Egg Shaking Listening and Matching Activity

I keep seeing different versions of this game around on the blogs so I figured I’d try making one of my own. I started with a dozen plastic eggs and made six matching pairs. I made sure that each pair wasn’t the same color so they had to depend on the sound to match them. I used pennies, round stones, googley eyes, rice, popcorn kernels and pompoms. I started by putting them all in the basket. That way they can use the egg carton to help them keep track of their matches.







Another way to do the activity is if there are enough kids, give each one an egg and see who else has the egg that makes the same sound. That might be a good circle time activity.

Finally, a third way to do this activity is to make a key like I did below. I taped each object to the piece of paper. You can start with the six eggs that correspond to the object. See if the child can match the object with the sound. You can add the other six eggs to make it a little harder or do 12 objects instead of six. You can do any number of eggs you want. I chose twelve because I had an egg carton to put them in.

Easter Match

Here are pictures for an Easter memory game. You can cut the pictures out, put them on card stock and laminate them to make them last.


























































All images found from: Google Images.
For specific image websites, click on the Image Credits page in the sidebar.

Easy kid-friendly Easter desserts

The following three desserts are easy and kid-friendly. Not only will kids like to eat them, kids can help you make them!

Chocolate birds' nests

Ingredients and directions to make these "birds' nests" are easy. First, melt chocolate in the microwave or a double boiler. Put the melted chocolate in a bowl and mix in dry chow mein noodles until the noodles are coated with the chocolate. Then, create nest-shaped mounds of the chocolate-covered noodles on wax paper. Add shredded coconut (dyed green) "grass" to the top of your nests and finish off with Cadbury Mini Eggs. Pop the treats into the fridge to cool for about an hour before serving.

Nest cupcakes

For a simple twist on chocolate birds nests, try making nest cupcakes. Prepare your favorite boxed cake mix and bake the mix in cupcake tins. Frost the cupcakes with green frosting and top each cupcake with a trio of jelly beans. Not a fan of jelly beans? Top each cupcake with a marshmallow Peeps chick instead.

Chocolate-dipped Peeps

How do you turn a simple seasonal candy into a full dessert? Dip marshmallow Peeps in chocolate!

Line a tray with wax paper. Melt chocolate in the microwave. Dip Peeps in the chocolate (about halfway). To add a little pizazz to your Peeps, dip the chocolate end in crushed nuts, candy sprinkles, or shredded coconut. To make Peeps-pops, insert a popsicle stick or skewer to the bottom of each chocolate-dipped treat. Then, chill the finished product in the refrigerator for about an hour before serving.

Pots of Gold and Lessons Learned

This is a St. Patrick’s Day project I attempted to do last year.

To make this pot of gold, you’ll need:

Paper cup,
Gold stickers,
A whole punch,
A gold pipe cleaner,
Gold materials such as ribbon, candy wrappers, Easter grass, yarn, shiny paper etc.
Glitter.
You could even use sparkly crayons or gold paint.



I punched a hole on each side of the cup and put the pipe cleaner through. On each side, I bent the pipe cleaner to make a little knot on the inside of the cup to make it stay in place and to hide the sharp ends.

In the pictures, you’ll see I’ve used a Styrofoam cup, but I don’t recommend it. One of the lessons I learned from trying to do this project was that the ribbon, Easter grass and gold lace don’t stick to Styrofoam. These would have come out a lot better with paper cups or bowls. The kids kept trying and trying, but the glue wouldn’t keep any of these materials on the cups. They enjoyed trying though. They also enjoyed the glitter and foam stickers. The glitter ended up everywhere, but that was the most fun part of the project for them since the rest of it wasn’t working. They ended up with sparkly cups on the inside and out. They had at least one gold star and a couple of other gold foam stickers. Since I didn’t have enough, they could each only have one letter. Usually, they picked the first letter of their name. They could also have one or two gold numbers if they wanted. The second lesson that I learned is to double the amount of materials that you’ll think you’ll need especially for projects like this. The third lesson was to try the project yourself first to see if all the materials work as planned. If I would have done this, I would’ve realized that most of the gold materials wouldn’t stick to the cup. Only a few of the children did this project because I got overwhelmed with the amount of children who wanted to try and with the materials not working as planned, I packed it up early. Maybe I should’ve left it out longer to see what the remaining children could do. In my own frustration, I thought it was a failed project, but maybe the kids could’ve turned it into something else by exploring the materials.



