Fun with Fruit Loops

So I haven't posted since last week because we suddenly found ourselves bombarded with things to do. During the busy times we find ourselves eating out more often and the time spent at home involves chores. So this means I have done very little cooking and of course there has been no time for fun crafts. Today however we have been back at home and I spent some time this morning working on counting and sorting skills with my two year old. (And I will be cooking Maple Glazed Chicken with Mashed Sweet Potatoes tonight - so look for that recipe in a future post!)

So my two year old loves Fruit Loops. I usually don't even buy the cereal because I know it is just pure sugar and if they are in the house then she is constantly asking for them. But my husband went grocery shopping with us last weekend and we somehow ended up with Fruit Loops and sprinkled donuts. He tends to be a bit of a push-over when it comes to his little girl. :)

So since we have these colorful  little cereals all over our house I decided we would use them for a little bit of learning this morning. I had saved an empty egg carton and baby food jars with really no purpose in mind except that they could be reused for something. Combine the cereal and my empty household items and we ended up with a Fruit Loop learning center.

Here's what I did:

I covered the baby food jars with different colored paper and labeled with the name of the color. I let her use these jars to practice sorting her colors. She LOVED this! She knows most of her colors and this was excellent practice in sorting. She would pour them out and resort them over and over again. The labeling is also good for word recognition!

 The second thing we did was use the empty egg carton to practice counting. I used a circle punch to cut out twelve circles.

I wrote the numbers one through twelve on them and I then placed each circle in the bottom of each egg carton cup.

We then practiced counting by placing that number of Fruit Loops on top of each number!

This was a little more challenging for her since she is only two, but was great practice! She eventually just started putting the Fruit Loops wherever she wanted them but was still counting the entire time. I can easily keep this and we can pull it out and practice repeatedly. This could also be used with money, buttons, marbles, beans, etc.

Oh and of course she ate several of the Fruit Loops during the process but at least she was learning while doing so! :)