The other day I bought my two and four year olds some big spray bottles from Walmart's garden section (they're as entertaining as squirt guns with less need to refill constantly). Once we got home, the four year old instantly starting torturing his sister. I started pointing out alternatives to aiming the stream of water at his sister's face like trees and rocks, etc. and then it hit me (an idea, not the water).
I drew some chalk targets on our gate for him to spray off. I put some letters he knew, some he didn't know, and some shapes so the two year old could play too.
by Bill Thomson. It's a wordless picture book with beautiful mixed media illustrations showing three friends in the park on a rainy day. They find a bag of chalk and the first friend draws a sun. The sun comes out! The second friend draws some butterflies and the butterflies magically appear. The third friend draws a dinosaur and it, too, comes to life! Unfortunately. the dinosaur is big and scary and wants to chase them so they come up with a very clever solution. 
And I just had to share this picture of the chalk city we found in the cul-de-sac down our street. There was even a Chuck E. Cheese's and McDonald's. The neighbor girls were busy at work!
Oh, we love Chalk!! I was so disappointed to find out it is no longer being published and the prices have skyrocketed for it. It is one of our favorite books to check out of the library.
ReplyDeleteI love your target activity. I hope our library has the book Chalk.
ReplyDeleteI need to get a squirt bottle, so we can do this!
ReplyDeleteGreat ideas. Bobo loves chalk and the spray bottle. I suspect he would spray everything until it was clean and forego the game. I love the book you paired with it.
ReplyDeleteAwesome idea for a linky party! I love your squirt gun shapes.. see you took my uneducational idea and made it educational ;) Thanks for the mention!
ReplyDeleteOh, and I love Chalk but I read it when it first came out and Logan was probably too young to really "get" it. I need to revisit. Thanks for the reminder!
What a awesome game! Great idea including letters as well. I will have to dig out the chalk so we can join in the linky fun. The book looks great too!
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun game and great way to reinforce learning through play. Thanks for linking to Kids Coop
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