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!

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

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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!

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It's Playtime: Some Favorites

Sometimes I just like to look through It's Playtime and find some great ideas to bookmark [on Pinterest] for the kids to do.

Okay. Most of the time. That's what I do.

Here are a few that I'm pinning to do with the boys in the near future.

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Counting Activity: A Maze of Numbers

I taped out a maze on our floor with masking and painter's tape.
I simple labeled it with numbers, not necessarily in order.

[By the way: that was the extent of George's participation in the maze activity. Sitting on the maze.]

I used the tape itself as the road of the maze [instead of between the tape lines].

I made sure to include numbers that Henry wasn't quite as familiar with [to fifteen].
He's got 1-10 down pat, but starts getting confused at 13 [skipping to 16, then 19].
He also has troubles recognizing any double digit number, so this was great practice!
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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.

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Holiday Craft : Coffee Filter Streamers

Creating streamers for the 4th of July was the last thing on Henry's mind.

I tried for many days and many approaches to create these.

Sometimes I just don't win.

Okay, a lot of times.

Then, I saw a post that linked up at It's Playtime! from Adventures of the Smith Family. 

Spin Art Patriotic Garland!

With a spinner on hand and yet to try spin art.

This is my opportunity to entice Henry.

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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.

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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.

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Activity Course with Balloons

Every child I know has a fascination with balloons.

At every birthday party, every kid wants to take one home.

They are usually the highlight of the party.

[unless you have one of these at your party.]

So this week I thought :

Why do the balloons only come out at birthday parties?

They bring lots of entertainment in just being balloons.

But there's so much more you can do with them!

[Check out the previous post : Balloon Badminton.]

I asked Henry what he wanted to do today.

As usual, his answer was to build a road with his mat.

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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 - 

Counting Cheerios & New File Folders

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When Henry was gone today helping Dad work, I set out this book and some cheerios.

The Cheerios Animal Play Book

The book has blank spots to put cheerios that are 'missing' and also suggests counting how many are needed. 

I was surprised that he actually got excited to count Cheerios! And he didn't eat any! [Granted, it was just after supper]

I also found some more exciting printables for file folders at 1+1+1=1 (wow, that name is hard to type)
I printed out two for today.
Big Machines and Farm
These 'Tot Books' have a variety of activities, such as:
Name RecognitionColoringCountingSize SequencingPuzzlesMatching PairsMatching Heads and Tails

Henry did better with size sequencing this time, 

maybe because it was tractors instead of cupcakes!

He still had a few goofs, but overall, a huge improvement!

He is excited his name is on there and likes to read through the letters.

I never thought of this as a skill to learn now.

He already knows his name starts with H.

For some reason, 

I think this will help him learn that reading is from left to right 

(since he knows where to start in this situation).

We also broke out the first file folder we tried : 

ABC = abc

Henry still had troubles with d, b, a, e, g the first time around.

But by the 2nd time, 

he had it down perfect!

Oh, and we DID get outside today!

Sorry this picture is horrible. 

We went for a walk this morning when it was still only 50.

It got sunny this afternoon and I'm sure hit 60. 

It was a gorgeous day!

   - Henry is about 34 months - [166]

Patterning and a Heart Hunt

We didn't just do crafts to get ready for Valentine's Day... 

I've noticed other blogs with toddler's doing patterns. I've never once tried to explain what a pattern is to Henry. Things like that don't cross my mind unless someone points it out to me.

I ran across this super cute printables at Pre-Kinders and thought I'd give it a try. There's simple ABAB patterns and more difficult ones like ABBABB or AABBAABB.

We only did an ABAB pattern and had difficulty with that.

 I did most of the patterning you see in the pictures.

I don't see it as a loss for the activity - just something I now know that Henry doesn't yet know.

  

I can think of lots of everyday things 

to point out patterns:

shirts

rugs / blankets

The Cat in the Hat (his hat)

... and so on...

Remember the Valentine Countdown Tree?

Henry's been taking a heart off the tree each day.

Today I decided to do a heart hunt with those.

During Henry's nap quiet alone time, 

I hid the hearts around the toy room and living room.

I didn't so much as hide them, 

but tape them up in obvious places that he can plainly see.

But he had to still look for them.

Henry had a blast searching for these. 

I numbered an egg carton to 9 (we're only to day 9 today...)

(Edited to add: Wow, just realized today is the 10th. Completely just lost a day!)

When he found one, 

he put it in the correct spot in the egg carton.

I'm going to continue to hide the hearts each day until Valentine's Day, 

adding the latest heart we took off the tree.

- Henry is about 34 months -