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July 8th, 2008
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Once your child starts having print awareness try this fun game. It combines movement, creativity and concentration.
We generally use our names to play but other familiar words work just as well. With Kindergarten starting tomorrow for the big guy I felt it was appropriate to use the word “School”.
This form of pretend play is exciting as it encourages them to see ordinary objects in different ways. They get to appreciate the straight parts and curvy parts of letters when they try to reproduce them.
How to play
- Write out a familiar word on a piece of paper.
- Sound it out, look at the letters, let the child guess, allow your child to choose are all options if you wish to extend the activity.
- What’s the first letter? “S”
- Can you find me something from( around the house, this room, the kitchen, toy chest etc) that could make this letter? You may need to encourage them or even show this one yourself.
- Continue for all letters.
- Encourage your child to check the letter order and make sure it really does spell what you expected.
- Take a picture of the end result.
Ways to extend the game
- by making the letters lower or upper case.
- introducing a time limit for each letter. ( 10 mins or more)
- reducing the scavenger hunt to just the garden or two rooms.
- adding more words
- using the same material ( string, spaghetti, scarf, playdoh, etc) to make the entire word.
- limiting the word size to the common 2 letter or 3 letter words only.
Why we like it
- Expends a lot of energy running around the house getting in that gross motor movement trying to find the items.
- Great rainy day activity.
- increases alphabet awareness.
- encourages creativity by looking at one thing that can be used as another thing.
- Focus is on a letter at a time and skills of discrimination, ( That won’t work!) trial and error( maybe if I try this for the bendy bit- no! that’ doesn’t fit right)
- Fabulous for heavily pregnant mum who needs to sit down a little more than usual
- Another activity to try to add to the arsenal of tracing and copying letters
- The significance of the word usually means they are happier to do this than the rote book/worksheet.
- It’s fun to compare different photographs of the words.
- your children will start to see letters in things like clouds, notice them drawn on the pavement, patterns in the grass etc.
Some children are naturally creative and some can’t see beyond the concrete. This activity is great to encourage creative play in your child by giving them something familiar ( a letter) and getting them to reproduce it in a visual way that anyone will recognise. We don’t have to say is it right or really critisze you can just show them the original you wrote and ask them to compare it.
Does it look the same?
How can we change it?
Do you need some help? I
have an idea can I show you?
What would happen if you moved this part down?
Popularity: 31% [?]
Technorati Tags: movement, play, Kindergarten, pretend play, letters, scavenger hunt, rainy day activity, alphabet
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favorite low tech toys and fun activities for your littlest ones.
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Fine motor skills: Cutting and sticking practice or just a bit of fun.
Kids are always interested in photographs. Like many others, we have our screensaver running with family pictures. The kids watch it like television. They talk and reminise about what they see. It’s great for them to have hard copies of pictures in albums to flick through and examine. With the little time we all have these days often photos don’t make it from the computer anywhere else or else they go into a box. Only a few manage to get them into albums…..Good for you.
Here’s a simple activity that involved me printing a few colour photographs ( reduced in size all onto one sheet of paper), a few labels and finding a marker and cardstock.
We did this together a long time ago and it’s still a favourite with both guys who like to look at it especially at bedtime. It’s often in the pile of books they take to bed.
We worked on this together with a lot of direction from me. It was one of those evolving projects sparked from a conversation.
All the cutting and sticking was from the big guy, when he was about 3 1/2 going on 4. I printed some family pictures and used the marker pen. Names and faces blurred to protect the innocent
I remember I used a pencil to show where to cut but certainly not a ruler or worried about lining things up. I wanted it to be his project. He was very proud.
Sometimes cutting and sticking can be really boring but here was a practical, fun play-activity with a purpose. The flaps keep them guessing even though they know what’s underneath. They learn to recognise their names and family members.
The book is now a little ‘Loved up’ all the manipulation of two guys who can’t get enough of seeing their family. This is an album I don’t mind sticky fingers all over.
We’ll have to make a new one soon to add the new addition.
Who said cutting and sticking can’t be fun!
Popularity: 32% [?]
Technorati Tags: Fine motor skills, photographs, pictures, play
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July 1st, 2008
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After a trip to the Garden centre to buy flowers we stumbled into the veggie section.
We tried to guess the veggie by the plant. The big guy and I then chose a few plants and decided to start a mini vegetable garden. It had to be manageable and easy…for both of us.
We planted 2 cauliflower plants, 2 courgettes, 1 aubergine, spinach and lettuce.
We missed potato season , maybe next year. But tried a child friendly tomato holder that arrived just in time.
We’ve tried herbs and bulbs before but in a climate where everything grows. So it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
I wonder if you can guess what else we are trying to grow?
Popularity: 29% [?]
Technorati Tags: flowers, vegetable garden
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June 17th, 2008
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Even though it’s been a couple of days sitting on the side; I finally got around to reading the Sunday papers. After sorting into a pile of ‘to read’ and a pile of recycling, the pile to recycle seems huge- every weekend.
Today before the pile hit the recycling bin we started a project.
The big guy found and cut out all his favourite foods. Stuck them onto paper. This lead to an interesting discussion about food and drink.
He started to find his favourite clothes and that’ll be the next project to add to the large sheet of paper.
Often parts of the body are missing to get a good shot of the clothes so he’ll add legs and feet.
We then plan on moving onto the objects- gardening, patio, houses for sale etc
Eventually we’ll have a collage that we can weave a story together. I’m hoping he’ll tell the story with it.
Before you throw away recycle your weekend paper. Give your kids a chance to use the pages for other things.
Cutting and sticking isn’t just a random activity for toddlers but instead it can be defined and extended by preschoolers and older with a little imagination. Mixing media of magazine, newspaper, construction paper is a fun thing to try especially if you can sit with your kids and draw parts in with them.
He particular liked the freedom to choose what went onto the page and where it went.
Skills that naturally occur:
- Honing their fine motor skills
- giving them choices and letting them share their opinions
- creativity of what materials to use, how to place them on the page
- imagination to link the items into a story
- discrimination- accepting and rejecting objects from the many pages
- Sorting and controlling the environment ( Pile of cut outs? or cut, stick? or plan?)
Whenever planning a collage or large project, I’ve found it best to take bite sized chunks of time and allow the work to develop. They’ll be times when we have to jump in and times when they have a really good idea they need supporting on.
The perfect time for a project like this with summer almost here and all that time..
For more summer time activities try here.
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Popularity: 29% [?]
Technorati Tags: recycling, recycle, collage, story, fine motor skills, summer, activities
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