It's Playtime is Learning Time!

I love to find fun ways to teach new concepts to the boys.

Henry's been really into counting lately, so we've been doing a lot of things with numbers. [He's even adding and subtracting, and even sometimes dividing without even knowing it!]

Here's 4 learning activities for the kids from last week's It's Playtime!

Above, clockwise from top-left:

• Mama's Little Muse had fun mixing primary colors with Shamrock Color Viewer!
• Adventures at Home with Mom matched shapes! Match little shapes to their big shape and make a collage!
• A number game from Mummy Mummy Mum has had me thinking of how to make this perfect for Henry! Roll the ball through a tunnel and add [or subtract!] the number above the tunnel to your score!
• Compare, predict and test. Play Create Explore set up a WAY to learn about WEIGHT!

---

It's Playtime is a community for play loving bloggers to share ways to play.

Read more »

Sand Sensory Art: 100th Day of Preschool

Henry had his first homework assignment for preschool.
To create the number 100 out of something.
[Not 100 of something, but to make the numbers themselves.]

We discussed it together to decide what to make.
[Henry told me his teacher made one out of corn!]

We decided we wanted to make one with dirt.
Well, its February in Iowa and it just snowed about six inches, so dirt wasn't to be found.
We settled on sand. [Thankfully, our sandbox has a lid!]

Henry created the number 100 while playing with sand, inside!
It was fun and George even joined in.

First, I had Henry write the number 100 on a piece of scrapbook paper.
I was amazed at how easy this was for him.
His writing skills have really taken off, even if they aren't correctly done all the time, I'm still impressed. [He often starts at the bottom of letters and numbers, instead of the top.]

I then traced over it to thicken up the lines.

Henry painted the numbers with glue. 

And then the real fun began.

The sand came out.

Henry decided to dig in it with his backhoe.

Loading it up and hauling it to his paper.

This literally took him well over an hour to do.

He covered his numbers with sand, as well as pushing the sand around to make piles and spread it out. He was pretty busy.

When all the numbers were completely covered, he picked up the paper and shook it off.

Ta-da! 

The number 100 was still there where he painted his glue! 

What's your opinion?

Does he get an E for effort?

Like it? Share it!

---

Current sponsors :  Fudoo Boards  :  A Mom with a Lesson Plan  :  CraftProjectIdeas.com : My Toy Smart

Design your own party invitations at Vistaprint.com

---

Kid Activity: Crayon Color Sorting

The kids and I were out shopping, actually doing it to waste time to pick up Dad.

And I came across these crayon shaped paint sample cards. 

I had no plan for them, but I've been seeing a million ideas for sample cards lately, and thought there must be something I could do with them. It seems I'm starting to hoard things without a plan lately. Yesterday's activity was with colored tape that I had no plan for either!

I did come up with a learning activity for the paint sample cards.

Fittingly, we sorted crayons!

I taped the crayon shaped sample cards inside the holes of a muffin tin.

I set out our box of mixed up crayons and Henry sorted them!

We found out very soon that the color of the crayon, or the paper on the crayon is sometimes misleading.

A black crayon has a very light gray paper.

Sometimes a burnt orange crayon looks brown.

Henry learned to test his crayons before deciding what color it was. 

A sneaky way for me to have him practice scribbling, drawing, writing... as well as his pencil grip!

[tee hee hee]

Henry went through each and every crayon we had.

Placing it in the corresponding muffin tin.

Henry observed that there were a lot of orange crayons!

And blues!

[We counted them then to see which had more, turns out orange did!]

A fun color learning activity, and a piece of art in the process! 

Like it? Share it!

---

Current sponsors :  Fudoo Boards  :  A Mom with a Lesson Plan  :  CraftProjectIdeas.com : My Toy Smart

Design your own party invitations at Vistaprint.com

---

Kids Experiment: How Much Water Does it Hold?

Henry wanted to do an experiment.

He said he'd come up with one for us to do after nap.

So, after nap, Henry collected his things for his experiment.

He brought a tractor and his wagons.

He told me his experiment was to pour water into them.

So I grabbed some cookie sheets in case of spillage.

Read more »

Kids Valentine's Day Craft: Strings of Hearts Chandelier

We're really getting into Valentine's Day now!

We added these strings of hearts to our dining room chandelier!

I cannot tell you all the levels of learning that Henry worked on when making these.

