Easy and Inexpensive DIY Dot Dabbers

I tried to hold out as long as I could.  Yes, they're neat... but I am stingy and the price for Do-A-Dot markers is, in my opinion, ridiculous.  But the kids love them, and honestly I do too.

So I turned to Pinterest for inspiration (of course) and came up with these dot dabbers. 

I bought two packs of 3 travel size bottles (for shampoo and soap and such) and round makeup sponges. And set to work.

I filled the bottles about 1/3 of the way with paint, and not quite to the top with water.  What you see in the picture above is probably a little too much water.  It works, but it takes some trial and error to get the consistency paint you prefer.

Hold a round sponge over the top and secure with rubber bands.  Depending on size I used 2 or 3 bands per bottle.

A few gentle squeezes to pump the paint through the sponge... and dab away.

Aren't they so pretty!?

I do believe the kids enjoyed them.  Of course choosing colored paper wasn't the best, but I wasn't about to fight with them.  They did accept lighter paper once they realized their colors weren't popping.  

If you see this face:

Be prepared for your dabber to be slammed on the paper so hard the sponge rips.

Thank goodness for extra sponges.

They aren't as durable as Do-A-Dot markers, but they are a fraction of the price... sounds good to me!

I'm keeping them in a ziploc to prevent spills and hopefully prevent the sponge from drying out.  One post I found removed the sponges and rinsed them after each use so she could cap them.  I guess I'm lazy, but call that plan B.

DIY Light Table

During the school year, I brought the boys to a playgroup at one of the local grammar schools and there was a light table with some fun magnetic shapes and translucent legos.  The thing was so neat!  Since then, I've seen some creative and frugal ways to make your own light table (the word table being used loosely) on Pinterest.  

After seeing THIS POST on dollar store finds for light tables, I was inspired to make one and go finish off the gift card to the Dollar Tree that my mom gave me for my birthday...ummm best gift ever? yeah I think so! Three easy steps to make a light table: 1. Get a storage container with a clear lid.  I used an under the bed type container.  I've seen pins using taller ones, and even ones with a white lid (in this case they attached lights to the inside of the lid and used the box upside down). 2. Tape white tissue paper to the inside of the lid to diffuse the light.  I guess this is optional, I've seen posts that skip this step, and I've seen posts that go all out and use spray paint to frost the lid. 3. Add lights to the bottom.  I used white Christmas lights and taped them to the bottom of the container.   Voila! Best part is.... I already had all of these things! Didn't spend a dime! My Dollar Tree Treasures I couldn't find everything listed in the post that inspired this shopping trip, plus I dragged my sister along with me and so doing 15 laps through the store was out of the question... a solo trip is much needed (and while you may think a dollar store intervention is much needed, I assure you... I don't have a problem, I can stop at any time).

• Decorative glass stones in different sizes (I liked the assorted color bags)
• Linking jewelry shapes
• Brightly colored storage boxes
• Glow in the dark ceiling shapes
• Translucent rulers
• Plastic shot glasses
• Multi-colored stacking pill case
• Subject dividers (for binders...to cut into shapes)
• Hair gel (to put into ziplock baggies and add color or glitter for sensory play)
• Shaving cream (another sensory play idea from my sister)

Not from the Dollar Tree, but worth mentioning: I ordered tangrams and orbeez off ebay and I can't wait for them to get here!

Introducing the Light Table

Once breakfast was said and done, I told the boys I had a surprise for them.  They got excited as I closed the curtains and got the room dark and ready.  To introduce the idea of light play to the boys, and to see how well my purchases worked out, we spent a little bit of time with everything instead of focusing on one thing.  In the future I hope to have more structured play as well as free play... but today we just worked our way through all the different "toys." 

 We used the plastic shot glasses to create a pattern.  Blue, green, blue green.  It was very serious work.

 The boys stacked and unstacked the little cups over and over and over and over....

... I introduced a new way to stack the cups which was very well received by Oliver.

Owen had a grand ol' time counting things. 

They both liked filling and pouring the little cups.

