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Pinterest is a great place for learning and sharing early years play ideas and activities. With the range of activities and ideas it’s easy to find all different type of activities and be inspired to try something simple. Not just that but there are so many articles, videos and vlogs about the early years pinned on Pinterest you can learn more about books, ideas and reasons for play.
There are so many wonderful resources for the Early years under 5 year old play. Here I’ve added my favourite ones. Not all of these boards are exclusively for the under 5s.
You can click the links in the slides to go straight to the boards to subscribe
Click here to view Slideshow 1 :: Click here to view Slideshow 2
- I’m a Kid Friendly Blog! :: started by Jaime of Hands on:: as they grow A place to find all the best, kid-friendly activities, crafts, art, and other kid inspired material! These are ‘must see’ blogs if you have kids!
- Lifetime Love of Learning started by Zina of Let’s Lasso the moon This group board is a place to share educational ideas & discuss ways to keep the light in our childs’ eyes. “Together let’s stoke the flame in your child’s eyes by providing hands on, self paced, collaborative, challenging, enjoyable learning. Let’s encourage divergent thinking, instead of convergent thinking; innovation instead of standardization. Give your children a lifetime love of learning.” {Trevor Eissler}
- For the BOYS! Started by Jaime of Hands on: as we grow this board celebrates all things boys. Yes girls do these activities too. A wide range of activities that boys are often attracted to. As a mother of three boys it’s lovely to see and be inspired by a range of play activities
- Baby/Toddler Play Ideas started by Cerys of Rainy Day Mum as a place to explore Play ideas for babies and toddlers to nurture their growth and development in the early years of life
- Sensory Activities for Kids Started by Mary Ann of Mamasmiles. The board is full of so many different types of sensory play experiences. She provides a space to share sensory activities for young children.
- Growing Creative Kids Started by Zina of Let’s lasso the moon. This board is full of share fun projects, art ideas, or unique adventures that help inspire our kid’s creativity
- The Weekly Kids Co-op Started by Zina. This is part of a linky. A small group of bloggers sharing a lot of play activities that offer a plethora of ideas geared for toddlers to pre-teens. What’s great is that the activities are family oriented, fun, unique or educational.
- The Parent Water Cooler Started by Zina. This board is the place to talk about current hot topics based on the office water cooler where everyone congregates and has a chat about articles, play activities and more.
- Kid Blogger Network Activities & Crafts Started by Laura of Play Dr Mom. Here a large group of play bloggers gather together to share their favourite posts that focus on activities and crafts for kids. With the foundational belief that playing and crafting with children improves well-being, creative thinking, and strengthens relationships
- All things parenting Started by Holly of June Cleaver Nirvana Sometimes you just need to hear a story, relate to a situation about parenting or find a good resource about parenting.
- It’s Preschool (Song) PreK Collaborative Peeps!! Started by Debbie of Rainbows within reach.This is a really active board from bloggers in the Early years. There’s a wide range of activities and lots pins to inspire.
- Make and Takes for Kids Community Board Started by Marie of Make and Takes as a community board of activities and ideas that you can make and take. With lots of collaborators on many different time zones this board has new pins all the time that are related to craft, diy, and recipe ideas for kids
- Global and Diverse Kids Started by Melitsa of Play Activities. Chance to look further afield and connect our little ones with the big wide world, sharing the wonders of Geography, Bringing diversity into our homes and play and where we are in the global world with kid related themes, activities and articles.
- Reading & Writing readiness Started by Allie of NoTimeForFlashcards The place to go for fun and imaginative lessons, activities and games that boost reading and writing readiness and progress. There’s so many different ideas and inspiration.
- Pretend Play Started by Mary Ann of Mamasmiles- A board dedicated to just one thing- pretend play. Lots of imaginative ideas to encourage your children in imaginative play.
- Get Kids moving Started by Lisa of Montessori on a budget- Lively and creative activities to get the kids moving in more than just one way with an emphasis on fun. Lisa’s board shares large motor movement and gross motor activities and more, for brain development in children, and for fun!
What are your favorite collaborative boards for the Early Years? Leave your comment below
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Well it definitely feels like Spring and the flowers are blooming. All the kids have fallen in love again with their bikes. The LO is loving his balance bike and is lifting those legs more and more. Cooking dinner and hearing the children making up games outside was just a nice feeling this week. The squabbles and irritations thrown off for a mad game with crazy rules that had everyone laughing.
Friday Finds is the place to unwind, grab yourself a comfy chair and reflect on your past week then plan for the upcoming one.
With a little something to make you think, for them to do and for us to listen or watch……. We are putting ideas into action. Challenging ourselves to do a little differently. Be inspired.
Enjoy your weekend!
Goodness for the mind: Children & Separation: One Mother’s Story ~ Childhood 101
Activities for the hands: potato masher prints ~Irresistible Ideas for play based learning
Goodness for the ears: Raising Global Children – Episode 29 ~ The Power of Moms
If you enjoyed this article, get the Play Activities Newsletter. ( It’s free!)
 The LO loves letters, counting and cars. He’ll line cars up all day; count everywhere and draw letters into everything. Colours are a different matter.
Not sure if he truly knows his colours as he’s a big prankster. He loves to call an apple and orange. Just because he knows someone will smile and laugh at him. I love his sense of humor. It’s a little troublesome though to know if he actually knows his colours. I don’t think he really does; well maybe one or two colours but not the basics.
Does it bother us?
