Special thanks to Elina Aleynikov and Misha for sharing this wonderful list with us.

• Home made sticker book – on one page place pictures of animals, objects, plants, etc., on the other – where they should go. As you are creating this book, discuss all the pictures and their associations.
• Before bed time finger game: fingers are a 10 little pigs that go to bed (2 fat ones, 2 smart ones, 2 tall ones, 2 funny ones, 2 small ones)
• "Who lives in this house" craft: draw a house, scotch tape two window shutters to it from colored paper so that you can open and close it. In the "window" – place a butterfly, doggy, baby, etc. Scotch tape the "house" to the wall.
• Home made coloring "connect numbers" pictures: place dots with numbers next to them (1-10, 1-20, 1-30). As the kid connects the dots, he should get a picture. As a result my Dianka (3) already realized how the numbers are formed and can count as far as she wants.
• Mail: make a letter, you can use real address labels for fun
• 5 minutes of screaming: the whole family is screaming anything they want, as loud as they can, about anything they need, or miss, or dislike. Everyone tries to outscream the others. Usually everyone ends up laughing. Afterwards – it is very peacefully and the kids behave really quietly for a while…

07/24 (Elina)

• Zoo-aerobics, e.g. "let's travel in the jungle": run in a circle, so that tiger doesn't catch you, walk lifting your legs high up, not to step into the thorns, crawl on your belly under the branches, crawl on all fours, etc.
• Child-made book: Diana draws pictures in a notebook, skipping every other page. Diana comments every picture and I write down her story, type it into the computer, print it out and glue it into the skipped pages. Diana helps me typing the story, which aids her learning the letters and words. You could decorate the cover with stickers. The book looks really cool in the end!
• Rhymes game: give your child a word, and let her pick a rhyme to it. You can help by giving a few options of words or pictures. My girls love to listen to me composing simple poems, by rhyming through our everyday activities: eating, jumping, going on a potty, etc.
• Learning colors, shapes, etc.: when we look at the book that teaches colors, shapes, etc., we search for them in our environment – circular table, blue blanket…
• Scrapbooking: differently cut scissors, glitter glue, stencils, etc.

07/25 (Elina)

• Take your kids when you go grocery shopping: my girls love picking fruits and veggies, and then unload everything from the basket to the cash register. They just enjoy hearing over and over again, what great helpers they are and even help carry everything into the car and home.
• Crocodile can't stick his tong out: some of the food containers, such as cereals, have very interesting facts.

07/26 (Elina)

• Read different kids magazines, e.g. www.nwf.org/magsforkids
• Water plants from a large watering can
• Let them participate in cooking
• Put me to bed: Let them put Mommy to bed, cover her with a blanket.
  
• Tangram/pentamino: put tagram or pentamino puzzles together as directed or as you like. I think that pictures from simple shapes are very good for development. Once the picture is complete, take out one piece and put it back into the box – let the child finish the picture. Among the same types of toys, are Nikitin's frames, as well as multicolored magnet shapes
• Nikitin's toy "put the picture together" ("Sloji uzor"): cubes with sides colored in different colors – put the ornament or picture as directed
• Using one of the picture books with alphabet letters, use the magnet letters to put words together
• Go over the table of two digit numbers:

  0 1 2 3 4 5 …
  10 11 12 13 14 …
  20 21 22 …
  30 …
  ….
  90….

• Picnic in a backyard: we placed a large blanket in the backyard and took kids toy tableware of different sizes.
• Sewing together: another option for the picnic above – we've taken our sewing set instead of dishes. Buttons, needles, scraps of materials – teaching to sew buttons. Or ribbons, shoe laces and pictures of clothes with cut out large wholes – lacing such stencils is lot of fun.
• Smart coloring books: one picture is already colored, another has just outlines – copy the colors
• Educational Software: Dianka loves playing on a computer the following Russian game: Baba Yaga and Antoshka – it teaches math and reading in Russian, English, etc.

07/27 (Elina)

• While swinging on swings at the playground, or jumping on a bouncer, or doing other rhythmic activity, you could sing rhythmic songs or poems
• At home, or in a car, turn on classic and other sophisticated music – or that type of music you would like your kids learn to appreciate.
• My little girls like to listen to my playing on the piano or guitar – they either try to "help" me or dance all over the room, singing, having fun. We also teach Dianka to really play the piano.
• Toys that develop small motor skills: e.g. we have tiny dolls with tiny rubber clothes, shoes, hats to put on and off.
• Toy hide and seek: hide some toys and ask your kid to search all over the house. With this game we managed to find and pack all vacation beach clothes, toys and other necessities for our vacation.

07/29 (Misha)

• Sheep and wolves on a chess board: 1 wolf (black chess piece) and 4 sheep (white chess pieces) start at different sides of the board. Wolf: at d2, sheep at a1, c1, e1, g1. "Sheep" move only on diagonally positioned squares, "wolf" – on any adjacent black square. No jumping over "sheep". "Sheep" win if the "wolf" can't move any more, "wolf" wins if he can reach the first horizontal row. If you play it right, "sheep" should win. My son Lyova (3?) has trouble winning with just 4 sheep, so he usually adds a lot more – up to 12. You could slowly decrease "the heard" to just 4 sheep. The child is learning to think a few steps ahead – a great game!
• Mix physical activities with reading: see below
• "Not going to let you pass!": I stay in a narrow hallway or passage, with my arms and legs outstretched – my kid has to pass through this "live wall". Sometimes I use one of the large stuffed toys.
  Today I alternated "pass" game with learning to read syllables: "B" + "O" = "Bo" as in "box" Letter "A" came instead of "O", as in "back"

7/30 (Misha)

• Journey around the world: place world maps on a floor and make small ships (cardboard boat, tooth pick for a mast, yellow sticky note for a sail). We were traveling from one country to another. We were followed by a pirate ship, we were fighting it. We "traveled" to Africa, Brazil, Australia, Antarctic. Similarly we've made a few ice-breaker ships and "broke the ice" in the northern pole.
  Discussed what do people of the north eat.
  Discussed how we could get fresh water while we are aboard the ship.

08/15 (Elina)

• At the beach: collect sea shell and make buses/photo frames/other crafts
• Draw a city in the sand: have fun to running over such streets!
• Practice writing words in the sand
• Recently we were sitting in the car and waiting for our Dad, girls were bored and I didn't have anything for them to entertain themselves. I invented a little boy Peter (you could show the kids how he is "walking/jumping/climbing" using your two fingers). Peter was "climbing" everywhere, "jumping" over the canyons (space between car seats), etc. Later Peter was "pressing some noisy" buttons (my girl's knees, finger nails): lots of giggles and squeals.
• Train their imagination: the skill to turn everyday things into a fairy tail
  We found in our backyard a little pessimistically green ball (probably the neighbor's dog lost it here). I immediately said, that it is an alien, Startiblastfast, who came in a flying sauсer. For realistic touch, the trail of the flying saucer was claimed by the leftovers of freshly cut grass.

8/20 (Misha)

• Logic games: place different objects with various characteristics. Ask your kid to find a blue object in the center, or the object that DOES NOT have a picture with a yellow color in it, etc.
• Hat – the socializing game: Hide an object in a hat and let him guess what it is using simple questions, such as "is it food?", "is it made of wood?", etc.
• Reading – changing words: make a simple word out of the letters and changing one one letter, make another word (cat – hat)