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Thursday, May 31, 2012

Colour

I have an adorable 2 years and 6 months old nephew who loves playing with cars. As I wanted him to learn and have fun at the same time at auntie's house, I came up with an idea of playing with car toys. I suggested to him that we could pick up all the racing cars from our toy box and count them. He loved the idea of spending time with auntie and have something important to do.

He placed the cars in a line and counted it correctly. 


To make things a little bit challenging for him, I asked him to separate the cars by colour, and count it according to its colour. He followed the instruction correctly and quite quickly as it is showing below.








It is a brilliant activity to practice maths, as well as colour recognition, similarities and differences, having fun, and also having quality time with your children.

Shapes

Children are absolutely amazing and they are always surprising you. They are extremely intelligent and most of them are seeking ways to please their parents and show how skilled they have become.

I was teaching and practicing writing with my son and he took the pencils, the pen and ruler and said to me: "Mom look, it's a square"!!!



He even went further and said: "I can also make a triangle"!!

He was very proud of himself for replicating the things I have taught him and also to see me pleased with his initiative and success.

This is an example that investing in our children's future and education is valuable, and nothing that we teach is wasted. 

Ants

I love taking my son out to play soccer  and play at the playground. This is a great way for them to socialise coupled with putting in practice the things they learn at home, having fun, keeping them fit, and also experiencing new things.

My two nephews were present, therefore I had 3 super energetic boys at home. It was a beautiful sunny day and I needed to have them out in the sunshine playing.

We went to the local playground and my youngest nephew, who is 2 years and 6 months old, discovered an insect and dashed toward me exclaiming: "auntie, auntie a Ladybug, a Ladybug" :). The 3 of us followed him to seek the Ladybug's whereabouts and found to our delight there were ants carrying a piece of cracker. They bent down to observe the ants and I captured the following brilliant photo.


I wanted to share this moment with you all because it was the highlight of my day. Seeing their little faces fascinated with their new discovery was simply priceless. They were so curious about them, they asked me so many questions, such as: what were the ants doing? why were they carrying the cracker? and where were they heading? We talked about the ants for awhile and we left to play again. Nature is amazing and I dare say there is so much to learn and teach.

Painting

Today it was a very hectic day as I was baby sitting my two sweet little nephews. The pressure to insure attentiveness caused me thinking of all the activities I could do to keep them playing together and learning simultaneously. As they are different ages, I decided to work with paints as this would foster team work, whilst, developing their work according to their respective levels. 

Keen super hero fans, I instructed them to make individual mask of their favourite super hero.  My son is 4 years and 9 months old, and my nephews are 3 years and 10 months old, and 2 years and 6 months old.

Materials: newspaper to cover the table, painting, glitter, paper plate, paper towel rolls and extra painting sheets.

I distributed the materials and I asked them to paint their own mask as they desire, not forgetting to draw the eyes and mouth.

 The final art was: the blue mask was Captain America, the white one was Spiderman and the red/orange one was Iron Man. They were very proud with the final result of this activity.


Then I told them they could do whatever they wanted with the materials were displayed on the table.


When they have concluded their activity, I asked each one of them what they have done, and the following was what they have said:


My youngest nephew said that it was "green". I guessed this was a tree for him and he decided to call it green.


I was quite intrigued with the work my oldest nephew have done, so I asked him and he said that it was "taco". I thought it was very creative to make art from his favorite Spanish food. 


My son painted another super hero, but this time he said that it was Spiderman.


This is a great activity for all children. They all love painting, and it promotes the development of team work, and hand and eye coordination.


Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Jellyfish

The theme of our day was to work with letter "J". Thus I decided to make a Jellyfish as it is fun to make and children find it fascinating. Before start drawing the Jellyfish, I explained to my son what a Jellyfish looks like. I showed pictures and videos on the Internet about the Jellyfish habitat, the way they move, and I also explained a little bit about sea life. 

My son enjoyed our pre-lesson about Jellyfish. He thought they were really beautiful sea animals. As Jellyfish have many different colours, he decided he wanted his to be blue.

Materials: paper plate, plastic cup, string, needle, newspaper and crayon. 

Firstly my son painted the paper plate blue. Then I made two holes on the cup and plate with a large needle to be able to pass the string through it. Afterwards I turned the cup upside down and folded the blue paper plate around the cup to shape accordingly. Following, I used a large needle to pass the string through the cup first and subsequently the plate. I tied the string at the bottom of the cup.

Finally, we cut 20 pieces of newspapers around 3 cm each and 45 cm long to make the tentacles. We glued it to the blue paper plate. I took the opportunity and asked my son to count the tentacles to practice maths.


This is how our Jellyfish looked like.


Making jellyfish was a great and easy way to introduce children to sea life, illustrate the letter "J", practice mathematics, or simply have fun with an easy craft.