Not really. We know that our children develop at different stages. It would help him though to know his colours and so here we are trying to have some fun with it to expose him to more colour activities.
Using some coloured lollipop sticks and mini clothes pegs, we coloured, we quickly assembled a game.
I left the sticks and the mini clothes pegs altogether on the table. As he came in from riding his bike he was curious, calm and alert. Immediately he started matching the yellow lollipop stick and the clothes pegs. Yes a result!. Then he started lining them all up ( sound familiar) and finally started making letters.
After a bit of play like this we played together.I’d deliberately chosen lots of one colour ( Yellow) , one of one colour (Red) and a few of another (Blue) to make the colour difference really obvious and hopefully cut down on the guessing.
Why the mini clothes pegs?
I can hear you all asking. No it wasn’t to stump and frustrate those little fingers. I wanted to do this activity together and we had to work together to create the plane. I could ask for his and he would give.
Here’s the most important part, as he gave me the lollipop stick or the clothes peg I held it a few seconds more and got him to look at me and repeat the colour name.
We have all versions of yellow from wellow, ellow, lellow and more and apart from the usual development path it’s part of his speech work is to slow down, focus on the speaker and repeat.
This activity gave that opportunity. For other children and him later on, we’ll use the normal sized pegs and this would be more of an independent colour matching activity.
Once we assembled our planes…….Brrrmmmmmm. Lined them up. We were off flying high!
We’re looking for more fun colour sorting or matching activities. Share one of your favourites in the comments.
Teaching our children in small steps is a fundamental play activity.
They copy what we do.
We share, show and have fun with them we see their play develop.
Laundry provides lots of ways to develop piece of the apple type activities.
Sorting and classifying
I could show you our pile of laundry but I don’t think any of the family would appreciate you seeing our smalls. So you’ll have to imagine.
One basket of laundry + one talkative tot who loves to name everything.
Hold up a piece from them to name. ( Top)
Who’s top? ( Toby’s top)
Let’s put that here.
Assign a place for each member of the family and a few extra for the other things like towels, wash cloths, tablecloths, napkins, bedding etc
Complete together.
Now you have piles of laundry. We do ours in a spare room. Although it’s pretty effective to do it on the children’s bed as it does get put away before bedtime.
Activity 2
Carry the piles of laundry to the correct room, cupboard. Children love the responsibility.
Activity 3
Resort the young child’s clothes with him. We do this in many ways. Our current way is, find all the pants and put them in a pile. The aim isn’t to be efficient but to have fun. Then all the pants go into the draw. More on draws in a moment. Find the socks etc. Sometimes I’ll sort the pile and we’ll sit together and put them in the draws.
Activity 4
Where do all the socks go? My little one loves all the draw banging and pushing in. Inside sure doesn’t look pretty but he’s learning where things go and he soon gets that not pushing in his PJs will mean the draw underneath won’t open. Natural consequences and problem solving.
Label your draws
Labels don’t need to be fancy, unless of course you like that type of thing. I prefer functional. However bad my drawings are the label serves its purpose. Picture for the non readers and a word for the prereaders. Each child has a different colour card. I drew them with them, partly to make sure they knew what it was and also to get them to put the labels on the draws. Now they own the draw. They know what goes in it. Baskets work just as well and especially for socks- although we experienced a lot of dumping and not a lot of clearing up. Whatever works for you!
  
When to start?
When they are curious. By 2.5yrs they were very good at dumping and filling. Socks were the only thing they sorted or put away. They’ve watched, played and participated in the system overtime. Eventually they take it over and do it themselves. They love that responsibility and the beaming faces tell it all.
Not every time and not ever week but we should teach and train our children in controlling their space and making their space a happy one.
Now you’ve read about piece of apple techniques how will you use this with your child?
Laundry…. laundry ….laundry.
laun·dry/?lôndr?/
| Noun: |
- Clothes and linens that need to be washed or that have been washed.
- The action or process of washing such items.
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Putting away laundry is often a long, lonely and profoundly boring activity that takes up so much time.
Babies generate a huge amount of laundry and cloth nappies. Toddlers and preschoolers with their rough and tumble, exploratory play.
We eventually work out a routine but countless hours are devoted to it each week. Piles loom and perhaps get moved from room to room or chair to basket.
Children love the side by side play while we are working. As I sweep he’s sweeping too. As I cook, he’s stirring too. They love to imitate and we can teach them in small steps how to do the larger things with the piece of apple technique.
Piece of apple technique
Let me tell you a quick story about the piece of apple technique. My boys love apples. If I quickly cut the apple into two huge slices either side of the core. Cut those two pieces into three, then cut the two pieces off the odd-shaped original apple, we quickly have eight pieces of apple.
Those apples when left on a plate disappear almost before the plate hits the table. Also when there’s one person eating the apple they are quick to eat it all. However, when I suggest they eat the apple by just biting it, perish the thought now, the apple isn’t often finished.
- It somehow becomes too much to eat by itself
- We eat in that classic pattern and leave big chunks at the top and bottom
- It’s not a satisfactory outcome for me the apple buyer and them the apple eater.
They need to eat one piece then the next piece and so on to complete. It won’t always be like that but right now this system works for us both; the piece of apple technique.
So what does this story have to do with laundry?
We need to give our children a piece of the apple by teaching them and training them in the laundry process; piece by piece. Eventually they will be able to eat the whole apple and not blink an eye.
What piece of apple activities do you do with your household chores?
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