Today I've shared a fun and creative activity on the Memetales blog.

Something to entice the senses and capture the imagination.

Click HERE to see how we made the Treasure Rocks and what they could be used for.

................................

Here are some other fun crafts we've made to use with Imaginative Play.

Click the picture to go to the activity.

 

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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We just love playing and creating on a Sticky Easel. You can see how to make one here, they are so simple and yet so much fun! 

Today I set up a quick Invitation to Play with the sticky easel and ribbons and string.

Ages: 2-6+

(M is 3 years old here. See Tips at the bottom to simplify or extend to meet the needs of your child)

 Materials: Contact paper/Sticky-back plastic (the stuff you cover books with), sticky tape, string, ribbon, wool etc.

I provided the string/ribbon in different lengths. Some short, some long. 

Maddie got herself into a bit of a tangle here :)

We talked a lot about different lengths, patterns, colours, designs, weaving, manipulating and more while we played

Adding in different widths. Easy to talk about the contrast with children. 

"Wow, that is a thick ribbon. It is so much wider than the string" etc

Use ribbons and string to make letters, words, numbers, designs, pictures and so on.

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by providing materials for sticking that are appropriate for your child. If strings provide a hazard for your child, be sure to supervise and/or switch for shorter lengths. Also, if sitting/standing at an easel won't work, try sticking the contact onto a baking tray and giving them that to play with on the floor.

- Extend this activity by having your child test the strength of the stickiness by trying to stick other objects from around the room on there. What weight or size becomes too much? Use the sticky easel for early literacy practice such as making letters, writing words etc.

-Ask questions to help connect their understanding and use vocabulary to give them words to describe what they're creating, eg. "That looks great, tell me about it" "What are you creating?" "Why did you choose that?" "How are you going to fill this space?" "I love how you've lined them all up in a row" etc.

- Listen to your child talk as they go through their experiences. This will help you determine where they are at with their learning, knowledge and understanding and help you to develop the activity (or future activities) to their level and interests.

Here are some more fun activities using contact paper

Craft Sticks and Straws on the Sticky Easel

15 Fun ways to use Contact Paper

15 MORE Fun activities with Contact Paper

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Twist ties. One of those items that we end up accidently collecting but never actually use for some reason. The white ones come free in the packs of plastic freezer bags here in Australia. After getting some coloured ones from a craft supplies shop, I decided it was time to actually put them to use!

The cool thing about twist ties is that there is a very thin strip of wire through the centre of them so they are great for manipulating and therefore perfect for practicing and developing fine motor skills.

Rather than deciding how they should be used, I presented them to my daughter in an Invitation to Play so that she could explore them and investigate their potential herself.

Ages: 2-6+ 

(M is currently 3.5 years old. See the bottom of the post for Handy Tips on how to simplify or extend to meet your child's individual needs)

Materials: I provided Twist ties (the coloured ones were separate and the white ones I left as they came, joined together), black paper, PVA glue and a paintbrush.

Developing fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination to peel and separate the twist-ties

She was very interested in glueing them to the paper. The black paper made a great contrast and she enjoyed the white glue on the paper as well!

An important part of this process was the language that she was using as we talked about what she was doing.

There was a lot of attempting to twist and tie them. This was fiddly for little fingers but excellent practice.

She was very pleased with herself when she managed to get ones to twist and stay together.

I had a turn too. Playing with your child is a special time and one that is gone all too soon. Take every opportunity that you can.

Use twist ties to make letters or numbers, to spell words and more....

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by simply allowing your child to investigate and explore the twist ties themselves and let them decide what they could do with them. For younger children who's fine motor skills are still developing do not focus too much on twisting them together as it can be quite tricky. Encourage bending them into different shapes

- Extend this activity by challenging your child to build various items out of twist ties. I attempted a cube and found it was a bit more challenging than I'd imagined. They are fiddly little things! :) Encourage your child to make letters or numbers from twist ties. How many letters can they make using only 1 twist-tie? How many need 2? 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.


- Process over Outcome. Remember that children need to create and explore, they don't need it to be a specific item at the end. Allow this and don't push them to think they must make something "real." Certainly with an activity such as this, the process is more important then the outcome.


-Ask questions to help connect their understanding and use vocabulary to give them words to describe what they're experiencing, eg. "What are you doing with the twist-ties?" "Why did you choose to paste them like that?" "How are you going to attach this to that?" "I love how you've managed to twist those ends together to make a..." etc

- Focus on improving particular skills with your child and help them to practice, ie. Wiping excess glue before pasting to avoid drips.