Friday, May 25, 2012

Shapes

The weather was great today, thus I took my son to the park to play football, and play at the local playground. As we were playing I just had an idea of practising shapes using sticks. We collected a few sticks, and I asked him to count them to make sure we had 10 sticks each.

Materials: sticks.

I made a square and asked him to make one like mine.

After I created a triangle and he made one the same as mine.

I arranged the stick looking like a boot and he followed me.

Then he made an "X" and asked me to do like his.

He asked me to make a pirate boat. I first made one and gave him the instructions, then he made one exactly the one I had made before.

We also played at the sandpit drawing circles, boys, stars and houses. I didn't take pictures because the sun was amazingly bright and it wouldn't capture the picture on my phone. It was a great day at the playground. We didn't need to spend any money on this activity, and we practiced mathematics, shape making, and hand and eye coordination. 




Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Super Leaf

My sweet boy loves playing that he is a super hero, his favorite is Batman. We were working with leaves today, hence we decided to make an outfit with it, and he became "Super Leaf". We started to imagine and talk about the main role of this super hero. We discussed and decided that he would protect the trees, and his super powerful leaf bracelet was a great engine that would destroy the monsters who wanted to take the leaves away from humans. I came up with some ideas but most of them was all my son's ideas :)). I just loved the way their minds fly into imaginative creatures and scenarios, its awesome!!!! My son is 4 years and 9 months old. 

Materials:  leaves, grocery bag, painter's masking tape, piece of A4 paper, string, glue and scissors.


Firstly, I put the tape around my son's wrist and then he stuck the leaves around it. The idea of the bracelet was taking from the "I can teach my child" blog. It was a wonderful idea, he loved it. He played with the bracelet all day, he just removed it before taking a shower.

As most of the super heroes have a mask, we also designed one for our "Super Leaf" hero. I moulded the mask to fit  his face. We put glue around it and he stuck the leaves on the mask. We used a string to  tie the mask.

Finally we made a top for "Super Leaf". I had a paper grocery bag at home that I used to make it. I cut the sides to fit his arms, and bottom of the bag to fit his head. We put glue on it and then he stuck the leaves.


My son was very excited about this outfit and he wanted to play with it all day. I told him he could be   detective "Super Leaf", and help the police to find where the monsters took the leaves they had stolen. I used two plastic bags and put 10 leaves in each of them, and hid it around the house. My son took the role quite seriously and was searching around the house for it. 

When he found it, I asked him to count all the leaves he had found. 


I asked him to glue the leaves on a paper and write the numbers beside it as we needed to provide evidence of the amount of leaves the mosters had stolen :). It was a great way to practice maths.


Albert Einstein once said: “If you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairy tales. If you want them to be more intelligent, read them more fairy tales.” I love this quote and truly believe it works. Today was a perfect example of how much my child was captivated by the idea of being a Super hero and unveiling a mystery. He loved this activity very much, and I do recommend it to other parents to play with their children too. It is a great way to bond with your little one, and teach them at the same time. Have fun!!!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Shaving Cream

My son is very tactile, so I thought letting him play with shaving foam would be a great way for him to experience how it feels. I also taught him to mix colours to see what effect it would have as well as making Art. He is 4 years and 9 months old.

Materials: Shaving cream,  washable painting, painting brushes, baking pan covered with aluminium foil and leaves.

At first I put shaving cream on the tray and ask him to touch it and tell me what it feels like. 

He liked playing with it, he said it was fresh and soft.


He drew the initial of his name and a boy.

After that, I put colours on the foam and asked him to take his painting brush and mix it gently. He said that all the colours looked beautiful together :).

Then he started making circles around it. I asked him to stop mixing it as I wanted to try something fun.

I put a paper on top of the foam and asked him to press it down slowly with his little hands for a couple of minutes. I wanted to see the result of it. I read this activity on Shannon's Tot School website and thought it was quite nice.

He slowly removed the paper and that was the final result. He was pleased with it. We set the paper aside on another tray to dry.

As we also had worked with leaves today, I suggested to my son that we could pretend we were Scientists and make experiments. I asked him to take a few leaves, and mix it on the shaving cream, and squeeze it to see whether or not the foam would turn green. He loved the idea of being a Scientist so he was squeezing it really hard to accomplish his mission :).

Unfortunately, the foam didn't turn green, so he decided to make a boy with the squeezed leaves. He said it was his dad :).


This was a great and fun project, and I highly recommend it. Playing with shaving cream was quite messy, but my son really enjoyed it. He didn't like having his hands dirty for a long time, so every time we would finish a project, he would wash his hands :).


Note: As it was our first time playing with shaving cream, I didn't want to scrape the foam off the coloured paper as we wanted to see the final result. After waiting for a few hours, we were really pleased with it. It was a great piece of Art, we loved the texture and the colours.