We used the storage containers to experiment with color mixing.  Red and blue made a good purple, and the blue and yellow did a good job demonstrating green, but the red and yellow did not make a distinct enough orange.  Oliver then had fun seeing what happened to the colors when stacking 3 or even all 4 of them.

These were also fun to fill with other things.

We made a dinosaur scene featuring a T-Rex standing in front of a volcano, an Elasmosaurus swimming in water, and a Stegosaurus and Triceratops chowing down on some green plants. 

And here is Brachiosaurus eating leaves from the top of a tree.

 Oliver then had a terrific idea to create museum cases to put the dinosaurs in for everyone to see.

We used a ruler to measure and compare the dinosaurs, and later some zoo animals.

I just love this light table... it was so easy and so fun!  I'm trying to think of a cheap and easy way to build an actual TABLE for us, maybe put some pallets to use?  I mean you can make just about anything out of pallets, right!?  But this is certainly good enough, and it doesn't take up too much space.  Fits right under the bed!

Alphabet Match Game

My super smart kid has done really well learning to identify capital letters.  He knows just about all of them...when he wants to (there are days he just can't focus or be interested in actually looking at the letters in order to tell you which one it is.  On these days he prefers the "shout a random letter and hope it's right" approach).

I chose to introduce only capitals for the sake of simplicity, and in my opinion he is ready to start matching them up to their lowercase counterparts.  I have been intending to make an alphabet match game for him in order to accomplish this, but I currently am printer-less so it hasn't been done.

We have a set of alphabet flash cards already, but they don't work for what I have in mind because the upper and lowercase sets have different pictures for each letter.

I just happened to find myself in the value aisle in Target (crazy how that keeps happening)and found this set of flashcards which was just what I needed!

What I liked about these cards is that each card has the uppercase letter above the lowercase letter on one side, and a picture on the opposite card.

To make the match game I cut each card in half vertically isolating the capital and lowercase letters, and creating a puzzle-type game of the image side.  

I shuffled the cards and laid them out on the table with the letter sides up.  The goal of the game was to match the letters and check by flipping them over to see if the pictures lined up. So fun! He did great!

Make Your Own Preschool Morning Board

I had this light bulb moment... maybe I can get the kids into a "school mode" if I engage them with something like this pocket chart to start the day.  Most classrooms start with a circle time and something similar right?  So let's give it a try.  

HOLD THE PHONE!!!  I don't have the money to drop on one of those fancy pantsy pocket charts! $50 for a good one.... $70 for an awesome one.  No way.  I am much too frugal.

So I made my own, (didn't see that coming did ya?  oh, you did?  yeah I figured).

I got a piece of foam poster board and calendar pieces from the Dollar Tree, bulletin board trim for $1 at Target, and a weather wheel for about $.60 on clearance in Walmart (but that is easily DIY too).  

The most expensive part of this was buying velcro for all the calendar pieces.

I covered the board with leftover pieces of felt, piecing together different colors to represent different circle time topics.  

Dark blue on top is all about the day.

Light blue is sight words for the week.  This is an experiment.  Not sure if he is ready for this at 3 1/2, but he's bright, so we'll see how it goes.

Green is for the letter and number of the week.  We will use worksheets from various activity books that correspond to these after we finish with our morning board gathering.

I got sick of cutting velcro squares for every piece, plus the word cards are double sided, so I opted to use clothes pins here...as if you couldn't tell.

The whether wheel is self explanatory.  It's actually my kid's favorite part.  He loves looking out the window and moving the arrow.  I did have to add velcro pieces to the arrow and each "slice" so that gravity would stop declaring every day "snowy".... we've got a heat warning going on here for Pete's sake! 

I used a hot glue gun around the edges of felt, now that it's all said and done I might have used something like Hi-Tack all purpose glue to adhere the entire piece of felt so it doesn't pull away from the board as you remove the velcro pieces from it.

The only thing left to do is decided whether I am going to mount it onto some wall space (shout out to command strips...holla!!!) or attach some ribbon to the top so I can move it around and hang it on door knobs or nails or whatever is nearby in whatever room we find ourselves in.

Now I just hope we use it!