Our Boxes:

     • Sewing cards: Cardboard sewing cards can often be purchased at discount or school supply stores. Or, purchase plastic canvas and a large plastic needle at your local craft store.

     • Large, wooden beads to string: Great just for fun, or for making/copying patterns. A related activity is to string Cheerios or Fruit Loops on yarn (use masking tape on the very end to make a needle).

     • Puzzles: Start with simple wooden knob puzzles and move on from there. Ravensburger makes beautiful cardboard tray “see inside” puzzles.

     • Nest and Stack Boxes: Wonderful toys for learning about size. Some have pictures that are completed when the boxes are stacked in the right order. Discovery Toys’ Measure Up Cups are similar, but are correct measurement-wise and are great to use with sand or water.

     • Magnetic fishing: Tie a small doughnut-shaped magnet to string or heavy yarn; this is your “fishing pole.” Cut out fish from construction paper, adding a paper clip near the mouth. Children try to catch the fish with their pole. Variations: make this a learning game! Write letters or numbers on each fish. When your child catches a fish, name the letter or number for them. Later, see if they can name them by themselves. This activity can be used in the same way to teach colors, shapes, letter sounds, and so on.

     • Felt board play: Betty Lukens Felts makes beautiful, full-color felts for counting, telling stories, and so on, or you can make your own by using a black sharpie to outline or draw shapes, numbers, letters, animals, and so on onto heavy duty interfacing (find it at your local fabric store). Color with pastel crayons and cut out. You can also cut pictures out of magazines or discarded books and apply iron-on interfacing to the back. For the board itself, use a large piece of heavy cardboard, wrap in blue flannel, and secure with tape/hot glue.

     • Nuts and bolts: Go to a hardware store and pick out several sets of large nuts, bolts, and washers that fit together. Buy several of different diameters. Use them as an assembly project. This builds eye-hand coordination and estimation skills.