Mystery Bags for K - Elementary level

More Mystery Bags

Okay after playing with Lil Muallimahs Mystery Bag today, Lil Muallim # 2 kept following me around the house begging for his Mystery Bag. Knowing this would happen I had put aside a few things for him a night before. :)

For his keenness Lil Muallim # 2 got TWO Mystery Bags today

Mystery Bag A

(sounds like exhibit A haha!!)

Personal Items.......nail cutter, old tooth brush or miswak, dental floss, ear bud (Q-tip), watch, belt, comb, scissor, tweezer etc

Lil Muallim # 2 guessed all correctly , accept the scissor. He thought it was a key. He was pretty amused by himself on that! 


Then he asked for a harder one...........


I knew that was  coming and I was prepared Alhumdolillah

Mystery Bag B

3D shapes

I collected different objects  from around the house that could come under a certain 3D shape and put them in the bag.


Lil Muallim # 3 wanted to demonstarte and try it out himself first. He felt the objects inside the bag, stated their 3D shape and then tried to also guess what the object was. He did well Mashallah!


For Lil Muallim # 2 I wrote names of  five 3D shapes on index cards for the corresponding objects in the Mystery Bag.

Here it is

Lil Muallim # 2 "I liked doing that" 

Alhumdolillah

Toddler Fun Learning Activities 5

Surprise for Lil Muallimah

In trying to continue the enthusiasm from Ummi and Lil Muallimah alike. I just finished preparing some surprise activities for Lil Muallimah.

So tomorrow when she asks me for an activity, I will be prepared Inshallah and she won't have to wait. :)


Infact I can't wait for her to get up and find her surprise activities. So when she does I will add her responses and post Beidhnillah.

Morning Adventure

In the morning I showed Lil Muallim # 1 and 2 what I had prepared.. they wanted to know what everything was? 


Lil Muallim # 1 commented with a smile...."How many activities? Did you make such things for me too when I was small... she has shelves full of them! :)"


Me: "Yes I did, only I didn't keep them in shelves I would just make then with different things. :)"


When Lil Muallimah woke up Lil Muallim # 2 immediately showed her .......


Lil Muallim # 2: " Look Mama made new activities for you!"


Lil Muallimah: "Yaaaaayyyy!!!"

Surprise Activities

Sensorial - Stereognistice Sense:

1. Mystery Bag

Hand Eye Co-ordination

1. Dry Pouring
2. Wet Pouring 
3. Inserting
4. Spooning

Sensorial: Stereognistice Sense

Mystery Bag

Ok I have to admit as much as I LOVED the mystery bags as a 4 year old in my Montessori. I owe the techno language to my wonderful Montessori trained friend.

I found a good explanation on Mystery Bags here.

Check out my surprise Mystery Bag

I will be changing the contents of our Mystery bags from time to time. This time round  I am using her toy food.

I used to do this with Lil Muallim # 1 with a plastic bag and fresh vegetables and fruits. Thats how he learned them all. He used to thoroughly enjoy it. Now that I am rediscovering the Mystery Bags I intend to do special ones for Lil Muallim # 2. I always felt guilty for not doing it with him.

Inshallah Khair... Evrything iin it's own time.


Lil Muallimah Using the Mystery Bag

I showed her how to do it...saying "No peeking!:)" It was really fun to watch her do it. She felt the object and exclaimed.."It's a banana!" After two or three objects she tried to peak first... so then I pulled a snow hat over her eyes..hehe.

When she came to corn she couldn't remember the name, so she pulled up her snow hat and said ..."It's what baba makes out there ...on that" pointing in the backyard towards the BBQ grill. So I hinted the name ........... :)

 Older Muallims...

Lil Mualliamh was giggling away after each guess Mashallah!

May Allah protect our children Ameen!

Lil Muallim # 1 and 2 were again competing for their turns and were asking for one of their own... their level!!!

But they still did this one.. infact Lil Muallim # 1 couldn't get lemon haha!

Lil Mualllim # 2 is insisting that I make his Mytery bag, just as I anticipated..... so I will obliged. Check out Lil Muallim # 2's Mystery Bags.

Hand Eye Co-ordination

Dry Pouring

I noticed Lil Muallimahs tendency to play a pouring game with her cryskals (crystals) more than spooning. So I made a special dry pouring activity for her using her toys and corn kernels 

The idea is to pour back and forth



Wet Pouring

I always find her pretending to make tea and serving me. So I made pretend tea pouring with water. 

Lil Muallimah Doing It

Once a cup was filled, the water from the cup was poured into a big container. 

Once all the water in the kettle was finished. Lil Muallimah poured back the water from teh big container into the kettle

And she was all ready to go again! :)

 Older Muallims...


Not only did they want to do it, they even added their own difficulty level.. Mashallah!


Lil Muallim # 2's  idea!

This does involve dexterity... I am so glad he came up with this.


FUN FUN FUN!!!!


Inserting

I loved this activity that I saw on a wonderful blog. There are a lot more ideas there do check it out here. This is the blog that really got me going. Alhumdolillah :)

Here's my small space inserting activity.  Only I didn't want to use noodles as they would go waste, besides breaking easily. So I used  skewers instead.

