Block Challenge

One day this week I made up a game on the fly...my two bigs were getting a bit wild and rough with one another and needed to be close to me.  I needed to finish handsewing some projects I was working on for Quinn's school event.  So....we made up a little game I could officiate while still having busy hands.  The kids LOVED it and have asked for it several times since.  This would be a great game to have in my toolkit when I need to interact with them and make dinner at the same time, or even on a roadtrip.  Thought I would share....though it is really nothing fancy!

My kids haven't played with these bristle blocks in a while, and they happened to be in the dresser drawer next to where we were sitting.  So I had them get out the blocks.  Each kiddo decided on their own team name, which I wrote at the top of a piece of paper.  Then I gave them different challenges, that I made up on the fly.

Build a boat using 6 blocks.
Build a restaurant using 15 blocks.
Build a playground using 13 blocks.
Choose just 1 color of blocks and build a school from them.

Etc., etc,.

Each kiddo had a little bell (this was Quinn's idea, which turned out to be a fun addition!) that they could ring once they were finished building.  It wasn't at all a race, but they did have fun ringing the bells.

When they rang their bell, I would ask them to tell about what they built, and they'd spend a couple minutes explaining their design.  I would ask some questions (and I did all this in an "announcer" voice and used "announcer-y" lingo).  Then the other person would have to say 1 thing they liked about the other sibling's design.  My kiddos weren't having a great morning getting along, so this was a way I used to help them practice kind words with eachother.

After they built each object and told about it, I gave them a point.  Quinn was much faster than Beck, so she got a couple challenges ahead of him, which still worked out fine.  I just wrote down at the bottom of the paper what the challenges he still needed to do were, so I didn't forget.  I had them return all the blocks to the box after each challenge, so that when they started the next object they'd choose different blocks, otherwise if I let them keep them out, they'd use the same ones and there wouldn't be much variety in what they built.

When they got tired of the game (which lasted about 45 minutes!!) and I was at a stopping point, we ended the game (in the announcer voice) and then I told them their reward was to share a cupcake (that we happened to have leftover from a babyshower the weekend before).  Of course the rule is that one kid cuts the cupcake and the other gets to choose their piece first. ;)

This game achieved my goal of peaceful play, but it also encouraged some problem-solving and higher-level thinking.  Educational AND fun!!  It could be played with any types of blocks, so it's very versatile!

Going on a leaf hunt!

Around here we still have leaves falling.  We had a fun walk trying to find as many colors of leaves as we could and making our leaf sticks pretty!  We just poked a sharp stick through our leaves as we walked around our nearby nature park.  I did a pile of green ones and then a pattern of red and yellow leaves.  A fun, simple activity that encourages mathematical patterning, observation skills and a little artistry when deciding how to arrange the leaves.  I did this activity with a 3 year old and a 2 year old and they both loved it!

The cash register (a hack)

 Quinn has been wanting/needing (developmentally) a cash register.  Except that you know I hate all the plasticy ones that make noises and beep and light up.  Because that means my kids would spend all their time pushing buttons to make it light up and beep and ZERO time actually playing with it doing cash-register related tasks.  So I wanted something that isolated the one skill of cash-register-using.  I'd had it on my mind for a while--to be looking for something that worked out as a simple cash register.  I'd even searched for plans to make a cardboard one online and came up with nothing.  Last week when I was putting something in our playroom cabinet I spotted this guy--Beck's wooden shape sorter.  It has a drawer that pulls out.  PERFECT!  I put some play bills (just a few) and some coins--I used the largest foreign money coins I could round up from our junk drawers, thinking they'd be least likely to go in Beck's mouth or get lost in the carpet.  I also found a play credit card from some junkmail.  I made a construction paper sign that I taped on, and voila!  Quinn adores it and plays with it often, selling all sorts of stuff!  Beck likes to drop the coins through the holes in the back and then open the drawer.   So, I encourage you, as always, to be creative with your toys and look for other uses for them to fill a need that your child may have, developmentally.  :)

Magnet Sorting

 For this activity I had Q fold a piece of paper in half and then she wrote "yes" on one side and "no" on the other.  I spelled and she wrote. 

I offered her a wooden box filled with various objects--some that would be attracted to a magnet and some that would not.  I tried to use all different types of objects--paper, wood, fabric, different types of metal, etc.  I also offered a bar magnet and a horseshoe magnet (that I happened to have, though any magnet would work). 

