Name Snowman

Name Snowman is a fun way for kids to learn their names. This activity combines arts and crafts, letters, kids names, and snowman – a perfect winter activity for preschoolers to try.

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What you need

• White & Black construction paper
• Marker
• Scissors
• Glue

How to

• Make Snowballs – Cut out circles from the white construction paper – one for the face and one circle per letter in your kids name.
• For the face – Draw eyes, nose and mouth using markers. One things we missed was hat – you could cut hat shapes and decorate it with rhinestones, glitters, pompoms and so on.
• Write the letters on the snowballs and glue them to make your name snowman.

Miss A(4) knows to spell & write her name now. She wrote the letters in her name on the snowballs and glued the snowman together on a black paper. She dint need any help with writing or ordering the letters.

Miss D(3) wrote the letters in her name with some help, i had to tell her what letters to write and which order to glue them. For even smaller kids you could write it for them and ask them to glue it.Once done we used painters tape to put it up on their playroom wall. They were so proud of their work. 😀

While doing this activity they learnt the order of letters in their name and also spoke about – how many letters they have in their name, whose name is longer, how many As does your name have and so on.

Easter Egg Alphabet Match – Name Recognition Activity

This Alphabet Matching Activity is a great way to repurpose the plastic easter eggs lying around in your house. It develops letter recognition, name recognition, color recognition and fine motor skills.

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What you need

• Plastic easter eggs
• Permanent Marker

How to

• Write the uppercase alphabets on the top part of the egg and corresponding lowercase alphabets on the bottom part using permanent marker.
• You can do this for all the 26 letters, although I chose to do just the ones which form their name.
• Write your LOs name on a paper for them. For older kids who know how to spell their name, you might not need this.
• Take all the eggs, separate the top from the bottom and mix them up.
• Let your kids match the uppercase alphabets to lowercase alphabets to make the eggs whole again and arrange them to form their name. 

This activity was a part of our Easter Sensory Bin. This was Miss A’s(3yrs) first ever lowercase learning activity. So we tried to keep it simple. I wrote the uppercase & lowercase alphabets on the top half egg to make it easy for her to match. That means, one side of the top part had uppercase and other side had lowercase indicating they are the same letter and the bottom half egg had the just the lowercase alphabet. 

She was able to match the top half (uppercase) of the egg to form her name calling out each letter. Then she turned the eggs to see the corresponding lowercase. She matched the egg halves by lowercase to make a whole egg and then twisted the egg to match uppercase to lowercase. This was a great way for her to learn some lowercase alphabets. Once she masters the ones in her name, we will add more to this. After getting familiar with the letters, she matched them to form her name. 

Miss D(2yrs) matched top half(uppercase alphabets) of the eggs to her name with no help. Then i turned each egg the other side to show her the matching lowercase. But its too early for her now. So we chose to stick with forming name using uppercase and matching eggs by color. She named the colors of the eggs used.

Easter Sensory Bin

Sensory bins are always a hit with my kids. I love them because they are great for developing fine motor skills, imagination and creativity. Even the simplest fillers keeps my kids engaged for hours. This Easter Sensory Bin is easy to set up and fun to play with.

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Here’s what I did – Pour green colored rice (how to color rice) into a storage bin, add plastic easter eggs(different sizes) and plastic rainbow colored bunnies (i also added a bunny figurine) to it. Add measuring  spoons and styrofoam egg carton (the ones in which we get chocolate marshmallow eggs) and the sensory bin is all set to play with.

Miss A(3 yrs) & Miss D(2yrs) enjoyed playing with this bin. I set this up during their nap time. They went straight to it after they woke up and was playing with it until dinner – took a short break for evening snack.

Here’s how they played with it

D was so excited to see the bunny figurine in the bin. The first thing she did was to pick it up and sing the hop little bunny song and made the bunnies hop on the rice.

A & D scooped the rice using spoons and hands and transferred it to the eggs, closed the eggs and shaked it to hear the rattle sound. Then poured the rice back to the bin or hands. They liked to touch and feel the rice.

D filled the egg carton with rice, tried to poke it to make holes, closed the carton and shaked it to hear the noise it made. She then dumped it to the bin.

A filled the eggs with rice, and closed it to store in the egg carton.

Then we took out the big eggs, D put the matching bunnies inside the egg and closed it. A added some rice to the egg and made the bunnies stand on it (thats what she said) and then closed the eggs. They both shaked their eggs and compared the sounds. We discussed the different colors and sounds they observed.

The plastic eggs had uppercase and lowercase alphabets written on it. Once they were done playing with the rice, they tried to match the alphabets and we did a name recognition activity later. More about that on a different post.

What would you add to your Easter Sensory Bin?

