November Games and Sensory Bins

This month our games centered around apples!  

1.) Apple Sponge Ball Push
I believe this was the most popular game!  All I did was use my box and place three apples I made on the front.  Then I took my corresponding sponge balls and placed them in my LEGO box lid.  All done!  The kids loved matching the sponge balls to the correct color.  I think I could change this out every month to a different matching game and the kids would never tire of it!

2.) Scarecrow Shape Matching
I found this adorable game online, so I had to make it!  I used three plastic baskets we had already, and placed my scarecrows that I had made on the front. The two's matched up leaves that had shapes on them to the right scarecrow.  The leaves were hidden inside bowls of cut-up streamers.  The downside?  The bowls were sitting out on chairs, and some adventuresome two's decided to play with the streamers!  Now I know for next month to find a giant box to hide my items in next time.  Live and learn!
Credit: File Folder Heaven




3.) Thanksgiving Word Matching
I was pleasantly surprised by how well the preschoolers did with this game!  Thankfully I had this already prepared from last year, so all I had to do was get hide the words inside a bowl of cut-up streamers!  Yes, the preschoolers were much better about not dumping the bowl of streamers!
Credit: In My World




4.) Apple Color Matching
For this game, just take two boxes and tape them onto the bulletin board for the apples to go in.  Then, just cut up streamers and place them into bowls to hide your apples in.  This is such an easy game to prepare, but the kids love being able to dig through the bowls and find all the surprises hidden inside.  One month I would like to have them match animals to their home.  If you've done something similar, please leave a comment!  I love sharing ideas!




5.) Acorn Matching
The kids love digging through my giant bin of items, so this month I had to use leaves!  I took my big green bin, filled it up with leaves (not real ones, I promise!), and put the acorn bottoms in the bin.  Then, I placed the acorn lids inside my LEGO tray, with the letters facing up.  The wonderful thing was if the kids haven't learned matching the upper and lowercase letters yet, the acorns matched with the colors.  I bought the acorn set online and the best part was each acorn also came with a small animal that fit inside.  For example, the letter "A" came with an apple, if I am remembering right.  So not only did the kids just have fun finding the acorn tops, and matching the letters.  You could turn this into another game and add the animals and teach them beginning sounds too!