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On the weekend, Mum and I were fortunate to attend the 'High Tea Brewed by Lipton' event at the Masterchef Dining and Bar in Melbourne. From the outset we were very excited about having the opportunity to experience some of the Masterchef goodies and enjoy a good chat together over a cup (or many!) of the new Lipton Pyramids tea range.

Our expectations certainly weren't let down on any front as we sipped and nibbled and chatted to our hearts content.

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We love getting hands on and sticking and pasting. It's also a great way for us to include some number learning as it takes many experiences with numbers to consolidate the learning.

Here I provided a fun Invitation to Play and Learn, (see end note on this if you want to replicate our exact poster)  intended to practice number recognition, counting, ordering, colours, subitizing, shapes and language using a few simple materials. My daughter who's just turned 4 also managed to include some sorting as well.

Ages: 3+

(See Handy Tips at the bottom of the post for ideas to Simplify or Extend to meet your childs' needs)

Materials: Large piece of paper for sticking your ice creams on, Triangle Cardboard "ice cream cones" with numbers written on each, Different coloured/textured/patterned paper circles (I cut mine with a 2" circle cutter but you could fold and cut simple semi circles by hand), glue stick. 

I presented the tubs and sat back to watch what she would do. 

She was quick to dive into the cones.

Straight into sorting them from smallest number to largest number without prompting

Pasting the cones down in order. I assisted her to leave adequate gaps between the cones as she decided she wanted to use the whole paper and fit all of them on. Spacing was too difficult for her at this stage

She couldn't wait to get to the "ice cream" The first thing she did was sort them into colours/patterns and then assign them all different flavours. There was lots of great language practice and creativity. 

Pasting the corresponding amount of ice cream scoops on each cone. Plenty of counting and one-to-one correspondence took place. 

For the numbers 6-10 I used "double cones" because I wanted two rows side by side for the larger numbers to help my daughter recognise some of the number doubles/combinations that make up those larger numbers. (eg 8 = 4 + 4)

(It was also handy because the paper I got out wasn't tall enough to fit 10 ice cream circles in one line without me cutting and sticking on extra paper anyway)

Our finished poster. Great for a bright, fun playroom or classroom display

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by starting with the numbers 1-3. This amount will be more managable for those with a more limited understanding of numbers. You could also pre-stick down the cones and just have children add the corresponding number of circles.

- Extend this activity by having children cut and label the cones themselves. You can also work on a larger scale with bigger numbers etc. Pick a larger number and have children make up different combinations of amounts of ice cream scoops on each side to equal that number. What if you had a triple cone? etc

- Focus more on number combinations and addition by only including 2 or 3 colours of "ice cream" and having children make different combinations to make a given number. 

- Makes a fun group project

- I included the dots on the cones for subitizing practice (where just looking at the 3 dots you can know it's 3 without counting them one by one). It's also good for children still working on number recognition as they can count the dots to find the number written on the cone.

- How you present an activity can be what makes it a successful activity or not. Sometimes just bright, colourful or interesting invitations can be enough to draw a child into the learning. Sometimes, if you are looking for desired outcomes, say, in an activity like this, you might want to encourage young children by inviting them to "come and make ice creams" with you. 

The number learning will come from that but first you can get excited together about the wonderful colours and dreaming of all the delicious flavours. 

Make it appealing, make it fun and children will be excited to learn.

Note - I was able to provide this activity as an Invitation to Play and Learn and as my daughter is quite used to this sort of play and I didn't have a set end result requirement. She responded in an expected manner and ended up, (with very limited assistance or prompting) with my "hoped-for" end result. However, she could have done something completely different and we would not have ended up with the same poster at the end. If you're after a set result (eg. making that Ice Cream Numbers poster, you may want to explain your expectations rather than simply provide the materials)

Looking for more fun NUMBER activities for kids?

Q-Tip Painting. Learning Numbers 

Printable Duplo Number Cards

Learning Numbers. Pretend Shop

Shopping Trip Number Hunt

Catalogue Number Find
Egg Carton Maths

If you enjoyed this post, please spare a second to give me a vote in the "TOP 25 Creative Moms". 

Just click the badge below and click "vote" on Learn with Play at home. Thanks!

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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I sure do love a good "Invitation to Play" You can read more about what an Invitation to Play is here.

The things I loved the most about this particular activity were the language development, creativity and imagination used through out the activity. Throw in fine motor skills, a sensory experience and more, and you have a good fun learning experience.

Ages: 2-6+

(M enjoyed this at 3.5 and you can see ways to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs at the bottom in the Handy Tips)

Materials: Playdough, pompoms (with tweezers), patty pans, feathers, chocolate tray (but you can use the materials you have on hand!)

Fine motor skills and co-ordination to separate the patty pans (you can separate for younger children)

Creativity, fine motor skills, colours, patterns

Learning new skills. Rolling to make a ball and applying pressure. 

More pressure, less pressure? Discovering what is needed.

Imitation

Talking about "layers" and "sizes" 3 layers. Large, medium and small.

Creation and creativity

Faces, expressions, emotions, creativity, imagination....

A whole wonderful sweet shop. Language and Imaginative play.