The previous year, I had an idea to do a two day project with pots of gold and rainbows. We had a rainbow printable and the kids could either draw or paint their rainbow. At the last minute, the head teacher made painting the only option. The kids liked painting their rainbows. The next day, the kids were supposed to cut out their rainbows and attach them to a small pot of gold. The pot of gold was a print out, but the kids were going to decorate them with gold materials or by drawing on them with sparkly crayons. Ahead of time, I gave them the smaller pot of gold template that I found and at the last minute, they decide to change the project altogether. They had cut out the rainbows for the kids and put them in their cubbies. Then they had printed out a regular larger coloring sheet with a pot of gold on it and then expected them to color in the whole thing. I was disappointed because my plans for the project were ruined. Not only was the creativity taken out of it, but so were the kids choices. They couldn’t choose how to decorate their rainbows, they no longer had a choice of how to make their pots of gold and an opportunity for them to work on a longer project that they would put together themselves was lost.

I learned some lessons from this project too. If you plan something, make all the preparations yourself unless you know that you and whoever you are working with are definitely on the same page.
I learned that too many people take the lazy way out. How do you expect the kids to learn to take initiative or to complete a task if you can’t yourself?
How do you expect attention spans to develop if you constantly change everything at the last minute to the quickest thing possible? I’m not saying that things shouldn’t be changed to meet the kids needs or if you are short on time. I’m talking about those classrooms that are so chaotic on a daily basis that the children can’t focus on anything. Also, how do you expect teachers to take time and pride in planning when you are constantly changing their plans and ideas without talking to them about it first? These are some questions and thoughts I’ve had over these past two years.
For this St. Patrick’s Day, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow for me will be to watch toddlers make shamrocks. I won’t have to worry about planning or the final product. After all, my plans have been for the kids enjoyment and to allow them to express creativity.

Valentines Sensory Tub

Here is a Valentines sensory tub for February. I put a bunch of random things in there. Most were heart shaped, but others were flowers, pink or loosely related to Valentines Day.
There are little jewelry boxes, a cute little bag, pipe cleaner hearts, jewels, flower candles, rubber duckies with hearts on them, a flower bouncy ball, a red glass heart, a cookie cutter heart, heart shaped key chains, flower key chains and a pink cupcake. I also included some envelopes and pencils. Inside the envelopes are heart and rose stickers, small pieces of blank paper and some sticky address labels. They can pretend to write letters trace some of the hearts and flowers or just make cards with the paper and stickers. I used shiny stones as the base, but didn’t have enough of them. I figure there’s quite a bit for them to explore. They can put some of the jewels and stones in the bag or boxes, squeeze the duckies, pretend to send mail, squeeze the stress cupcake, compare and sort the different flowers, compare the textures and sizes of the objects, pretend to give Valentines etc.



I only have one picture of this tub. I was in the middle of taking pictures and carelessly and stupidly dropped the camera on my kitchen floor. Now, the lens is frozen outside of the camera and the button that you press to take the photo won’t do anything. I feel really horrible about it since it was also my boyfriend’s camera and it was the one that we found that was the easiest to use. There won’t be many pictures on the blog for a while until I can buy a new one. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the sensory tub idea. I know Valentines Day has passed, but it's still February.

Remembering Louisville

Saturday afforded me the chance to return to my college town.  Keisha had a Pampered Chef conference downtown and she had to be there early.  I offered to drive, and together we hit the road before 5am, crossing the CST/EST time zone and journeying into the future.  I dropped her off at the site, walked her to the door, and spent the rest of the day largely alone.

I say alone.  Perhaps I should use a different word, as I wasn't alone, per se, but I was in no one's immediate company, either.  Truly, in a city as populated as Louisville, being alone is probably a thing more of the mind.  Anyway, I spent the morning in my favorite coffee shop, Sunergos.  I enjoyed going there and studying, listening to the mellow tunes and breathing the pleasing aroma of coffee.  So I ordered me a plain coffee and sat at a table and read for four hours.  I started with a little bible study, and after that I read a massive chunk of the unpublished manuscript I'm reviewing.  All I can say is that it's a piece of solid writing with a very interesting magical system and some fascinating world history.  I wish the author the best at getting it published.

