New House Blocks

I was shopping on line looking for animal toys when I saw little wooden houses that I thought, 

"Hm, Raymond could make these and I could paint them".

 I also painted peg dolls to match the colour of the houses.

 Day 1 - I set the farm mat on the floor with the box holding the houses and dolls.

 They took their time pulling them out and exploring them.

 Once they set them down I placed them around the mat.

 Day 2 - I set the box in the middle of the floor.

I think the most fun, for them, is emptying the box.

 Once the box was empty I placed them in a circle with each peg doll in front.  By this time two of the peg dolls had gone missing.  Their mom eventually found them, a few days later, in their clothes hamper.

 They discovered that they can be knocked over with a bang.  Which the one standing loves because she is a thrower.

 I helped them stack the blocks but they discovered putting the dolls on top themselves.

 At clean up time I placed them all in a row under the tv stand so they were available to play with any time.

 That afternoon they explored a box of small blocks that were given to their mom.

They go well with our house blocks and peg dolls.

Book Play - The Napping House

The Napping House by Audrey Wood is one of my grand daughter's favourite books at the moment.

I love the sequence of the story and how it adds on as you read.

It inspired me to make these building blocks, each with a character on them.

She was excited to see the blocks all set in a tower.

But her favourite is the 'flea'.

We knocked down the blocks and then started reading the story,

adding the matching block for each page,

till we got to the top.

The back side of the blocks have the reverse picture,

when they are awoken by that 'wakeful flea'.

 

Down comes the tower again as we finish the book.

Only to be built again, this time without the book.

Dino Antics Day 6

It’s been over a week since the Dinos have been causing mischief in our classroom.  Each day as families arrive I hear a few more talking about the Dinos.  Wondering where they might be today.

They were well hid this morning.
                                 
               We found them inside the big box that holds our light table.
                             
                 They were being silly trying to wear our see through blocks.
                             
    
           We decided to help them build a castle and some towers.

Dino Antics Day 4

             
I saw the dinosaurs, before the children arrived, measuring themselves with our
                                    magnetic wooden blocks.
          
           
I didn’t know they were into math.  We’ll have to challenge them another day.
                       
Unfortunately it was very busy this morning so I didn’t see how the children
             discovered them but they did get some play time.
                  
I’ve made up this sign to post tomorrow to encourage the children to let me
                         know when they find the dinosaurs.

Pendulum Play

                             
                             We built a pendulum using PVC pipes.
 
          We learned to set up blocks and other items to knock down. 
          
We learned how to pull the pendulum back and let it go, or sometimes run with
                                       it through the blocks.
                   
                              Then we set up more blocks
                           
                                  and even more blocks
                         
                            Then we knocked them down again.

Snap Blocks

                    
A few months ago I shared the snap blocks I had made with a fellow StrongStart facilitator.  I finally had a chance to put them out for the children to play.

Once they figured out how they went together they started to build.

The fact that the blocks spin once they are together was a lot of fun.

Enjoyed watching these two working side by side then smoothly start working together.