Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Great computer game for 2-4 year olds

I have all the software that my other kids used when they were little, but a lot of it doesn't run well on newer computers anymore. So I've been on a hunt for something newer for Holden to do on the computer. He is a big Elmo fan, so I was perusing Target for something Sesame Street. I spied a game with good potential, but it was $20. That was a bit steep for a 2-year old's game, so I decided to see if I could find it on ebay. Sure enough! I got it for under $5 shipped on ebay. Anyway, it turned out to be a FABULOUS game, and Holden absolutely adores it. It covers so many topics like color, number, letter, and shape identification, counting, and lots more. It contains video clips from classic Sesame Street episodes, too. It has about 6 different categories of games, and then multiple levels of games with each category. The child can spend as much time on one activity as they wish to before moving on to a progressively more difficult game in that category, or he can leave and go to another category of games at any time. I played it with Holden for about the first 2 times so he could learn how to move around within the game, and after that, he started going and playing it on his own! He absolutely loves it! It keeps his attention for a long time, and he's learning a lot by playing it. So I can highly recommend this game. Here it is:
Sesame Street Learn, Play & Grow

I just can't say enough great things about this game.

Monday, July 5, 2010

More Great Preschool Activities

I stopped in TJ Maxx the other day, and I found some really good stuff for Holden and Haylee! They have such great prices on educational items. Here are the awesome things I got there:

I got a set called Match It! Shape Shuffle for $5. It comes with 4 sets of heavy cardboard pattern blocks in 4 colors and 35 pattern cards. The whole set is very bright and colorful. This was definitely a good buy. He worked on it a little this morning and seemed to really like it. The cards get progressively harder. Initially, they just match all the shapes individually. Then the cards teach them how to put pattern blocks together to make bigger shapes. Then it moves on to pictures with the lines drawn. Then on to pictures without lines inside. I think this is the most affordable pattern block set I've seen. There were other Match It! sets in this series, but Holden wasn't ready for those yet. They include What Goes Together?, Money, Foods, Sequencing, Opposites, etc.

I also got Holden a Melissa & Doug Wooden Pets Cube Puzzle for $5 on clearance. I plan to keep this until Christmas or his birthday, as it's for age 3 and up and has 16 cubes per puzzle. It creates 6 different puzzle pictures by rotating the sides of the cubes.

I got Holden a great book for teaching colors called Lift-the-Flap First Colors by Sue Hendra on clearance for $3. This is for 1-2 year olds. It has beautiful illustrations in bright colors with big flaps to life. Each 2-page spread focuses on the color red, yellow, green, or blue, revealing things in that color. Then the last pages have flaps of each color, and inside each flap shows one of the items of that color and the color names.

Haylee always enjoyed the Mighty Mind set that came in the Sonlight PK 4/5 Core. I spotted the more advanced set for older kids called Super Mind and got it for a mere $10 on clearance. It's fairly challenging for her, designed for ages 5-9. There are 30 cards in it, so it should keep her occupied for quite a while. I put this in her workboxes as a fun box. There is an answer key included, which is helpful because these really are challenging sometimes! She had her 10 year old brother helping her, and they still had trouble with some of them!

These deals were so good that I'll definitely be keeping my eye on TJ Maxx in the future, as well as similar stores that I want to check out like Marshall's.

Happy Shopping!