- SAHAM Team
"Post-It" Play
There is something extra fun about playing with Post-Its. Maybe it's the sticky part on the back or the fact that they are something that usually just grown ups get to use, but whatever it is kids enjoy them and it makes an activity using them just that much more fun and exciting. There is a good chance you already have a pack of Post-Its somewhere around your house, so many of the activities listed below you could try out today! Click on the title of the activity to be linked to the full description on Instagram.
Hide Post-Its with numbers written on them around the house, then have your child find them and put them in numerical order. You can put a piece of painters tape on the wall to use for the number line. So easy and so fun!
Write one letter of your child's name on each Post-It (or cut squares of paper). Mix them up and have your child lay out the letters of their name in order. When you are first starting, you may need to have their name written at the top of the paper but as they get better with their name you can take that away to make it a bit harder. A fun twist on this activity is to hide all the letters around the house, have your child run and find them, then come back and put their name together. It's fun to add a little physical movement sometimes!
This activity is a great way to include your younger kids at home in some fun! Grab a pack of Post-Its and place them all over the wall. They will happily practice standing, kneeling, reaching, grabbing, etc. while they are trying to get the Post-Its down. Vertical play is so beneficial for toddlers and this activity does just that along with fine and gross motor skill work. It's so simple to setup and has so many benefits!
Draw some houses on paper, write numbers in each roof, then draw people on Post-its, making sure to draw the number of people on a Post-it for each numbered house. Tape the paper to the wall using painter’s tape then hide the Post-its around the house! Your child can run around and search for Post-its, count the people, then place the Post-it in the house with that number on it. Kids will usually want to do this activity more than once. A fun variation is that you could let them take turns hiding the Post-Its for their sibling to find.
Grab a long piece of paper and make a simple chart like the one pictured below. You will write single letters on each Post-It you use. Some of the letters on the Post-its will help create a word in the -at word family by becoming the first letter. Some of the letters on the Post-its will not help create an -at family word. Your child's job is to figure out which letters/Post-Its could be used and to place those Post-Its in front of each “-at” written on the paper. This activity is probably best for kindergarten age children, but you know your child and whether or not they are ready to work on word families. You can easily switch out the letters of this to work on other word families as well.
Cut small pieces of different colored Post-Its (yellow, orange, and pinkish/red) and draw apples on each one. Next, draw three trees on a big piece of paper, tape it on the wall, and put one apple Post-It of each color on a tree to start the sort. Place the other Post-Its on the wall within reaching distance (but high enough that your child will need to go on their tippy toes) and some down low near the floor. Your child will have so much fun reaching up high and squatting down low (so great for core strength) to grab an apple and stick it on the correct apple tree.
Draw a large heart on craft paper (you may want to consider using cardboard to make it easier to peel the tape off), make sections using painter’s tape, and write simple subtraction problems on cut up pieces of Post-It’s. This can be done with any shape you want, not just a heart. Add in a color coded key at the bottom based on the answers and let you child get started! They will use the key to determine what color they will color each section based on the answer on the corresponding Post-It.
On a large piece of paper, write your child's name at the top going across. Draw lines down and across to make it easier for your child to build their name directly underneath. Row 1: Get some Post-Its and write one letter on each one. Place them in a random order somewhere on or near the paper. Have your child make their name using the Post-Its in the correct order. Row 2: Get some dot stickers and write one letter on each one. Write them in random order and have your child make their name using the dot stickers. Row 3: Get some alphabet stickers and have your child spell their name with the stickers. For younger kids you may want to cut out just the letters they need. For older kids you could challenge them with the whole sheet and have them find the letter they need. You can also have your child build a sight word or some other word they are working on instead of their first name.
Spread out some different colored post its on a piece of paper. You could always use the regular yellow ones and draw the colors you want to sort on top. Cut individual dot stickers off the dot sticker sheet and put them in a bowl. Let your child pick a sticker from the bowl, peel it off and place it underneath the matching colored post it to “hide it”. They can do this multiple times for each color. Your child can play peekaboo with the colors!
Write the numbers 1-10 spread out on a piece of paper. Then, take 5 Post-Its and cut them in half making sure both pieces have the sticky part on them. You will need to draw dots on the Post-Its to correspond with the numbers on the page. Ex: draw one dot on one, 2 dots on one, 3 dots on one, etc. Then, take the Post-Its and hide them all around the house. Challenge your child to go find all the Post-Its. As they find each one they will count the dots and place it on the matching number on their paper. They will continue this until all of the Post-Its have been found, You can modify this to be a bit harder if your child is ready for that by using the numbers 11-20 instead.
Get some paper, cheerios, and a pen. If you want to do the extension part of it (pictured below), also get some Post-Its. Draw one box, a plus sign, another box, an equal sign, and another box. Put some Cheerios in a bowl and you’re ready to go! Give your child some simple addition problems and have them use Cheerios as manipulatives to help solve the problem. If you want to do the extension part of it, write numbers 1-19 on 19 different Post-Its and have your kid put the correct Post-It under the boxes. Just remember if you do it this way, you can’t have two of the same number in the addition sentence (ex: no 4+4 because you will only have one 4 post it).
Have fun with your "Post-It Play" and tag us on Instagram in any of these activities you try out. We always enjoy seeing what the Stay at Home Mom community is doing each day!