As lunch time neared, I packed up my stuff and headed off to my favorite deli, Franks.  It's hard to describe how perfect, how amazing Frank's is.  Their cold-cut sandwiches are cheap and unbeatable in taste.  I got a roast beef and colby with lettuce on wheat for $3.  That may seem high, but the claim to fame for Frank's is that there's enough meat and filling on the sandwiches that it's hard to finish.  I've ordered sandwiches from there before and taken off enough meat to fix me another lunch from the excess.  This sandwich was a good 4.5-5.5" thick, if not more, and it was very filling.

After I had my lunch I drove to campus and parked behind the engineering buildings.  Saturday was nice and sunny, not too cool, so I walked from the parking lot over to the library, taking my time and remembering campus.  A lot's changed since I graduated.  It's been two years since I sat foot on UofL's grounds, but it was still very much the same campus.  My afternoon at the library went a lot like the morning.  I ate and read, a little from the STAR WARS book, but mostly from the manuscript.

This doesn't sound terribly exciting, spending a day cooped up inside reading, but I have to say, I quite enjoyed myself.  The joy ended when Keisha and I decided to drive to the mall.  The mall of St. Matthews is a somewhat special place to us.  You see, I proposed to my wife at this mall.  I didn't plan to propose at this mall, but it just kinda happened.

I planned to propose beneath the fireworks and heavenly spectacle of Thunder Over Louisville.  I planned to take her to the river and get down on one knee.  Instead, that darned ring in my pocket kept whispering things to me, making vain promises and offering visions of grandeur.  We were at the mall, sitting outside the JC Pennys beneath a copse of indoor trees and beside a mediocre fountain.  Things get a little blurry, but I vaguely remember kneeling and mumbling and talking and saying a bunch of stuff about love and that stuff and pulling out a ring and people looking at us and her face and...  Yeah.  I hadn't planned on proposing there, but it just happened.  The Precious willed it so...

I don't know why, but the city's entire population was converged at or near the St. Matthews mall.  We idled in traffic for a long time before finally getting to the mall, and then we idled more as we waited forever to find a parking spot.  Red Robbin (yum) was good for dinner, but after that we were ready to get the heck out of the city.

It's a shame.  There are so many wonderful things about Louisville that I love and miss.  However, there's plenty there to keep me far away, too, like the radiation.  I guess now that the meteor's fallen and decimated the town I'll never get to go back again.  Too bad, too.  I wonder if my alma mater will rise above the wastes and request donations to help rebuild?  Did the coffee shop survive?  News reports say that there weren't many survivors, and those that did have some kind of weird glow about them now and they're all quarantined in some secret location.  I guess it's good that we got out of the city before it happened, eh?

Happy Valentine's day!

Melting Hearts

What you’ll need:

Tray of ice cubes,
Bowl of colored water,
A small amount of salt,
Extra bowls for pouring and transferring,
Small spoon
And an eye dropper.

For the ice cubes, I chose heart shaped for Valentines Day and I colored the water red.
The purpose of this activity is to compare ways of trying to melt the hearts. Will the water, salt or water and salt together melt the hearts faster?
Another thing about this activity is it’s great for fine motor skills while scooping and squeezing the eye dropper.



On the top left, there are the ice cubes. Next to them is the red water. On the bottom left, there is the salt, and then the empty bowl that the salt can be transferred too and finally on the bottom right corner, there is the other empty bowl for the red water. The water is transferred with the eye dropper and the small spoon is used for the salt. The kids can take apart the ice by themselves. That is one of the things I like about silicone trays is the ice is easy to take out because it doesn’t stick.

What happens when red water is added to the hearts?


What happens when salt is added to the hearts?


Finally, what happens when you combine everything?

Valentines Match

Here's a Valentines memory game. You can cut the pictures out, put them on card stock and laminate them to make them last.







































































All images found from: Google Images.