Learn with Play at home

Invitation to Play and Learn with Plastic Food Painting

2013-05-23T13:01:00.000+10:00

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With both a toddler and a preschooler in the house, it can be difficult finding collaborative activities for them both that doesn't result in my 4 year old declaring that her 18 month old brother is "wrecking everything!"

They both love to paint though and when the experience is more about the process than the product, I find they are both able to have a great time creating and learning together.

Today we had some simple explorative painting and printing fun with plastic food.

Ages: 1+

(M=4, N=18 months)

Materials: Paint (we used a good washable paint with our toddler), a variety of plastic food and paper.

Before setting out this activity I had the children sort through their plastic food to find and collect objects that they thought could make an interesting shape or pattern when printed with.
We then sorted and divided them (for a little extra learning) into 2 categories, "fruit/veg" and "other" foods.

The Invitation to Create

Maddie learnt quickly the art of printing is not to have too much paint on the item otherwise you don't get a good print.

Talk about the colours and the food items as they experience them to teach or consolidate knowledge.

Rolly polly grapes. The different shapes of the materials determined how the children interacted with them.

Setting it out on a low table in the middle of the floor allowed them to move freely around the table to utilise different areas of the paper and easily access materials.

This activity can give you a good chance to talk about healthy eating and different types of foods.

Messy, colourful, creative, sensory fun.

She marvelled at the mixing and swirling of the colours

All done

Who can wash the paint off the plastic food? The kids can!

Dry and currently on the wall. We plan to cut out shapes later to use for making cards and bits and pieces.

Handy Tips:

- Simplify this activity by providing fewer paint colours and materials. 2 different colours and a couple of basic shapes is a good starting point. Or, simplify it even further by providing a single colour paint exploration.

- Extend this activity by challenging children to create patterns considering the different colours and materials available to them. What different patterns can they create? You could also ask them about what each shape reminds them of and what those shapes could be used for to create a picture.

- Good to Know. Try to choose plastic food that is sealed so that no paint gets inside. That way you'll easily be able to clean the paint off and reuse your plastic food as normal.

- Talk with your child about what they are doing while they are doing it. A simple commentary such as, "You chose the cheese. It is a triangle shape. Which colour will you choose? Blue!" etc. will help them to make the connections between what they are doing and the terminology used to describe it.

- Use new language and descriptive words like, "print", "mix", "swirl" "pattern" etc. This will help with their language development.

- Still feeling creative? Here are a few of our other arty ideas for kids.
(click on the pictures to go to the post)

Happy creating,

Debs :)

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8 Activities using Materials from the Recycle Bin

2013-05-21T11:12:00.000+10:00

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Welcome to TUESDAY TOTS for this week.
Brought to you by Learn with Play at home (us), Rainy Day Mum and
Growing a Jeweled Rose

This Week:

Learn with Play at home is featuring

8 Activities from the Recycle Bin

These great posts all came from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup
where we featured "10 Outside Activities for Kids"

FEATURED

When searching for materials to use with children, the recycle bin is a great place to start.
These fun activities centre around materials that have been pre-used. It's great to show children early on how we can look at reusing and re-purposing our waste to give it a new life and help keep us entertained and learning at the same time.

1. Save those juice cartons for some super cute Juice Carton Houses like Red Ted Art

2. Cut up an eggcarton to make gorgeous Egg Carton Mini Coptors like The Craft Train

3. Try your hand at gardening with these Milk Jug Planter from Inspiration Laboratories

4. Get creative and learn patterns and textures by Painting with Recycled Materials from Learn with Play at home (that's us)

5. Use recycled cardboard & popsicle sticks to make Popsicle Stick Sunflowers like Boy Mama Teacher Mama

6. You'll need a recycled jar to make Homemade Butter like We Made That

7. Pull out some recycled jars and containers to make Roly Poly Musical Things like Tiny Tapping Toes

8. Save those paper tubes for some Tube Play from Laughing Kids Learn

Congratulations if you were featured. You're welcome to grab a Featured Button.

Want more Recycled Materials Activities?

Here's another great round-up we did for activities using Recycled Materials.

(click the picture to go to the post)

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

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

You can 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 :)

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Playdough Flower Mat. Free Printable. Playful Maths.

2013-05-18T13:41:00.001+10:00

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

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

Together, let's make MATHS FUN!

............................................................................................................

Last week I shared Acorn Number Balancing Game.

This weeks Playful Maths Activities use the sensory material Play dough.

In this activity we are focusing on numbers, counting & addition.

Other skills involved include fine motor, one-to-one correspondence, subitising, counting-on, number recognition etc.

Ages: 2+ (Maddie is currently 4)

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

Materials: Playdough Flower Mat, playdough, dice, foam numbers (optional)

I presented this activity as an Invitation to Play so that she could choose which materials and combinations to use but I explained to her that I would love to see some petals on the flower and suggested she decide on a number somehow. I also suggested that she could pop her chosen number in the centre of the flower so she'd remember how many petals to make.