Read more »

Preschooler Activity: Counting Blocks, Building Towers

Counting blocks on their corresponding numbers. Sounds kind of dull, huh? So...

How do you get a preschooler boy excited about learning?

Bring in the big machines.

Read more »

Preschool Activity : Building Structures

Guest Post by    This post is written and shared by Emma at Science Sparks.  A simple, fun activity to do with a variety of ages and skill levels.  And you probably have everything you need right in your pantry!

  

When I brought out the spaghetti and marshmallows I think my children thought we were having some kind of weird and wonderful [to them] dinner!

In actual fact we were looking at structures and how to make them stable.

This is a great activity for children of most ages as you can tailor it to their understanding. I let my 2 year old just build whatever she wanted, and she had a great time working out how to put the spaghetti in the right places. With my 4 year old we were a bit more structured and tried to build a tower.

Read more »

It's Playtime! Science Experiments for Preschoolers!

After doing our lava lamp experiment, I've been on the lookout for more fun with science!

Especially experiments that my preschooler will find fun to do!
Here are a few experiments I found just on last week's It's Playtime! from my playdate friends!

[Science Sparks: What's Heaviest?]

Read more »

Science Experiment : DIY Lava Lamps

Make a lava lamp with your preschooler, and your preschooler love science experiments!

I can't promise that, but Henry has.

Lava lamps are simple to make, too.

What you need to make a DIY Lava Lamp:

Read more »

Toddler Activity : Fine Motor Skills with Pom Poms

Toddler play with pom poms!

Grabbing, pinching and poking at these little items are great for fine motor development!

Read more »

Science Experiment : Ice, Water, Vapor

Henry woke up asking to do an experiment!

When I asked what kind of experiment he'd like to do, he replied,

Ice!

Probably thinking of our sand and salt experiment on ice that we did for the 30 Days to Hands on Play Challenge [for Day 22, Investigate]. 

I didn't have anything prepared yet, but ice cubes.

So after asking some fans on Facebook [check here to see their suggestions for ice experiments].

I came up with a simple, yet fun, interactive science experiment with ice. 

Watching and causing the changes of the phases of water as an ice cube melts and turns into water.

It then comes to a boil and vaporizes into thin air, disappearing completely.

This is how we did it.

I set up three ice stations.

Two pots and one bowl.

Henry added six ice cubes to each ice station [great counting practice for him].

Read more »

Imaginary Play : Betty Lukens Felt Boards

Talk about bringing in some imagination to our days!

We received these awesome, very high quality felts from Betty Lukens Felts a couple weeks ago.

The Carville mat will not be left alone!

I once had to actually put it up out of sight so I could get the kids to listen to me!

Henry has used it for everything imaginable.

Cars, trucks, the ambulance, fire trucks, motorcycles, backhoes, semis, tractors, cement trucks....

There's everything to do on this car mat! 

Read more »

Learn Language through Play

Guest Post by

Kristina's is one of the moms behind the amazing blog, Toddler Approved. Kristina is the mom to a preschooler and a baby. I've featured Toddler Approved many times on It's Playtime, so a guest post swap on our blogs was a must!

She's very fun at sneaking in learning. Especially name recognition. One of my all time favorite posts at Toddler Approved is her name twister game. It seems she may have a boy full of energy, just like Henry! [Her number hockey game is also a must see!]

Today, I'm over at her blog. We're not only swapping blogs, we're swapping literacy ideas. Since I'm not an educator, this made me kind of nervous. But, Henry and I discovered a fun twist on reading that I think you should all give a try tonight. I've even challenged you all!

Kristina has a very valuable post written here that I am ecstatic to share with you: 

Five ways to learn language through play!

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

Hi friends! I am so excited to be visiting from over at Toddler Approved! Jamie invited me to share some tips about how to incorporate language learning into every day interactions with our children.

Read more »

Kids Experiment : Vinegar & Baking Soda

Henry was fascinated by the reactions the colored vinegar made when it hit the baking soda in this activity.

Shh... it was really a science experiment! 

This science experiment [that I found at The Adventures of the Smith Family while I was browsing the wonderful play posts of It's Playtime!] was super easy to set up.

Spread out some baking soda on a cookie sheet and color some vinegar!

While I was coloring the vinegar, I let Henry have some experimental play of his own with the baking soda first.
Read more »

Simple DIY Calendar for Preschooler

My preschooler doesn't really like preschool.

What do I do?

I decided to create some structure to our day.

