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Marble Runs and Other Activities with Marbles for Kids

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I read that April 7 is National Marble Day, but of course any day is a good day to play with marbles. Making marble runs is a great STEM activity, and you can even pull in some art activities by painting with marbles and using them in other ways, too. Check out these fun marble run ideas and other activities to do with marbles.

You can make a marble run with a cereal box (Made by Joel), or  a box and craft sticks (Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls), a paper plate (Kids Activities Blog) or several (Frugal Fun again), cardboard tubes (Powerful Mothering), a geo board (love this one from The Creative Homemaker) Legos (Mama Papa Bubba), an old CD case (Bloesem) foam pipe insulation (Buggy and Buddy) or pool noodles (Little Bins for Little Hands) just to name a few. Give your kiddos a bunch of supplies and see what they come up with!

Use an inclined plane to build your marble run and it becomes a science lesson, too. Check out this one from Preschool Toolkit.

How about some art projects? This marble sun catcher from Kids Activities Blog is so pretty I want to make one myself. Mable painting is also fun for adults as well as kids, and you can learn how to do it from the Artful Parent.

Did you know you can use marbles in tie dyeing? It’s a simple technique that gives fun results. Check out the instructions on FaveCrafts. They used socks but you could of course do this with a shirt, bandana or anything else you want to dye.

If you have marbles and plastic cups you can make this super simple marble game from All for the Boys. So easy and kids can play it over and over (use a cardboard box if you don’t have cups handy).

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Cat Themed Learning Activities

I recently shared a bunch of dog-themed learning activities in honor of National Pet Month. Now it’s time for the cats (which are actually my favorite, shoutout to Baron and Haru!).

Homemade Heather has a great set of cat activity printable sheets including the life cycle of a cat, parts of a cat, a page kids can fill out about their cat and a little reading comprehension with a cat theme.

World of Printables has a super cute cat coloring page that asks you to color cats of different shapes in different colors and then count them. Like an I Spy, but with cats!

Speaking of shapes, give kids practice tracing basic shapes and writing the words for them (square, circle, oval, triangle, diamond, etc. there are 12 shapes in all) with these cat-themed printables from Tot Schooling. These would be good to laminate so you can use over and over while kids are learning about shapes.

Royal Baloo has a great printable cat pack that includes activities for toddlers up to third grade, so this is perfect if you’re homeschooling kids of different ages. There’s literacy and math activities in this pack, including shape tracing and matching for the little ones, beginning sounds and skip counting for pre-k kiddos and addition, multiplication, writing pages and more for older kids.

Fluffy Tots has a cute printable emergent reader on a cat theme, and Sunny Day Family has a super cute cat matching memory game you can print. Build a cat with the printable from PJs and Paint, or cut and fold a stretching cat with this activity from Krokotak.

1 Plus 1 Plus 1 Equals 1 has a cat unit study and printables for kids who are learning cursive writing. There are also three part cards about cats, a printable on scientific classification of cats and more.

Your Therapy Source shared this cute motor skill idea of using pipe cleaners as cat whiskers, which makes a fun quiet time activity or something kids can use in the car.

Take your love of cats on the go with this printable cat activity placemat from The Art Kit Blog. It includes a word search, maze, word scramble and some cats to color, tic tac toe boards and more.

Older kids can learn how to build Lego cats with these instructions from Frugal Fun for Boys and Girls.