Free Board Game for Toddlers and PreK: Feed the Monkey

 

FEED THE MONKEY!

This board game will get your tots to practice counting, number recognition, and number quantity skills while having fun feeding the monkey!

 

Includes: printable board game, bananas, paper cube with colors

 

Directions:

1. Choose a token for each player. This can be a bottle cap, a miniature animal, etc.

2. Divide the bananas equally between all players. (If you need more bananas, print multiple copies of the banana page)

3. The player rolls the paper cube and moves to the next circle that matches the color on the cube.

4. The player says the number that they land on.

5. The player then "feeds" the amount of bananas that matches the number they landed on. (To feed the monkey just place the correct amount of bananas on the monkey's mouth)

 

Example: Player rolls the cube and gets green. They move to the green circle. The green circle has the number 2 so they feed 2 bananas to the monkey. The players take turns moving around the board and feeding the monkey. The player who arrives at the finish first is the winner.

 

Download your Feed the Monkey Board Game Here!

 

Free Alphabet & Picture Tracing Printables

  

Say goodbye to boring letter tracing sheets! In this fun pack, your child can trace a picture, color it in, and trace uppercase and lowercase letters on each page. Practice writing and drawing skills at the same time! Also great for reinforcing letter sounds!

You can laminate the pages or put them in sheet protectors, then just wipe them clean and reuse!

Download FREE Alphabet & Picture Tracing Printables

Please note: I recommend that you save the file to your computer before printing. If you print straight from google drive it may cause the dashed letters to not show up. Thanks! 

FREE Printable Art Collages

4 Free Art Collages for your child to practice their art skills! Includes Build a City, Build a Farm, Create an Ocean, and Create a Face. Includes both color and black and white cut-outs.

There are 3 levels of difficulty depending on your child's age and skill level:

1. Parents cut out the colored pieces for the child to glue.

2. Parents cut out the black and white pieces, the child glues them and also colors the picture at the end. 

3. The child cuts out the pieces, glues them and then colors them in. They practice cutting, gluing and coloring at the same time!

Download your Free Art Collages Here

For more art skills practice, take a look at The Ultimate Art Skills Pack for ages 2.5-6 years. This is a unique set of 20 printable activities that help kids practice cutting, gluing, tracing, coloring and drawing!

FREE Daylight Savings Time Board Game

 

Teach your child about Daylight Savings Time, clocks, seasons, numbers and counting in this fun game for the whole family!

Each player moves clockwise across the board, traveling through the 4 seasons, and moving the hand on the clock. If you land on the "spring ahead" or the "fall back" spaces, you also move the clock an hour ahead or an hour back.

 

Ages 2+. Simple enough that a 2 year old can play but fun enough for older kids and adults to join in.

 

Includes Board Game, Playing Instructions and 2 Paper Cubes.

Download Here

 

15 FREE St. Patrick's Day Printables for Toddlers and Pre-K

This is a fun activity pack for toddlers and preschoolers featuring number recognition, number quantity, shapes, patterns, sorting, alphabet letter cases, letter sounds, visual discrimination, coloring, tracing, and scissor skills practice.

 Download the Updated Pack here!

Painting Activity for Babies

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Finger painting with babies might start out with fingers... but it can quickly turn into full body painting! Yes, this may seem very messy (and it is!) but the end result is a masterpiece that you can hang on your wall and your guests will think it's a modern art piece you bought at the gallery. Well, maybe not quite.. but you'll have some great wall art for your kid's room.

When my daughter was 8 months old I started painting with her. I placed an old sheet on the floor to contain the mess, then I laid down one of my large canvases. I squirted some finger paint on the canvas, one color at a time, and she eagerly went to work. She started spreading the paint around the canvas with her fingers, then proceeded to crawl all over the painting and use her whole body as a paintbrush. The result was impressive!

 

 

Tips:
1: Make sure your child is at least 6 months old and is able to sit up on their own. If your child does not crawl yet you can rotate the canvas for them or place the child on different parts of the canvas. If your baby is crawling, let them crawl all over the painting. It might seem like the canvas is bending or caving in, but it should snap back into place later.

2: My daughter started out in a t-shirt onesie but I quickly learned that it was much easier if she paints without any clothes, just a diaper. This makes it easier to quickly place her in a bath right after the activity. Also, the diaper actually creates some interesting designs when it is dragged across a painting!

3: Start by squirting one color on one part of the canvas. Let the child finish spreading that paint around. Then squirt another color somewhere nearby and let the child work on that. Keep doing this until the painting is complete.

4: Let the child complete the painting at their own pace - some babies might be done in 5 minutes and decide to crawl away in search for the next adventure, while other babies might sit and paint for quite a while.

5: You may know from experience that complementary colors (colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. example: red & green, blue & orange, yellow & purple) will turn a lovely shade of brown when combined. In order to keep the painting bright and colorful and minimize brown areas try to avoid using complementary colors next to each other.

6: Yes, babies put everything in their mouth. These Crayola finger paints are non-toxic, but if you prefer you can make your own homemade finger paints with this simple recipe.

 

Alphabet Sorting Game with Free Printable

 

I'd like to share a fun activity that I do with my daughter to help her learn letter sounds! This also builds alphabet awareness, early vocabulary, sorting and fine motor skills.

 

For each letter of the alphabet there are 6 cards: four cards with pictures of objects, one card with the uppercase letter and one with the lowercase letter.

 

 

All you need is a few baskets, cans or containers and you label each container with a letter of the alphabet.

 

I had my daughter sort the cards in the correct containers.

 

 

 

 

 

Depending on your child's age and skill level you can choose how many letters to do at a time. I recommend only doing 2 or 3 letters at one time for beginners. You can also add challenge by using letters that are not in alphabetical order, example x, m, and r.

 

 

You can download the FREE cards HERE!