Kristina teaches Yoga every Monday night while Max and I build and play at home. I try to use this time to connect and do all the things that “only Dad does” and seeing as this is our first week blogging on Eat Sleep And Play I really wanted to do something educational but fun. On the way home from work I thought “Oh we have a stock pile of cardboard waiting to be burned, we could make big fort!”. Turned out we didn’t have as much as I thought so I gathered some small buckets and the ottoman full of Mega-Blocks, “we will sort Mega-Blocks by size!” I said. We started but I quickly lost his attention while I was trying to get some good pictures…. In comes the giant name tag.
The giant name tag
With bedtime quickly approaching and our option running thinner and thinner, I needed to think of something easy and quick enough we could do in less than 30 minutes. Max has been really into coloring lately and he can identify all the letters in the alphabet and recognizes a lot of words from watching nursery rhyme videos and reading books. We can color some words, and what better word than his own name.
Materials:
- Paper
- Crayons or markers
- Scissors
- Packing tape
Skills Developed:
- Letter identification
- Color Identification
Directions:
Begin by writing our child’s name on the sheets of paper. In block letters, write one letter on each sheet of paper. I draw each letter and hand it to Max to identify and put in a pile to the side while I continue with the next letters.
We place the letters and throw a bunch of crayons on the table. I tend to repeat myself while we are coloring, “are you going to finish coloring the ‘A’? I still see some white areas”. Teamwork is key to getting this done before bedtime!
Cut out all of the letters and get out the packing tape. This part was a little tricky but I laid out strips of tape upside town with the sticky part up to create a sheet of tape while being cautious to keep the tape straight and only overlapping a little.
Place all of the letters on the sticky-side-up tape, add another sheet of tape on top. Press with a rolling pin or something with a hard flat edge to get out any air bubbles and points with no contact.
Put the giant name tag anywhere!
It’s waterproof(ish)!!
We know who’s bed this is at last!
After reading his bedtime stories and putting him to bed I could hear him through the door repeating “Max’s name”. One more (rather important) word recognized, mission accomplished.