Building Towers

I found this tower building toy at a thrift store.  I'm trying to use less plastic toys but this one challenges the children in different ways.  First they have to figure out how to set it so when they push the button to knock it down that it will.
  
Then they have to work on building it up, balancing each layer on top of the other so they don't fall before they want it to.
                     
  
I encouraged the children to show me how to build a tower and I copied theirs.  I noticed soon after a couple of parents doing the same thing.
                   
The surprise, when they press the X, and watch the tower tumble was the best part.

Gingerbread Creation 2015

Each year our StrongStart centre creates and donates a gingerbread creation to our local Boys & Girls Club’s fundraiser.  We always share the fun with our big buddy class.

This year I found our inspiration on Pinterest and shared it with our big group.
     
     
                             
      We met for a planning session and drew Christmas trees.

 
                       
The next day the StrongStart children made gingerbread squares that will be used
                     to make a wall around the trees.
  
            That afternoon the big buddies made rice krispie trees.

       
        
               
This week we got together to decorate the trees.  It was so tempting to eat the candy instead of putting it on the tree but our big buddies were great models and the trees were well decorated.

    
                    
Tonight, at our evening session, the walls went up and we decorated around it with
                                             lollipops.

       
              
A final step was to add snow.  We sifted icing sugar to give a snowy effect.
                   Some of the trees looks like a storm hit.

Tube Dino Skeletons

A simple, quick activity I set out this morning after I received a donation of a bag of
                                                tubes.
                    
                
    
                                    Adding a head and teeth.
          
                                     Tyrannosaurus Rex

Ready, Set, Learn 2015

Ready, Set, Learn is for families with three year old children to connect with their neighbour school and learn ways to support their child's literacy and numeracy development. It occurs once a year.
       
Our Ready, Set, Learn event was based around the book Bark, George by Jules Feiffer.  We started by reading the book together then the children with their grown ups played at a variety of centres. We ended the session with retelling the story with our dog puppet.
         
                             
The first activity was based on the topic of talking.  The parent picked a sound word, made the sound and the child picked the animal that makes that sound.
       
                             
We coloured books that I found on Making Learning Fun.  They took the book home for practicing retelling a story.
       
     Another activity from Making Learning Fun was a shadow matching game.
     
                             
A fun activity that the children really enjoyed was playing with the animals and deciding where they might live; forest, water, jungle or farm.
       
         
                                
For an activity about numbers we created a tub of animals in rice.  The children sifted through the rice to find the animals.  They sorted and counted each animal.
                         
                                     
A matching game to encourage taking turns and getting along was found on Making Learning Fun site. 
                    
                      
             We had fun singing “Knife, Fork, Spoon, Spatula” for an active game.

The information sheets can be found on the Ministry of Education site.