Jenn's DIY Homemade Cupcakes

Welcoming February, the month of love, with something sweet, it's cupcakes!
This practice the little hands' fine motor skill and some creativity.

What you need:

• Cardboard
• Punched origami papers
• Scissor
• Marker
• Glue

How to do:

1. Draw cupcakes and strawberries on the cardboard.
2. Cut the shape out and color it with marker (your little ones might need your help for this)
3. Let them decorate the cupcakes with some punched origami papers as smarties and the strawberry

Christmas Tree Card

This is the Christmas card that Jenn made for 2014, simple yet cute! I know it's too late for Christmas, but you may change the theme into some other events, or maybe this year's Christmas card =)

What you need:

• Plain white cardboard
• Circle stickers (combination of light and dark green)
• Pen

Instructions:

1. Draw dots on the paper which will form a Christmas tree
2. Place the stickers on the dots
3. Don't forget to add a star on the top of the tree
4. Write a message on the back side

DIY Snowflake for toddler

I know it's really late to post crafts with Christmas theme, but late is better than nothing. December is identical with snowy winter season, so snowflake is the DIY craft for toddlers this time.

What you need:

• Plain white paper
• Origami
• Puncher
• Scissor
• Glue

Instructions:

1. Draw circles on the paper and cut them out
2. Fold the circles into 4 and cut on the edges, adults may help with this
3. Punch colorful origami papers
4. Decorate the snowflakes with the punched papers

Bead Threading for Toddler

Bead threading is an activity which improves their fine motor control, strengthening those little muscles in their hand. I found it also helps for hand and eye coordination and also concentration skill. This activity involves small item: beads, please never leave them unattended while doing this activity.

What you will need:
Beads
Thread (It works well with pipe cleaners too!)

Letter push pin activity

I had this cork board for a long time but didn't have a chance to use it, I was so happy when I saw a lot of toddler activities idea!
This time I'm gonna make an alphabet using the push pins and let her connect it to each other by using colorful elastic bands. 

This activity improves their fine motor control, hand and eye coordination and also concentration skill. This activity involves small item: push pin, please make sure to keep an eye on them and never leave them unattended while doing this activity.
If you don't feel at ease, please don't do this activity with your toddler.

What you need:
Cork board
Push pins
Elastic bands

Eye Dropper Activity for Toddler

I love to teach Jenn while she plays, it's more fun and easier for her to absorb the lesson. Today's activity involves messy play and colors, I put on a plastic bib on her.

What you need:
Eye dropper or pipettes
Food coloring
Thick napkins/paper

All you have to do is teach them how to use the eye dropper and let them explore as long as they want. Eye dropper is a good tool to improve their fine motor skills, have fun! 

Basic Prewritting

It's time for prewritting skill! It's a very basic activity for Jenn, it improves her fine motor skill and get her ready to write at school too. 

This activity also allow me to correct her way to hold a pen. She still needs a lot of practices in prewritting, but it's a good start for her! I'm gonna make more prewritting activity for her, stay tune! =)

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Counting Shape

Jenn enjoyed and did well in this activity, it includes shapes, colors and counting. Let's give it a try!

What you need:
Paper
Marker Pen
Stickers

How:
Print out different shapes for each task, color it with differently too.
They are required to count the shapes and stick down the stickers on the box.

Name Recognition

Jenn is very familiar with alphabets, so I decided to make a name recognition for her. It's a simple sticking sticker activity, which requires them to match the alphabets.

What you need:

Paper

Stickers

Marker Pen

How:

Make circles and write down the alphabets of their name on it

Get the stickers ready and write down alphabets on it too

Hope they will love it too! 

Counting Cards with Clothes Pin

I'm still doing a lot of activity in counting for Jenn, let's make it fun again this time!

What you need:
Cardboard
Origami Papers
Clothes Pin
Scotch Tape
Glue
Scissor

Firstly, write down the numbers on origami papers and cut them out. I made them in different colors, just to make it more colorful. Then cut cardboard into same sizes and glue the numbers on it. I cover the cardboard with scotch tape, just to make it difficult to be torn.

How to play? Just simply ask your toddler to put on the clothes pin on the cardboard, based on the number written on it. Happy counting! 

Dinosaur

Start introducing dinosaur to Jenn, it's another simple sticking stickers activity. 
She still can't do it perfectly, but I'm still proud of her. 
You'll be amazed how they improved from time to time.

What you need:
Cardboard
Markers/pencil colors/crayon
Stickers

I searched the dinosaur from the net, simply printed it out and colored it, don't forget to leave some blank spots for the stickers.

Enjoy the activity! 

SUN-shine

After everyone was down couple of days ago, now mommy was down too with fever! But I can't wait to make this sun activity for Jenn. 