Then she used a magnet to try and attract each item.  Once she figured out if it were attracted to the magnet or not, she placed it in the appropriate side of her chart. 

This task introduces the concept of magnetism and properties of solids.

It introduces simple charting/graphing methods.

Q LOVED this!  She has started making yes/no charts on her own for random stuff.

Also, Little Man (22 months) loves playing with this too--sliding the magnet around in the box and seeing what's attracted.

After the child has explored with the box several times, you could show them a new object and ask them to predict whether it will be attracted by the magnet. 

Toddler Art Lessons: Learning to use markers and the reason behind the marker block

Markers are a great "first art" experience for toddlers, medium-wise.  They allow a toddler to explore the process of using a writing implement, are washable, and don't need much direct pressure to produce a stroke (they'll even write if you tilt them to the side a bit). 

I am intentional about teaching the markering "process."  As a matter of fact, the first few times I introduce markers to toddlers I don't even push them to actually write with them.  Here's the process:

Choose a marker and show them how to open the cap.  It's hard work!  Great for strengthening those little hand muscles and connecting the hand-eye networks. 

Snap the cap onto the bottom of the marker so it doesn't roll on the floor and get lost.  My little guy (17 months) has a really hard time with this part.  He still likes the cap better than the marker, so he's not wanting to snap the cap on the end.  I model it for him and he'll do it when he's ready. 

Write....if ya want to.  I always use the words "we write on paper" and pat the paper.  If he starts to write on the table or himself I remind him about writing on paper, and if he isn't redirected, I say, "We write on paper.  Here, I'll help your hand find the paper" and move his hand with the marker to the paper.  "There's that paper!" 

After writing, put the lid back on and listen for the "snap" when the lid is on tight enough.  I initially make a big deal of this--we hold the marker up to our ears and listen and say, "SNAP!"  Toddlers and preschoolers love it.  And it's an important part of the process because no one likes dried-out markers!

I am very diligent about keeping markers in a "block."  There are many reasons for this--
*it encourages the math skill of one-to-one correspondance
*it helps the child know immediately if a marker is missing or a lid's no on
*it limits the available choice of markers to a developmentally appropriate amount
*it teaches the child to be organized and neat with art supplies
*it's super portable--you can quickly take markers to another table, outside, etc. 
*it's visually appealing!  How fun to see all the marker colors sticking up so beautifully!
*pencil boxes and bins tend to collect other junk and get cluttery--there's only space for markers here!

There are lots of ways to make this type of block.  Ours was made by wood-gluing together two pieces of scrap two-by-four and drilling holes into it.  You can, of course, purchase these (usually plastic ones) at teacher supply stores, as well, if you don't have access to tools to make one.  I've also see marker lids cemented into a pan to make a similar type of marker block. 

My 17 month old LOVES working with markers and will happily uncap, examine (sometimes draw a mark), and recap for 10-15 minutes.  I often present the markers when I need to get some type of paperwork done at the table so he can "write" with Mama!

Farmer's Market Pretend Play

We've finished up our birthday party play...and since our Kitchen School has moved to a fall Harvest/Farm theme, we decided that we needed an in-house farmer's market!  So our little kitchen area has been converted.  To begin with I took all the furniture out and cleaned underneath, then moved things back in, rearranging to a different layout.  I always feel new arrangements give us a fresh feel in our play spaces and always seem to reignite play in an energetic way.  I encourage you to spend the time rearranging the furniture in your play spaces!  It feels SO good!

I had grand schemes for a super cool sign....but life got in the way and I wasn't getting around to it, so finally I made myself loosen up a bit and I whipped this one up with felt scraps and some scrapbook stickers in about 10 minutes.  And it does the job just fine and is much better than no sign....which is what waiting for my PERFECT sign was leading to.  :)

The top shelf of this little wooden stand holds our meal essentials--cloth napkins (changed to orange for the fall season) and the kids' fabric placemats.  The second shelf holds a basket of fake apples and the bottom holds a basket of mixed produce.  We've been talking a lot about what items are fruits and what are vegetables (after reading about these in Gail Gibbon's book THE VEGETABLES WE EAT) and we decided we needed to label the bottom basket PRODUCE since it has both fruit and vegetables.  This was a great science lesson for us that delves into classifying and sorting and properties of plants!