Being that she is 4 years old, the number 4 is often her first choice. She opted for rummaging through the foam numbers to find the number first. This is great for number recognition.

(we used foam number stickers but I asked her to leave the back on the sticker so we could change them over easily and reuse the stickers)

Developing fine-motor skills and strengthening hand muscles pulling of the playdough and rolling it into balls.

Squishing down to make petals. We talked a lot about size while trying to make petals that were fairly even in size.

Practicing counting to check we have the correct amount of petals. Encourage counting along as they make each petal for 1:1 correspondence.

We rolled 2 dice together to encourage simple addition and counting-on. I encouraged her to subitise the larger number and then count on from there.

(With the two 6's, you'd encourage them to point to the first die, say "6" and then point to the other die and count on "7, 8, 9..etc" instead of counting from 1 through to 12)

It was challenging to make 12 even sized petals to all fit around

When something is a little challenging, this is a good time for you to get all excited about it to help engage and excite the child too. Challenges can be fun and interesting but many children see challenges as something that's "too hard" or that they "can't do" just because they have to work at it a little bit. This can be a child first response so you just need to help demonstrate the right attitude and way to go about it. Offer all the help they need and make it fun! eg "Ooooh, 12! What a big number. Wow! How are we going to fit them all around? I wonder what size we'll have to make them? What do you think?" etc

Well done. You did it! (Offer tons of encouragement). Can you make the number 12 from the foam numbers? We used this to work on teen numbers and as 11 and 12 can be tricky ones for children, the more times they can practice, the better.

Throw the dice!

"Look, I'm putting the numbers on!" Adding corresponding foam numbers to petals.

Provide the materials and the children will find their own way to use them. Ways you mightn't have thought of.

The number 6

Yes, let's get creative!

Playdough Mats are great to use with children. They can form the basis of a whole lot of different creative and learning experiences and they're easy to make and swap and change around.

I must admit that I did try to get all fancy and whip one up digitally for you but I'm afraid my skills were rather lacking so I ended up just sketching one by hand to use instead. You're welcome to a copy if you'd like one. Just click the picture to go to the google drive and then print from there or save to your own computer. Once printed I recommend laminating it like we did to make it reusable.

Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by allowing your child to create free petals for the flower and then encourage them to count how many they've made. You can slowly introduce one die or some magnetic numbers etc

- Extend this activity by:

Encouraging the use of the 2 dice together for addition practice.
Add a 3rd dice for an added challenge
practice simple subtraction by taking away the smaller number from the larger number.
Using a number die to encourage number recognition
Have children write the number or even simple number sentences on the mat with a dry erase marker. These can be wiped off a laminated mat easily.

- Mix it up with different coloured playdough and add in extra creative materials such as sequins and craft sticks and beads

- Change the activity by using the mat with dry erase markers instead of playdough

- Use the mathematical language that goes naturally with this activity, such as, "how many," "size," "big," "small," "long," short," etc

- Did you see our Playful Maths with Natural Materials? Turns out they were very popular so if you haven't seen them, click the pictures below to check them out.

You can see the rest of our Playful Maths here. So far we've covered a range of easily accessible materials, many of which were recycled or came from nature.

Don't forget to join us next week where we're bringing you more Playful Maths activities.

Happy playing,

Debs :)

Follow the entire series on our

Playful Maths Pinterest Board.

Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)

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Quick and Easy No-Cook Playdough Recipe

2013-05-16T08:47:00.001+10:00

Play dough is a staple material for play at our house and as we use it very often, it's much more economical to make it ourselves then to buy it.

We have tried many, many different play dough recipes over the years but our favourite, and the one we always came back to was this no-cook recipe from the Imagination Tree. They have a secret ingredient they add for extra shine so be sure to check it out. We've modified the method slightly over time to make it so super easy that the kids could make it with you.

With playdough this soft, silky, quick and easy to make, you'll never need to buy playdough again.

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour
½ cup salt
2 tbsps Cream of Tartar
1½ cups of boiling water
2 tbsps oil (I use vegetable)
Food Colouring (optional)

Method:

Add your flour, salt and Cream of Tartar to a bowl

Add your oil, colouring (optional) and boiling water in a jug and then pour into your dry ingredients

You will need to work quickly for this bit as you want to add the water while it is boiling hot. Please assist children with boiling water and maintain constant supervision.

Stir all the ingredients until they all come together

When it is mostly all combined and looks similar to the above picture, tip it onto your bench for some good kneading.

You can lightly flour your bench to prevent the dough from sticking

We've found that the more you knead the dough the smoother and silkier it becomes.

If your dough is too sticky, just add and knead in more flour until it is a smooth consistency.

Time to play! Store your playdough in a zip lock bag or air tight container to get months and months of use out of it.

