Dog's Colourful Day

Our latest book to have fun with is Dog's Colorful Day by Emma Dodd.

You can find the felt board pattern at Making Learning Fun.

We read the book several times before I introduced the felt board pieces.

I initially used pompoms for the coloured dots.

They worked great for her little fingers,

and for matching to the pictures.

 But they rolled off the felt board when it was standing up.

So I made coloured felt circles for her to use.

They worked great, regardless of where she placed them on Dog.

A bonus was that they worked well for matching to the pompoms.

Her favourite part in the book was the yellow pollen falling off the bee.

I think it is because we were seeing so many bees in our raspberry bushes at the time.

Opa Brought a Train!

Opa came to visit last week and he brought a train.

 He carried the big bin into the back yard and started unpacking it.

The little one spotted the people 

and began to put them in the cars.

And out again.

Opa started laying the track under close supervision and looks like strong suggestions.

She was enthusiastic and a big help.

The track is together and out comes the train.  

Hook them together and watch them go.

 Time to play.  

Load the people on the cars then give the red caboose a little push.

Oh no! It was too hard of a push, the caboose derailed.

No worries, Opa is here to set it back on.

 Next came a lesson in operating the train.

She learned fast which button made the train noise.

As Opa operated, the little one explored the buildings.

In the afternoon we found a box and made a tunnel.

 

Then a few of her stuffed animals got to go for a ride.

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Learning Colours Through Playing

I believe that children learn best through discovery and practice;

being able to repeat a task over and over.

I also believe that how we create an environment lends itself to discovery so I like to make homemade games and toys to encourage her interests.

Here is a new one that has a focus on putting things in and taking things out of containers.

This toy is made from a shoe box.

I painted peg dolls red, blue, yellow, orange, green and purple.

I traced around the flat bottom of the peg doll, on the cardboard box, and then cut out the hole.

Once she took all the peg dolls out of the box we flipped it over so she could see the holes.

She really enjoyed fitting the dolls into the holes.

Yes I coloured around the holes thinking as she grows and matures then we could play a colour matching game. She is not ready for that.

She uses her fine motor muscles in her hands to pickup the doll, set it into the hole and then push it through.  Sometimes it was a challenge.  Sometimes she tried to put too many dolls in the same hole and had to problem solve what to do.

An unexpected skill she practiced was putting the box back together.

Either putting the lid on top of the box or putting the box on top of the lid as shown above.

Another thing she practiced was trying to stand all the peg dolls up together.

Here she is signing "fall down" although she signs it with only one finger rather than two.

One toy can provide a lot of fun and learning.

June Treasure Basket - Dress Up

This month's treasure basket I decided to bring some dress up clothes and accessories.

She had fun pulling each item out of the bag and trying some on.

Like butterfly wings,

a puppy dog cape,

 a tutu,

glasses (because she has been quite interested in mine),

 construction worker equipment

(like dad might use at his work)

and a little red riding hood cape (because we have been reading that story).

There is more in the basket but she didn't show interest in playing with it.

She was most interested in the doctor's bag and taking out all the equipment inside.

In the two weeks since bringing this basket she hasn't shown much interested, other than the medical bag, but it is now available for her to discover as her interest grows.