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Even before Maddie (5) started school, we had begun working on some sight words as many commonly used words are unable to be "sounded-out" and knowing them instantly, helps aid in the flow of reading text and therefore, improves comprehension. Now that Maddie is at school, learning sight words is an actual expectation and something that we have to work on.

Reading and practicing words from a list is fine, but there is no way of knowing if your child has actually learnt to read that word automatically or not, unless you test them off the list. Children are fantastic at memorising certain things and whilst you may think that pointing to words out of order on a list, shows they are able to read the words, you may be surprised when they come across the same word in a book later and are unable to read it. This is because they have memorised the exact format of the text on the list as well as it's location. Remembering them like this is good, it's an important step, but there is still a bit more work to be done on them to ensure they are properly learnt.

In order to ensure that your child has actually learnt the word and is able to read it automatically (without hesitation), they need multiple exposures to the words in different contexts. Like with everything else, some children may pick them up very quickly with limited exposure, while some may need to have more exposure and practice.

Here is a fun game that has kids reading their sight words whilst burning off a bit of energy at the same time.

Age: 3+

(See bottom for tips to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

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Here is a great game for toddlers to help them learn and identify colours (colors) whilst getting them moving and working those gross motor skills at the same time. You can play this game virtually anywhere and it will take minimal time to set up/ pack away. This is a favourite game of my son's that we play in his kinder gym class and you can vary it to suit your child and the stage that they are up to.

Age: 6 months- 2 years +

(N was approx 2 years old here. See bottom for tips to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

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My little girl is starting school this year! It is only a matter of weeks before she straps up her velcro, slings her gigantic bag over her shoulder and begins her career as a school kid. It's a very exciting and nerve-wraking time, and I'm not just talking about for her. I am busy labelling every single thing that might leave this house, getting together all the lunch box supplies and generally trying to get everything organised so that we're ready to roll on that first day. 

A very important part, for us, was getting really good school shoes. After all, they are in them all the time and as a teacher myself, I've seen how hard kids put their shoes to the test. 

Whilst the school we've chosen is quite relaxed on the choice of black school shoes or runners, my little girl has been looking forward to her own pair of "proper girl school shoes." I liked the idea of how nice they looked with the school uniform and for more formal occasions like school pics etc. but, I thought about how much running she was bound to be doing each day, so was leaning towards running shoes instead. 

When we were offered the opportunity to try The Athlete Foot's, Ascent range of school shoes, I jumped at the chance because they seemed to encompass the best of both worlds. Labelled, "Sports Shoes in Disguise" because they're built on Running Shoe Technology and being the only school shoes to be endorsed by the Australasian Podiatry Council (APodC) they sounded like the school shoes for us. I was certainly keen to find out.

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Here is a simple Sight Word Reading Game that we played the other day.

As learning sight words is all about repetition and exposure, we try to encourage the reading and writing of the words as often as possible. By turning the reading of the words into a game, you will find children suddenly want to play!

Ages: 3+

(See the Handy Tips at the bottom to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

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Age: approx. 6 months to 2+ years (see bottom for tips)

(N was approx 13 months here. See bottom for tips to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

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Welcome once again to this week's TUESDAY TOTS.
Brought to you by Learn with Play at home (us), Rainy Day Mum,
and One Perfect Day

This Week:

Learn with Play at home is showcasing

Fun and Learning Activities using Balls

These great posts all came from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup
where we featured "Kids Chalk Activities"

FEATURED

Aside from the gross motor and hand-eye coordination that using a ball can help aid children with, there are lots of other fun ways to utilise a humble ball that work on a range of different skills and experiences for children.

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Welcome to  TUESDAY TOTS for this week.
Brought to you by Learn with Play at home (us), Rainy Day Mum,
Growing a Jeweled Rose and One Perfect Day

This Week:

Learn with Play at home is featuring

Ideas to keep kids Active.

These great posts all came from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup
where we featured "8 Activities using materials from the Recycle Bin"

FEATURED

The following posts all include ideas and activities that will encourage your child to move and get active. The different activities lend themselves to different environments and allow children to practice various gross motor skills, coordination and other developmental areas.

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Why not get festive and let the kids practice their hand-eye coordination and gross motor skills at the same time?

Let's try Tinsel Weaving!

Ages: 2+

(See Handy Tips at the bottom to see how to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs)

Materials: tinsel wreaths, any colour, sizes, lengths etc and tape

Tape one end of the tinsel down to make it easier for your child to weave with

Talk about the process of weaving. In and out, in and out.

This seems so simple yet can be really tricky whilst still developing hand-eye coordination.

Practice makes perfect

Have your child hunt out areas in the house suitable for large scale weaving. 

The chair backs worked well.

Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by using shorter lengths of tinsel wreaths. The longer the length, the trickier it could be for your child to manipulate

- Extend this activity by using longer lengths of tinsel. Challenge your child to make patterns. Can they make a woven tinsel design? Spot all the places where you could weave around the house/room etc.

- Talk about textures, colours etc as well as encouraging the language of the technique of weaving. (over, under, in, out, through, interlaced etc) 

- Discuss the method of weaving and see if your child can find any woven materials in the house

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Today I set out an Invitation to Play for my daughter. Using just 2 different materials that most people have at home, Books and Cars, she engaged herself in building and balancing, experimenting and exploring and a whole fantastic imaginative world full of language development.

Ages: 2-6+

(For ideas to simplify or extend this activity, see the Handy Tips at the bottom)

Materials: Books (hard cover are easier) and Cars

To create this Invitation to Play, I put out a pile of children's books, set a couple of them into small tunnels and provided a couple of wooden cars. Entering the room to find them, she was already excited.

She quickly swept away what I'd set out and got to work building and balancing

Creating Ramps at varying heights and angles produced different results

The books became tunnels, ramps, roads, mountains, garages, houses and more. Yep, just books.

The dialogue this activity produced was incredibly beneficial and my favourite outcome

The amount of time she spent on this activity even surprised me. I'll set it out again with extra/different materials next time.

For more fun Building Activities with stuff from around the house click on the Picture

 

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by providing smaller, sturdier books. Board books would be perfect for this. Assist your child in creating simple structures like a garage for the cars or one long tunnel. Set up a few basic book ramps for your child to race their cars down.

- Extend this activity by challenging your child with all different sized, shaped books. Try soft cover books and see if they make a different. Have your child experiment with varying heights and angles for ramps and include a measuring tape for added maths skills. Challenge your child to use every single book in one long continuous tunnel. 

- Mix it up by providing other materials to build with to provide different challenges. Ask your child to look around the house and see what ideas they come up with. 

- Make your child aware of the problem solving they are doing. "How are you going to get that ramp to stay leaning up against that book without it falling over?" "Putting the 2 books back-to-back like that for extra sturdiness was a great sollution/idea. Well done!" etc


- Instead of always giving your child directions as to how they are expected to play, I like to mix it up and create "invitations" to play where children can explore and figure out for themselves what they can do. This type of open-ended activity allows the child to take the activity to a level they are comfortable with while giving them the freedom to explore different angles. Your child may come up with other fabulous games/activities with just these 2 materials.


- Use new language and descriptive words when talking to your child about what they are doing, like, "balancing" and "gravity" This will help with their language development and conceptual understanding.




Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Music plays a big part in our household. My kids have listened to a wide variety of music since before they were born, our car is a rotating music station where we enjoy singing along together with all our favourite tunes and we love to dance at every chance we can get.

I find that Music is fabulous for learning rhythm, tone, language development, memory, creativity, engagement, pitch, volume, movement, gross and fine motor skills and so much more!

Maddie (aged 3) just loves to dance, so getting her moving to music is no trouble at all. 

But, if your child isn't so passionate about dancing, how do you get them up and moving to music?

With games!

We were inspired to GET UP and MOVING by this great CD that we were recently sent 

(which you can read more about at the bottom)

Here we share "5 Fun (and easy!) Games to get kids 

Up and Moving to Music"

1) Musical Statues

A classic game that can be played with 1 or more people of all ages.

Dance to the music. When the music stops you must FREEZE! 

Children love trying not to wobble or giggle.

You can eliminate people that move to find one winner, or just play for fun like we do with different "Statue Champs!" each round that manage to stay still. 

When the music starts again, it's time to keep moving!

2) Musical Chairs/Cushions

Another classic game for 2 or more players of all ages

For the first round, set out enough chairs or cushions for each player.

Dance to the music. When the music stops, players must rush to sit down on a chair or cushion.

With each round, remove one chair/cushion and then have the remaining player who misses getting a chair/cushion join you as the judge! 

(Some people do not like games that encourage exclusion, winning or 'losing'.. As an alternative, rather than removing the player left without a chair/cushion you can allow multiple players per seat or just have a little group of winners for each round but let everyone back in with each new round)

3) Move like the Music

This is a great way to get children considering Emotions and Actions and can be played by 1 or more children of any age

Listen to the music together and talk about how it makes you feel. Happy? Sad? Cross? etc. Then talk about what actions go with these emotions. A happy song can make you feel "bouncy," "boppy" etc. If the song is slow and makes you feel sad, perhaps the appropriate action would be "swaying" etc.

4) Animal Dance

This imaginative game is suitable for one of more people of all ages.

