Learn with Play at Home: literacy

Showing posts with label literacy. Show all posts

"We're Going on a Bear Hunt" Activities

Aug 28, 2013

We're Going on a Bear Hunt is a classic story, written by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. It has long been a favourite children's book of mine, from my days reading it in the classroom, to enjoying the rhythmic story with my own children.

Simple "Chocolate" Paint. Fun Sensory Literacy Learning 3 ways.

Apr 11, 2013

To help my daughter (aged 4) practice writing her name, I thought I'd give her a fun sensory experience to entice her to want to learn. It was a huge success and one of the few activities she has pleaded with me on more than one occasion, to repeat. As a result, I changed the experience slightly each time so now we can share with you, 3 different ways that you could make your "Chocolate" Name!

5 Fun Activities for Learning using Everyday Materials

Feb 5, 2013

Are you following us on Pinterest?

Welcome to TUESDAY TOTS for this week

This Week:

Learn with Play at home is featuring

5 Fun Activities for Learning
with Natural Materials

from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup

(if you missed it, we featured Valentines Activities with added learning)

FEATURED

Once again it was a another great week of kids activities linked up to Tuesday Tots. Here at Learn with Play at home we love to include as much learning in our Activities as we can and love exploring the use of all sorts of materials.
The activities that we've featured this week, all include one or more great learning activities using materials that are easily found and sourced.
I hope you enjoy them.

1) Nature Letters. I just loved this gorgeous gumnut alphabet from An Idea on Tuesday. I just wanted to play myself!

2) Clothesline Learning. I loved the 13 fun clothesline activity ideas shared in this post by Raise a boy

3) Name Letter Hunt. A great way to help kids recognise their names with a fun name hunt with shell letters by How to Run a Home Daycare. (I need to get shell collecting!)

4) Toddler Vegetable Exploration. To really get to know vegetables, I loved how Princesses, Pies & Preschool Pizzazz talked and explored the vegetables before painting with them!

5) Colour Matching Game. We love using bottle tops and here is a fun colour matching game using them by Fun Toddler Activities.

Congratulations if you were featured and thanks for linking up!

If you're featured you're welcome to grab a featured button. via the link.

We love using recycled materials and everyday bits and bobs

for our activities too. Here are a couple from us.

(just click the picture to go to the activity)

recycled activities, recycling for kids, kids activities

-----------------------------------

Now it's your turn to link up your posts for children aged 5 & under.

Remember to check back on all the great ideas that are linked up each week starting on a Tuesday.

Maybe next week you will be featured.

(please read the guidelines before linking up)

Happy playing,

Debs :)

Look where else we are :)

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The P.L.A.Y Group

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DIY Personalised Initial Shadowbox

Jan 21, 2013

This post is sponsored by Digital Parents

kids activities, DIY kids room decor, kids craft

I bought some little resin embellishments/buttons off ebay a while ago and have been trying to think of a cool way to use them. After our recent Alphabet Party I've had letters on the brain, so making a Personalised Initial Shadowbox for my daughter's room seemed like a good idea.

The great thing with involving your child in a project like this is that you're encouraging letter recognition, letter formation, fine motor skills, spacial skills, creativity, discussion, problem solving and more!

All whilst making some cool kids room decor or even as a great gift idea.

Ages: 3+

Materials: Embellishments (buttons, broken/small toys, old jewellery, little odds and ends, resin shapes, scrap-booking supplies etc), cardboard lid (painted black or colour of your choice), craft glue, lead pencil, Scotch Restickable Strips (for mounting)

Use your pencil to draw in your letter.

Apologies for all the rubbing out marks on mine.

Tip: Use a ruler for straight lines or cut out a template of paper first. You could make the outline on the computer and print it out for a perfect shape or just go freehand.. just make sure you have an eraser.

Glue inside your letter. It's a good idea to try and trace the outline so that it's clear for children where they will be sticking.

Time for sticking! Talk about putting the larger embellishments on first and how to fill the gaps.

Practicing the pincer grip to pick up small items.

Problem Solving. Here is a small gap. What could fit here? Finding something appropriate.

When we filled in all the gaps with the resin embellishments we decided to use some sequins to try and fill in the little gaps.

(I also tossed up with the idea about using glitter for the gaps instead... perhaps on our next one)

When it was all dry, I stuck on some Scotch Restickable Strips...

And just pressed it against the wall.

I love how it sits flat up against the wall unlike if I used hooks or sticky-tac etc. and can come away with no damage unlike pins.

