Teaching Tools

The 3rd Shareworthy Game From Casey’s Top 5

Hi! It’s Casey stopping by from Kidspired Creations once again!
Here is the third of my TOP 5 (scratch that) 6! games for Pre-Schoolers:
Ages 2+ (according to the box, 8+, but we can adapt)
My husband is not only great at all things math-related, but can easily calculate numbers in his head. He doesn’t credit good study skills or a Masters degree in Mechanical Engineering for his number genius, he credits the many hours he spent playing Dominoes with his grandfather. I, on the other hand, played with my dominoes by stacking and building houses and though I use a calculator for even simple math, my creative side dominates. It’s no surprise then that Dominoes is one of my favorite games for helping to develop BOTH sides of the brain.
Ages 2+: Let your child have fun stacking and knocking the dominoes down. There are endless ways to build them (vertical, horizontal, or both). If you get creative enough, you can use play dough balls and create your own 3D Angry Birds game!
Pre-School Learning Skills
  • Fine motor skill development (turning dominoes around in one hand, stacking and balancing)
  • Hand-Eye coordination
  • Imaginary Play
  • Spacial Awareness
  • Creative design
  • Sharing
Ages 3+: Use picture Dominoes to develop matching skills. Disney makes some fun Princess, Handy Manny, Cars (and more) Domino sets where you match characters together, instead of matching dots.
Even at this “big kid” age, keep building! No need to always follow the rules to the game. Let your child’s imagination run wild as he/she builds houses, mazes, bridges and more! Another idea is to line dominoes up to make different patterns (horizontal, vertical, horizontal, vertical…).
Pre-School Learning Skills
  • Pre-Math Skills (matching and patterns)
  • Hand-Eye coordination (balancing)
  • Fine Motor Skills (stacking and building)
  • Imaginary Play
  • Spacial Awareness
  • Creative design
  • Sharing
Ages 4+: Introduce Double 6 Dominoes and begin teaching the rules to simple Domino games. Continue to do the same activities as before because, well, it’s still fun!
Pre-School Learning Skills
  • Counting
  • Addition and subtraction (depending on the game)
  • Matching
  • Number awareness (understanding the relationship between numbers and amount of dots)
  • Problem Solving
  • Strategy
  • Taking turns
  • (All the other skills mentioned above)

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The 2nd Shareworthy Game from Casey’s Top 5

Hi! It’s Casey stopping by from Kidspired Creations once again!
Here is the second of my TOP 5 (scratch that) 6! games for Pre-Schoolers:
Recommended for Ages 5+ (according to the box)
This classic game is great for so many reasons! Not only is it great for your child’s development, but the timer doesn’t need batteries AND it has the perfect little compartment to store all of the pieces!!! Now THAT is my kind of game!
I know it says “5+” on the box, but if you don’t use the 60-second timer at first, I think you can start at the age of 3 (the parts are small, so I wouldn’t start younger than that because they are a choking hazard).
I even have yet to finish putting all the pieces in within 60 seconds, so James doesn’t use the timer. Eventually I may use a kitchen timer to set at 2 or 3 minutes, then we can work our way to 60 seconds. Right now we just have fun naming the pieces and finding out where they go. Some pieces we have made up fun names for like the “hurricane” that looks like an S, or the “macaroni noodle” that is different from the semi-circle.
Pre-School learning skills:
  • Hand-eye coordination
  • Fine motor skills (turning the shapes between the thumb and index finger)
  • Spacial awareness
  • Simple shapes (square, circle, triangle)
  • Complex shapes (trapezoid, parallelogram, hexagon)
  • Imaginary play (What does this shape look like?)
  • Time management – racing the clock (eventually)

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The First of Casey’s Top 5

Hi! It’s Casey stopping by from Kidspired Creations! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas season like we did! I say “season” because with the amount of different families that we spend Christmas with, it doesn’t just last the one day for us. My boys got way too many gifts, as usual, and so we are still trying to find spots for all of them. (Sound familiar?)
While the boys got super excited to open all of the toys at each Christmas event, I got really excited about the number of GAMES my 4-year-old son, James, received this year! This Mommy goofed and thought James’ school started today, when it actually starts tomorrow. Oops! So we had to change our plans around and instead played games all morning! (Hence my inspiration for this post.) Yes!
Here is the first of my TOP 5 (scratch that) 6! games for Pre-Schoolers:
Recommended for ages 4-8 (and Mommy and Daddy too!)
This game is amazing and so much fun for all! On each turn, a player picks 3 cards numbered 1, 2 and 3 and when you piece them together, they create a full sentence with a fun, get-up-out-of-your-chair challenge!
The first card you choose tells you to jump, walk backwards, take giant steps, skip, crawl, etc. The 2nd card asks you to grab a specific prop from the box, and the 3rd card tells you where to put that prop (between your elbows, under your chin, on your stomach, on top of your head). James was sometimes better at the challenges than his 6-month pregnant mommy (though I was pretty good at the challenges that asked me to balance things on my belly).
After all the cards are chosen, each player counts the number of stars on his/her cards. Game 1… James: 35, Mommy: 28 (and he won fair and square!)
Pre-School learning skills:
  • Following 3-step directions
  • Knowing right versus left
  • Gross motor skills such as walking, jumping, skipping, walking backwards and balancing
  • Pre-reading skills (making complete, complex sentences)
  • Ordinal numbers (first, second, third)
  • Number recognition (1, 2 and 3)
  • Directional vocabulary (on top of, under, over, right, left, etc.)
  • Counting (to at least 35… that’s the highest score any of us have gotten. Good job, James!)