What you need:
Cardboard (thick!)
DIY Edible Paint
Origami Paper
Scissor
Scotch Tape
Marker pen

Firstly, I let her paint on a thick cardboard with DIY edible paint. She may use her finger, cotton buds or anything that she wants. Then you have to wait until it gets dry. 

You may cut some origami papers while waiting for the painting. I used red, orange and yellow colors to stick on the sun.

Once the painting dries, cut a big circle and you may start sticking on origami papers on the circle's edges with scotch tape. I added smiley face to make it cute!

Jenn didn't finish her job, mommy have to do most of it. We may give it another try next time! 

Colorful Toothpicks Activity

I love making DIY toys for Jenn, and this is one of them. It's a simple color recognition activity and also practice their little fingers' muscles.

What you need:

• Empty bottle (I upcycled a mineral water bottle)
• Thick plastic (as the cover)
• Colorful stickers
• Toothpick
• Rubber bands
• Marker

We had to color the toothpicks with markers, we made 6 different colors. You may have more colors, depends on the size of your bottle. Stick on colorful stickers and make a hole, not too big, but just enough to fit in the toothpicks. Cover the bottle with the plastic and secure with rubber bands.

Jenn needs extra patient and concentration to do this activity, but she loves it so much. She will ask for more when all the toothpicks are inside the bottle.

Big vs Small

I was trying to introduce big and small sizes to Jenn with this activity, but seems like she didn't get it. It's a simple sticking stickers activity, you may wanna give it a try.

What you need:
Cardboard
Origami paper
Sticker
Glue
Scissor


Firstly, prepare the circles by using origami paper and sticker, I used colorful sticker and paper to make it more fun. Then instruct your child to pick the circle and stick it on the cardboard. When they can differentiate between big and small, you may ask them with detail, eg: big yellow circle. It practice their knowledge about color too!

Learning Alphabet "D"

It's been a while since she mess around with pencil color, crayon and paint, so here is a simple activity for letter D.

Print out a big and small letter of D with a picture of duck and dog. Let them use whatever they want to color it with.

My little Picasso is doing her thing, busy picking colors.

Jenn used crayon, pencil color and paint for this activity. This is the final of her coloring activity. 

Counting Tree

Jenn is learning to count, she still can't count properly. Sometimes she start counting from two, and sometimes she just say one to ten without really counting the things i asked. So this time, let's make counting more fun!

What I used:

• Scissor
• Glue
• Origami paper
• Old calendar (I love to upcycle stuff at home!) - Cut it into tree shape and tree trunks, cover up with origami papers.
• Colorful stickers - Write numbers on each color as the task to stick as many stickers as written on it.

Happy sticking, happy counting and have a great day! 

Introduction to Shape

Jenn have learned about alphabets, numbers, animals, colors and it's time for introducing her to shapes. Let's get started!

What you need:

• Origami papers
• Glue
• Cardboard

Cut shapes of circle, triangle, square and rectangle using origami papers.
Make sure to use colorful origami papers, kids find it more interesting.

Tell them the shape names and how it looks like. 
Let them stick the shape you asked on the cardboard, you may ask them specifically. For example: Blue triangle, orange square, purple circle, red rectangle.

Keep repeating the shapes until they memorize them.

Colorful Wheel

Teaching color is so much fun with this DIY colorful wheel! This is so simple yet cheap activity.

These are what you need:

• Cardboard
• Marker
• Scissor
• Clothes pins

How:

Make a circle on the cardboard and cut it.

Color the cardboard with colorful markers. 

And viola - it's done!

Squeezing the clothes pin was kinda difficult for her.
She need both of her hands to pinch those, so I gotta hold the colorful wheel while she pinch to open it.
Practise makes perfect, after couple of times, she can manage to hold her own colorful wheel and put on the clothes pins.

Learning Alphabet "C"

After doing the letter "A" and "B" activity, here comes the letter "C" activity. "C" is for cat and car. It involves sticking, matching and coloring activity.

What you need:

• Cardboard
• Stickers
• Cotton Balls
• Glue

I rolled the cotton into balls and dye it with food coloring, took a while to let it dry. Use pom pom balls for another option.

She did pretty well at matching the alphabets, the activity requires to match the letter and color. It's her 1st time using glue and she's so excited about it, not letting go off her hand.

Last activity is to let her color the car with colorful markers. Enjoy!

Cute Ladybug

Ladybug is such a cute insect, Jenn see lots of ladybugs from her storybook and some of her toys. She loves them so much, let's make some of them!

What you need:

• Cardboard
• Marker
• Googly eyes
• Scissor
• Glue
• Black circle stickers
• Popsicle stick

How to make:

1. Cut 2 sizes of circles, for the head and body. 
2. Color the bigger circle with red marker, left some part at the middle.
3. Fully color the smaller circle with black marker.
4. Let them stick the black circle stickers at the body.
5. Stick the googly eyes at ladybug's head, and stick it together to the body.
6. At last, stick the popsicle stick at the back side.