F Week- Football Matching Game and Book

I created my first matching game for T week when Trip was really liking Thomas and Friends. A couple of weeks ago, I made a welcome sign for our door that has the logos of our favorite sports teams. Each time Trip sees it, he likes to say the names of the teams and he's actually quite good at it. 

With that in mind, I took those same logos, plus a few more, and made him another simple matching game. I usually put all of the cards out and ask him to find a certain team. Sometimes he sees a team he wants to start with and just goes for it. He caught on to the concept quickly with the Thomas game, so when he saw these new cards come out, he knew just what to do. Eventually, we will be able to play "memory" or "concentration" with these same cards, but at 25 months, we're just not there yet. You can find my cards here if you would like to make some of your own (please limit these to your own personal use- thanks!)

The other thing I did was write a simple book about the football teams that we like. As a teacher, I created mini-books all the time, so it was fun to make one for Trip.

I bound the book with an adaptation of something I saw on Pinterest. It's super simple and easy, but very effective. Just punch holes in the paper, put a rubber band through two holes, and slip the rubber band ends through a paperclip. Done!

I put the paperclips in the front, but they could also go in the back so that all you see in the front are the clean lines of the rubber bands.

 

I included the teams that all of us like,

as well as Daddy's favorite,

Mommy's favorite,

and our housemates' favorites. Trip loves to look at the book and is getting pretty good at saying whose team each one is.