Coin Sorting Tray

Coin Sorting Tray | Mama Papa Bubba

After our rhyming pairs matching game, Miss G asked to play another homemade game this afternoon. With dinnertime nearing and a baby boy who needed one of his mama’s arms, it needed to be something super quick and easy to pull together, and that’s how this very simple coin sorting tray came about. Admittedly, it’s more of an activity than a game, but Miss G didn’t mind in the least. It meant that she got to play with money, which she’s been super interested in lately. That being said, since she’s spent the majority of her life living in the Middle East, Canadian currency is not something she knows much about just yet, so this was perfect for her.

‘S’ and ‘Sh’ Sound Sorting Game

9 / 14 / 149 / 27 / 14

While Gracen really enjoyed yesterday’s beginning sound sorting game, she played and finished it in less time than it took me to set it up. After the initial completion, we played several more times adapting it and adding new elements, but decided that we’d try some trickier sounds just for fun the following day.

Beginning Sounds Sorting Game

9 / 13 / 1410 / 8 / 14

Miss G and I had all sorts of fun this morning! After an early morning coffee shop date and creating our family portrait embroidery hoop, we put together a little beginning sounds sorting game that was both fun and simple.

SweeTART Sorting and Graphing

10 / 9 / 1310 / 10 / 13

This week, Miss G and I are participating in a candy play series with several other mamas and munchkins from around the world… On Monday we created beautiful glossy paint using Skittles, and yesterday we created candy clay that is fun, mouldable, and edible.

After yesterday’s homemade candy clay recipe, I decided that today we’d get back to finding creative ways to put Grae’s soon-to-be Halloween candy stash to good use. One of the treats that always seems to be popular during the month of October is small coloured candies, whether they’re SweeTARTS, M&Ms, Smarties, or something else. The good thing about these types of goodies is they lend themselves perfectly to all sorts of fun math activities – sorting, counting, comparing, and graphing included. So that’s what we did – we used a few individual-sized bags of SweeTARTS to develop some basic math skills, all in a way that just seemed like regular fun and games.

Pomegranate Play

11 / 7 / 1211 / 8 / 12

It’s no secret that I pretty much love Jackie of Happy Hooligans and all of her awesome play ideas. So last week, when she posted “Guess what we ripped into and investigated at lunch today! Yum!” along with a photo of a pomegranate on her Facebook page, the first thing that came to mind was ‘Why have I never thought of that?’ I’ve always been a huge fan of pomegranates (I still remember what a treat it was to curl up on our black leather couch as a little girl with a giant bowl, a dark towel, and half a pomegranate) and Gracen loves them too, but I’ve never thought to let her play with one before eating it… Silly me! Knowing how much fun she had with our recent pumpkin seed sorting tray (which can be done with almost any squash, by the way), I knew she’d love it.

To set up a simple pomegranate play station for her, I sliced the pomegranate in half, cut a cross about an inch deep on the flat surface of one of the halves, and popped it in a big bowl of cool water for her. (Removing the seeds of a pomegranate in water is by far the best way to do it. Keeping the fruit submerged in water seems to loosen everything up a little, plus it prevents nasty pomegranate stains from occurring. )

I also set out a little tray of “tools” which included a small bowl, a teaspoon, and a large slotted spoon.

Without any direction or modelling, I asked her, “Do you want to play?” She of course let out an immediate “YES!” and jumped right in.

Right away, she began pulling apart the peel and pulp, digging out the seeds (which are actually called ‘arils’, but who says that?) by scraping her finger along the membranes, and adding them to the small yellow bowl. (Keep in mind that she has watched me do this before.)

And before long, she requested another small bowl for the “white yucky parts”.

The other neat thing about taking apart pomegranates while they’re in water is that the seeds sink down to the bottom and the white membrane bits float to the top, making sorting the two very easy.

After she’d realized this, Grae worked on removing the white bits with her slotted spoon for quite some time, but eventually retired the spoon and went straight to using her hands.

Gracen absolutely loved this very simple sorting activity and it kept her happily engaged for about 40 to 45 minutes before it was time for dinner.

And in the end, not only did we have a very happy {and speckled} little lady, but we also had a big bowl of pomegranate seeds just waiting to be eaten up. ☺

♥

Pumpkin Seed Sorting

11 / 1 / 129 / 11 / 13

This little activity just came about organically. Gracen and I were scooping out the insides of a pumpkin and she began collecting all of the seeds and carefully placing them in a neat pile off to the side.

A couple of bowls, some “tools”, and a tray later, and she had herself her very own sorting station.

Though she could have collected the seeds much more quickly using her hands, she really liked the challenge of getting underneath the slippery little seeds and scooping them up into her spoons. Great sensory play and fine motor skill development all in one {totally unplanned} activity? Yes please.

She even took the fun one step further and sampled a raw, goop-covered seed. She slowly nodded her head and said, “Mmmmm… Yummy”, but her little scrunched nose and furrowed brow told me she felt otherwise. ☺

♥

Simple Fun: Colour Sorting Game

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This morning Miss G found a little wooden Melissa & Doug box {that used to house her alphabet magnets}, brought it to me, and asked, “Play game?” Ummmm… Okay. I was certainly not going to turn away that sweet little face, so I had to think on my toes.

The two compartments of course lead to a sorting activity of some sort, and the first thing that popped into my head was colours.

I grabbed two pieces of coloured paper, cut them {very roughly} to fit inside the compartments, and asked Grae if she wanted to help me find little things in pinks and yellows.

Of course she was more than game, so we went around the house collecting things and deciding whether or not they were too big. This is what we came up with.

Grae needed no explanation. I simply said, “Do you want to play?” and off she went.

I did realize part way into our collecting that the activity wouldn’t last long, but we had already started and it’s not like it was a huge time investment, so we continued along our way. I wasnt timing, but the game probably lasted all of 60 seconds from start to finish. The good news is that Grae seemed to enjoy herself and was happy to take everything out, mix it up, and play again and again.

Next time, if we wanted to get more ‘bang for our buck’, we could easily use two more similar colours (aqua and blue, grey and black, or something similar) or try sorting based on something different all together like circles and squares, wood and plastic, or tall and short.

Here’s a little video of Grae hard at play multiple rounds in:

♥