Veronika was feeling a little under the weather with a sniffle today, so I was on the hunt for games we could play while cozy on the couch. What could be lazier than a lazy Susan?

If you don’t own a lazy Susan (or similar turntable in your kitchen), there’s no need to purchase one just for this game. I simply grabbed the spinning turntable out of the microwave and put it to a different use!

To set up, you’ll need a double set of images. First, I put colored dot stickers onto index cards that Veronika could hold in her hand. Then, I taped colored squares of construction paper with the same color dot sticker around the rim of the turntable, as shown below. Time to spin and make a match!

For each color in her hand, we spun the turntable around until that particular color was closest to her, and she placed down her corresponding index card.

She aced the entire test without a single error, and loved the way that the whole contraption could spin.

This was a cute way to keep her busy and squeeze in some learning while staying cozy! Don’t feel obligated to stick to dot stickers, either. Any set of matching images or objects will work for this game.

Veronika loved painting with a fly swatter last summer, and today we took that same tool and used it for a little learning instead! To start, I wrote out the alphabet on a large piece of cardboard (poster board would work too), making the letters bright and bold.

Then I simply handed over the swatter. She loves to say “splat!” every time it lands down, and I told her today we were going to “splat” the letters. We played in a few different ways. First, I asked her to swat at a specific letter, choosing those I know she is familiar with, as with S and V. She happily obliged.

Then I asked her to choose a letter, and name it for me as she swatted it. Sometimes she swatted down but stayed silent, which was a good chance to remind her the names of a few less familiar letters.

We also sang through the whole alphabet together, tapping each letter with the swatter as we sang its name.

Needless to say, she was a happy alphabet learner today!

I loved this activity the moment I spotted it on Teaching Mama, but one problem prevented us from doing it right away: store-bought goldfish are not vegan, not even the pretzels!

Luckily, I have a fish-shaped cookie cutter from an old project, and could make a batch at home (this time I used the recipe from Nature’s Path, with regular flour and mixing by hand instead of in a food processor. Veronika was so excited seeing the fish crackers in the oven, and couldn’t wait to see what we’d do with them (and to taste them!).

As the fish baked in the oven, I drew six fish bowls with marker on a piece of white poster board, and labeled them 1-6.

Ding! The fish were done. Well of course first we tried them for a snack. Then I set out a bowl of the fish along with a pair of oversize tweezers and the fishbowl chart.

I had Veronika name each number as review; she can recognize numerals up to 10 now. Next, I told her we had to fill each fish bowl with the correct number of fish! I showed her how to pinch up one fish with the tweezers and transfer to the bowl marked 1.

Working together, we pinched and transferred and counted to fill each bowl.

And of course there was lots of happy snacking along the way.