August 15th, 2008 Summer reading Posted by Melitsa in Education, Sites to visit, Good reads, Roundups, Thought of the week

Interesting blog posts to look at this summer

• Summer activities that won’t cost you a penny.
• Good Activities For Children With Autism.
• 90 Low Cost or No Cost Activities to Entertain Your Kids All Summer Long
• Dealing with a screaming child inside a store

Play activities radio this month: Is Your Child on The Fast Track to Success?

Rae Pica with Denise Pope, Ph.D.

See the sidebar for more details 

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August 5th, 2008 Ladders good Snakes bad Posted by Melitsa in play activities, Education, Sites to visit

After reading Junior magazine, that came via Grandma. I was reminded about a childhood game I love and now my big guy loves.

We’ve been looking for some new games to play as he has such a photographic memory he wipes the floor with us when we play any of the matching games. Grandma’s idea of putting the cards back in different places works still in his favour. This is one great learning strategy he’s already developed. Let’s hope he keeps for test learning later on.

We received a photo bingo for Christmas which he also is good at. So we were looking for another game that leveled the playing field. Never mind trying to let him win. We never really won. Since game play is about winning and loosing we felt we weren’t doing him any justice if we only every played games he could wipe the floor with us…………and it done our self esteem no good either.

So what better game than games of chance like shut the box and now snakes and ladders.

For various reasons we decided to make our own. Although a long project over many days. ( 4 or 5) It did heighten his excitement and gave us a project to do together. Perfect for the summer and just before starting Kindergarten. It was nice to be badgered and harassed to do the next part.

Buying one in the shop wouldn’t have been half as much fun. But you can find them Snakes & Ladders & Ludo - Toyland Snakes & Ladders Learn and Play Rug Carpet.

These are the steps we took.

1. Find the sm photo in Junior magazine of a snakes and ladders board
2. spend 15mins trying to locate magnifying glass. Give up.
3. Find cereal box we could use.
4. Cut out the back
5. Locate a long enough ruler to draw lines and work out a 10 by 10 grid that looks right. ( This took mummy a lot longer than anticipated) We nearly gave up here.
6. choose colours to represent the squares.Not sure crayon was the best medium as the snakes aren’t clear. Hindsight is 20/20.
7. Mummy drew on the numbers that big guy said in order. I continued when he’d run out and said them out loud.
8. Marked a line on each alternate box in one colour. BG coloured these boxes in.
9. Line by line 1-100
10. Looked at the ladders and drew the parallel lines in from one number to the next.
11. BG drew in the rungs.
12. Explained the concept of Ladders good and why.
13. Drew the snakes ( don’t laugh) BG drew in the strips.
14. Explained the concept of Snakes bad and why.
15. Added title.
16. Found counters and a die.
17. Played our first game 5 days later

Snakes and Ladders is a great game for Maths. This game has its own special place with the other games even though it’s homemade and everyone that comes the house gets trapped with playing.

There is something about this board that means you can get so far and then be knocked so far back but still come back from the dead. We’ve had a lot more wins for mummy and daddy ( yippee!) which also allowed the big guy to loose gracefully……………well nearly half of the time gracefully. But the ups and downs really keep all involved. A fair bit of cheating with landing on the snake square but putting the counter away from the snakes mouth means you don’t have to go down it. Raises a smile as does landing on a ladder square half way up and deciding you can jump that high so let’s climb to the top.

Most games last a lot longer 25+ minutes but what a lot of learning, laughing and talking going on.

Try an online version

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Technorati Tags: childhood game, shut the box, snakes and ladders., Kindergarten, Junior magazine, Maths

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July 29th, 2008 DIY toy money Posted by Melitsa in play activities, Education, Homemade

After a shopping trip the big guy asked for his own ‘bleep bleep’ machine. Once I worked out he meant a cash register we got right to making our own.

Materials

• Old amazon.com book box
• sheet of construction paper with markers
• computer with printer
• tape
• Coloured card
• Print program ( We used Printmaster )

We looked at a few cash registers online at toy stores to get an idea of what to make and how it looked. After the talking and observing I drew a rudimentary cash register outline on the paper.

1. Fixed it to a flap on the box and lifted the opposite flap up. There a wrote a total price and an empty window.
2. We chose the currency we were working in at the time ( euro and dollars) and found the symbols for them.
3. My big guy’s wanted to name the cash register so it was named after him.
4. Found some currency blank templates and inserted his cousins and new little brother to represent the different values. We chose green cards to represent the dollar colour.

There’s something exciting about using money that has your face on it. This cash register started ringing up a lot of groceries.

It was the perfect opportunity for me to unload all the receipts for groceries I have in my purse so the little guy could even give out receipts.

This cash machine comes out for pretend play all the time. See previous article stuck on pretend play.

Now………… 2 years later his little brother has discovered the cash register and his picture as a baby and is fascinated. The big guy wonders where the coins are and the stamps…….. guess we better start thinking of that one. Any suggestions?

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July 22nd, 2008 Toddler play activity 5 Posted by Melitsa in play activities, Education, Good reads, Thought of the week

The little guy loves to pretend play. He started his pretend playing much earlier than his brother so we’ve found it a bit more challenging to find activities at this younger level. Recently, he’s shown a big interest in magnetic playsets like the ones found here and here.

Magnetic play toys are great manipulatives and help to improve hand eye coordination and hone those motor skills for those little fingers. Not to mention boost creativity and feed into storytelling and language. Naturally, he loves the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics® Magnetic Set ,but the fridge isn’t the only place for magnetic games.

He has a Thomas’ Magnetic Playbook and a Muddle Farm: A Magnetic Play Book both of which you can move pieces around to help with the story or make your own up.

In the boys room we’ve just painted two long strips of magnetic paint on their walls so they can create their own stories and start assembling words.

Many people are put off getting magnetic play sets as they seem to be geared towards dolls, pink and clothes- predominately seen as girls toys. Whilst I don’t hold to that view, I’m sensitive to the need for boys to see things that are seen as boy toys partly for their dads, some of whom think boys should play with just boy toys ( A view I have to be sympathetic too :).

However, most boys don’t care that it’s girl toy or pink they just like the toy. But know also that there are a variety of magnetic playsets that will suit everyone from construction playsets and all inbetween to dolls houses.

For the truly mobile experience we love this playset which is totally unisex

Why we love it?

• There are lots of objects and people that allow you to create whatever scene you want.
• It’s an activity that’s totally open ended.
• encourages talking and using language in context.
• You can initiate stories from favourite stories or buy a specific playset.
• More than one child can play at at time or adults and child can play together encouraging cooperation ( Big skill for toddlers).
• You can move the playset to the table, kitchen, with you on a car journey.
• Nothing is permanent so the story/fun/activity changes every time you use it.
• Encourages creativity and concentration.
• Develops storytelling skills for the older child.
• creates questions about unknown objects.

Why the little guy loves it?

• loves to place all the objects in the different rooms.
• gets to be bossy moving the adult magnetic pieces around.
• talks and tells stories using the pieces.
• Names the objects and the people.
• Can bring grandma or any available adult to join in playing with him.

Magnetic playsets are an easy way of extending pretend play. The characters from the house can walk over to the catch the train. Thereby linking up groups of toys to have make a new play scene from all your available toys. This crossover of linking toys together helps build creativity and show the kids how to play differently with the same toys.

**What magnetic playsets do you use?**

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