Imagine Toys Blog

• about imaginetoys
• contact us
• imagine toys team

Discovery bottles give kids a fun, learning activity that encourage observation and thinking. You can make your own discovery bottles with a recycled water bottle, colored rice, and small objects – we used buttons.

1. Color white rice.

2. Select small objects for the bottle. Record or photograph in case you want to give your child a list to find.

3. Funnel the rice into the bottle. Add the small objects.

4. Fill 3/4s full.

5. Done! (and you might want to hot glue the lid onto the bottle . . . less mess.)

Ozowiezo suggests using discovery bottles for traveling with kids. Sun Hats & Wellie Boots suggests making season-themed discovery bottles. Childcareland Blog makes alphabet discovery bottles.

Fun, aren’t they? Not only do my kids love playing with these, they enjoy making them as gifts.

Any other discovery bottle ingredients you suggest?

Preschoolers and Kindergarteners can read, sing, wear, and play to learn the days of the week. Be patient, time is a tricky concept for children that will take awhile to learn. But, while your little cutie is learning the days of the week, you can have lots of fun. Here’s how.

Wear the Days of the Week

SOCKS

We love our days of the week socks. A little too much. And by that I mean, if a certain young person in my house can’t find her Monday socks on Monday, it’s a crisis that makes us late for school! (So, buy three sets!!)

UNDERWEAR

Thankfully, we don’t have too many underwear panic attacks because there are some cute underwear for days of the week, too — and we don’t have extras.

Sing the Days of the Week

Both my kids practiced the days of the week with Barney’s Days of the Week song to the tune of “Oh My Darlin’ Clementine.”

However, if you’re not a Barney fan, there are lots of great songs about the days of the week like this Days of the Week Rap.

Read the Days of the Week

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

Chickens to the Rescue by John Himmelman

Cookie’s Week by Cindy Ward

Can We Play by Mara Van Der Meer

Play the Days of the Week

Make a Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow chart or magnet board.

Make a family days of the week book.

So, have a blast singing, reading, playing, and wearing your days of the week!

Storytelling with kids will benefit them with better vocabulary, better listening skills, knowledge of story structure, and enhanced imagination, just to name a few. Once you tell stories to children, they’ll want to hear more, and want to make up their own stories. So, here’s what you need to know about storytelling.

Every story has some basic elements.

- Setting

- Characters

- Problem / Actions / Solution

What will give you ideas for these basic elements? Look around you. Find ideas in pictures, books, mail, postcards, and invent a story.

For example, do you see a plant on your desk? Plants might make you think of a rain forest. The setting could be the rain forest.

Look around again. You see a picture of a fairy on the cover of a book. Hmmm, what if the fairies were the main characters, in the rain forest, and they faced a problem — how about the trees and flowers were being cut down?

More storytelling basics on Imagination Soup.

When you tell your story, consider 5 things.

1. Props

2. Dramatic voices

3. Words that create sensory pictures, think hear, see, feel, touch, taste

4. Pantomime and gesture

5. Use puppets

Most of all, have fun. Be silly. Some of my girls favorite stories are their daddy’s mixed-up, silly fairy tales where Cindersmella meets Little Red Poopy Pants. (Sorry, potty humor works every time with them – well, with most kids actually.)

Enjoy the stories!

Once upon a time . . .

Valentine’s Day is next week! Spend the week eating and making Valentine’s Day delights! Oh, and don’t forget to buy your Valentine’s Day cards like these Scratch and Sniff Valentine’s and Valentine’s tattoos.

Food for Valentine’s Day

Edible Heart Necklaces from ScrumdillyDo

Pink Heart Cupcakes and Pink Milk from Glorious Treats

Candy Necklace from Cute Food For Kids

Valentine’s Day Fun

Love Bug Valentines from Dandee

Cootie Catchers Valentine’s from Imagine Toys

Heart Tic-Tac-Toe from AlphaMom

Valentine’s Day Bingo from MakeOodle

Memo-Heart Games from Imagine Toys

Want to learn more about the history of Valentine’s Day? Visit the History channel to learn more.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

This Sunday, two football teams battle it out at the Super Bowl. While you watch the big game, keep your family active with these fun, indoor kid-friendly games.