Check out other Easter Sensory Bins

Caterpillar Theme Math & Literacy Activities – Toddlers & Preschoolers

With just one week for spring, here are few caterpillar themed learning activities which we’ve been doing. Try it with your LOs. 

Name Caterpillar – name recognition

Cut out circles from construction paper and write your kids name on it. Use a white circle to make smiley face. Let your LOs glue them on to form their name to make a name caterpillar. For kids who dont know their name order yet, write it down on a piece if paper to help them pick the correct alphabet order. We laminated our work, and extended the activity – Write the name on round labels and let your kids match it to the caterpillar. Miss A(3yrs) and Miss D(2yrs) loved this activity. I left it on their shelf and every now and then they would ask me for more labels to match up.

Number Caterpillar – number recognition, number order

I printed out this template, wrote numbers on round labels and gave it to my LOs. They matched the numbers and put the labels on it. Miss A(3yrs) & Miss D(2yrs) did this activity when mommy was getting the lunch ready 😀

Counting Caterpillar –number recognition, counting, one to one correspondence

Print the above template, let your LOs use any math manipulatives and count with it. We used cubes. You could also do this with Pompoms, playdough, dot markers, stickers, finger paint, or color with crayons. This activity was a great exercise for Miss A(3yrs) to practice counting and develop number recognition. Whereas for Miss D(2yrs) it was about one to one correspondence – she was trying to place one block per circle.

Shapes Caterpillar –shapes & color recognition 

Cut out shapes from felt. On a cardstock, trace the shapes to make a shapes caterpillar. Stick the velcro dot stickers on the cardstock and on the felt pieces. Let your LOs match the shapes.Miss A(3yrs) and Miss D(2yrs) enjoyed this activity a lot. This was their most favourite of all. A would name the color and shape before placing it. D is learning the names of shapes, but she would match them perfectly. I put it up on our wall (using painters tape) – they do it every now and then.

Color Sorting Caterpillar – color recognition 

Cut circles from construction paper. Let your LOs glue them onto a paper to make a colorful caterpillar. Once done, draw legs, face and antennae. Give some pompoms to them to color match on the caterpillar. Thanks to our blogger friend joyful parenting for this cute idea 😀. Miss A (3yrs) enjoyed the gluing part, and was excited when i drew legs, face, antennae and laminated it for her. She was not very keen on the color sorting part mainly because she knows basic colors by now. Although she did it once – picking up the pompoms using tongs and placing them on the corresponding colors. Miss D(2yrs) enjoyed this activity a lot. She had fun gluing and more fun color sorting. She kept repeating it for a while picking the pompoms using spatula and matching it to the caterpillar.

Patterns Caterpillar – patterning skills

Print out a plain caterpillar template. Or draw a caterpillar. Laminate for reuse. I used round color coding labels to make patterns (AB & ABC patterns) before laminating. Leave some empty spaces to let your LOs find out what comes next. Miss A(3yrs) was able to do these simple patterns with some help. She liked using the acrylic leaves for this activity.

Valentines Literacy & Math Activities – Toddlers & Preschoolers

❤️ Happy Valentines Day!! ❤️

Here are some simple literacy and math activities to theme with Valentines month.. 

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Valentine Name Recognition Activity

Cut out hearts from construction paper. Write your LOs name on it. You can laminate it, if you plan to reuse. Fill in the alphabets on the round labels or Heart stickers and let them match it. You can also match uppercase to lowercase.

Valentine Alphabet Match

Cut out heart from construction paper. Write the alphabets on it. You can laminate it, if you plan to reuse. Write the alphabets on the round labels or Heart stickers and let your LOs match it. You can match uppercase to lowercase too.

Valentine Number Match

Cut out heart from construction paper. Write the numbers on it. You can laminate it, if you plan to reuse. Write the numbers on the round labels or Heart stickers and let your LOs match it.

Miss A(3yrs) & Miss D(2yrs) enjoyed these activities. They are pro when it comes to their name. A did perfectly fine with numbers & alphabet match. D was not interesting in number match but surprised me with the alphabet match. She did most of it all by herself. I set these out last week for them. We laminated our heart sheets so they repeated it every now and then the whole week. 👍

Also check out Counting Hearts – Valentine Counting Activity 

Check out other Valentine Activities

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Name Tree – Christmas Theme

Name Tree is a Christmas themed name recognition activity for preschoolers. I personally love themed activities. It makes it more fun & interesting for kids to learn. 😀

What you need

• Construction Paper (White, Green, Yellow, Brown)
• Marker
• Glue
• Scissors
• Labels

How to

• Cut out triangles from green construction paper to form the tree. To match the number of letters in your kids name.
• Write the name on the triangles using markers. (One letter per traingle)
• Cut out a small rectangle from the brown paper for the trunk.
• Now let your LOs stick the triangles & trunk onto a white paper using glue. ( in order – to form their name tree)
•  Cut out star shape from yellow paper and stick it on top and your tree is ready. You could also draw a star using markers.
• Extend the activity – Laminate the finished piece (for reuse). Write down the letters to form their name on the round labels. Let them match the labels to the tree.

