Grab your tool belt!

Happy DIY projects! My colleague gave me a new copy of FamilyFun this week and I instantly smiled. I love FamilyFun magazine!! I found another hot little idea that I knew I had to blog about. I took lots of pictures of this page with all the details. This idea is great for preschoolers through first/second grade. It's easy and it totally works so many ECC skills (systematic search patterns, bilateral hand skill activity, cause and effect, etc. plus it is a totally functional activity). You could totally take this a step further and go to a hardware store and see where you buy nails and screws and stuff (now you have incorporated mobility and made it a community based instruction activity--voila!!). This is also a great activity for dads to take the lead on. Think dad date (or uncle or man date...) and head to Home Depot! Get a tool belt to dress up (imaginary play, meet a construction worker too!) and put nails and screws of different lengths in baggies (and now it's a sorting project! ding ding!!). Check out this project!!

  

Read the "take it further" tip! It's a good one ;)

I also like to find little gems like this in magazines because I want all of my parents to see that they can still be part of all the typical education activities, magazines, etc. You can't be part of every one of them (no one can. Trust me, I am a single mom and I know this well). But there are so many things that we can get ideas from! It also helps me learn how to tweak something for our kiddos in a pinch.  So, pick up a magazine and look for good projects and think about how you can do an easy tweak to it. Here's one tip, I usually can do these modifications or get ideas for them in about 10 minutes. If I have to recreate the wheel in order to the project, then it is a no-go (so don't kill yourself with over complicating things!)  Happy reading :)