Category Archives: Toys

Stuffed Animal Alphabet

Posted in Free, Inside, Letters, Reading, Toys by

stuffed animal alphabet

I’m always happy to find a way to use our plethora of stuffed friends.  We’ve made a stuffed animal zoo, and now we are using them to learn letters.  This game helps with phonics and letter recognition.  All you need are animals and letters.  We used a foam alphabet mat, but you could easily write letters on index cards or use letter flashcards instead.

For each stuffed animal ask:

  1. What animal is this?
  2. What letter does it start with?  (If they need some help offer other words that start with the same letter)
  3. Can you find the letter and place the animal on top of it?  (Again, depending on ability level you might need to give some clues about what the letter looks like or its place in the alphabet)

Then read an animal ABC book and see if you had the same animals!

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15 Ways to Learn with Play Food

Posted in Free, Math, Reading, Toys by

learning with play food

So you’ve got a little kitchen set for your kiddo.  Here are some ways to learn with all that plastic food (you know, instead of just tripping over it)….

  1. See if your child can name all the pieces of food.
  2. Select food and have a pretend picnic.
  3. Set up a pretend restaurant.  Take turns being the customer and waiter/waitress and cook.
  4. Arrange food in rows and go shopping with a basket.  Pretend to check-out and use real money.
  5. Sort food by color.
  6. Sort food by food group.
  7. Pick out two or more foods that start with the same letter.
  8. Look for shapes.  Which foods are spheres?  Are any flat like a circle?  What about a cylinder?
  9. Find and count certain foods.  How many eggs are there?  How many oranges?
  10. Compare quantities.  Are there more yellow foods or green foods?  How many more lemons than tomatoes?
  11. Use food to represent addition or subtraction problems.  I have four apples, then I give two to you.  How many do I have now?
  12. Play “I’m thinking of a food.”  Use adjectives to describe a piece of food to each other and take turns guessing.
  13. Play a memory game.  Place a few foods in front of your child.  Then have her close her eyes and take a food away.  Ask which one was removed.
  14. Put a food in a sack and see if you can guess what it is just by touch.
  15. Go on a food scavenger hunt.  Write down a list of foods to find (something to eat for breakfast, a vegetable, a food that starts with the letter B, etc.) and then see if your child can find them all!