I created a simple calendar of the week, so Henry can see what days he has preschool.

As well as seeing what he can do when he gets home from preschool!

[That's my hope, to get him excited about both preschool and an after-school activity.]

 

In addition, it helps him learn the days of the week.

Read more »

Learning Activity : Floor Puzzles

On 'one of those days' I needed something to have Henry do to get out of his slump.

I started putting painters tape down on the floor...

Not really sure what to do with it though.

I made squares.

Henry decided they were fields.

Henry harvested these fields, then put up wooden cylindrical blocks for bins.

Getting those blocks out gave me an idea!

We filled the squares with blocks, and made a homemade puzzle!

Read more »

Learning Activity : Cutting Straws

As a learning activity to help Henry learn to use a scissors better, 

I set out the above items on his play table during his nap. 

It includes straws, Magic Loops [plastic strings], and a pair of child scissors.

I really didn't expect Henry to be as excited as he was when he woke from his nap to find this bowl. 

Read more »

Learning Activity : ABC Mat Game

Using an ABC Mat and ABC Blocks a learning activity is formed!

Letting Henry lead the way, 

we put the ABC mat together in order of the ABC's and 123's. 

He used his hammer to pound in each of the letters to their corresponding blocks.

Once the mat was together, 

we gathered our Melissa and Doug ABC blocks and drew one block at a time.

Read more »

Stacking : Trial & Error

As we were playing the other day, 

I looked over, 

and saw Henry building this:

I was quite impressed!

Those are skinny blocks and they stood as tall as him!

I'm not quite sure what they are exactly, or where we even got them.

But this could easily be done with any kind of box. 

The thinner and taller the block, the harder it is.

I noticed as Henry was stacking them,

he began counting them as he put them on.

Read more »

Counting [1-5] : Grain Bins & Cupcakes

I've been having a little bit of a hard time getting Henry to want to do any kind of activity lately.

Especially anything that's remotely educational.

I brainstormed, trying to figure out what he'd like to do, but still work in some numbers.

This is what I came up with :

Counting with Grain Bins

I numbered five empty baby food jars.

[I'm overstocked right now, but I'm finding lots of uses for them lately. 

What do you use them for?]

I numbered both the sides and the lids of the jars 

with matching colored paper.

[I only did five so Henry wouldn't get overwhelmed, 

since he seems to be struggling with counting.]

I filled each jar with the corresponding number of marshmallows.

[I did this to show Henry the number to begin with so he wasn't expected to know it.]

I set out Henry's track tractor and wagon 'grain cart' along with the grain truck.

Henry's a farmer to the bone, 

so I figured this would get him more involved.

It did.

I set out a toothpick, as well, with the intention for him to poke the marshmallows 

to transfer from the 'grain bins' to the grain cart.

This wasn't fast enough for Henry, so he just dumped the bins out.

Henry loaded up his grain cart with all five bins worth of marshmallows corn.

Then transfered the corn to the grain truck.

Which then hauled the corn back to the bins.

When it was time to unload into the bins :

 Henry unscrewed each lid off, 

filled up each bin until it was 'full' (to the correct number), 

then quickly found the matching lid and screwed it back on.

[nice work for the fine motor skills, my toothpick idea didn't work, but this did.]

Henry had no problems with counting 1-3. 

At 4 he added a few too many.

When he got to 5, he realized he didn't have enough and was puzzled.

So, I redirected him back to 4 to recount.

He hauled the corn from bin to grain cart to grain truck a few times, 

until he eventually ate all his corn.

[He then found Cheerios beans to haul and did the same.]

I also found this nice printable for counting : 

Counting Cupcakes at FileFolderFun 

[same place where I found the ABC = abc matching printable.]

Henry pretty easily matched up the 

numbered cupcakes with the 'sprinkled' cupcakes.

[they're actually cherries on the cupcakes, 

but to make it more fun and easier for Henry to understand, 

I called them sprinkles.]

Henry first tried matching their colors, 

but the colors weren't right to match 

and he quickly understood that he needed to count them. 

He still struggled a little with 4 and 5. 

The printable includes cupcakes up to 10, 

but to keep Henry from getting frustrated, 

I only used 1-5.

I'm glad to have found a way to include Henry's interests in counting. 

Hauling anything is always a hit with him - 

the Grain Bin activity wasn't solely focused on counting, 

so it was much more fun for him.

And me too.

   - Henry is about 35 months -