memory noun game

After playing with the noun cards I printed out last week, the kids wanted to sort them again, but as they were sorting them I thought we could instead use them to play a game. I grabbed a couple of the wooden cubes in my craft stash (the same used in color resemblance sorting) and some stickers I had from a yard sale. H and F made their own dice with the stickers, and then I put a different colored sticker on each of the noun categories. We turned all the noun cards face down, and then they took turns rolling their die and turning over two cards at a time trying to match the category. When they found a match, they placed it in their pile. Great for learning about nouns as well as for memory.

Color coded noun categories.

Noun game die.

Game setup.

if you give a mouse a cookie activities

I stumbled across these cute word cards to go with Laura Numeroff's If You Give A Mouse A Cookie (the collection is worth having; it even has an audio cd so you can listen to the stories on the go). There are also some domino cards and other activities listed there, but I thought since all of the words are things commonly found in homes, it would be fun to have a scavenger hunt. Pretending to be the mouse means you won't have to go looking for any mice (unless you're into that, then go for it, but they make me squeal and jump up on chairs). The word cards have both words and pictures so this is great for readers and pre-readers alike. To make it more challenging for your older child, have them try to find the items in alphabetical order!

Other activities to do with this book:

• make some cookies! while they are baking,
• get out some brooms and sweep up, or mop! and then,
• draw a picture of your family and hang it on the refrigerator  

Enjoy! 

We put the word cards in little bag and pulled them out one at a time.

F finds a broom.