birthday collage

Ever wonder what to do with all of your birthday cards? Make a birthday collage!

Materials:
posterboard
cards
glue
scissors





This is a great way to practice cutting and pasting. My son loved the finished product and taped it to his closet door!

whiteboard fun

Materials needed:
Whiteboard
Dry Erase Markers

This is another great activity to keep kids busy and practice writing & drawing. My kids can stay entertained for several minutes with their dry-erase boards and markers. You can practice shapes, numbers, or just have fun drawing with these nifty markers!

music shakers

Materials:
Empty coffee can
beans
fabric
ribbon
thread
glue (I used a glue gun to make extra secure)



This is an easy way to make a music shaker and not worry about beans getting into little mouths!

Fill an empty coffee can with beans. Place lid back on can. Cut a large piece of fabric and roll around can, gluing down to secure the fabric. I secured each end with thread then tied large ribbons around the thread. This gives the children "handles" to hold while shaking their music makers!



Play some fun music and enjoy shaking to the beat!!!

cheap & easy disposable paint containers

My kids love to paint. The bad part is always the cleanup, though! Here is a great way to make paint holders to separate your paints.

Materials:
Cardboard egg carton
scissors

Just cut the carton into sections. I usually make four 3-color sections for the kids.



Just fill each section with desired amount of paint!

stamping fun

Materials:
Several large ink pads
Sheets of paper
Several patterns of stamps

This is a simple and fun activity that you can do anytime. The kids love it when I pull out the stamps!



You can buy the large stamps several places. My mom got this set with the inkpads from Oriental Trading Company. These are the beach theme stamps. I saw more fun ones in the catalog that I may order later!

fireworks

You can do this simple and MESSY activity to celebrate the 4th!

Materials:
* Dark construction paper
* Glitter glue sticks

Help the kids make the fireworks by squirting the glitter glue on the paper and showing them how to spread it out like a star or "fireworks". Then let them go at it and have fun. It takes about a day to dry so be sure to find a place to store it while it dries (out of reach of curious hands).

Tip: I let them do this with their shirts off.....so I had less glitter in the washing machine.

marshmallow mountain

Materials needed:
*marshmallows ( I found pink strawberry ones we used with the white.....made it even more fun!)
* plates
* plastic knife
*can of frosting
* card that says Marshmallow Mountain

While continuing to study the letter M, we made a snack that focused on that letter, Marshmallow Mountains!

This is such an easy and fun activity for the kids. And they actually remember that Marshmallows and Mountain start with M!

Place the marshmallows on a plate with a couple of spoonfuls of frosting. They can build their "mountains" on the other plate using the frosting as the glue to hold the marshmallows together. Just let them create, snack, and have fun!!!