- Keep a damp cloth beside them so that they are able to wipe down their hands easily and quickly

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Ever since seeing this fun post on Teach Preschool, I have been wanting to try a "Sticky Easel"

It's so easy, tape down some contact paper or sticky-back plastic (sticky side up), on an easel or any other surface, and let kids stick materials to their heart's content. The possibilities for learning, creativity and skill practice are wide and varied.

Ages: 2-6+

Materials: Contact paper/Sticky-back plastic (the stuff you cover books with), sticky tape, coloured craft sticks & straws

I set up the easel with the contact paper/sticky-back plastic and provided two tubs. 

Coloured craft sticks and cut-up recycled straws

There was no instruction necessary, she was straight into it after touching it for a bit

Working with small materials. Fine motor skills being practiced

Making a house and putting straw tiles on the roof

Even I was surprised by how long she sat there working away

"I love this" she declared and hugged the easel.

We had a lot of great discussion about her creation and her thought processes.

At about this stage she wanted more room so we popped them back in the containers and she started all over again.

We hope your kids enjoy it as much as we did and keep coming back to it over the week for a great progressive art/exploration.

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by providing materials for sticking that are appropriate for your child. If cut up straws pose a choking risk, try keeping them at a longer length or switching them for other light-ish materials. Also, if sitting/standing at an easel won't work, try sticking the contact onto a baking tray and giving them that to play with on the floor.

- Extend this activity by having your child test the strength of the stickiness by trying to stick other objects from around the room on there. What weight or size becomes too much? Use the sticky easel for early literacy practice such as making letters, writing words etc.

-Ask questions to help connect their understanding and use vocabulary to give them words to describe what they're creating, eg. "That looks great, tell me about it" "What are you creating?" "Why did you choose that?" "How are you going to fill this space?" "I love how you've lined them all up in a row" etc.

- Listen to your child talk as they go through their experiences. This will help you determine where they are at with their learning, knowledge and understanding and help you to develop the activity (or future activities) to their level and interests.

Here are some more fun activities of ours using craft sticks

Make a simple Magic Door

Pipe cleaners, Craft sticks and Play dough. An invitation to play!

Free Play with Craft and Recycled Materials

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Week 4 of the MeMeTales Readathon focuses on one of my favourite areas, Imagination.

There are a number of free books for you to read this week on the topic, and one of them, “Doors in the Air,”  inspired this fun activity. Give this activity more meaning by adding in some Early Literacy Skills. Perfect for all ages to listen to.

(read here for free!)

If your child enjoys lift-the-flap books, this is sure to be a winner.  :)

 Materials: Piece of thick paper, craft/paddle-pop sticks, glue & anything you'd like to decorate the sticks. 

(We used paint, sequins and glitter and a mini pom pom door handle)

 Measure your door to fit your craft sticks and cut around 3 sides as shown
(Ours is 8 craft sticks wide)

Encourage your child's creativity and let them decorate their "door panels" as they wish

Squeezing, hand eye coordination, pincer grip practice and more. Oh, and just a tiny bit of glittering!

Once decorated, let your "door panels" dry

Glue onto your thick paper flap and finish with a little door handle

Now, on to the imagination....

What's behind the door?

A cat?

Somewhere special?

The possibilities are endless....

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by assisting your child with the processes needed to decorate the sticks and glue them onto the paper

- Extend this activity by encouraging your child to attempt as many of the processes individually that they are capable of. Have your child write (or dictate) a story using the prompt, "What's behind the door?"

- Pride- Making things that look visually pleasing as the end result help your child feel proud about what they have created.

- Talk with your child about what they are doing. This will help them understand the physical and mental processes they are going through as well as giving them the vocabulary to describe it.

- Use new language and descriptive words like, "imagination" This will help with their language development. Discover your own child's understanding.

- Read the book/s together on the topic of opening doors and imagination to give this activity more meaning and your child, more understanding, learning and depth.

- Demonstrate and discuss particular skills, such as gluing, sticking sequins etc. if your child is new to these techniques

- If you don't want your table covered with the entire contents of the glitter jar, stay with your child ;)




Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Here is a fun activity you could do at home to help improve reading comprehension and ensure that your children are understanding the meaning of the text.

As I've mentioned before, we are taking part in the MeMeTales Readathon 2012. This week the theme for the Read-a-thon is Animals. The specific animal books are available free on the website this week so once you've joined up you'll be able to read them online. 


