Button Sort

Buttons are intriguing to little people!  About a year ago we started playing with buttons-a lot!  They are great for counting, sorting, and identifying colors.

Using an egg carton, I made a color sorting game for M, then 2 years old.  She was able to sort the buttons into appropriate groups.

I began with only the colors she knew at the time (shown), but later filled most of the sections of the egg carton with different  colors.

I used an egg carton and colored small pieces of paper to show M where to sort the buttons. I colored both sides of the paper in case they flipped, and I was glad I did.

 I thought the brown, black, and navy blue would be confusing since they are all so dark in color, but she did great. Though I had selected which buttons she would sort, there were three buttons that confused her a bit. One was blue/gray, though more gray. She quickly decided that it would be on its own. A bright pink, nearly red button became a color of its own, too. I can't blame her since the other pink buttons were very pale. A maroon button went from the red to the brown to the red pile. In the end she did choose the red pile for the maroon button.

If you have a child who still puts objects in their mouth, the button sort activity should be supervised.

(Photo from spring 2009)

We keep the button sort activity on top of the refrigerator since when we began she still mouthed objects and we had a baby in the house.  It remains up there, though it still is used upon request.  I keep the buttons  for this activity separate from the rest of our button collection.

May I make a suggestion?  If you don't have a button collection, ask a woman from another generation if she might.  Derek's grandma gave us an incredible amount of buttons to use that she had saved over the years.

If you are looking for another use of your buttons for a preschool craft, you can check out our button book, too!

I'm linking up to ABC and 123's show and tell!  They are a great site for preschool (and older) ideas!

Egg Carton Shake

Traditional ways of practicing numbers just has not worked for us. Books. Games. Puzzles.

M will count (once in a while) for hide and seek. She also counted grapes as she pulled them off a bunch last week!

Here's a pretty physical game to help a child identify and distinguish between 1, 2, I, and L. It's the Egg Carton Shake game from Hubbard's Cupboard. I taped in the numbers/letters. Then we put in a button and shook it up! Wherever the button landed M told me what she saw. She knew all of them already, but soon we'll add more numbers. It's a good, active game for us...yet it still didn't do super to hold her attention, but we played for a few minutes the first time we played.

Homemade Resurrection Eggs

Now that our daughter is 3 1/2, it is important for us to focus on the real meaning of Easter.  Though she doesn't completely understand the how and why of Jesus' death and resurrection, we want M to understand that Easter is not just eggs, bunnies, and baskets.

For our resurrection eggs, I used an empty egg carton, plastic eggs, and some small items to tell what actually happened to Jesus.  The following items are in the eggs.  I chose not to put the verse inside the egg, though I have them listed on a piece of paper.  I numbered each of the eggs to help tell the story in order.  (Click on verses to read the Scripture verses.)

Please read about all the verses and items I placed in our homemade Resurrection Eggs over at This Simple Home.  I have even created a Resurrection Eggs printable for you!!

We have been using these for years, and I am amazed at how my children can use these to tell the story of Jesus' death and resurrection!!

Pantry Organization

When we built our home three years ago, we tweaked the original floor plans for a few things, including two things that I knew I wanted: laundry on the second floor and a pantry.  (Oh, I really wanted a mud room.  REALLY.  And I still do. However, the price tag was one that was not logical to me.  Some things can't be a priority...even if highly desired and practical.)

My pantry is tiny, but I am thankful for it.  Up until recently, it was also a wreck, though I cleaned it out about once a month.  A couple weeks before the baby was due, I realized that a baby sitter would never find anything in that pantry because my dear husband always has to ask where something is or have me find it.

The solution...labels.  (Maybe not what you think.)  I did not go out and purchase lovely plastic bins to keep all my dry goods looking neat and organized, though that would be nice.
Instead, I just figured out exactly what should be on each shelf, and created labels to make sure that I knew where things should go, and hoped that my husband would use them, too.  Here's how.

• I emptied all of the pantry shelves.  Maybe I should say that first I cleaned off my island and table so that I could empty the pantry.
• Then I made a pile of items that were duplicates or so rarely used that they could be stored in the basement.   I also decided that the few baking items that were in the pantry should be moved to my baking cupbard.  Only sensible, huh?
• I also checked the expiration date on some items that I knew I had not used in ages.  It was a good idea since something was a couple years past expiration.  Please take note that they expired after our move.  I did not relocate expired foods.
• As I put items on the shelves, I grouped them together by what made sense to me, I used masking tape and Sharpies to make temporary labels.
• I used the temporary labels for a couple of days in case I wanted to make adjustments.

Then I made my labels and attached them to the wire shelving.

The picture below may not look like an "after" picture, but it is.  Trust me.  It is organized!

Simple, right?
(Well, except that shameful pile of snacks!)

Wondering if it's been successful?  How about this?  On just day two or three, he asked where an item should go.  (It was a packet...not so obvious.)  I love it, and it has continued to work for over a month now!

It may not look all neat and tidy, but it is organized.

Did you notice that there was no "before" picture?  Well, I didn't touch the floor of the pantry.  It looks awful, because it is.  Proof?

Let's see.  Cereal.  Empty egg carton (to take to the farm to purchase more).  Brown plastic lids for kid painting.  Bread maker.  Two tubes-one for parchment paper and the other is a mat for kid crafts.  Random reusable bags.  Plastic shopping bag.  Cut cereal box for kid crafts.  And other unknown items.  Shameful.

Did you like the look of the labels?

They came from Just Something I Made, and she has other colors, too!  

I printed them on tan cardstock for a neutral look in my kitchen, but they could be used for countless things.  Love them.  And I didn't even laminate them!

I finally figured out that keeping some of our frequently used workbooks and coloring books lying horizontally on the bottom shelf was taking up precious space, but I didn't want them to be moved to the bookcase.  In the pantry, M and E know they can pull out a book and their crayon/marker box.  My solution was a magazine holder.  (This was also about the same time that I decided to recycle ALL of my old magazines.)

Now, can someone please help me figure out how to keep baby bottles organized?  They just can't be tidy!

Organizing Christmas Ornaments

If you are looking for a way to organize Christmas ornaments, I have heard that using an egg carton is a great way to do it.  I plan to do that this year with some of ours when we take down our tree.

Do you have something that works well for your family for organizing ornaments?  I'd love to hear about it! Last year we organized the kids' ornaments in separate boxes and it worked great!