Play Trays

Subitizing, love how that word feels on the tongue, funny I know.



This activity also worked on one-to-one correspondence and counting.


A pile of bungee style lanyards.

 
To explore, to connect,

 
to sort and to stretch.

And to be used as a dog leash.


Scrabble tiles and abc cards.
 
Fun to match to the cards,
finding the first letter that begins our names
and for saying the ABCs.


Twisty turning puzzles.


Surprisingly wasn’t that attractive to the children. 
Although once I showed them how they turned they did enjoy doing that.

Fire Fighter’s Dramatic Play

For the past month we have been focused on fire fighters and vehicles.

We created a fire truck out of two cardboard boxes.
 
 
We spent the first couple of weeks just exploring the truck. 
How to get in and out, the front and the back, the equipment and steering wheel.

 
After we had visited our local fire station we learned that fire trucks can be
different colours other than red. 
Our local fire trucks are black so when we wanted to paint our truck we
took a survey. 
What colour should we paint our truck; red, black or yellow?
     
It was a tie between red and yellow.
 
We started painting.  It didn`t matter where the red and yellow went.

 
The children were so excited to continue playing
that they didn`t wait for the painting to be finished.
 
      
I found a flashing light, after Halloween, that when covered with red cellophane
worked well for our emergency lights on top of the truck. 
A parent did offer to bring a siren in for us to use but I declined.

 
 
Another prop that was added was an orange cheerleaders pompom
without the handle. 
It`s bright orange like fire and occasionally it would show up in
different areas of the room that would be on fire. 
Our fire fighters quickly put each fire out using their hoses made from
dryer vent tubing.

 
The children have learned, not only about fire fighters,
but about taking turns,
sharing,
working out differences,
and working together.

Traffic Lights

 
We made traffic lights at the snack and the art tables this morning.

 
For the traffic light snack we used rectangle biscuits, cream cheese,
red and green grapes and yellow peppers.

 
 
Easy to build and delicious to eat.
But what is it about peppers that children are not even interested in trying?
They are sweet and crunchy and brightly coloured.  Luckily I didn't use red,
green and yellow peppers like I first planned.

 
 
I wasn`t sure how this art would work out.
Would they trace the cups and paint with the qtips, like pointillism art.
Well they worked it out.
They painted the bottom of the cups then pressed it on the paper – perfect!

Our New Little Treasure

I was visiting Vancouver a couple of weeks ago and had a chance
to shop at the Little Treasures cottage.
           
I was in thrift store heaven.
The picture shows just one corner of the cottage.
Treasure bins waiting to be created.
They had a ‘fill-a-bag’ wall too which held fantastic items that I
quickly scanned once then scanned again before filling a bag.
     
This was my main purchase -
a dowel board that came with a wooden
bowl and
fuzzy hair elastics. 
 
The children were instantly drawn to it.
I enjoyed watching how the different ages played.
The older children were able to stretch the hair elastics to cover two dowels,
while the younger stretched just far enough to slide on one dowel.
               
            Some made a game of it, playing ring toss.
        
Each day I would talk with the children about what they were doing,
take photos and present it on the wall for others to be inspired.
 
Sometimes documenting step by step showing how a shape
was created.
    
I like the size of the board because more than one or two children
can play with it plus their grown ups.
It can be hung on the wall too, they’ve attached hooks on
the long side.
         
     Building shapes wasn’t the only skill being practiced.
                  
                         Colour sorting too.