fun and free resources for kids at home!

this morning involved
listening to disney songs and feeling our bodies move to the music.
exercise {for me} on the stationary bike and reading under the tuscan sun.
a brief quiet play time for the boys in their room {and a subsequent mess of cars, blocks and books covering both their beds.}
a relatively unmessy but definitely poopy accident by jude.
laundry {both washing and folding}.
a free, fun and educational activity that suited both my boys' learning levels.

this free printable can be found here  {a fantastic site. check it out!} and is all about matching colours and words in an ice cream store!
i decided to split the activity into two - noah's involved matching popsicles to the correct colour word and he really enjoyed sounding out the colours and trying to find words that matched {or at least matched the first letter}.

noah decided he wanted to tape his popsicles down after matching them to the correct words.

jude's sheet involved matching up the right ice cream scoop to the cone with the same colour on the top. i hadn't planned on this happening, but both activities fit where the boys are at exactly.

and jude decided that he wanted to glue his scoops onto the sheet.

this was a really simple and easy activity to do with both my kids and teaches about colours and fine motor skills {or at least, it ended up doing that as both wanted to affix their "cold treats" to the paper}.
and they focused on an activity.
for all of about 10 minutes.
awesome.

some other great resources for fun learning that we make the most of in our house are:

we give books - a free, online library of books that you can read to your kids just like you would a book. not as great as holding a book, but when libraries are limited {as they are here} it's a fantastic opportunity to read, read, read! my boys' current favourites are big, red lollipop {the same book we took out at a library in guelph and loved back then, too!} and max's chocolate chicken.

starfall - i mentioned this in another post, but it's a great, free website that teaches kids all about letters, phoenetics, and reading in a simple but fun way. i think it's cute to see noah maneuver the mouse and click away and hear him echo the sounds of letters.

robert munsch's free audiobooks - when i found out almost all the robert munsch books are available as audiobooks for free online, i immediately set to work downloading all of them. now it's noah's most requested thing to listen to during his afternoon quiet time. i love that he knows so many of the books i grew up reading and it's super cute to hear him reciting along with the story.

then of course there's the millions of fantastic websites and blogs that can be found by googling or looking on pinterest. my next plan is to make up some quiet time bins or bags for noah and jude that i can vary throughout the week. stay tuned for some fun ideas for that!