Details at a glance:

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour
½ cup salt
2 tbsps Cream of Tartar
1½ cups of boiling water
2 tbsps oil (I use vegetable)
Food Colouring (optional)

Method:

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl
Combine wet ingredients and add to dry ingredients
Stir together well
Knead vigorously
Play

Handy Tips:

- Too wet/sticky? Add more flour. Too dry/not coming together well? Add more water. Play with the recipe slightly until it works perfectly for you.

- We've found the more you knead the dough, the better it goes.

- As this recipe uses boiling water, please supervise children at all times.

- If you allow your water to cool before adding it, your playdough will not work properly as it will not be hot enough to dissolve the salt or bring all the ingredients together properly. We get all our other ingredients ready and then we add our wet ingredients as soon as the kettle is boiled so that it is still nice and hot.

- For an added sensory experience try adding different spices, essences, colours and glitter to your play dough. Each new batch can be something different and fun! Experiment and enjoy!

Here are some of the fun ways we like to play with our playdough

(Click on the pictures to go to the post)

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10 Outside Activities for Kids

2013-05-14T09:00:00.000+10:00

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Welcome to TUESDAY TOTS for this week.
Brought to you by Learn with Play at home (us), Rainy Day Mum,
Growing a Jeweled Rose and In Lieu of Preschool

This Week:

Learn with Play at home is featuring

10 Outside Activities for Kids

These great posts all came from last weeks Tuesday Tots linkup
where we featured 10 Kid-Made Mothers Day Gift Ideas

FEATURED

This week's link up contained a number of really fun and creative ideas for playing outside. While children will learn and be entertained by just getting out in nature, there are a number of great ideas to entice them outside and keep them busy for ages.

1. Make some simple DIY Outdoor Roads like And Next Comes L

2. Delight the kids with a Giant Water Blob like We Made That

3. Try a Tin Foil River and Ice Boats from Reading Confetti

4. Be creative & engage the senses with a Recycled Outdoor Music Station from My Nearest and Dearest

5. Make a Magic Tree from Learn with Play at home

6. Make Springtime Potions from Wilderness Sparks

7. Get creative with a Fairy Garden from Poppet and Little

8. Leap into the garden with these 5 Reasons for Gardening with Kids by Nothing if not Intentional

9. Learn about telling time with a Shadow Sundial from Create With Your Hands

10. Never run out of a backyard idea with Activity Rocks from KC Edventures

Congratulations if you were featured. You're welcome to grab a Featured Button.

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

(please read the guidelines before linking up)

Happy playing,

Debs :)

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Acorn Number and Balancing Game

2013-05-10T14:02:00.000+10:00

Are you following us on Pinterest?

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

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

Together, let's make MATHS FUN!

............................................................................................................

Last week I shared An Invitation to Play and Learn with Numbers and Nature.

This week we bring you another 2 Playful Maths Activities using Natural Materials.

In this activity we are focusing on counting and balancing.

Other skills involved include fine motor, coordination, subitising, counting-on, ordering etc.

Ages: 3+ (Maddie is currently 4)

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

Materials: Acorns and the caps, die, plasticine/modelling clay/blu tac etc

Our "hats." We had previously decorated some while painting acorns. You can decorate or leave plain.

Set your acorn "people" up by standing them up in some plasticine. You can leave them plain, draw on a simple face like this little guy, or go all out making Acorn Buddies like us.

When you're set up, roll the die and balance the corresponding amount of "hats" on top

Encourage subitising/subitizing by having your child practice saying and recognising the amount on the die without counting the individual dots.

Counting one-by-one as each cap is balanced

There were plenty of triumphs

And plenty of spills!

Here we attempted some ordering by lining up our little acorn men in a row and putting 1 hat on the 1st, 2 on the 2nd, 3 on the 3rd and so on. This was great as it also meant she discovered that we didn't have enough caps to be able to do all of them and she started figuring out how many extra we would need.

Handy Tips

- Simplify this activity by allowing children to attempt to balance 1-3 hats. You could also use a larger material (perhaps even their own head and real hats) if their fine motor skills aren't up to this challenge.

- Extend this activity by:

Adding another die to practice simple addition
Challenging them to see how many they can stack on the one acorn
Using a number die to encourage number recognition
Encouraging children to write about their experience or write the corresponding numbers next to their acorn people.

- Use the mathematical language that goes naturally with this activity, such as balancing, 1st 2nd 3rd, count-on, etc.

- Below are some of the previous Playful Maths posts from us and The Imagination Tree, using various everyday materials.

Playful Maths with Natural Materials

(Click the pictures to go to the post)

Playful Maths Bottle Top Activities

(click the pictures to go to the posts)

Playful Maths Egg Carton Activities

(click on the pictures to go to the posts)

You can see the rest of our Playful Maths here

Don't forget to join us next week where we're bringing you more Playful Maths activities.

Happy playing,

Debs :)

Follow the entire series on our

Playful Maths Pinterest Board.

Look where else we are. Are you following along? :)

New Here? Subscribe to get all activities sent directly to you