Miss A(3 yrs) & Miss D(2 yrs) were so excited to make their own name tree. They enjoyed it more when i laminated it and gave them the labels to match the letters. Miss D took us by surprise by matching it perectly. Miss A did it like a pro. She spelled out each letter as she did it. We also revised our shapes (triangle, rectangle, star & circle)👍 I left it in their shelf last week with some labels and they did it over and over again. 😀

Bottle Cap Name Match

This easy to set up name matching activity helps toodlers & preschoolers to learn their name, letter recognition & one to one correspondence. 

What you need

• Bottle Cap 
• Marker
• Round Labels(optional)
• Paper

How to

• Trace around the bottle caps on a paper to match the number of letters in your kids name.
• Write the letters inside the circle using marker. Laminate & cut – optional (i did it because my LOs will rip the paper off in no time 😜)
• Write the letters on the labels and stick them on the bottle cap. You can also use alphabet stickers or just write the letters on the bottle cap using permanent marker.
• Give the paper and bottle caps to your kids & let them match the letters.

Miss A (3yrs) was able to do it with no help. She would say what each letter was and match the bottle cap to it. Then we counted how many letters she has in her name and she found out that she has 2 A’s in her name. 👏 I asked her if she could form her name without looking at the paper and she puts an A in the beginning and end and for the rest we do it together. 😀 May be next time i will try with uppercase and lowercase letters. Miss D (24 months) just learned what her name looks like and repeated each letter after me and matched it. 👍 My LOs enjoyed doing this activity. They repeated it 5 times.  

Sensory Alphabet Hunt – Name Recognition Activity

Names are often the first words your LOs learns to read. Name Recognition is an important skill for Preschoolers. Make learning their name fun by searching the alphabets in a sensory rainbow colored rice bin 😀 Kids will have fun digging around and finding the alphabets.

What you need

• Bin
• Rainbow Colored Rice (Click here to learn how to color rice for kids play)
• Alphabets
• Paper
• Marker

How to

• Write your LOs name on a paper using marker.
• Put the alphabets that form your kids name into the bin & fill it with colored rice leaving room for them to dig and explore. (I filled abt 1/3 of the bin)
• Invite your kids to play. Give them spoons and tongs or a magnetic wand and ask them to fetch for alphabets from the bin and put it in a small bowl. We used Melissa & Doug Magnetic Alphabets. You could also use foam alphabets or just print, laminate and cut the alphabets.
• After their done collecting all the alphabets, let them match the alphabets to the ones written on the paper.
• Talk about the alphabets. Ask them to spell the name out.

This activity is great for kids to learn the alphabets in their name. Miss A (3yrs) was super excited to do this activity. When i showed the paper with her name written and asked what is this, she said Asrita(her name). She knows to recognize her name by now. Then she dug into the rice bin using her hands to collect the alphabets. She dint want to use any tools for this activity. After collecting all the alphabets i asked her to match them to her name and she did it right. Then, she spelled out her name and felt very happy that she was able to do it. It definetly gives your LOs a sense of recognition when they complete this activity. She wanted to do it again & we repeated it 5 times😀 This sensory activity also develops fine motor skills & hand-eye cordination. 

You could extend this activity by putting all the 26 alphabets in the bin. Ask them to fetch the alphabets and place it in order or match the uppercase with lower case. You could also do this with numbers.👍

Click here for other Name Recognition activities.

Name Recognition Activity using Stickers

My LOs love playing with stickers. We used to get alot of sticker books from dollar store and the girls would just stick them almost anywhere except the walls – paper, floor, carpet, playmat, u name it ( even though they have books to stick it on *sigh*).. Peeling them off is so much work, but i let them do it cause it helps develop fine motor skills – pincer grasp, hand-eye coordination.

Name recognition is an important skill for a preschooler. There are alot of ways to do this and its good to teach them in different ways. Since my LO loves stickers, i wanted to give this method a try & I must say she did have fun.

What you need

• Paper
• Marker
• Stickers

How to

• Write your kids name on the paper using the marker.
• Show them how to stick the stickers on the line. You could do a few to start with.
• Let them finish it. 

We used frozen stickers today ( my LOs pick of the day). As she placed the stickers on, we talked about elsa, anna, oalf & eventually this activity turned to story telling activity 😀