Dora the Explorer backpack turned toddler's workbag {busy bag}

Ah, which little 2 or 3 year old doesn't want to be just like Dora the Explorer? Well, I haven't met many! And my 3 year old girl certainly doesn't fit in that category!

She was thrilled to receive Dora the Explorer backpack for a gift! She carries it around where ever she goes and always put some of her stuff in and take it out!

This is wonderful gift but also very convenient bag for little ones. And mommy loves it too!

What i like about this backpack is that it’s not too big for toddlers, it’s soft (made of plush) and it holds well. And, it can be washed like any other plush toy – on low temperature.

What my little girl loves about this backpack is: It’s Dora’s backpack! Well, that first! Than, after that, she loves that it has attached map and a little maze is painted on it (you can see it on the picture). She turned it into her own little magical backpack and puts her treasures inside. It’s like a little magic box, only not a box but a bag! :)

My 3 year old girl really loves her backpack. She brings it where ever she goes. Always changing what she’ll bring along but there are couple items that she always carry around like her mini baby doll and few mini cats. :)

Creating a Learning Opportunity with Dora the Explorer's Backpack! 

Turning Dora's backpack to toddler's workbox! Well, ok! Workbag!

And here is what we’ve got in our workbag:

- books: Dora’s Sweet Adventure: A Scratch & Sniff Board Book, Baby Animals!  and Dora’s Lunch Box
- memory cards
- counting cards 1-10 with Dora the Explorer counters
- Dora the Explorer write and wipe activity book
- Dora’s dominos (printed and laminated)
- 2 puzzles (printed and laminated)

Have one of these at home? Does your little one likes it? What goes inside? What kinds of treasures?

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DIY Toys - the Explorer Write and Wipe Activity Book - Part 3

Last part of creating Write and Wipe Activity Book for my toddler's favorite cartoon character Dora the Explorer. I've created some simple mazes and added Dora the Explorer stickers to complete them.

Here are the pictures:

And you can download them here on English.

And we have completed our Dora the Explorer workbox (better said workbag!) and you can check what we've got inside our Dora the Explorer backpack!

Note: This post is re-published from 2nd blog which I'm closing down as soon as all interesting bits and pieces are moved here since I don't have time to keep 2 similar blogs updated.

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DIY Toys - Dora the Explorer Write and Wipe Activity Book - Part 2

Continuing yesterday's post about creating Dora the Explorer Write and Wipe Activity Book... today, more printable worksheets completed with Dora the Explorer stickers.

Here are the pictures (text on pictures is on Croatian but you can find links with same printables on English at the bottom of this post):

Picture above:

Trace the letter - B for Benny and Connect the dots - cirlce

Picture above:

Connect the dots - triangle and Trace a number - 1

Picture above:

How many on the picture? - 5 and Trace the letters - Dora

Picture above:

Trace the letters - Diego and How many on the picture - 3

Picture above:

How many on the picture - 4 and Trace a number - 2

Picture above:

Trace a number - 3 and Connect the dots - heart

Picture above:

Connect the dots - square and Trace the letters - Boots

Picture above:

Trace the letters - Benny and Trace a number - 5

Picture above:

Trace a number - 4 and How many on the picture - 2

Picture above:

How many on the picture - 1

I still have 4 pockets in my photo album so for Thursday I'm planning to create some mazes. :) Stop by to download them. And here are the links for today's printables:

English

Worksheets 2

Worksheets 4

Croatian / Hrvatski

Vježbe 2

Vježbe 4

Note: This post is re-published from 2nd blog which I'm closing down as soon as all interesting bits and pieces are moved here since I don't have time to keep 2 similar blogs updated.