Lil Muallimah Doing It

I bought the container at the $ store. What a find :) Alhumdolillah!

Spooning

Adding a twist to the spooning activity, here I used Lil Muallimahs toys and a couple of big beads I got at the $ store. 

Lil Muallimah Doing It

Using different kinds of spoons and objects changes the level of activity and adds to the fun.

All in all we had a really fun activity time today Alhumdolillah

Special Surprise for ME

Lil Muallim # 2 designed a new activity for Lil Muallimah....."Mama we could make this an activity too"

What did he make?

Beading on Skewers

Lil Muallimah took to this one immediately!!!!

JAZAKALLAH LIL MUALLIM # 2

KEEP GOING!!!!

(he even chose the colors for my 2 statemnets above hehe)

Toddler Fun Learning Activities 4

Wanting More

Lil Muallimah these days......"Did you make a new "activity" for me?"


Me: "no not yet"


Lil Muallimah: "aawww why not?


Me : "I'll be making one soon"


Lil Muallimah: " Yayy!! Jazakallah Mamma"


I am just wondering if I will be able to keep up with her desire for MORE!!! :) But I am truly thankful to Allah that, as much as she looks forward to new activities she loves doing the previous ones too. Alhumdolillah!

All praises are for Allah for enabling me and my children to discover and use the capabilities Allah has bestowed upon us.

Here are our NEW "ACTIVITIES"

Fine Motor Skills & Hand Eye Co-ordination

1. Cutting 

Sensorial: Tactile Sense

1. Fabric Boxes

Fine Motor Skills & Hand Eye Co-ordination

Cutting Activity

When a child is able to cut with a scissor well enough it is a sign of muscle strength and strong motor skills. I have always let my kids cut scraps of paper any way they liked to help them improve their motor skills. They do like that. 

Once they are comfortable with a scissor you may want to aid in improving the motor skills. For that, simple snips seem to be much better than controlled cuts.

I usually use the scrap papers I have left from our lapbooking or any other paper project. The ones I am using now are leftovers from our Asma ul Husna craft from Umm Nu'man. I will be posting about that soon Inshallah.

While searching for something else I found this really neat idea on this blog.....Cutting Stickers!!!!! (you will have to scroll down quite a bit). 

Now that's a good way of using all the scraps i have collected. :)

Here's our cutting with scissors tray

Now that is DEFINITELY MORE FUN!!!!!!

This is how it works

Lil Muallimah picks up a strip holds it from one end and cuts with between the stickers. This is simple yet challenging depending upon the childs motor skills as they would not like to cut their sticker :) You can space out the stickers, based upon your childs skill level. 

Cleaning the Cut Ups

One thing I always struggled with was the cleanup after the cuts. Kids don't always like to do it. The idea in the following video works great, as kids like to open and close zip locks and they feel responsible too. It's so funny how the same thing suddenly becomes cool only if you put it in front of them in a different way. As their mother I just need to remember that!

So this is what I came up with. 

Lil Muallimah let's the cut outs drop into small bowl. Once she is done she turns them over into a zipper bag as they are quite precious to her... not trash! :) For me that just adds another motor skill element. Check it out...

She is still working on how to pinch and close the zipper bags :) 

Variation

Making your own Strips

Simply take a paper strip and mark lines on it. You may want to start with ones wider apart. As you notice an improvement in the cuts you can make the lines closer. Or you can leave an assortment of them in a basket for the kids and let them choose.

You can easily make them with a marker on any regular or construction paper but if you would like to print them out, you can print my snip papers below.

Cutting level 1

Cutting Level 2

Cutting Level 3

TIP: You can even print them on colored paper to make them attractive.

The video that helped me.

Challenge

Lil Muallim # 2 couldn't keep himself away from this activity. He infact quickly made his own tray and strips. Not only that he even asked me to make more challenging strips for him. Take a look.

He even ran downstairs to get his own zipper bag and cleaned up without being told.


Alhumdolillah!


I wanted to do cartwheels :)


Sensorial - Tactile Sense

Fabric Boxes

I am sure pretty much every one has some or the other kinds of pieces of fabric stashed away somewhere in the house, especially if you sew. 


I remember as a little girl I always used to enjoy feeling different textures of cloths. So when I saw this activity I was thrilled and wanted my Lil Muallimah to enjoy touching and feeling like myself. I even asked my friends to contribute to our fabric box :)

I found a good explanation for fabric boxes here.

Our Fabric Basket

As you can see I simply cut out 2 small squares 4x4 inches  out of  each fabric and put them separately in 2 boxes. I plan to buy these pretty gift boxes from the $ store for a $ each to contain them. But till I do, I am using this basket that was lying around. 

 This is not simply a matching activity but more of a matching by feeling one. A great one to enhance the sense of touch. Looking and feeling all kinds of awesome fabrics is a true bonus. :)

In the picture below Lil Muallimah is trying to match by feeling the last fabric piece. She was having trouble matching it as it's cut out was a different part of the print. You can even see Lil Muallim # 2 trying to point out where it is........ kids!!! 

Bonus for me

Lil Muallim # 1 and 2 insisted on their turns for this one and they asked to do it blind folded hooo!!! 

pics coming soon Inshallah

Alhumdolillah