Tales for Tots: Exploring Apples With Oakville Moms & Kids

momstown Oakville's monthly Tales for Tots program welcomed lots of Oakville moms and kids this week at The Little Gym to explore our theme of the month - apples.  Our craft got the kids glueing and letting the creativity flow with the creation of their own tissue paper apple.

We used paper plates as the apple base. Red tissue squares to fill in the apple, green construction paper for leaves and brown card board for the stem- an easy, adorable apple craft for kids! After our apple crafting fun we sat down to read a wonderful story called Fox and Squirrel. The book is all about appreciating differences in others. Since September is also back to school month, this story was very fitting as there is so many new people at school to get to know and each of us are unique.  As always, we gave away a copy of our Scholastic Canada book to one lucky Oakville mom.  Congratulations to Melissa and her daughter Emily, they were the big winners this month.

Every month we give away a Scholastic Canada book at our Tales for Tots and our Rhyme, Rhythm and Read program.  Come and join us next time!  Click here to purchase your one year membership for just $45. Membership includes all of our programs, a 12 month subscription to Today's Parent magazine and so much more!

Activities That Teach Kids About Shapes

momstown's educational theme for the month of June is shapes.  Oakville moms and kids gathered for our monthly Tales for Tots program at The Little Gym and explored all kinds of shapes.  Since our family homes are made of many different types of shapes, the momstown Oakville crowd made shape houses to explore this months theme. We used construction paper cut into multiple shapes, foam shapes, sticker shapes and plenty of glue to put our houses together. We finished our houses with markers and crayons to add special detail touches. Well done little shape builders!

As always, our Scholastic Canada book of the month compliments our theme and so Night Light by Nicholas Blechman was a perfect book to read.  The book is full of shapes that turn into fire trucks, tug boats and school buses just to name a few. Miss Emily was our lucky Scholastic Canada book winner this month- congratulations and have fun finding many more silly fun shapes!

momstown's July theme is The Desert!  Come and join us to explore this fun theme and connect with other Oakville moms.  Sign up for your free trial or buy your membership today for just $45 a year.  All one year memberships include a 12 month subscription to Today's Parent magazine!

momstown Oakville Little Scientists Explore Shapes

momstown Oakville's theme for the month of June is shapes and so Oakville moms and kids had a really fun time exploring different shapes this morning during our Little Scientists program.  The group started off reading a book about shapes where we had to match the shape in the picture to one on a spinning wheel.

Then we played a shape matching game.  Each person got a board that had been made using six different shapes cut out of sandpaper and glued on.  There were matching shapes cut out of felt, and each child had to pick the felt colour that matched the colour of their board and then match the right shape to the right sandpaper. We talked about the different textures - rough and soft, and the sandpaper helps the felt shape stick to the board.  We traced around the sandpaper shapes with our fingers and talked about how many sides each shape had, and whether they were curvy or straight and where we might find those shapes around our houses or outside.

Next we used mini marshmallows and straws to construct our own shapes. We used the marshmallows as "glue" to glue the straws together.  It was tricky, but good practice for our little fingers.

After we used bags of goo to practice drawing the shapes we had been talking about.  We filled a plastic snack bag with hair gel, food colouring and glitter and zipped it up tight.  We laid the bag flat on the table and either used a shape cookie cutter to press into the goo to make the shape, or used our finger to draw the shape in the goo.  Each of the momstown Oakville Little Scientists got to take a bag home to practice writing numbers, letters, and more shapes.

The kids had a great time and our Oakville moms were impressed - our little ones are a bunch of smart cookies and really know their shapes!  momstown Oakville's Little Scientists program is a monthly program - just one of many included in your yearly membership for just $45 a year.  Click here to see our calendar and join in on the fun!