Hi everyone!

As we prepare for back to school I know that many of you will be starting remote with your child.  We are all concerned about too much screen time and so I've pulled together some of our favorite hands on learning activities to share with all of you! These are all tested and approved by Crayon Kid and use materials you have in your home.  I like simply seeing what I have on hand and making activities out of it. I'm a no fuss kind of person. 

If you have playdough, rocks (maybe from a nature walk), chopsticks (from Chinese food take out), egg cartons, any kind of foam or magnetic letters, you will be set!  I bought our magnetic letters from Amazon.  No I am not an affiliate, just an Amazon addict! 

Play dough Fun with Letters and Chopsticks!

We used our egg cartons, play dough, letters, and chopsticks with these two activities.  I colored inside each section of the egg carton with a different color, and then had Crayon Kid made some small little play dough balls out of the same colors.  He then took chopsticks and practiced picking the play dough up and placing it in the matching colored section.  We even did the reverse once we filled each up.  Chopsticks are still super hard, for me too, so we modified his a bit with a rubber band at the end and placed a folded up piece of paper at the bottom to help make it easier to pinch.  He always has a blast using them! 

Next we kept the play dough out and used our magnetic letter to stamp out our name into the play dough.  He had to use his muscles to press really hard to flatted the play dough out and then press the letters firmly in. We spelled our name but you could spell anything you wanted - like weekly spelling words, right?

Rock Painting with a Side of Shapes and Letters! 

Crayon Kid loves going on walks.  And he loves finding rocks along his walk and bringing them home even more!  So one day after our rock hunt we came home and decided to paint the rocks.  It was a perfect day outside so we put the rocks in a box, everything was contained,  and he could paint them easily and there was no mess! After they dried we used them to create different shapes and letters, which is a super fun way to practice instead of drawing with plain old pencil and paper. 

So many fun learning activities were created from the most basic materials.  And each worked on multiple skills:

• literacy - making letters with the rocks and stamping our name in play dough
• math - shapes with the rocks
• fine motor - stamping, using the chopsticks, pressing the play dough, painting
• sensory - pressing and squeezing the play dough
• gross motor - going on the nature walk

I hope these activities inspire you to create at home.  It does not take a lot and anything can be made into a learning experience for you and your child.  

We would love to see pictures or hear about your experience trying any of our projects.  Feel free to comment or to message us on Facebook or Instagram.  Take care and till next time,

Nancy 

Co-Owner, Two Sparrows LS

Creator, Effortless Art Crayons

      In education right now, we are working to cut down on paper and be more green.  I will admit that when I was a teacher, heck, even now, I struggle with reducing the amount of copies I make and paper I hand out.  Electronic is fine and I definitely use technology often in my classes, however, I feel that in many instances, children just need the paper or resource right in front of them, that they can hold, annotate, or write on.  As a special education teacher, I made even more copies, because I was constantly adapting and modifying the worksheets and workbooks for my students.  What types of adaptations did I do the most of?  Can you guess?  

Adding lines to blank spaces in a worksheet!  I had so many students on my caseload that struggled with writing clearly and in a defined space. My students ranged from first to fifth grade.  The problem is that once students moved on from first grade, the lined worksheets just disappeared, but the need for the lines was still there for my students.  So I would spend hours taking blank spaces in worksheets or writing prompts or activities, and adding in structured lines.  That's a lot of extra copying and labor, I might add.  

Sometimes if teachers did not get the work to me ahead of time, I was drawing lines on the spot, which I can assure you, was not always done as well as it could be!  It was honestly time that should have been used in other ways, not to mention, that I was using too much paper.  When I came across a product called Woo Tape this year, I was so mad.  Mad because this was not around when I was teaching special education!  Oh the time this would have saved me.  It is a true on the spot tool that really works. 

We know that as teachers we can plan all we want, but there is always going to be that surprise task that we need to adapt on the spot.  That's where Woo Tape comes in.  It comes in three sizes, so you can differentiate even further for your students, as well as it comes color coded to help give your students visual cues for where to start and end their letter formation.  It sticks to your paper, yet easily can be removed without causing any wear or tear. 

This is such a time saver for teachers.  You have more important and valuable things to do with your time than modifying worksheets when you don't have to.  You need that time to assess students, create interventions, heck, let's not forget actually see students!  Using Woo Tape, you will save time, and save your sanity.  It's a must have tool that is low cost, high reward. If you had told me 15 years ago that I could stop modifying and copying worksheets simply to add in needed writing lines, I would have said "Woo Hoo!"  Pick up some packs of Woo Tape on our Marketplace and you will be saying the same.