One minute craft - Easy finger puppets

Not much is needed to make fun and simple oobi puppets for your kids. Eye finger puppet will not be an original but kids will love to play with it just the same. This eye finger puppet craft for kids can be set up in a minute, can be created individually by kids who are at least 3 years old, or you can make these for younger kids in a minute.

What you'll need: some white buttons and chenille stems.

You can cut chenille stem in at least 3 pieces and you'll have 3 sets of Oobi eye pupets. Instructions are easy enough: just put one side of chenille stem through both button holes and secure by twisting, then do the same with the other side of chenille stem. Show your kids how to do it, then let them do it themselves.

And now, play time!

For those, who would like an originals, there is a pack of 12 oobi puppets, or even larger ones you can use as a party favor:

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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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Toddler playtime - Or is it chore? Fun with socks!

We had some work done today with girl's room. One of the things I decided to turn into playtime (and a chore she's not even aware of working out! ;) is organizing her socks.

First I asked from her to find and match pairs:

Then I've showed her how to make them flat and roll them. I did one, she did the rest:

3rd step was to put rolled pair of socks into an empty toilet paper roll:

And finally, place all the rolls filled with socks to a shoe box:

She did great! And wasn't even bored with it! ;) So, we worked on matching, sorting, rolling (fine motor skills) and patience!

For more ideas how to use toilet paper rolls for home organization, arts and crafts, visit How to Reuse Paper Rolls?

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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WE MOVED TO:

Best Toys for Toddlers

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