We read the Donkey and the Wolf and based this fun activity around that book. You can use any story you want though!

Hello funny donkey

What to do:

Pick a story you've read before or just read.

Explain to your child that you are going to re-enact the story. Have the book (or electronic device with book) on the table where you are going to play.

Set the scene.

This is a really fun bit. You can make the set up as simple or as elaborate as you want. We kept it pretty simple. Some felt for the "meadow" and our characters made out of play dough. We found that adding little googly eyes really brought our characters to life.

Re-read the story & act it out.

Read the story with your child. After you have read each page use your play dough characters to re enact what has just happened on the page. Use this time to also talk about any words or concepts that your child may not understand.

What a scary looking wolf (haha)

 Our characters ready for the story to begin

Watch out Donkey, here comes Wolf!

Donkey has spotted Wolf!

What is happening here? You'll have to read the story to find out ;)

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by setting the scene and making the characters yourself. Then, with your child, help them re-tell the story using the props.

- Extend this activity by having your child make all the props themselves. 

- Mix it up. Once you've re-told the story as it's written, have your child come up with a new story using the same characters or have them change the ending. You can help them do this by asking some leading questions, ie "What do you think would have happened if......?" "Can you show me with your characters what might have happened?" etc.

- Encourage creativity by letting your child know that they can base the characters, etc. on their own interpretation. They don't have to look exactly as they do in the story. You can mix around the scene as well. For example, the book may not picture trees in the meadow, but if your child wants trees, go with it!

- Interest. So, how do you get your child interested to do this if they don't appear to be leaping up at your suggestions? Easy, start playing yourself. Show your children the fun they are missing and I'd be very surprised if at the very least they don't come over and watch you re-telling the story. Also.. this isn't rocket science but make sure there aren't other distractions like TV going in the background.

- Talking and Reading together will help your child develop their language skills, not to mention the incredible bond you create with them.

- Read more about Reading Comprehension for kids here and why it's as important a subject as learning how to read (decode text).

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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This is a simple activity that can be used in many different ways, over and over again!

Using cut-out foam shapes, a paintbrush and some water, your child can create scene after scene using a very fun canvas... glass!

 Cut out some basic shapes from thin foam

 Use a paint brush dipped in water to stick the foam shapes to the window

Arrange and rearrange the shapes to make different scenes and tell a story

Handy tips:

- To simplify this activity, simply provide the shapes, brush and water and let your child stick and move them on the glass

- To extend this activity, let your child help with the cutting of the shapes. Let them decide which shapes they need. Encourage them to make other objects using simple shapes ie. a square and a triangle to make a house

- Encourage your child to tell you a story using the shapes. Use this chance to talk about storytelling. "How does the story start, end?" etc "What is going to happen?"

- Let your child paint the foam shapes as an extension on this activity



Happy playing,
Debs :)

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This activity is just about letting your child choose, experiment with and get creative with a range of recycled materials and craft supplies.

Children need to be able to experiment with materials without always having a desired end result or a specific procedure to follow.

Allowing them to choose the direction of their play lets them be creative, use their imagination and follow their own direction.

Sometimes you can be amazed by what they come up with. Ideas you never would have had…

Set out a range of craft supplies and recycled materials along with glue, tape etc so that they can be easily seen and accessed by your child

 Straight away, Madeline knew what she was making... I didn't

 Feeling all the different materials and textures while choosing appropriate materials and using fine motor skills for her construction

Her end results. Little cakes! Next step; open a cake shop and start imaginative play.

Some tips:

- Use whatever craft and recycled materials you have on hand or let your child choose a selection of items

- Assist your child as much or as little as needed to simplify or extend this activity

- When displaying materials, I like to group them in like materials/textures. So for example, I would put paper items together, soft pompoms and cotton balls together, string and wool together, paddle pop sticks and other wooden items together, shiny things together etc so that my child can easily find items and subconsciously learn about grouping and categorising

- This activity can be repeated time and time again with a different end result each time. Mix around and change some of the materials that you provide each time to inspire new ideas

- Talk with your child about the physical and mental processes they are going through. Ask them questions to help connect their understanding and use vocabulary to give them words to describe what they're creating, eg. "What are you creating?" "Why did you choose that?" "How are you going to attach this to that?" "I love how you've arranged them on the shiny, silver doily" etc

- Remember that sometimes children just create, they don't need it to be a specific item at the end. It could just be an abstract creation. Allow this and don't push them to think they must make something "real."

Debs :)

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