Play Trays Week #17

Here they are...

Butterfly life cycle cards with matching toy pieces.

Hidden butterflies.

There were only four butterflies hidden.

Some children kept looking under the same cone.

It was suggested that the cones be turned over after

looking under them.

 Frog counting cards

with little frogs to match.

And finally...

 Poking coloured sticks into an old cheese shaker.

Snail Moving

The snails moved into their garden today.

14 snails!

We kept nine.

I love snails, 

as I'm sure I've said on every post I've done about snails.

I love watching them move gracefully along

balancing their home on their back,

tentacles stretched with eyes searching.

Children are intrigued by snails.

 How they move,

how they feel when they are touched

or when they touch us.

How they can hide so quickly for a creature

that moves so slow.

And why do they look different?

Some have one stripe while others have many stripes.

 Our babies.

We'll probably won't see them again because

they are so small

and they'll be lost in the tall, tall grass.

The children love taking care of the snails.

Making it rain.

Oops I'm a Week Behind on Trays

Here are the trays from a week ago.

Little shaped containers which the lid comes off.

Works on fine motor and mathcing but also shapes.

The next tray contains a flower shaped ice cube tray with flower rings

 and a tweezer.

 Works on colours, patterning, sorting

 and fine motor.

But also curiosity and wonder.

I have a set of these books, all with different topics.

Each page contains a riddle and a matching puzzle piece.

 Focus is on literacy, puzzle solving,

and matching.

This final tray is a favourite.

 Coffee can with lid that has holes cut into it.

The holes are the same size as the hair rollers.

 The children figure which hole the curler fits into best.

It was interesting to watch the trial and error of figuring out the right hole.

Even if the smaller curler fit into the bigger hole they would keep trying till they found the correct hole.

It also lends to sorting.

I found this last idea over at Alljoinin

In the Tall Tall Grass on the Light Table

Love this book.

The children love bugs.

So I laminated tissue paper in the shape of the grass from the book.

Then added bugs and other creatures that are found in the book.

As the week progressed I added fact books about some of the creatures.

Measuring Caterpillars

This week while we watched our caterpillars grow, 

I challenged the children to measure them.

Each day a child would pick a caterpillar and after looking at it,

they would thread beads onto a pipe cleaner.

Then record the number in our journal.

 First we would estimate how many beads we would need

then after measuring, remove or add beads as needed.

It won't be too many more days before most form their chrysalis.

Dragonflies

We made dragonflies for a craft.

I saw this idea over at Sun Hats & Wellie Boots.

The children loved it and the parents appreciated that their child could do it on their own.

All you need are pipecleaners, pony beads and wings cut from a clear material.

I used overhead transparencies.

This is what we did.

 Fold a pipe cleaner in half and thread a bead to almost the end.

 Slide the wings between the pipe cleaner.

 Thread another bead onto both sides of the pipe cleaner

to hold the wings snug.

Add as many beads to the body as you wish.

Then finish it off by decorating the wings with permanent markers.

Then make your dragonfly fly.