Toddler/Preschool Game: Find and Match

My mom amazes me. She is the director at the preschool at our church, Mandarin Presbyterian Church and she devotes herself to her job 100%. She works full time and then comes home and loves on her grandchildren. This week she has all 4 grandchildren in the same city. 

Mom is a true teacher at heart. She comes up with fun games that H loves to play that help him learn and develop. I know that she doesn't make these games up but she takes the time to put them together.

What you need for the Find & Match Game:

5 lb bag of dried beans

Huge bowl to store beans

20 small toys (we have a plastic necklace, coin, golf ball, key, wooden block, domino, medicine dropper, etc). 

Pictures of the toys (we laminated our pictures so that they would last longer).

She got a BIG bowl of dried beans and hid tiny "treasures" in it. 

You then have the kids reach in, find a treasure and match it to a laminated pictures of the treasure. 

NiNi played this game with H on Saturday and it was all he could talk about on Sunday. As soon as he say NiNi today, he ran around the house saying "Game? Game?". He was very ready to play again. 

On Saturday when we played the game with H he barely put his hands in the beans. Now, he was elbow deep in the beans and trying to find all the treasures before C. 

H is 2 and C is 3 so there is a bit of a development gap. Mom has decided that when she plays alone with C, she will have her reach in, find a toy and feel it. She will have C guess what toy she has in her hand while looking at the pictures. 

After the kids played the game for about an hour, mom got out another boy and 2 cups and the kids worked on transferring beans from 1 bowl to another. 

This game is a big hit. I am going to work on putting together one for our house. 

What sort of indoor games do you have for your kids?

KK

Memorial Day Weekend

We had a great Memorial Day weekend. It was great but busy. So busy and so much fun that I forgot to take pictures. That really is the mark of a good weekend. 

Friday night we went to Family Happy Hour at JCP with the Siceloff family. One thing I learned was that our kids are not water babies (yet). Eddie & Tina have 3 boys and all jumped right in and swam around. H would barely walk in the water and A didn't even want to sit in my lap in the water. We start swim lessons for H this Saturday so hopefully he will get more comfortable and learn to enjoy the water. We had Little Caesars Pizza for dinner along with beer and margaritas and were able to get home in time for bedtime with the kids plain tuckered out. 

Saturday we went and bought some new plants to start landscaping the backyard. 

I have no idea what any of them are actually named. The purple plants' (first picture) common name is "purple shower". After we got them planted we decided to hang out in the backyard and enjoy the fact that we have grass and pretty flowers to look at. 

H loves his pretty flowers. 

Check out JJ's face in this picture

We had some friends, Matt & Gina, over for dinner and just relaxed and talked after the kids went to bed. 

Sunday was early church and lunch at Caps on the Water with Steve and Mom & Dad. 

Try not to be jealous of this

We had the biggest Gulf Coast Oysters I have ever seen. I don't have a picture of them but they were seriously bigger than my fist! We enjoyed a nice relaxing lunch with beer, oysters and fish tacos. A perfect little Sunday afternoon. 

After Caps we went home for a nap and then Mom & Dad came over for a cookout. We were all still stuffed from lunch that we just ended up having dipping bread and a brie appetizer. 

Monday we went over to Casey & Sarahs house for a cookout and to let the kids play. It was a beautiful day and we didn't go inside except to get more beer or go to the bathroom. 

H and Audrey playing the "pool"

The kids had a great time playing in the "pool" and running through the sprinklers. All the kids got along great which means that we could just sit back and relax while listening to good music (Wagon Wheel by Darius Rucker was a favorite), talk and eat typical Memorial Day food (watermelon and chips & dip). H actually took a name at Casey & Sarahs, which is huge. 

After nap time we ate some delicious burgers and corn on the cob. {I don't know if it was the beer or what but this was some of the best burgers and corn I have had a in a long time. }  Then it was home for bed. 

All in all it was a fantastic Memorial Day weekend. I hope everyone else had a great  Memorial Day weekend and a good weekend this weekend. 

KK