Download and Print out my FREE ANIMAL CARDS

Let children pick a card at random and have them dance to the music as that animal. Consider, talk about and encourage things like the typical types of movements of each animal. Does the animal usually move fast/slow, with big/small movements, quietly/loudly, on all fours? etc.

However, if they happen to be a snake that doesn't just like to wriggle on the ground but is also partial to the cha-cha... well, who are we to hinder creativity and imagination? Plus, who knows what snakes get up to when we're not around.... ;)

5) Dancing with Props

A great way to get kids really moving their bodies and manipulating various items. Play this game with one or more children of any age

Provide a selection of props and have children choose one at a time to dance with. Talk about how each item changes or influences their movement. Extend this by allowing children to search out and find their own props to dance with. Can they dance with a partner while still using their prop.

Here are a couple of the things we recently used to dance with

What extra props would you add? Little beanbags, hoops? etc...

Here are some more great children's activities involving Music

Make your own Sound Effects (Learn with Play at home)

I am Special song for Preschoolers (Teach Preschool)

Make a Water Xylophone (Smiling like Sunshine)

Music for Toddlers (Mama Smiles)

Big Rock Candy Mountain CD

We really enjoyed playing these games with our new CD, "Big Rock Candy Mountain" which is a compilation of the Greatest American Folk Songs. I had a lot of fun singing along to the well known tunes and was pleased to be able to introduce my kids to some classic folk songs from another country.
Artist: Catherine Britt / Jay Laga'aia

Album: Big Rock Candy Mountain 
Label: ABC Music / Universal 
Release Date: 20/07/2012  
Purchase: ABC Website 

As a big fan of Jay Laga'aia, back from his days on Home and Away, Water Rats and of course now on our favourite kids show, Play School, I was really interested to hear this CD. 

I can safely say that Jay has a fabulous voice that is really easy to listen to and I also enjoyed hearing the vocal talents of Catherine Britt who was unknown to me before. Together they deliver a really fun and great sounding CD that will be sung and danced to for many years to come in our household.

***Disclaimer. I was sent this CD to consider for review. I was under no obligation to post anything about this CD and all comments and opinions are my own. I was not paid to write this post.

Happy dancing and playing,
Debs :)

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Today's activity is this super fun and easy-to-make Robot Helmet.

Combining skills required to make the helmet such as fine-motor skills and creativity with imaginative play and gross motor skills when the helmet is finished, is sure to keep your child busy, creating and learning.

Ages: 2-6+ 

Maddie is currently 3 years old

Materials: Cardboard Box, Foil, Glue, Sticky tape, Embellishments (we used milk bottle lids, coloured foil, number stickers, recycled goods and pipe cleaners)

For added literacy, we first read "Little Robots" by Mike Brownlow

Begin by cutting a "window" out of one side of the box to make it helmet shaped and then cover with glue (we used PVA glue)

Cover the entire box with foil.

Use this time to encourage new language and practice new skills such as "overlapping" or "folding"

When your box is covered with foil let your child get creative with their "embellishments"

Maddie learnt how to make "pipe cleaner springs" by wrapping a pipe cleaner around a marker

Attaching certain items will require sticky tape. 

A lot of coordination and fine motor skills are required for this type of addition.

Adding "buttons" and "antenna" 

For added numeracy skills, I included number stickers. 

Maddie added the numbers 0-9 (that she had to find in a tub full of numbers) and then we wrote a list together of what "pressing each number" would make the robot do.

Time for imaginative play. "Beep, whizz, whirl"

Be sure to include robot movements and actions for added Gross Motor Skills

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by pre-cutting the foil to the required size for each panel. This will allow less coordinated children to have a go at covering the box themselves. Assist your child as needed to complete the robot helmet ensuring that they have creative control over the embellishments they use.

- Extend this activity by including the added Literacy and Numeracy skills by reading Robot inspired books together and/or making a "number bot." We had a fabulous time figuring out what would happen when each number was pressed. Use this to reinforce basic number recognition. Your child could write their own list of instructions for the robot and then have to act out each action when you press their buttons.

- Further this activity by making robot arm covers, leg bands, robot fingers etc. Ask your child how they would make them and what they would need.

- Discuss the processes your child is going through with each stage of the activity. This will help them to make connections between the process and the language used to describe the process.  

- Use descriptive words such as "embellishments," "over-lapping" etc. to encourage language development. 

- Play a game with your child/ren where they must act as the robot and follow the directions given.

- Source boxes from supermarkets if you have none at home. They are always more than happy to let me have any boxes I like when I ask as they have an oversupply of them.

- If your child enjoyed making a Robot Helmet, they might like our Dinosaur Helmet too.

Happy playing, creating and learning,
Debs :)

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