Baby Food Jar Lid Game

I wish I had been one of those incredible mom's who made all of her baby food by scratch.  Occasionally, I made my own cooked fruits and vegetables for Little Man, but usually his cuisine came straight from the jar.  Please don't judge me.  I vow to be better prepared for Baby #2. 

Luckily, I was smart enough to save most of my baby food jars.  Now I am thinking of so many ways I can use them!  Last week, I made Little Man a matching game using the lids of baby food jars!

I love how easy this was, and how cute it turned out!  I popped the circles into the insides of the baby food jars.  They fit nice and snug, but I also used mod podge to secure them.

I decided to make the tops of the lids cute, too, by tracing the lids onto scrapbook paper, cutting them out, and securing them with LOTS of mod podge.  I knew Little Man would be rough on these, so I added a couple of coats of mod podge over the top of the paper, too.

Little Man loves his game!! (In fact he saw me typing up this post, and ran to the other room to go get it!) 

There are a few ways we have used this game so far:

1.  We practice our animal sounds (at least for the pictures of animals that make sounds).  He has learned how to bzzz like a bumble bee!

2. I model matching for him, and he is learning to see that 2 pictures are similar and go together.

3.  I simply tell him to "Find the lion", etc. and see if he can find a specific animal within the group.

4.  He loves dumping out the game, and the sound of the lids on a hard surface!!  But we are also practicing cleaning up.  He loves to place the lids one by one back into the bag, just to dump it out again!  I am loving that he is learning to pick up!

Some day, I am hoping he will learn to use this as a matching game.  Some day.  We'll grow into it, of course!

For this project:
* Clip art designs &/or fonts copyright Dianne J Hook. Used with permission from DJ Inkers.
* If you wish to make your own, you can download here.

Have a fun and fabulous Fourth!