We love creating unique decor for our rooms. It gives them that nice home-made, different touch from all the store bought items and gives my daughter something to feel proud about.

You can see the simple spotty lanterns that me made.

I love how the box lid provides such a simple frame for the piece. You could, of course, always make the same thing on a piece of paper and frame it for an even more professional look.

Did you enjoy this project? Feel free to share it with others.

Scotch Restickable Giveaway for Australian Readers*

*this giveaway is now closed and the winners have been notified.

3M have generously sent me one of their full range of the Scotch Restickable products (as pictured below) to send to an Aussie reader.

To enter, simply leave a comment on this post telling us what you'd be sticking up with Scotch Restickables.

I also have 20 samples to send out to the first 20 Australian Readers to leave a comment on this post.

Product Info:

• The Scotch Restickable Mounting range is a unique and innovative

light weight mounting product (This is the heaviest thing I've hung with them. I'm using them mainly for photos, drawings... all that sort of stuff.)

• Scotch Restickables can be washed with soapy water, rinsed and air

dried to restore stickiness to be used time and time again (I really love this about them!)

• Unlike other light weight mounting products, Scotch Restickables sit

flush - allowing you to display your artwork proudly (no more blu-tac bumps!)

• When removed Scotch Restickables remove cleanly and will not

leave oil residue on the surface area, making it a risk free product to

use when it comes to decorating

• The Scotch Restickable Mounting range is available in a variety of

sizes, tabs, strips and sheets

• The Recommended Retail Price is $4.95. (not much considering you can use them over and over again)

• Can be purchased at any Officeworks or Bunnings store nationwide

Terms and Conditions

- Apologies but this giveaway is open for Australian Residents Only

- The competition ends Tuesday 29th January, 2013 at 9pm (EST)

- The winner of the full range of Scotch Restickables is chosen based on originality and creativity

- Entrants will need to provide a valid email address

- Winners will be contacted via email. If you have not left a valid email address for us to contact you with, someone else will be drawn instead. Winners will need to get in contact and provide their postal address within 48 hours or the prize/samples will be reallocated.

Happy Crafting,

Debs :)

{Disclosure: this is a paid post for 3M sponsored via Digital Parents Collective. We received a Scotch Restickable range to review for this post. Opinions expressed in this post, as always are purely my own}

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Super Simple Christmas Cards

Nov 29, 2012

This Christmas have your child (yes, even toddler) make some of these Super Simple Christmas Cards

Ages: 2+

(M was 2 here. See the Handy Tips at the bottom for ideas to Simplify or Extend to meet your childs needs)

Materials: Cardboard (for cards), green paper, sequins, glue

Cut triangles (or have your child do it, M cut these ones) of green paper and then let them stick them onto the cardboard cards and then embellish with different sized, shaped and coloured sequins.

Picking up those slippery little sequins is great practice for their Fine Motor Skills and choosing and placing their sequins is great to develop their creativity and to talk about Colours, Shapes and Sizes.

They were incredibly simple yet came up looking great. I loved the different colours and designs she chose.

To learn more about the benefits of working on the inside of the card together, see here

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by pre folding/cutting the cardboard cards and green triangles. Provide together with the sequins and allow your child to paste and place them. Encourage them to think about who each card might be for first so that they can consider and choose colours and designs with the person in mind.

- Extend this activity by having your child work on the folding and cutting of the cards and triangle trees themselves. Add extra craft materials that they can get creative with.

- Use this opportunity to talk with your child about Shapes, Patterns, Colours, Sizes and other topics that may come up in the course of the experience

- Add numeracy skills by challenging your child to use a different amount of sequins on each design. This will encourage counting and concepts of more and less.

- Write the inside of the cards together. Even if your child is pre-writing, involve them in the process and discuss the types of things included in Christmas cards together.

- We share more ideas and tips about making greeting cards with kids here

Happy creating,
Debs :)

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Super Simple Toddler Made Greeting Cards

Nov 15, 2012

Why buy greeting cards when your kids can make them?

Whilst this is still a simple craft and we're working on our Creativity and Fine-motor skills, ultimately, the most valuable part about making greeting cards with children, is the Literacy involved.

Ages: 2+

(M was 3 years old. See the Handy Tips at the bottom for ideas to simplify or extend to meet your childs needs)

Materials: Carboard, foam stickers, letter stickers

(Obviously you can use whatever you have on hand)

Fold/cut your cardboard to make the right sized card. (We used black sparkle cardboard here... try getting black cardboard, lightly painting with glitter glue and leaving to dry)

Have your child decorate the front of the card as they like using the provided materials

We actually found a Happy Birthday Sticker. If we didn't have that, I would have had my daughter spell out the words using the provided letter stickers.

