Welcome back to the "Playful Maths" weekly series brought to you by

  Learn with Play at home (us) and The Imagination Tree

Together, let's make MATHS FUN!

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Last week I shared Bottle Top Number Game.

This week we bring you another 2 Playful Maths Activities using Pipe Cleaners. 

Today's activity from us focuses on "Number Recognition and Number Formation" 

This activity also includes  counting,  ordering, number writing and fine motor skills. 

Ages: 4+

(M has just turned 4. See the bottom for handy tips to Extend or Simplify to meet your child's needs)

Materials: Pipe Cleaners, Scissors

(optional fishing line and coat hangers to make a number mobile)

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What's an INVITATION TO PLAY?

An "Invitation to Play" is probably my favourite type of activity for children. Firstly, it is open ended. This means that there is no set outcome or end result that must be achieved. It also means that the child has the freedom to work at their own level and ability.

The most exciting thing about an invitation to play is not knowing exactly what the child is going to do. Obviously there are certain expectation you may have from the activity, such as practicing fine motor skills, demonstrating creativity, developing problem solving skills, language skills etc, but often the other areas of learning are unknown until the child is experiencing them... and children have a way of doing things that us as adults, never thought of or expected!

An "Invitation to Play"

Ages: 2-6+

(My 3 year old enjoyed this activity. See Tips at the bottom to simplify or extend to meet your child's needs) (Just remember to supervise the use of the small beads with younger children)

Materials:  Playdough, pipe cleaners and beads

 I hadn't provided enough materials. Apparently a rolling pin is essential! (Well, for what she wanted to do anyway)

 "Look Mummy, I made YOU!" Don't I look lovely?

 Threading beads on pipe cleaners is a little fiddly

 

 You had to hold your hands and manipulate your fingers in so many different ways

 Proud of the threading she did

Ok, I admit I couldn't resist having a little play too

 Madeline, on the other hand, thought that making a "nest" to pour all the beads into was the way to go

 And the nest should have... a lid!

 Goodbye nest and beads! Where have they all gone?

Ah-ha! There they are :)

Time for some abstract art

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by using a larger size of bead so avoid choking hazards or to suit developing fine motor skills.

- Extend this activity by exploring letters, numbers, patterns and colours. Sort the pipe cleaners and beads into categories. Use them to create pictures. Use them to make letters or numbers in the playdough etc.

- Problem Solving. Make your child aware of the problem solving involved. "How are you going to find all the beads now?" "How will we get them all out?" "How can you keep the beads on the pipe cleaner?" etc

- Use a pipe cleaner or chopstick end to push the playdough out of the beads so they can be reused

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

- Supervise your child when using small items such as beads.

More Invitations to Play

Dried Playdough and Water

Boxes and Tools

Pipe cleaners, Craft sticks, Playdough and Animals

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Ages: 2-6+

Materials: Pipecleaners, string/line

In order to further develop fine motor skills as well as working on problem solving and creativity, I rigged up a line between 2 chairs*, hung a couple of pipe cleaners from it and presented my daughter with a bunch of pipe cleaners of her own as an Invitation to Play.
*If using in a classroom setting or with children who might pull on the string and drag the chairs down, be sure to affix the line between 2 areas that can't easily move.

Would you believe this simple idea of hanging Pipe cleaners on a string could keep your little one occupied and learning for ages? Well, in this case, it did. I loved the open-endedness of this activity as well as the room for so much extension and other activities. See "Handy Tips" below the pictures for more ideas.

 Your child could create their own pipe cleaner sculpture using this method

 Practicing different loops and twists to make the pipe cleaners stay on the line while pulling the string down and closer to her body

 Having the rope/string at eye level present a different view and experience for the child. It dictates where their hands need to be

The hardest part for Madeline was when she decided to make a "swing" out of the pipe cleaners. Attaching a pipe cleaner across 2 hanging pipe cleaners presented her with a problem solving challenge and gave her hand eye coordination a good work out.

Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by giving yonger children a much lower line or a small basket or collander to poke pipe cleaners in and wrap them around

- Extend this activity by hanging string at different heights or at different angles to present different challenges for children. Hang a few intersecting lines and add some extra materials like large threading beads or patty pans and watch their creativity 

- Use this activity to teach patterns, colours or numbers if you like. Just show/explain your focus to the child and provide the colours or amount of pipe cleaners required. 

For example:
- Instruct your child to hang/attach only Blue pipe cleaners etc,

- Have them hang them in a pattern (red, then blue, then green, then red, then blue, then green...what comes next? etc),

- Have them hang 5 pipe cleaners across and 3 pipe cleaners down 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.

- Demonstrate some of the techniques that could be used to attach and hang pipe cleaners on one another if your child is struggling or asks for assistance

Happy playing,
Debs :)

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Open ended activities (meaning there is no specific end result required and children can take the activity to whatever level they desire) are my all time favourite types of activities with children.

Whilst we always have a lot of fun learning new skills and creating decorative and useful items when crafting or cooking, providing an activity that I don't know exactly where it's going to lead is when I witness the most authentic learning and where I experience the most delight watching.

Providing 4 materials for my daughter to manipulate and explore on a mat is how I created this invitation for play. The rest was up to the child.

 Here is the invitation to play

 Bypassing all the animals, it was "plant making" time with the pipe cleaners and playdoh

 Using coordination and fine motor skills to wrap one pipe cleaner around the other

 The beginnings of a sculpture. Giving their brain a workout and using problem solving to make things stand up, stay upright, keep balanced etc.

 This is perfect fine motor skill practice for young children. Simply wrapping pipe-cleaners around craft sticks

 She spent a long time wrapping and wrapping and wrapping to create this beautiful "plant," using the playdoh as a stand

"I'm making a sun"

Some tips:

- Notice she didn't use the animals at all. Not once. This is fine. Allowing them to choose which materials they deem necessary to whatever they are creating is important for their own creativity and problem solving. Letting them know they don't have to use everything they see could be valuable for your child

- This activity really doesn't need to be simplified or extended. That is the beauty about open-ended play.

- 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.

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

- Use this time to demonstrate particular skills to them that they might be attempting unsuccessfully. Just learning to wrap something around an object might need some guidance. Wrapping a pipe cleaner around something solid and stable like a craft stick is easier than wrapping one around another pipe-cleaner. Start with the easier experience first and work up to the harder experiences.

- Make your child aware of the problem solving they are doing with questions and comments. "How did you get that pipe cleaner to stay on the end of the craft stick?" "Using the playdoh as a stand was a good idea to get your plant to stand upright" etc


Debs :)

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Today we made our "Little Critters" to live in our Pasta Shell Houses. My daughter has been asking me about doing these ever since we made the little "houses" so we finally got around to doing it.

This seemingly simple little activity really tests your child's fine motor skills and it ended up being a bit more challenging for my (recently turned) 3 year old than I had first imagined. For tips on how to simplify this activity for your child, please see the "Some tips" section below the pictures.



 To make our critters we used pom poms, pipe cleaners, mini googly eyes and glue

 The first fun job was to choose the colours for our critters body and then choose which coloured pipe-cleaners to use for the arms. Use this time to teach or reinforce colour knowledge. Maddie was very insistent on most of the critters having "matching" bodies and arms.

 Here comes the tricky part. Holding down the pom pom to wrap the pipe cleaner around the middle

 Carefully pull the pipe cleaner so that it's tight around the middle of the pom pom.

I then trimmed the arms to the desired length.

 Glue two little dots for the eyes

 Then stick on the eyes

Our little critter family with their pasta shell houses

Some tips:

-To simplify this activity you may need to put the arms on yourself and just let your child do the colour choosing and gluing the eyes on. Just using their pincer grip to pick up the tiny googly eyes can be quite challenging, not to mention the coordination required to hold the little critter while sticking them on.

- Extend this activity by letting your child do the trimming of the pipe cleaners themselves

- Demonstrating the easiest way to wrap the pipe cleaner around the pom pom first might save some frustrations. As might lending a helping hand here and there.

- Use this activity for counting practice and colour matching if you like.

- Make a play scene (playing environment) for your critters and their houses. Use this for imaginative play.

Happy playing,

Debs :)

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