Floor Plan Treasure Hunt

My girls love treasure hunts. LOVE them. It doesn't matter if the 'treasure' is something cool and sparkly or a pair of rolled up socks, they love hunting down hidden things. And if there is a map to follow? Even better.

WE USED:

* paper
* ruler
* pencils/pens/markers
* laminator
(you could also use clear contact or a clear document slip)
* whiteboard marker
* 'treasure'

To start with I used pens and a ruler to draw the floor plan of our apartment onto a piece of paper. I included doors and fixtures like sinks, baths, showers etc...

Then I ran it through the laminator (you could also use a plastic slip or clear contact paper). Using a red whiteboard marker I then made 'treasure' crosses on the map to show the girls where to hunt.
Note; I didn't add furniture to the floor plan because I think that would have been too easy for Bubble, but they could easily be drawn in before laminating or with a whiteboard marker afterwards.

We used these cute heart shaped paperclips as our treasure.
I hid each one in a different place, then made a cross on our map to show which room they were in and the rough location.

As the girls found each treasure they added them to a tally card and wiped off the corresponding cross on their map.
We also played in reverse, with the girls hiding the treasures and marking the crosses and Mum having to hunt them out (they found some pretty tricky hiding spots I can tell you! :-D).

This was such a fun game, I can see it is going to be a favourite for a while yet! I loved watching Bubble studying the map and working out where to go, and little Squeak was adorable copying her sister and saying "hmmm" just like she did. They made such a very cute little team :-)

Glass Stone Stacking & Patterning

We use our glass stones for all sorts of things; in our imaginary play scenes, counting games and as 'money' when playing shops, laid side by side to make roads and write letters.
Yesterday we used them for a fine motor stacking activity and also patterning games so that Bubble could practice sequencing and Squeak her colours.

WE USED:

* glass stones
(you can find bags of these at most dollar or home decor shops)

Bubble found stacking the stones challenging, it gave her fine motor control a good workout!

Both girls enjoyed the patterning activity; we made sequences of varying lengths, making them longer as we went.

A two colour sequence.

Three colour sequence.

Wiggles Activity Bags

It's no secret we love The Wiggles magazine in our household (and no, we're not being bribed in any way to say that :-D). The activities are great and Bubble looks forward to picking it up every month. We sit down together and do the craft projects and she loves to 'read' the pictures and do the mazes herself. After it has been read cover to cover and all interesting things have been coloured in and drawn on by both girls we often use the pictures to make collages or other crafty type things.
This week though I went through it after the girls were done and cut out all of the little gluing activities and made some 'project bags'. All the little bits are contained inside the paper bag and they can then be glued to the front when the activity is being done. I've packed some into our pram 'play' bag for when we are out and about, put some in our rainy day activities box and we also did a few of them today - lots of fun :-)

WE USED:

* children's magazine
* paper bags
* scissors
* sticky tape
* glue

Other ideas: These puzzles and activities would work well laminated so they could be used over and over again.

I put the pieces for each activity inside the paper bags, then taped the activity headings to the front as labels. There are puzzles, matching games, interesting pictures for making collages, eye spy games, number and counting activities - anything I could cut up basically :-)

Bubble completing a puzzle bag today.

Some of the other bags Bubble did today - the top one is an eyespy game that I also cut into pieces to make a puzzle from, and the other is a silhouettes matching game.

Felt Circles Memory Game

This game was very easy to make and could just as easily be made with coloured or patterned paper instead of felt. I would also love to make another set using patterned fabrics on the reverse side instead of coloured felt. Bubble enjoyed this game a lot and as a bonus they seem to be doubling as biscuits in the girls play kitchen this morning :-D

WE USED:

* coloured felt sheets
* scissors
* thread and needle
* two circular objects to trace around, one slightly smaller than the other (I traced a glue pot and the top of a baby food jar).

Choose the colour for your backing circle (I used brown because I had a lot of it and I figured it would show up the other colours well) and cut enough large circles to back two of each colour you have. Cut two smaller circles of each colour (including your backing colour if you want to) and either sew or glue to the larger backing circles. Be careful to place the coloured circles right in the middle so no edges show when the circles are turned over.

Other ideas: as well as patterned fabrics you could also do this with one colour of felt but cut shapes to match instead.

Silhouettes Game

I have seen quite a few object tracing activities on Blogs lately (if anyone can link please do as I now can't find the posts I am refering to), so a few nights ago I put together a silhouettes game for Bubble to find when she woke up. It was played repeatedly throughout that day and the next before she got bored with it, so we might have to play it again with different objects soon since it was so popular. I made a simple version for Squeak using shapes from a shape sorter and she was surprisingly intrigued by it, going back to it throughout the day to shuffle around more pieces and transfer them from the bowl to the paper back to the bowl again.

WE USED:

* large sheet of paper or a few pieces of paper taped together
* assorted objects for tracing
* marker

Other ideas: you could also spread out a waterproof tablecloth and use whiteboard markers for tracing with which could easily be wiped clean and then repeated with new objects.