fishing container like an ice cream tub, a tissue box or a cake box.

Step 2: Cut a hole on the lid at least 3 inches in diameter at the center of the container’s lid.

Step 3: Prime the container by painting the outside with white acrylic paint. This layer of paint hides the print on the tub or box and prepares the surface for the final colors of paint.

Step 4: Paint the container: Once the layer of white paint dries, paint the container with various colors of tempera, poster paint or acrylic paint. You can make stripes, dots, swirls or other patterns. You can also paint an ocean theme or any design you like.

Step 5: Make paper squares or fishes: Cut out several 1-inch squares or small fish shapes from construction paper.

Create alphabet letters: Write a letter on each paper square or fish using colored markers or crayons. If you intend to level up to a spelling activity, make sure to add more vowel tiles. Put a metal paper clip on each of the letters. Put the letters in the fishbowl.

Tip: Make this activity a fun challenge by asking your kids to fish for the letters of their name.

Make a fishing pole: Cut string to a length of about 1½ to 2 feet. Tape one end of the string to a small magnet. Tie the opposite end to the tip of a drinking straw or wooden dowel.

Fish for letters: Finally, have kids use the fishing rod to catch alphabet letters inside the container. The magnet on the fishing rod will attract the metal paper clips on the letter squares. Have kids identify each letter they catch.

Level up! Spell some words: Fish for a few letters and see how many words you can spell. As a math activity, count all the letters caught or the words created. You can also incorporate shapes learning by making the letter tiles out of different shapes instead of just squares and using numbers.

Make it a game! Set a timer and see how many words your kids can form in 3 minutes. Winner gets to help clean the next ice cream carton

Celebrate Earth Day this year with this fantastic craft idea! The great thing about this activity is that it is just as much collecting the materials as it is putting them together. Simply find some basic household items, then lace up your sneakers to find the other items outdoors. It’s a great opportunity to get out into nature and explore while you search for the perfect natural decorations for your Earth Day project!

Materials:

• Paper grocery bag
• Construction paper
• Scissors
• School glue
• Leaves, flowers, small pebbles

Step 1 – Cut the bag

Use the scissors on the paper bag to make a bunch of thin strips. These will be used for the tree and flower stalks. Cut some larger pieces from the paper bag for the house, roof and chimney.

Step 2 – Place the paper pieces

Place some glue on the back of one of the longer strips from the paper bag and place it onto the construction paper, then add some smaller pieces for the branches. Glue some shorter strips for the flower stalks and then glue the house pieces beside the tree.

Step 3 – Decorate

Glue the largest leaves onto your tree. Place the flowers on top of the shorter stalks and smaller leaves on the sides. Any other leaves can be placed next to the house as shrubs or above the chimney as puffs of smoke. Glue the small pebbles along the bottom of the house as a final touch.

Share With Us!

Depending on the types of flowers and plants in your area, your final creation may look completely different from others. We’d love to see how yours turned out! Snap a photo and post it on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter with #mothergooseclub.

Teaching your children literacy can be a lot simpler (and much more fun) than it sounds. Sometimes, all it takes to get through to your kids is a creative, entertaining way to do it, and this Alphabet Bean Craft/Game is a perfect example. This activity is great for helping kids visualize the letters of the alphabet and interact with them in a hands-on way. Here’s how it works!

Materials:

You don’t need too much for this craft. Everything you need can be found in your own home, or in your local supermarket. The materials are…

• Dry butter beans
• Muffin liners
• Small alphabet stickers (small enough to fit on a bean)
• Muffin tray (optional)

(Note: If you don’t want to use stickers, or if you don’t have any available, you can use a sharpie marker instead)

Step 1 – The Muffin Liners

After you’ve assembled all your materials for this activity, the first step is to take your muffin liners and let your kids stick one letter of the alphabet at the bottom of each one. Do this 26 times until you have at least one muffin liner for every letter.

Step 2 – The Butter Beans

Next, take the rest of your stickers and put a letter on each bean until you have one bean for each letter of the alphabet as shown in the picture above.

Step 3 – Have Fun!

Now, let the games begin! Let your kids match each lettered bean with the accompanying muffin liner to get them familiar with their ABC’s. When they’re done with that, there are a host of other activities they can do with these beans and muffin liners as well. For example, you can call out a word and let your kids find the right beans to spell it out. Or, you can put several different letters in a muffin liner and challenge them to come up with as many different words as they can using only those letters.

Using nothing but beans, muffin liners and stickers, you can come up with dozens of different ways to teach your kids about letters, spelling, words, and phonetics—all of which are skills they’ll need their entire lives. What Alphabet Bean ideas can you come up with? Let us know on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter using #mothergooseclub.