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