{Mommy School} Fruit Loop Fun

It’s been too long since I’ve shared what’s going on with Mommy School in our house. Since L has been born, I haven’t been as good as I hoped with Mommy School. While I have been successful with making sure AG gets some focused educational time each day, I haven’t been great with planning units or lessons. I’ve been doing a few fun activities here and there, paired with taking advantage of teachable moments throughout our day. It’s the best I can do right now and I’m perfectly okay with that.

Last month, I picked up a box of fruit loops from the grocery store. Not to eat and enjoy for breakfast, but because I knew they could be used in some quick and fun lessons focusing on colors and fine motor skills for Miss AG. 

First up is making a rainbow with fruit loops. I just used markers to draw a rainbow on cardstock for AG. For this activity, we worked on matching the fruit loop colors with the rainbow colors first. I would ask her to find an orange fruit loop. She’d find one. Then I’d ask her to put it on the orange line. We did this going through all of the colors. Having her put them on the coordinating lines also focuses on fine motor skills. After she had a few on, we worked on counting. While she didn’t fill the whole rainbow, she sat focused with this activity for 20 minutes. Not bad for a 2.5 year old.

On a different day, we used the fruit loops for more fine motor skills, sequencing, counting and more color practice. I used a BBQ skewer, placed in a ball of play-doh and flattened at the bottom so it would stand on its own. I made sure to put the pointy end of the skewer into the play-doh so that it wouldn’t poke her. I started this activity by asking her to put specific colors onto the skewer. She had to first identify the color then carefully place it on the skewer. Some of the fruit loops weren’t round enough in the center, which ended up being a great teachable moment. We talked about how they wouldn’t work because they didn’t have a circle in the center. From then on, she looked at the center before trying to put them on and was able to identify some that wouldn’t work before she even tried to put them on. After she had all of the colors on, we worked on sequencing. I kept asking what color comes next. In the beginning I pointed to the colors in the pattern and gradually let her do more and more on her own as the activity progressed. This was her favorite activity of the two. She asked to do this one daily for over a week. If we still had the fruit loops, I’m sure she’d still be asking.

Both of these activities took less than 5 minutes to put together. They allowed for focused educational time and AG had fun while doing them. Both a big win in my book! 

{Mommy School} Fruit Loop Fun

Any other fun learning activities you’ve done with fruit loops?  I thought about drawing shapes in specific colors and having her line up the fruit loops on the lines to build the shapes.