Finding the letters of "Uncle Dave" provided a great opportunity to practice letter recognition and spelling

*hint.. for younger children, write the words they're wanting to spell on scrap paper and let them match and find the letters to spell the words

The inside of the card is as (if not more) important to the front.

While they are very young, always encourage them to draw (remember this is pre-writing) something and to tell you about it. Keep bringing their focus back to the purpose of the card and who it's for.

As my 3y/o daughter is pre-writing she then dictates what she wants the inside of the card to say and I write it in. (Word for word! So cute haha)

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by helping suggest to your child the type of things you would expect to say on the type of greeting card you're making (eg.. most birthday cards use the words, Happy Birthday etc). Write the words for them and let them find corresponding letters to practice their letter recognition. Focus on the creativity and design and use this chance to start teaching them about letter writing.

- Extend this activity by encouraging your child to brainstorm ideas for the front and inside the card. Have the child write the inside of the card themselves with any assistance needed. Work on letter writing and start to encourage them to see the punctuation used.

- Letter Writing is a style of writing that you can teach your child about. Start with the basics of how we start and finish a card/letter (ie. Dear _____ , From _______ etc). Talk about different variations and how you might write to someone you didn't know well as opposed to someone close to you.

- Mix it up by using a variety of different craft materials to embellish your cards. Eg sequins, patterned paper, ribbons etc.

- Talk with your child about what they are doing. Encourage their creativity and use this time to discuss colours, patterns, borders etc. It's also a great time to talk to your child about the person they're making the card for

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Learning Outside with Chalk & Water

Nov 1, 2012

When ever we can get outside of the house or classroom, we try to make the most of it.

A bright sunny day is just calling for some outside play and learning for all ages.

I started with an Invitation to Play with the materials pictured above.

Ages: 6 months-6 years +

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

Materials: Chalk, water, paint brushes, foam stampers

An 8 month old and 3 year old dive right in. Both practicing different skills and learning from the same yet different experiences.

Above there are fine & gross motor skills being practiced, sharing, painting, sensory experience with water, writing, stamping, concentrating, observing.

Learning about gravity and properties of water. The water runs towards the lowest point.

Painting water over the top of chalk gives it a strong and vibrant colour. Use descriptive language.

Look... no strings! Baby learns by chasing around a stick of chalk. The curved surface makes it roll.

Practice writing or spelling

Just making footprints? No. Learning about patterns, shapes, printing, mirror image and evaporation!

Learn more about numbers. Writing them, tracing them, counting and stamping the corresponding number.

Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity for younger children by providing as an "Invitation to Play" and seeing where they go with it. There's no need to push a specific literacy/numeracy focus. You can see the learning they can get out of simply exploring the materials.

- Extend this activity for older/more advanced children by encouraging them to write spelling words, play giant games of tic-tac-toe, work on group problem solving, represent harder maths equations on the concrete, test evaporation in different weather conditions, write brain maps etc.

- Always supervise young children when outside, around water or possible choking hazards.

- Mix it up by adding different materials to investigate and explore outside in the same way. Try the same materials plus a pile of twigs, or without chalk and only water, add pebbles/stones/leaves...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 chalk outside to learn more about the parts of the body.

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Learning Sight Words. 10 Fun Ideas

Oct 11, 2012

sight words, literacy activity, kids activity

Once your child has begun learning to read, there will come a time when learning and practicing Sight Words is something you'll be interested in.

Why learn Sight Words?

There are a number of reasons for learning sight words but put simply, two of the main reasons would have to be because:

- there are certain words that you can not "sound out" using the basic letter and blend sounds; and because

- having a repertoire of known, commonly used words will help your child's reading to flow and therefore aid them in not just reading text, but more importantly, understanding and comprehending text.
The less your child has to stop to sound out a word, the more the text will flow and the easier it will be for them to read, (not just to decode symbols) for meaning.

SIMPLE SIGHT WORD GAME

"Spot-a-Sight Word"

M (aged 3) is very keen to read. She knows all her letters and letter sounds (which came about from her own interests and our activities. See here for more activities to help learn letters) and is now moving onto learning some of the common used words.

NOTE: At this stage and age, I do not force the learning. When she is interested and engaged, we play and learn, when she's had enough or it's not fun or she's not interested, we stop. There is no point pushing it at this stage as they will only resent and resist learning if it's not fun

Today's focus was on the word "The/the"