That's a lot of learning from one simple play idea and a few materials...


Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by providing larger pompoms to avoid choking hazards and leaving out things like the tongs. Helping preparing things like separating patty pans and demonstrating how to roll balls, etc, will all assist.

- Extend this activity by introducing some letter or number cards and seeing how these are used within the invitation. Pretend to be a customer who is requesting some sweets made using the letters of your name etc

- Problem Solving. Make your child aware of the problem solving involved. "How do you know how much play dough to pull off to fit in the containers/patty pans?" etc

- Use any other materials you may have around the house. Allow your child to request additional items they may require.

- 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, "layering" This will help with their language development.

- Supervise your child when using small items such as mini pompoms.

More Invitations to Play

Dried Playdough and Water

Pipecleaners, Playdough and Beads

Boxes and Tools

Pipe cleaners, Craft sticks, Playdough and Animals

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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This experiment allows children to see that air takes up room and is always present even though we can't see it.

Ages: 2 -12+ 

(see the bottom on how to simplify or extend to meet the needs of your child)

Materials:

• Empty water bottle 
• balloon
• straw 
• blu-tac (or similar)
• tray for catching the water (optional. You could always do it outside, in a bath, or near a sink)

Begin by blowing up a balloon and asking your child "What is in the balloon?"

Let the balloon go and talk about what happens.

Next: Take the empty water bottle and ask your child "What is in the bottle?"

Blow up the balloon again and place the mouth of the balloon over the empty bottle without letting too much air escape.

Ask your child, "Why isn't the balloon going down?"

Investigating to see if she can see why the balloon is not going down.

Explain that the balloon is not going down because the bottle is full of air so the air inside the balloon has no where to escape.

Now, to make the water bottle fountain

Carefully, with a pen, poke a hole in the empty bottle just big enough for a straw to poke through and seal with blue tac. (This is the hardest part of the activity and is best done by an adult. 

If the bottle is wet, the blu-tac will be hard to stick)

Ask your child, "What do you think will happen if we pour water in?"

Pour water into the bottle over the level of the hole.

(NOTE: Make sure that your straw is pointing up, (unlike what's pictured here) and that you fill the water so that it's level with the very top of the straw.. this is because water will level itself out so anything above the top of the straw will probably come out)

Plug any leaks that you have by squishing down the blu-tac. 

At this point with the water at the same level as the top of the straw, it will not come out.

This, you can see was quite surprising for her :)

Blow up the balloon, hold it closed and put the mouth over the top of the bottle.

Let go, and wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! a fabulous fountain!

She loved that you could see the balloon go down as the water streamed out the straw

She understood that "the air in the balloon pushed down on the water and forced it up the straw."

But she especially loved it when the balloon ran out of air and the water fountain did some funny last spits before stopping!

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by not questioning your child as much and just letting them experience the joy of the water spouting out the straw as the balloon. 

Do the very start of the activity with the air and let it rush out on their fingers or toes and then ask them what's in the balloon or tell them that what was in the balloon was air. 

When you show them the water fountain experiment, tell them that the air in the balloon is pushing down on the water like it did on their toes, so the water goes up the straw.

- Extend this activity by having your child make a prediction about what they think is going to happen. 

You could even extend as far as having them write a report on it or write it up properly with a hypothesis etc.

- Allow your child to manipulate or be in control of as many of the steps as they are capable of. 

- 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, "invisible" and "pressure." This will help with their language development.

- 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.

Want more Science Activities for Kids?

Here are some of our most popular science activities

Make Cloud Jars

Explore with Magnets

Experiment with Play dough and Water

Test Absorptions and make Patterns with Coloured Water

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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A fun and different way to encourage creativity through drawing is by mixing up the drawing tools and using different mediums as your base. Here we explored the use of highlighters on bubble wrap.

Such a quick and easy activity to set up. 

You will need: Highlighters, bubble wrap and plain paper

Setting up your "Invitation to Play" I put a piece of plain paper underneath the bubble wrap to make visibility easier.

 Noticing straight away that the plasticy surface of the bubble wrap allows ink to sit on top. It isn't absorbed like with paper

 Because of the see-through nature of the bubble wrap, Maddie kept checking underneath to see if the ink was on the paper

She insisted on continuing until ever part of the bubble wrap was covered

Design done. Now what?

Flip it over, rub over the other side and take off. Maddie was impressed.

Examining the patterns. Talk about why some parts are darker/lighter. Why did some parts work and not others? Which colour showed up the best? etc

Try drawing actual designs and printing those. You can reuse the same bubble wrap over and over.

 Prints can work really well

You're a star

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by just letting your child draw and be creative. Demonstrate printing and what can happen when they flip over the bubble wrap.

- Extend this activity by using to talk about other concepts such as symmetry. Try writing letters or numbers on the bubble wrap and see what happens to them when flipped over and printed. Challenge their problem solving. Can they find any letters of the alphabet that are the same when printed? etc

- 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, "absorb," "symmetry" etc.  This will help with their language development.


- Remember that children need to create and explore, they don't need it to be a specific item at the end or to have drawn a specific picture. Allow this and don't push them to think they must make something "real." 






Happy playing,
Debs :)

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