Tag: learningfun

Oh, the Things You Can Learn With Buttons!

Hi everyone! We’re back and so glad to have our electricity and internet back today after some strong thunderstorms moved through yesterday. Did you miss us? 😉

There are so many fun (and educational) things you can do with a simple bag of buttons! Let’s talk about some today! An egg carton will come in handy while playing with the buttons.

You’ll need some buttons that are the same kind and the same color. I can’t remember where I found these buttons but I think it was either Joann Fabrics or Walmart. If you’d like to use little containers to store your buttons in after the playing is done, I found these at the Dollar Tree store.

And yep, they come with lids.

My first suggestion is to dump the bag of buttons out on the table…

…and let your kids sort them into the little sections in an egg carton. The action of picking up each button is good for practicing fine motor skills and matching colors.

You can count how many buttons there are of each color. Or practice making numbers…

…or letters.

You can ask your child to count out a certain number of buttons of a certain color. For instance, count out 10 yellow buttons.

Depending on the age of your child, you can practice some addition problems by showing all the ways 2 numbers can add up to 10.

As a reward for counting and doing letters and numbers, give your child a bit of free time to make his/her own designs out of the colored buttons. Remember, all designs are GREAT and should be appreciated by others and not criticized. 😉

You can ask your kiddo to make something in particular. For instance, make a square using blue buttons.

Or make a square using blue buttons and put 1 yellow button inside the square.

You can make a pattern and have your child continue making the pattern. Orange, yellow, blue, green and pink…

Or make a line of the pattern and have your child add a few more matching lines.

I hope you will also be a good sport and let your child ask YOU to have a turn by doing the activity they suggest for you! 😉 I’m sure you will even think of more fun things to do with buttons than the ones I’ve shared here. Have fun and sneak a little learning in there too! 😉

Learning In Quarantine

With lots of kids out of school now due to the Covid-19 “social distancing” and quarantines, moms and dads are looking for educational things their kids can do at home. Cool websites with educational themes seem to be popping up all around. I will try to share the ones I come across in order to help keep our kids’ minds sharp on their extended Spring breaks and provide some fun while we’re all staying home.

The Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden has a very interesting Facebook page you’ll want to check out. They have started sharing a Facebook Live video called Home Safari each day at 3:00pm EDT. Monday’s video was about a hippo named Fiona.

There is also a fun quiz you can do and you’ll find the answers in the hippo video. Completing the quiz gets you entered into a drawing to win 4 tickets for a visit to the Cincinnati Zoo after they reopen. Each day they will highlight a different animal that calls the Cincinnati Zoo home. Here is a link to their Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/pg/cincinnatizoo/posts/?ref=page_internal

Another really fun looking website that will keep the kids entertained and all their brain cells working is the Scholastic Learn at Home site. https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html

Here’s the little blurb you’ll see on their website:

“Even when schools are closed, you can keep the learning going with these special cross-curricular journeys. Every day includes four separate learning experiences, each built around a thrilling, meaningful story or video. Kids can do them on their own, with their families, or with their teachers. Just find your grade level and let the learning begin!

-The Editors of Scholastic Classroom Magazines.“

To begin, choose a grade level. Then you’ll find books to read right on the website, videos to watch and activities to do. There are currently 5 days worth of things to do, but they will be adding more until there are 20 in total. Looks like a lot of fun!

Enjoy these fun websites! I’ll pass more onto you as I find them! Stay in, enjoy being each other and wash your hands!! LOL 😉