 

 

On our actual little kitchen we sell other items:

Q chose the prices, and she can actually read enough to know how much items are--and is able to take the correct amout of bills according to price!  This is a great pre-reading and pre-math activity and she loves being the market clerk and getting paid for the items.  We're working on some simple adding anytime someone buys more than one item. 

These eggs are still out from our Easter wreath I re-did this year.  I pulled them off and put them out for her to work with.  She puts them into the cartons and sells them in her store.  We also have some pretend chickens (pics to come soon) in the playroom/barn that lay eggs!

A friend taught me to crochet a circle so I could make these flowers to sell at our market.  I couldn't get a great picture because if they aren't arranged just right they tip the pitcher over.  With Little Man and his grabby hands, we have to use a plastic pitcher, even though a larger vase would work better.  Anyhow, you get the idea.  Q can take the flowers off the stems and arrange them to her choosing. 

I have agonized for quite some time over what to do for a cash register.  Honsetly I really don't like the plasticy ones...and they are so big to store when not in use.  So I raided my vintage jewelery box collection (I LOVE THEM!) and this small one works just fine for her moneybox.  When Beck stops eating everything we'll be able to add some play coins in the small compartments, but for now we have to stick to bills.

milk!

Fruit and veggies...she has the knife to cut them if a customer only wants a portion (FRACTIONS!!) and she cracked me up because she had the peels/leaves/skins from these in a pile on the floor the other day and she told me it was the compost pile.  :)  THAT is my girl!

 

 

Baskets and bags for shoppers.

I moved the little curtain that usually covers the lower "cabinet" part of the little kitchen up (just tucked the excess behind the shelf) for a change of pace and put our library on top.  These are farm and harvest books we'll be reading throughout our unit!

I have fallen in love with using our little kitchen as a "stand" upon which to create different dramatic play areas.  Both kids--4 years and 13 months--have had lots of fun with the farmer's market already!

Just Blocks

As an educator, I am ALWAYS looking for new ideas of activities to do with my kids. I am definitely guilty of forgetting about the old tried-and-true activities that I know (in the back of my mind) are fabulous learning opportunities. One such item? Blocks.

Blocks are amazing and teach skills such as:
-spatial awareness
-motor skills
-problem solving
-hand-eye coordination
-pretend play
-social skills (working together)
-language skills (verbalizing what is being done)
-shape awareness
-counting

They are a great tool because they are so open-ended (unlike puzzles which only have one solution...also a good tool, but for different uses). Blocks are also useful for any age--my 7 month son enjoys holding them, knocking towers we build over, banging them, and of course chewing them. My 3 year old daughter builds palaces for her animals because the flood is coming and they need their homes to keep them dry (or other involved scenarios as such....) and there is some type of block play for every other age--even adults enjoy blocks! Just leave yours our next time you have friends over and see what happens. :)

You can also spice up block play by adding "components." Right now we have plastic animals in our block basket. We've had peg people (plain wooden peg people from Hobby Lobby that I painted to look like different people), cars, aircrafts, plastic bugs, etc. Changing out one part of the blocks helps rejuvinate interest and also changes the direction of the play. Just be careful not to add so much stuff that you are taking away from the play--too many items can get distratcting. Sometimes just the blocks themselves are enough.

There are also different types of blocks, and changing out they type of block can also be a good idea. We have some magnetic blocks, some colored cube blocks in smaller sizes and also letter cube blocks. This below set my father in law made Q for her 1st birthday and we adore them!!

There are tons of articles out there if you do a google search for ideas and suggestions and tips on block play if you want more information. However it's also really simple to just get down on the floor with your child and start building together!

In my classroom I taught my students to shrug their shoulders and say, "oh well" anytime a block tower they were building fell down. We always talked that we could build it again. This helped reduce frustration if they (or someone else) accidently knocked over a masterpiece.

I also used "work mats" (lamintated pieces of construction paper--the large size) to designate areas when several students were each building their own object. This helped reduce accidents--as my students learned to spot the colored mats and walk around them. Of course there was the rule that "the builder is the knocker" to keep children from destroying another's work.