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DIY Toys - Dora the Explorer Write and Wipe Activity Book - Part 1

After Dora the Explorer reusable counting cards and making memory cards from Dora the Explorer stickers, my next step is creating Dora the Explorer Write and Wipe Activity book.... from stickers, of course! :)

OK. Let's start, here is what I needed:

- one photo album - kind you get at the photo shops when you take your picture for developing, very cheap version for 13 cm x 9 cm photos (5 in x 3,5 in)

- Dora the Explorer stickers

- some printable worksheets I've created and you can use for free (link further down the page)

- scissors, pen and transparent tape

- and... your kids will need some dry-erase markers after you're done! :)

To put together Dora the Explorer Write and Wipe Activity Book, simply print out these pages:

Photo Album Sticker Worksheets 1

Photo Album Sticker Worksheets 3

After you print those pages out, cut around the outside line of the big square - two pages together! You'll fold them and place them in photo pockets when you're done sticking your stickers on them! Like this:

(Oh yes, I've added sticker on piece of cardboard and glued it on the front page of the photo album!)

I've created these in my native Croatian too and they are free for download:

Vježbe 1

Vježbe 2

Now that you have downloaded printables and cut them out, you should add stickers on the designated spots. Here is how it should look like (note, text on pictures is in Croatian but you have your English version):

Picture above: Which one is the smallest?

Pitured above:

Which one is the biggest? and Trace a letter - I for Isa

Picture above:

Trace letter (on picture is Z but English version is: S for Star)

and Which are the same?

Picture above:

Which one is different? and Trace letter: D for Dora

Picture above: Trace letter - B for Benny

That's it for today. I'll be adding more worksheets you can download for free tomorrow.

I've tried to make these printables as generic as possible. So, these pages can be used with any other cartoon characters!

See you tomorrow!

Note: This post is re-published from 2nd blog which I'm closing down as soon as all interesting bits and pieces are moved here since I don't have time to keep 2 similar blogs updated.

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DIY toys - Dora the Explorer Reusable Counting Cards

My 3 year old girl loves watching Dora the Explorer! She watches it in English, Spanish and her native Croatian! Speaking about multilanguage education! :)

As a result, mama has come up with couple games that will prolong her enjoyment with Dora, without watching TV! ;) All of the ideas I'll be sharing in next couple days are pretty cheap and simple to create by yourself.

And here we go! Starting with:

Dora the Explorer Reusable Counting Cards!

What you'll need:

- piece of sturdy cardboard (I've used those shirt inserts that comes with shirt package when you purchase a shirt)

- marker, any kind

- ruler

- sticky velcro tape

- Dora the Explorer stickers - those from the picture came with Dora the Explorer magazine but you can use some similar to these

HOW TO:

First, you cut from cardboard 10 cards for each number 1-10. Our cards are app. 10 cm x 12 cm (4 in x 5 in). Than you use marker to write on each card a number (both digital and written name for number). I have written them in left top corner of the cards. After that, you stick as many sticky velcro piecese as card should hold. I know it's best to have visual image of what you should get so here is the picture of counting cards:

Next, making counters.... You stick your Dora the Explorer stickers on cardboard and cut them in little squares. Size will be dictated by size of the stickers. After that you stick pieces of sticky velcro tape on each of the counters. This is what we got:

And, you have created your reusable counting cards! :) Now, place them on the table, put stickers in some kind of bowl so they are not all over the room and let your child play and count!

Here is the final result:

Of course, you can pick some other cartoon character or theme for your child's reusable counting cards! Which ever theme you want to work on! Beauty of all of this is: for your next game with counting cards, you'll only need to make counters! You already have cards you can reuse over and over again! :)))

Now, as I mentioned, this is 1st of the number of ideas I have for our Dora the Explorer learning time. To make sure that you've got all the ideas, subscribe on this blog by mail, follow blog using Google Friend Connect or follow us on Facebook (all the links on right sidebar). See you back here tomorrow!

Have fun crafting and counting! :)

Note: This post is re-published from 2nd blog which I'm closing down as soon as all interesting bits and pieces are moved here since I don't have time to keep 2 similar blogs updated.

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Win Toys for Toddlers! Dora the Explorer's Little Library Set - CLOSED!

As I have mentioned couple days back, Dora the Explorer is one of the most loved cartoon character in our home. Little girl loves it, learns her English and Spanish words with it and interacts in such a lovely way... Ah, gotta love Dora! :)

And I know that many little ones adore this cartoon as much as my little girl, so I've decided to start this giveaway for all those tiny Dora fans out there. This time we have a book set to give to one lucky winner.

