News with Naylors

Salt Rainbow Painting : Easton enjoyed this activity, although it required some assistance. I learned that it's best to use black card stock instead of construction paper! Our paper was too thin and the water absorbed too much of the paper (first picture). Click here for a tutorial   (second picture below). Rainforest Habitat : I bought a Habitat Reusable Sticker Book  (first picture below) a while ago, and I thought it would be fun to go through it today. We started with the Rainforest. We talked about the habitat - green, trees, vines, etc. And then I showed Easton the sticker page with all the rainforest animals. He chose which animals to stick onto their habitat. Easton put every animal on! Rainbow/Rainforest Sensory Bin : I'd heard a lot about Water Beads , and am not sure why I never bought them until this week. They are so much fun! The beads we bought came in a two-ounce package and looked tiny. If you put them in water for 6-8 hours they expand about five ...

Rainbow Craft : I drew the clouds and lines for the rainbow and let Easton color "the sky" with a blue crayon. I think the order presentation of this craft is important for toddlers. For instance, I only put glue on the lowest line of the rainbow and only brought out the yellow buttons to start. That way Easton only had the option of putting yellow buttons on the lowest line. We did the same thing with the other lines. When he finished, we glued on cotton balls for the clouds. There's a similar Fruit Loop Rainbow craft that looks fun as well. Rainbow Numbers : I found these Rainbow Number Cards from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I didn't want to bring all the cards out at once, in case it was overwhelming for Easton. Instead, I put five numbers (only the number half) on our table and hid their matches (the dots half) around the room. I told Easton that the numbers were looking for their friends. Easton went around the room and when he found a dot card, he coun...

R is for Robot : After reading a few books about robots from our Letter R Booklist , we used Robot Stickers to fill in a letter R. This idea is from  Mom's Tot School . Robot Tinker Tray : I hadn't heard of tinker trays until this week, and was so excited to put together a Robot Tinker Tray this week! I found this idea on  Mom's Tot School   (see first picture below) .  We used floral foam (from the Dollar Store) wrapped in tinfoil and all sorts of things to decorate: stickers, buttons, beads, paper clips, little jewels, sequins, toothpicks, pipe cleaners and goggle eyes. Easton and Livie especially enjoyed items that could poke into the floral foam (toothpicks and pipe cleaners). The kids LOVED these.   Letter R Number Book : I found this idea on the Measured Mom blog. I'm not sure how this book relates to the Letter R, but we had fun doing it anyways. Easton sometimes needs a little push to do number activities, but not with this book! He was so exc...

Name Rocket : I love the idea of making a Name Rocket . We glued on the top of the rocket first and I helped Easton put the body of the rocket in the correct order of his name. I bought Star Stickers from the Dollar Store and he stuck them on his paper. He requested a moon, so he got one! Shape Rockets : A while ago, I bought a set of Foam Shape Magnets and we've used them for a lot of activities. We started by filling in the Letter R with our shapes. Click here to print the Alphabet Pattern Block Worksheets (see first picture below). For our shape rockets, I pulled out our magnetic cookie sheet and we made rockets. I showed Easton how to make a few and I wanted to see what he came up with on his own. We reviewed shape names and had a lot of fun. Rocket Balloon #1 : This was the highlight of our day! You need yarn, straw, a balloon and duct tape for this activity. Before letting the air out of the balloon Easton would say: 3...2...1...Blast Off!  Click here for a...

Alphabet : Today we used Plan Toy's Alphabet A-Z to review the alphabet as a whole. I've noticed that when I bring all the letters out at once it can be a bit overwhelming. It's better if I bring five or so letters out a time and let Easton play with them first before bringing out other letters. Of course, Letter R was one of the first letters we played with. Easton matched uppercase letters to pictures that begin with the same letter. See picture below (from amazon's website). These were a lot of fun! Letter R Songs : We love all six songs for Letter R this week found on the Measured Mom blog! We learned: It's Raining it's Pouring, Round and Round the Garden (see below for a fingerplay*), Roses are Red, Ring around the Rosies, Row Row Row Your Boat, and Rub a Dub Dub Three Men in a Tub. We used our Instrument Set while I sang these songs for the boys today.  *Round and Round the Garden Walks the Little Bear (circle finger around babies' palm) ...