I took pictures of finished towers and we had a book we kept of the photos. The children loved revisiting their masterpieces in the book, and also they would sometimes take the book to the block area and rebuild a past tower (or castle or farmyard, etc.) or rebuild something cool another child had made. This leads to "fluency" in all of the skills listed above at the beginning of the post.

So.....get out your blocks and build something cool this week!!

PS) If you keep your blocks out where your kids can see them they'll be more likely to use them. Ours are in a big basket that slides under our entertainment center, and whenever they are left out for weeks at a time, they get used far more!

PPS) These are the letter blocks--Q keeps them in her room to build with during her quiet time.

Store.

A couple weeks back I introduced Q to the idea of playing "Store" with her little kitchen. We use a stepstool for the sign, and made two different signs--one that says Mommy's Store and one that says Quinn's Store. Oh yeah, and a little triangular-folded paper that says "open" and "closed!"

We play very simply. The clerk wears an apron (we have a basket of little aprons to choose from). The clerk makes the sign say "open" by turning it. She also gives the customer what they want, and she writes their receipt. Right now Q always wants me to be the clerk and she wants to be the customer.
When it's receipt time, I have her tell me everything that she bought and I help her figure out the first letter of each item, which is what I write on the receipt. So if she bought 4 cupcakes I write:
C
C
C
C
It's WONDERFUL emergent reading and writing practice!
The clerk also has to tell how much the prices are and take the coins from the customer. Right now the coins (green plastic ones I have had around for ever....from my first grade teaching days...and all kids of every age LOVE those things!!) are worth a dollar and all prices are even dollar amounts. I am going to get out some play money I have soon and start introducing the different coins, though! She is doing great counting out the dollar amounts I request for each item right now.

The customer makes requests for items, pays, and then goes home for the "night" when the clerk turns the sign to "closed." Often, if the store has run out of something, the clerk loudly announces that she hopes the delivery truck brings whatever items are needed (names them specifically) and leaves some money under the sign. While the clerk is sleeping the items are delivered and the money disappears. This way the store has enough items to keep selling and the customer has enough money to keep spending!

We have been putting lots of empty food containers (granola bar box, washed yogurt tub, empty cashew can, empty chalula sauce jar, etc.) into the store for selling.

Playing store is such a rich learning experience that includes math, social studies, practical life, language, literacy skills, dramatic play and most of all, it's REALLY FUN!

I had to get the ball rolling by introducing the concept of store and modeling how to "play" and even the "rules" of playing store. But Q definitely caught on quickly and loves every minute of our store playing! I love how simple this activity is to set up but how much she is learning in such a child-cenetered, developmentally-appropriate, simple way!

This activity could be adapted for toddlers by setting out just a few items on a shelf....strips of paper could be dollars....older kids could write shopping lists and receipts and sale signs....So many possibilities!

Present Wrapping Work

We spent some time wrapping gifts as a family last night, and now Q is very interested in the process!
I put out a little basket in her playroom with some scraps of wrapping paper, a tape dispenser, and some little scissors. She is LOVING finding things in her playroom to wrap and put under her little tree!
This is great practical life and problem solving--she is using spatial awareness and geometry as she figures out which size of wrapping paper will fit each gift and how the paper needs to be oriented to cover the gift. She is using problem solving to figure out where she needs to tape in order for the paper to stay stuck. For fine motor this uses the small finger muscles in tape tearing, folding, and cutting--thin wrapping paper is tricky to cut without tearing!

After she'd wrapped some gifts I encouraged her to make gift tags and write who each present was for. This is a great time to use environmental print skills in a real situation. Sometimes she'd ask me for help deciding which first letter to write--Honey's grandma (one of her dolls) is named Tilly, so she wanted to know what to write. I told her a T and she went right to work!

Here are a couple of the other labels she came up with. This is for Rosa, of course.

And this is "just an N." It's for nobody. That cracked me up. She doesn't know "nobody" starts with "n," she just got lucky. :)

For younger children/toddlers who aren't ready for paper and tape and scissors, you can put out gift boxes (they can put tops and bottoms together) or even gift bags (with or without tissue paper for accent.). This activity can be adapted to any age! Even babies (old enough to sit up) can have fun putting objects in and out of a holiday bag!

School Buses and Mural

To go along with our "school" theme we made school buses!

