Bambino Cut and Paste Activity & Printable

::: Bambino Academy :::

~ Surfer Dude is 39 months ~

Surfer Dude has been completing sticker/cutting activities for awhile now. I am sure you know the ones I mean. Place a row of stickers onto a strip of paper approximately 2cms in width and then the child cuts the strip into pieces, keeping one sticker on each piece. I can't be certain but I think the first place I may have seen this was over at the wonderful Counting Coconuts.

I've been wanting to extend on that activity for awhile now and today the opportunity arose. I simply drew everything freehand for Surfer Dude, but have since put together a simple little printable that has made it easier for me to prepare this activity....which by the way, he adores!

You will need two sheets of grid paper (see printable link below), I print one in colour so it is easy for Surfer Dude to tell them apart, stickers, enough to fill the sheet and small enough to fit within in each grid square, child sized scissors (if they are cutting) and a glue stick.

I prepared the first stage of cutting the coloured sheet into long strips and placed all of the supplies onto his tray. If you are doing this for the first time you might like to start with just the strips and the stickers and slowly move through the steps from there.

Surfer Dude then chooses his stickers and places one within each grid square. With a younger child you might like to remove the backing around the stickers, this makes it much easier for them to remove the sticker itself with greater success.

After one strip is full he then cuts it apart on the lines provided.

Once all stickers are in place and each strip has been cut apart, the next step is to glue each coloured square onto the second piece of grid paper.

This is quite an involved piece of work with many steps. You will need to decide for yourself what level your child is at and work from there. Right now I can give all the materials to Surfer Dude ( I only cut apart the inital long strips) and he does the rest all in one sitting.

The first time he did this it took him at least 30 minutes, his perseverance, concentration and determination was amazing. Such a simple activity covering such a wide variety of skills.

This is the very first one Surfer Dude completed, where I simply drew the grids by hand and did not provide him lines to cut on. You can choose to go either way with this, again depending on the child.

Download the grid pattern printable by clicking here

Check out the Linky Party's this is linked up to

Real Life Practical Life

Blocked Drains = A Real Life Practical Life Lesson

Our very primitive set up - 1. Dirty Dishes 2. Wash Dishes 3. Holding Tray for clean dishes - Four hands hard at work!

Thankfully the plumber is here now so hopefully we can return to some level of normalcy soon.

Bambino Academy: On The Shelves This Week

I can't believe it has literally been months since I put up a Bambino Academy post! I'll be honest and say that there is a huge part of me that has moved away from all of this focus on our toddlers as I feel that it just puts far too much undue pressure on mums (homeschool blogging mums in particular) to perform and to keep up with all of the fabulous activities that we all see circulating around the blogosphere, as opposed to keeping the focus on the toddler.

I know that at least in our home, our toddler receives all that he needs without me having to spend time planning, setting up and organising a myriad of activities, even though I can see and value their importance.

The number one reason I will continue this year is because this is his 'school' and whilst he isn't really satisified at that (he just wants to do school with the big kids) it will have to do for now. It keeps him busy and entertained for at least a portion of our day so that I have some time to focus on the other two.

~ C is 31 months ~

The above image shows what the shelves looked like on the first day this week, some of the activities did get rotated. If all goes well this shelf will keep him entertained for about an hour with very little input from me (taking the lid off the glue, filling his water tray for painting).

I am still finding my groove for the year with the bigger two, so in all honesty not a great deal of thought was put into the activities, on the shelves this week.

He got this Klutz Magic Painting Book for Christmas, which in my opinion, isn't the best value for money. None the less it is a simple and relatively non messy way of painting.

Gluing of any description is always a winner. This time, left over chocolate wrappers. 

He has been intrigued by cutting for some time and I finally put together a basket of cutting strips to help him conquer this skill. At this stage they are just plain strips, we'll work up to having him cut on lines etc.

Thanks playschool for this idea, he loved it. Pushing colourful feathers into a metal sieve.

And of course it made a great hat! (oops sorry eyes closed shot)

C also enjoys pouring of any kind.

Threading bears, I was encouraging him to match colours but he wasn't into that.

He spent a great deal of time watching K working with these beans and wanted a turn, so this was a completely self directed activity, I simply gave him the tray to keep all of the bits on.

It's been super hot here this past week and we've lived in the pool. Aren't they one of those things that you can live without for years but when you have one you just don't know how you ever made it through summers without it!

A spot more painting after some cooling off in the sparkling blue water.

This post is linked to:

• Toddler Tuesday

• Tot Tuesday's

• Tot School

Bambino Academy Basics: Washing Up - Sensory and Practical Life Lessons

Our little bambino's are never too young to begin the fine art of washing the dishes. What's more, they actually really want to do it and at times will beg to do it.

I know some you are probably freaking out about all of the mess and the water and bubbles everywhere and granted, that is going to happen, but just look at his focus, he was so into this and did a really great job at it too.

Save all of the non breakable easy to wash items from the day and whilst you are preparing dinner, get the toddler set up at the sink. Don't forget that their little fingers can't tolerate the water as hot as we can, add plenty of bubbles for that fun factor, a chair or stool to stand on and let them at it.

When they are done, they will no doubt be soaked through, great time for a bath (unless of course dinner is ready hehehe) and the floor will be a huge puddle. Well it needed mopping anyway and you don't even need to fill the bucket.

• Flower Arranging

• Colour Recognition and Sorting

• Dry Pouring

Bambino Academy Basics: Dry Pouring

Dry Pouring is a favourite activity around here at the moment. This simple, yet effective work keeps him busy for a very long time....well a long time when you are only 2 that is!

It took me so long to find something that I could actually use to set this work up. Maybe I was just being picky I don't know but I literally spent months scouring second hand stores and came up trumps every time.

In the end I purchased these little tiny milk jugs from a kitchen supply store.

We are using larger items to pour with and always pouring on a try, as that means much less clean up and C can do the clean up himself, especially when we he can pick up the items, such as macaroni, kidney beans and sometimes popping corn (good pincer grip practice too), although that is getting slightly smaller. Eventually we'll progress to rice and sand before tackling wet pouring.

I am led to believe that I should also keep my eye out for pouring implements that have different sized spouts. Which I will do but since I had such a hard time finding these little gems I won't be holding my breath.

The tray is presented very simply, with the jugs ready for him to pour with his right hand into the left jug. I have shown him to swap them around after he has finished pouring to ensure he is always pouring from his right. Obviously the aim with this is build the coordination so that the child can pour effortlessly, wet or dry, independently. An important skill for practical every day life.

• Flower Arranging

• Colour Recognition and Sorting

Bambino Academy: Flower Arranging

Children of all ages love this simple activity and you can make it really easy for toddlers to do.

Next time you are the lucky beneficiary of flowers be sure to keep the tray and the flower foam. (you could also just go and buy some, most 'cheapy' stores sell this)

As you can see, ours is nearing the end of its life span, it has been well used. Having this makes flower arranging very simple.

I purchased three bunches of different flowers from the $2 shop, pulled them all apart (leaving the stems in tact) and B pushes them into the flower foam.

Simple, fun and looks fabulous when they are done.

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