A Teaching Toy: Magnetic Shapes

Teaching a toddler shapes, numbers, colors, ect. can be a bit of a challenge. I've done my best to come up with new ways to teach them to my son.  I'll pull out all of his toys and help him sort them by color.  I've printed off different sheets to help him learn his shapes.  We use number shaped cookie cutters when playing with play dough, but it is hard to know what really works best.  Not too long ago I  made some felt magnetic numbers for our fridge. Clark loves to move them around and try to count.  He understands that they are numbers despite the fact that he still can't identify each one.  Just this week I decided to add some felt magnetic shapes to the collection.

This time I decided to make each shape it's own color.  Like the magnetic numbers, the shapes have enclosed magnets.  I love that I don't have to worry about the magnets falling off the back of the shapes and finding their way into my son's nose, ear, or stomach.

I stitched the name of each shape with embroidery floss. Hopefully after we've successfully learned numbers, shapes, colors, and letters we can work on reading (don't worry I know that this will be a few years).

They are so tiny!

 After making the magnetic numbers I ordered some great little magnets.  They are tiny, very strong.  Even though there is  a layer of fabric between the magnetic and the refrigerator, there is a strong attraction.  I can't wait to try these little magnets out on some magnetic bibs.

If you are interested in learning how to make the magnetic numbers continue reading.

How To Make a Jacob's Ladder Out of Paint Swatches

My husband and I have quite a large collection of paint swatches.  I acquired quite a large stash when we were engaged and I was choosing our wedding colors.  I added to the collection when we bought our home and chose wall colors.  I wouldn't say that I am a pack rat, but I do have a difficult time throwing away things that I know that I can repurpose.  Just the other day I was going through the paint swatches with my son as we were talking about colors.  I love these Dutch boy swatches because they have small openings in the side.  I'd ask him to find something that was a specific color and we'd place the paint swatch window on different objects until we found something that was the same color.  While we were doing this activity I decided that it would be fun to make a Jacob's ladder out of them.  They are just the right size and shape.  I'd made a Jacob's ladder once before and had really enjoyed the project.  I thought that you might want to make one with your family as well.

This project can be made with using mostly scrap materials.  You will need paper of some sort, this could be family photos, paint swatches, magazine pages, scrap book paper, coloring book pages, ect.  You will also need some board to adhere your paper to.  You can use book board, illustration board, wood boards cut to size, but I used some old mat board that I had on hand. You will also need glue of some type (PVA or a tacky craft glue), tape, and three strands or ribbon.

If you want to give this project a try you can find my instructions here.  If you have questions let me know. As I was writing up the instructions I realized that I failed to take a couple of pictures...so if there is any confusion I'd be happy to answer any questions.

I thought that this Jacob's ladder project was a fun way to introduce my son to colors.  When I showed it to my husband he said...oh cute you put warm colors on one side and cool colors on the other side (I've taught him so much).

Quiet Book, Hello Sunshine

In advance I will apologize for the photo, it is quite washed out.  This is a fun little page to add to your child's activity book.  It is helpful in teaching children about the rising and setting of the sun.  The sun sits snuggly between the mountains and then can be moved and placed high in the sky.  It is a bit of a peek-a-boo game.  My toddler loves to be able to move the piece around.  This is a quite simple page to make. It is fun to use two different patterns and shades of purple for the mountains, but I was running low on purple prints so I just used the wrong side of the fabric for the far mountain. Using a lighter shade of purple in the back is a great way to add a bit of atmospheric perspective.

As with all of the moveable or handled pieces in the activity book, the sunshine has two layers of lining to provide stability (If you are using felt use 1 piece lining, and 1 piece felt).  For this sunshine I used an ultra soft no fray yellow fabric for the rays, and a printed pale yellow cotton fabric for the sun.  I wish that the yellow in the middle was a bit darker-oh well.  You can attach your pieces however you'd like. On this particular page I chose not to finish the edges on the mountains, I like the slight raveling on the edges.  I  used a triple stitch along the perimeter of the mountains to ensure that they were securely attached.  I used a blanket stitch on the sun itself, I think that it gives it a bit of charm.

The supplies that you will need for this page are:  lining or a thin bat, two shades of purple fabric, 1 piece of sew on velcro, 1 piece of 1/4" wide elastic (About 6 inches long), embroidery floss for details, and your prepared quiet book page.

Hello Sunshine Instructions Hello Sunshine Template Please note that the written instructions and template are two different files and will need to be printed separately.

Quiet Book page, Rotating Tires

I think that this is such a great page to have in a little boy's quiet book. I don't know about other little boys, but my son LOVES trucks and cars. If Clark sees that something has wheels then in his mind it also has an engine. I think that trucks are just a part of childhood for little boys. This page is great in allowing little fingers to learn the mechanics of buttoning. The object is to change or rotate the tires of the truck by removing one tire, and replacing it with another.

When I made my son's book I used cotton fabric for both the body of the truck and the tires. I am so glad that I chose to use felt on this page. The tires work out so much better than with cotton fabric. I know that when a lot of people make their quiet books out of felt they don't finish edges or use button hold stitches for buttoning activities. I think that it really adds a polished look to use an actual button hole stitch, and to use a machine stitched blanket stitch around the end of the tire (I also think that it makes it look like it has a bit of tire tread).

This is a more advanced sewing page as far as details go. I used a satin stitch with various colors of thread for the headlights, tail lights, mirror, and door handle. I think that it turned out quite nice and hopefully Danny really likes it.

You can use buttons of your choice for the wheels. I happened to have two matching gold buttons that I used, but silver would be a nice choice as well.

Quiet book page, Zip Zip Hooray

This is one of the least interesting Quiet Book pages to look at, but it can provide quite a bit of fun and entertainment for toddlers. My son just loves to move the zippers back and forth. On Clark's book I put the zippers on a diagonal, but with this particular page I chose to put them on a horizontal to save room for the button holes. Quite a bit of planning is necessary when choosing where to position your objects on the page to accommodate button holes or eyelets.

I chose to use three different colors of zippers and to position them facing different sides so that they can go back and forth. This is a great page to help your toddler learn the mechanics of zipping a zipper. There are several pages out there that incorporate zippers into images such as zipping up a tent, tepee, pair of pants, ect. I chose to keep the page as simple as possible. It would also be fun to have an even larger amount of zippers in differing colors to teach the order of the color rainbow.

This is a simple page that doesn't require a large amount of sewing or detail. It is always nice to have a simple quiet book page to give you a bit of a break when making a detailed quiet book.