First we had a cardboard template that we traced around. Q needed quite a bit of help with this, as this is a new skill for her. Tracing work is very useful in pre-writers to help teach pencil control and to train the small muscles in the hand to respond to small movements. Tracing imitates many of the strokes needed to write letters, and teaches slow, careful strokes with a pencil. Then I helped her cut the bus out. Having to turn the object with one hand and also turn the scissors is new for her, as well, so I helped hold the bus while she cut.

Next we talked about the shapes on a bus--we got out our shapes and found a square. I traced and cut squares for windows (she had lost her interest in tracing and cutting at this point) and also circles for wheels. I let her glue these all on her own using a glue bottle--reminding her "Use a DOT--not a LOT!"

Then we printed out pictures of some of her babies and glued them in the bus windows. We used letter stickers to write "School Bus" on the side--I told her the name of each letter and she found the corresponding sticker. I had to help her stick them on because they kept trying to curl up when she took the stickers off the backing paper. Next time we'll use sturdier stickers!

We spent two days making our buses.

The third day we taped a big sheet of paper down and I showed her how to paint a road--I did the outside lines and she did the dashes down the middle. We also talked through how to paint trees, sky, and sun. Now that I've taught her these elements, I am noticing them showing up in her own paintings--especially suns! It's important to draw/paint alongside children and model AND use verbal explanation of what you are doing--each element involved in drawing a particular item. For the sun, for example, I talked out loud and said, "I think you should paint a circle for the sun. What color is the sun?" Then once she'd painted a yellow circle, I said, "I think you should fill it in with paint, now!"
A fun element of this project was painting on the floor--we'd taped the paper down to our dining room floor, which was fun and new!

This activity encouraged prereading and prewriting, shape awareness, spatial awareness, art skills, fine motor skills, new vocabulary, direction following, working cooperatively, and listening skills.

Bridges

We have been using 3 Billy Goats Gruff as our fairy tale focus in our Kitchen School these past few weeks because Q is so interested in the story.
Today we read the non-fiction book "Bridges" and talked about the different types of bridges pictured in it. I love to try to include as many good quality non-fiction books as I can in our curriculum as preschoolers and toddlers are heavily saturated with fiction in read alouds, but aren't exposed to nonfiction as much.

Then we got out our blocks and I started modeling for her how to build bridges. We got out cars and some little wooden people, who quickly became "trolls." Today during naptime I have high hopes for drawing out 3 billy goats on some wood and begging Matt to get my jigsaw down tonight so I can make her some goat play pieces to go with her bridges!

This activity promoted vocabulary skills (lots of new words in the Bridges book!), fine motor (through placing/balancing the blocks and the cars), spatial awareness, shape awareness, and dramatic play.

Who is at school today? Poster

(definitely click to view larger size!)

To go with our "school" unit, we made a poster to show who is at Quinn's school. We started by taking a picture of each of her babies (I limited it to her 5 favorite and also her). Then I wrote out each one's name on a sentence strip.
Q helped with this by telling me each baby's first letter, and she wrote her own first letter. Then I had her match the names to the printed photos and glue the photos on the strips.

I laminated the sentence strip names. We made a poster that says, "Who is at school today?" and I printed a picture of a little bus that Q colored (not that nicely since she was in a bit of a tooty mood at the time...).

We then put velcro on the sign and on the name backs.

During circle time, we go down the row and put up names of who is at school.

Q practices:
-talking about/recognizing the first letter of names
-following sequence--we always go down the row in the order the babies are seated and do a lot of talking about first, second, third, etc.
-matching velcro pieces (which is actually a lot harder for kiddos than you'd think. My first graders often still struggled with it!)
-completing the chart in order--not skipping any spots when adding names
-learning to work with a simple graph--believe it or not, Q is learning some very basic graphing skills--Graphs have titles, graphs record information, when adding information to a graph you don't skip any spots, etc.
-counting--we count how many friends are on the chart and write the number on the chalkboard.
-letter writing--I've started inviting Q to write each baby's first letter--I model or use hand-over-hand assistance to help her.

We sing:
Honey's at school today,
Honey's at school today,
Hip-hip-hip hurray,
Honey's at school today!
(tune= Farmer in the Dell)

This activity promotes so many great skills--math (counting and graphing) and prereading (recognizing letters, point at the title of the graph), most importantly!