Dora's Little Library

contains 5 small sized board books with following titles: 

Count with Dora

Dora's Opposites

Dora at the Beach

Dora Goes for a Ride

Dora's Book of Words

Even if you don't win this set here, you can purchase it really cheap at Amazon.com - price is only $6.99 and it's great bargain for wonderful birthday gift, Christmas stocking stuffer or any other celebration occasion for tiny tots! They will love it!

Now, let's get going with a fun part....

One lucky winner will win Dora's Little Library (5 board book set) for their toddler! :)

To enter (mandatory!):

- tell us who is Dora's fan around your home and what you like the most about Dora the Explorer cartoon! (Please leave your mail address if you don't have it enabled on your profile).

Bonus entries:

- Follow us via Google Friend Conect (1 entry)

- Subscribe by mail or follow us via RSS (1 entry each)

- Follow Best Toys for Toddlers on Facebook - leave your username (1 entry)

- Share this giveaway on your FB wall and leave us a link of the post(1 entry)

- Follow @BestToddlerToys on Twitter - leave your username (1 entry)

- Share following on Twitter . Come back here and leave us link to your tweet (once a day - 1 entry):

Join Dora's Little Library set #giveaway at @BestToddlerToys http://tinyurl.com/63xvty8 #doratheexplorer #ece #toddlers #contest #books #win

- Comment on any post besides this one (max. 3 comments for 3 entries)

Open for US only. Giveaway ends June 18th at 11:59pm. Winner will be drawn by random.org and announced on this blog as well as emailed. Winner will have 48 hours to respond or a new winner will be drawn. Email address must be in at least one comment or visible on your profile to win. 

Good Luck and Enjoy Playing with Your Tots! :)

Best Toys for Toddlers - Few Dora the Explorer Books

Not sure about your toddlers, but my girl is really hooked on Dora the Explorer cartoon. She loves to watch it, and interacts with Dora and Boots like they are real and not cartoon characters. Guess that's normal at this age. :) Still, I prefer her TV watching time to be Dora then some of the more violent cartoons (and there is too many of those these days!). With Dora she learns her colors, shapes, counts and what's even more important, she learns about value of friendship. So, I let her watch Dora.

Her love for this cartoon caused to collect some of the items attached to these characters so we ended up with couple of Dora books, backpack, few plush dolls, etc.

For every little Dora fan, there is a big collection of items on Amazon.com and we ended up with 3 pretty different books (all received as gifts!):

Dora's Lunch Box

This book is really in the form of the lunch box! :) It has a little handle on the top and it closes using velcro. Inside, along with a story, there are simple shapes of the food to for tots to remove and put back. Nice little practice for motor skills.

Dora's Sweet Adventure: A Scratch & Sniff Board Book

My girl didn't see this kind of books before we got this one so she was pretty intrigued with the fact that there are places on each of the pages where she could scratch with her finger and smell the object story mentioned on that page. This is, after year and a half, still one of her favorite books. Story is simple and in fashion of all Dora adventures, her and Boots need to go through few stops / challenges to reach Issa's garden party. Short and sweet.

3rd book we have in our home library is Baby Animals!

Another simple book that helps toddler count from one - five. It has a wheel on the bottom right side so my girl usually looks for the right animals after counting how many are on the page.

After a while, I've decided to "use" her love for Dora the Explorer and turn it into a learning experience. With couple Dora stickers, I've created for her memory cards, reusable counting cards and write and wipe off book from old photo album. All of this fits nicely in her Dora backpack. Complete set looks like this:

You can read more about what's inside that backpack in Dora the Explorer Backpack: a parent's review article.

This Sunday, we'll host 

a new giveaway.... 

this time prize will be 

for all little Dora fans:

You can check details on Amazon.com

And make sure to stop by Sunday and enter our giveaway! :)

Before you click away from here ;) I would love to know which is your toddler's favorite cartoon character and do you manage to turn their love for that specific cartoon into learning and playing time?