Bottle caps Christmas tree

While lightning the first Advent candle, we have started a new series of activities from our Advent calendar. It's the same one we made ​​two years ago and still serves us well.

Originally I saw the idea with paper plates, but as I don't usually buy paper plates for our birthday parties, I knew that it will not work for us in exactly that way, but I immediately remembered on all those bottle caps we passionately collect. Since the kids don't play with our bottle caps memory game any more, it was time to upcycle them.

The girls really liked this activity, and again we have learned a lot. I gave them a box with caps in various colors and let them choose only those in green colour. Here is when my Older had a great idea of putting a yellow cap on top which would be a star. After it, they were forming the caps by adding one more cap comparing to the previous row, and in that way they could practice their counting skills. I used hot glue for each cap (and fairly well burned my fingers).

We were still practicing with the first, so it didn't turned very neat and fancy:

 But the second one was so much better: 

 Never mind that not all stickers had a Christmas theme, the little hands were having so much fun:

If you need more ideas for Christmas activities, take a look at our "Christmas fun for kids" Pinterest board. We are planning to try out most of the ideas during this year's Advent.

More homemade toys

We were absent from the blogosphere for a while now- we were quite busy - our family has one new member, a cute little boy, almost three months old, and we did three rounds of chickenpox which meant being stucked in the house for six weeks and so we were forced to think of many boredom busters, meaning a lot of new ideas and games.

One of them is this box which can be used for distinguishing colors and fine motor development for toddlers. Originally, it was just an empty box of cornflakes, which I turned upside down, poked some holes in it (that was the hardest part because I didn't have a scalpel) and decorated them with some washi tape. As we were out of a blue tape, the Younger simply colored it:

We collected many bottle caps, in various colors and started sorting it:

                         

 

However, in the end, the girls really enjoyed in simple mess making:

All in all, it was one less boring rainy afternoon ....

 

Bottle caps activities

You have already seen that we like to play with bottle caps and how we made some toddler toys, like this box with a lid:

In this post you could see how the hamster mom (that would be me), has gathered a remarkable amount of bottle caps. So it was the time to figure out what to do with them.

Learning colors with plastic bottle caps 

 

First we learned some colors. I collected all the caps in one basket:

 

 

 

Then I took five little boxes, of the same color as the caps so then we sorted them by color. Since I couldn't find the boxes in all the necessary colors, I wrapped them in gift wrapping paper scraps.

 

 

Kids had a lot of fun and also learned something, and it was very easy for me to prepare it!

And they were also playing by mixing the caps, moving them from one container to another, in no particular order and meaning. I dare to say they liked this part the best. 

 

  A memory game with bottle caps

 

Before starting, wash all the caps (since they may contains some food leftovers). We all know how important the sensory play is, so this could be a good start and to introduce something like that into everyday activities. An additional plus: it is super fun kids.

When you wash and dry them, you can start adding stickers. 

I made one set for the Older and one for the Younger:

But in the end, the sisters mixed it all together and played:

 

 

 I'd like to thank the East Coast Mommy for this great idea.

Try it, it's super easy and we had lots of fun while playing it!

 

Need more bottle cap activities? See here.