create

Chalk Scraping

Supplies

  • Brightly coloured chalk
  • White card stock
  • Shallow dish
  • Water
  • Popsicle stick
  • Optional: book about colours

Educators: we recommend reading “Festival of Colors” by Surishtha Sehgal and Kabir Sehgal

Instructions:

  1. Fill your shallow dish with just enough water to cover the bottom.
  2. Use a popsicle stick to gently scrape the chalk over the dish of water.
  3. Watch as the chalk sprinkles make a beautiful design.
  4. Gently lay your piece of card stock over the water and lift it quickly. It will have absorbed the chalk onto the paper.
  5. Alternatively: you can lightly dampen your piece of card stock and gently scrape the chalk directly onto the dampened card stock.

Skills

  • Creative
  • Colours
  • Culture – discuss Holi, India’s Festival of Colour
  • Fine motor
  • Literacy and social skills when paired with the book
create

Packing Peanuts Painting

Supplies

  • Washable paint
  • Dish for paint
  • Packing peanuts (foamy things that come in packages)
  • Paper or cardstock

Instructions

  1. Empty desired paint colours into dish.
  2. Lay paper on a table
  3. Use the packing peanuts to stamp shapes on your paper

Adaptations

  • Children can draw a picture and then add the stamping to their drawing
  • Create patterns

Skills

  • Creative
  • Fine motor
Play

Box of Chocolates Colour Match

Looking for an easy activity you can make at home with leftover chocolate boxes?

Supplies

  • Empty box of chocolates
  • Coloured pompoms
  • Coloured stickers

Directions

  1. Place a sticker in each chocolate indentation.
  2. Set out the empty chocolate box with pompoms.
  3. Help your child match the pompoms to the corresponding coloured sticker.

Adaptations/Extensions of Play

  • Use the materials for dramatic play
  • Try using different fine motor tools to pick up each pompom (large tweezers, mini tongs, grabbers) etc

Skills

  • Colour recognition
  • Matching
  • Sorting
  • Math Language – talk about what you are doing 🙂
  • Visual discrimination
  • Fine motor
  • Concentration
  • Eye – Hand coordination
  • Dramatic play – allow children to play with the chocolate box however they choose.
Eat

Pizza

Making homemade pizza is the perfect activity to do with your children. They will love choosing their toppings and decorating their pizza.

We also love this recipe because it is the perfect LAST MINUTE meal! Our kids have been doing online learning and this recipe is so easy to whip up and faster than ordering pizza! We love making this last minute meal when we are in a pinch!

Ingredients

  • 1 1/2 cup warm water
  • 1 package dry active yeast
  • 1 tsp sugar
  • 1 tsp salt
  • 4 cups all purpose flour (and a little extra flour)
  • 1/3 cup olive oil
  • Pizza sauce
  • Grated mozzarella cheese
  • Optional: toppings, pepperoni, olives, basil, corn meal

Instructions

  1. Add dry yeast to warm water and wait a few minutes to allow yeast to dissolve.
  2. In a separate bowl add flour, salt and sugar. Add in warm water mix and olive oil.
  3. Mix dough together and form a ball. We like to rub a tad of olive oil along the inside of bowl. Cover with Saran wrap. Let sit for 30-60 minutes.
  4. Knead dough until smooth and roll out dough. We like to wipe the pan with oil and sprinkle corn meal.
  5. Add your toppings! We love to layer pizza sauce, cheese, pepperoni, olives and basil.
  6. Bake in oven at 425° for 20-25 minutes.
Play

Colour Sorting

Supplies

  • Multiple coloured manipulatives (erasers, balls, coloured cotton balls, buttons, etc)
  • Felt pieces in colours of manipulatives (pieces of coloured construction paper can be used, or you can draw the colour with a marker on paper)

Instructions

  1. Set out your coloured pieces of felt on a table or the floor.
  2. Set out a basket of different coloured manipulatives that match the felt pieces.
  3. Children will explore mathematical concepts as they match the manipulatives to the corresponding pieces of felt.

Skills

  • Fine motor
  • Colour recognition
  • Sorting
  • Cognitive skills
  • Visual discrimination skills
Eat

The Grinch Who Stole My Chia Seed Pudding

Ingredients

  • 4 cups milk (or milk alternate)
  • 2 cups spinach
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup
  • 1/4 cup collagen powder
  • 3/4 cup chia seeds
  • 1 cup pomegranate seeds
  • 1 tbs vanilla
  • Pinch of cinnamon

Directions

  1. Blend milk, maple syrup, cinnamon, vanilla, spinach and collagen powder together in blender.
  2. In large bowl mix the blended mixture with chia seeds.
  3. Put in fridge overnight. Make sure to cover with lid or wrap. The next morning top with fresh or frozen pomegranate seeds and serve.
Eat

Sunbutter Chocolate Granola Bars

Ingredients

  • 1/2 cup of sunflower butter
  • 1/4 coconut oil
  • 1/4 maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1 cup of large flake oats
  • 1/2 cup shredded coconut (if school safe) or omit
  • 3/4 chocolate chips
  • 1/4 sunflower seeds
  • 1/4 hemp hearts

Directions

  1. Mix together: 1 cup of large flake oats, 1/2 cup shredded coconut (if school safe) or omit, 3/4 chocolate chips, 1/4 sunflower seeds, 1/4 hemp hearts
  2. Heat over stove top: 1/2 cup of sunflower butter, 1/4 coconut oil, 1/4 maple syrup, 1 tsp vanilla extract
  3. Once melted, mix into dry mixture until it is well mixed and all the chocolate chips have melted. Add your mixture to a mold or press down into a pan.
  4. Optional step: melt 1/4 cup of chocolate chips with a tsp of coconut oil to decorate the tops. You may also top with sprinkles if you wish.
  5. Place in fridge or freezer. Cut into squares or pop out of mold as needed.

Note:

Coconut is actually the seed of a drupaceous fruit and does not trigger a reaction in a person with a tree-nut allergy. Patients diagnosed with tree-nut allergy are not advised to avoid coconut. However, in October of 2006, the FDA began technically identifying coconut as a tree nut, landing it on a few tree-nut lists and causing confusion.

create

Beautiful Names Fine Motor Activity

Supplies

  • Paper
  • Pencil
  • Glue stick
  • Leaves, flower petals, etc.

Instructions

  1. Collect leaves, flower petals, etc.
  2. Write your child’s name or first letter of their name on a piece of paper.
  3. Break your leaves into pieces or use a large hole puncher/shape puncher to create shapes.
  4. Use a glue stick and encourage your child to stick the pieces to their name.

Skills

  • Fine motor
  • Nature
  • Focus and concentration
  • Name recognition
  • Letter recognition