1. Dodge Tag

2. Balloon Tennis from Toddler Approved

3. Duck Duck Goose

4. Rody Races

5. Freeze Dance

6. 3-in-1 Sports Arcade

7. Indoor Trampoline

8. Bowling 

9. FitDek Junior

10. Charades

11. Piano Mat

12. Touchdown Football Play Set (on sale right now)

Of course, you want to keep your kids active every day.

I’m sure no one will mind a playful tackle football game in the living room. Right?

* See how my daughter uses the plasma car inside.

* List of everything you might need for an Indoor Obstacle Course.

What is Topozoo — Monsters and Safari? Let me show you . . .

These 6-year olds love building these wooden safari animals and monsters.

A set includes 3 heads, 3 bodies, 3 tails, and 6 legs.

The 9-year old girls love it, too!

Mix up the heads, bodies, tails, and legs to create a unique creature.

The all wooden pieces are made from recycled and natural materials in the USA.

For more fun, the creatures are customizable with color-in wings, tails, spikes, and more if you visit the Topozoo website.

What’s not to love about Topozoo?

“This might look boring to some kids at first but really it’s fun!“ enthuses young 9-year old crafter, AJ, who is making wool felted balls from a Harrisville Designs craft kit.

AJ is making a felt ball. First she wraps several layers of colorful wool around a tennis ball.

Pretty, isn’t it?

Then, she starts the felting process – adding soap and warm water to her hands and the felted ball, mushing it back and forth like she’s packing a snowball.

As the wool absorbs the warm water and soap, it transforms into felt in about five minutes!

Beautiful!! The felted balls remind us of globes!

What do you think? Want to know of a few other felt projects you can do with kids?

How about trying this plastic bag felting project? Or these felted bird eggs? Or this tutorial for felted soap!

Happy felting!

Kids love fairy tales, stories for children involving fantastic forces and beings (as fairies, wizards, and goblins.)

You can have so much learning fun with fairy tales! Here’s a list of fairy tale picture books from Read Write Think!

Read a fairy tale — or a dozen. While you read, talk about the story. Then, extend the story with one of these ideas.

1. Puppet or Characters Show

Act out the story with puppets or collectables.

2. Draw the Story

Draw a scene from the fairy tale. Or draw the beginning, middle, and end.

Castle Art Idea from Deep Space Sparkle

3. Sticky Mosaic

Make your own fairy tale castle.

4. Write Your Own Fairy Tale 

Think of characters, a magical element, a problem to solve, and get creative!

5. What Makes a Fairy Tale?

Print out this chart from The Inspired Apple. Do you agree?

6. Make Magic Wands

7. Cook a Fairy Tale Feast

8. Fairy Tales from Around the World

Look at all the versions of Cinderella and all the ideas for learning about it.

9. Fracture Fairy Tales

Mix-up the fairy tales and invent your own new story.

10. Real or Pretend

Invent a game – “real or pretend” – to practice what’s true and what’s fiction when you read stories.

*Grimm fairy tales are often thought of as the grandfathers of the fairy tale but they can be too scary for kids – and don’t always have a happy ending. Consider reading them with older children only.

And they all lived happily ever after . . . 

The math board game, Inching Along, gets kids engaged in a fun game of measurement and addition. I don’t know about you but my kids need practice with both of these math concepts. And, the best part about this game, is that it’s so much fun, they don’t notice it’s also learning! (They’re too busy trying to win.)

Each player draws a card. It will look like this:

Adding G plus H requires some measuring. First, the player measures the line G, then the H line, and adds the two numbers together. That answer is the number of  spaces he or she can move on the game board.

This is line B – it’s labeled but the ruler is covering it up.

Players measure, add, and move. The first player to the finish wins but frankly, I think everyone wins because all the players practice and improve their math skills!

Inching Along will get your kids measuring and adding in a playful way which is the best way to learn, don’t you think?

Have you played this game before?

What are your favorite ways to playfully learn math?

Build a solid literacy foundation with your toddlers and preschoolers happens easily if you get in a few good habits. You might alr