Roll a Dice and Decorate the Tree Game

I have been teaching Baby Sign Language classes to parents and educators this fall and I wanted a game that would include numbers and colours.

With Christmas happening soon I thought it would be fun to create a game that I could try with my grand daughter.

So that is how Roll a Rice and Decorate a Tree game came to be.

 The dice are made from small wooden cubes.

The tree is cardboard covered with felt.

And the lights (or leaves) are felt too.

The idea is to roll both dice, count the dots, decide on the colour rolled then add that many lights to the tree.

This is her first time using a die so she spent a lot of time figuring out how to maneuver it in her hands and drop it.

I tried encouraging her by rolling the die with dots while she rolled the one with colours.

In this game, I believe, are too many steps for her age.

I will try to create one where she can roll the die and then just match it to the colour.

Book - Doggies

Sandra Boynton is one of our favourite children's authors at the moment.

"Doggies" is one of my granddaughter's go-to books because she loves dogs.

To enhance the book I gathered ten toy dogs and one cat to set up as a play invitation.

My son in-law introduced the toy dogs with the book.

They decided which dogs would make which kind of bark.

If you haven't read the book then each dog has a distinctive bark

from woof to yip to n-n-n and more.

She loved all the dogs and playing with her dad.

Another day we moved them back into the bin with other props

and the play ideas grew.

It has been a fun way to introduce counting, size and build her vocabulary,

such as; big, little, long legs, running, sitting, same, different, etc.

Making Puzzles

Math Table

Have you visited Teach Preschool by Deborah J. Stewart?

I've mentioned her blog before and it's because

she does fantastic activities

that we can learn so much from.

One activity that she shared was her math table.

I loved the simple idea and decided to try it at our centre.

The table is covered with paper then divided into sections.

Each section has a number written in it and on the shelf

beside it has a variety of materials they can use

to count.

For the first few days each section had only a number

but I found not many children were playing at it.

So I added marks to correspond with each number

it became easier for younger children to play.

Counting Carrots

The children were encouraged to count the carrots in the rabbits' garden.

The carrots pop out of their hole and can be moved around.

Especially if the rabbits are hungry.

This child used the carrot and pretended to draw

and print numbers.

Spud Measuring

Over Spring Break our spuds sprouted.

This week we busily hilled them each day.

This year instead of measuring the plants I set up some paper plants

for the children to use.

They laid the blocks along the stalk till they reached the leaves

then counted them.

They recorded their number on our clip boards.

On a shelf to the side were other materials the children could use.

 The measuring tape was a popular choice.

This boy used toy fish and then the measuring tape.

Wine corks were another choice.

This picture gives you an idea how much the plants grew this week.

Working Together

I like when an idea I have and an interest a child has comes together.

That's what happened on Monday.

I wanted to make a little easel to put in our sensory tub.

At the same this little guy arrived at school with his measuring tape.

He was ready to measure.

As he went to play I continued to look around my storage room

for something that would work.

I found a large piece of flex board in the perfect colour.

I asked the little guy if he wanted to help me.

We measured and marked the board then cut it together.

But when we put it in the tub it was too big

(I had measured it myself the first time)

But that was okay, it meant that we had to remeasure,

mark and cut again.

 It felt so good doing this activity with someone who was so interested.

Stay tuned to tomorrow to see what we did with it.