St. Patrick's Day activities

Yesterday I set out a few new activities for Sunshine to do.  I showed her the first one which was a large to small sequence.  She did really great with them but when she went to put them away she noticed the backs were white & she started matching them by size. 

She then did a sorting activity with the glass marbles.  It was  funny to see how that the 'nice & orderly' stage is in effect even when it comes to this. :)  Pretty little marbles all in a row...

Then after she poured them back into the bowl we did a 1 to 1.  This didn't go as planned.  I demonstrated putting a bead into each little cup, admired my work, and poured the marbles back into the bowl, stacked the cups & asked if she'd like to do it.  She did, but she did her own thing!

Obviously pouring the green rice back & forth is no longer interesting.  I think I need to find some activities that cause the hand to go back & forth rather than tipping.  Any ideas?

Rhea picked up the tweezers & used them on Sunshine's bowl of glass marbles.  It was fine when there was a bunch, but it became hard when they were no longer lying on top of one another.  It became a lesson in patience & persevering.  She chased the last 5 or so around that bowl.  When she was done she said, "I thought it was so easy in the beginning but then it became challenging.  I guess that's proof you can't judge a book cover."  I smiled & said "That's right.  You should never judge a book by it's cover."  She's really into metaphors, similies & the like right now.

She also did a file folder game we had from a few years ago so I could take some pictures.  She said she remembered how hard it was when she did it the first time.  It's a game where you match the word to the picture.  If you don't know about file folder games....well, grab a pen & paper it's time for some schoolin'! 

 

File folder games are great space savers, educational tools that travel & are self contained & set up so that they are entirely child controlled.  They normally come with an answer sheet if you've a reader, but if you've a beginning reader you can just use a color dot or take a photo of the game when completed.  The great thing too is that in the stores they're expensive, BUT! An amazing mom opened a bunch of file folder game groups on yahoo groups.  I haven't been in the groups for about 3 years (I have nearly 500 file folder games so I think I'm good.) but they had ten different groups.  Just do a yahoo file folder game search.

I also grabbed a few more shamrocks for Sunshine to match up.  It was too easy for her & I'm going to add in a few of the other sizes & patterns.

I bought lots of stuff a few weeks ago from Michaels.  They had all the different shamrocks, the marbles, & a little leprechaun that we're using on some St. Paddy theme game boards.  My camera died last night or I'd show you it.  But they also had gold coins, plastic resin shamrocks, and some confetti with pots of gold & shamrocks.  I'm using it for scooping.  I also bought the cut out shamrock placemat, the shamrock glasses, that are really plastic, there too.

Honey