 

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Build Onto Your Child’s Interest

Sean Patrick is OBSESSED with construction equipment (specifically backhoe’s, dump trucks, and bulldozers); so, I spend a lot of time teaching him the skills that he is ready to learn and to practice using his own interests. He also loves sports and animals, which I use to teach him as well, but today I want to focus on sharing some of the methods to my madness.

A couple months ago there was a construction crew working right outside of our house and after observing the crew operating the equipment and learning the names of the equipment and their functions (digging, lifting, dumping, etc.), he was hooked.

We have so much fun “studying” this topic while learning and practicing different skills:

We draw the machines with chalk outside and with crayons inside as I write the words – I name the letters and I emphasize the first sound in each word (just the beginning sound /b/ /b/ bulldozer!) as I write each one.

We have about 4 books about construction that I keep in an easily accessible book bin in the den.  He pulls them out on a regular basis and asks me to “Read please.”  Or, I pull the books out when we play with his toys or see construction workers to reference similarities in the books and in his real world. (Notice his shirt in the picture?…he has 4 different outfits that revolve around this interest and we even have a plate that he eats off of every day with a backhoe on it).

We play with the machines, rolling them along different surfaces – teaching him that they roll faster down a ramp than pushing them along the flat or bumpy ground (a science skill).

We count how many different machines we have or how many rocks his mini digger can pick up at one time.  We look for and point out the machines on the way to church so next time we can count out how many machines we see on our way.

I teach him how to operate the levers on his digger and bulldozer toys to develop his fine motor skills for pre-writing readiness.

And much more!

 Just yesterday, there was another construction crew two houses down from my house working on a leak.  I took him to observe and I talked to him about the construction crew by identifying the driver and the clothing he was wearing (a hard hat, vest, boots, etc.) – These are social studies skills for young children to identify community workers and to gain awareness of the world around them.

There are so many ways to make learning fun and interesting for your little one using what you already have on hand!

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Interactive Books

For Christmas, Sean Patrick got some great toys for cognitive and gross motor development.  The teacher that I am was excited about everything he received from friends and family because I could picture exactly how I was going to teach to that toy/book.

I know I am a nerd and I am probably sucking all the fun out of Christmas, but I was genuinely excited about the things that he got that would maximize our time spent at home.  I was also excited about the gifts that were geared around his current interests (like his dump truck) because dramatic play is such a necessary part of his social development as well.

But one thing that I have incorporated into his “schedule” (that I will share soon!), since Christmas, is INTERACTIVE book time.  We have reading time a couple times a day, but now I have a purposed time for books like the following, and I will share some ways I am using them now, and how I plan to use them in the future:

1) A counting book that comes with a writing tool

Before reading this, I take a little picture walk with Sean Patrick and we talk about all the things on the pages that are familiar to him, and I point out things that I know are not and name them.  Then, I trace each number with my finger and say it’s name, then take his finger and do the same, and then write the numbers on the etch-a-sketch.  In the future, I would have him draw or write a number story about each number and take a picture of each and make our own book out of the pictures.

2) A musically interactive book with a “legend”:

I love this book because the selection of shapes is the legend that you will use as you turn the pages to identify the shapes and then select the matching shape to play the coordinating song.  Sean Patrick and I sing the songs with hand-motions that I make up and then I follow my finger along the words to model reading (even though he doesn’t know that words represent meaning yet).

3.) A personalized book:

My dad gave Sean Patrick this book and it has a place on the inside back cover where you place a photo that is used as the face of the child on every page.  Personalized books are so meaningful because children are egocentric (even more than adults haha).  So books like this make reading comprehension so realistic and applicable.

There are many other types of interactive books but I wanted to share a few that were a part of our Christmas.  Enjoy your interactive reading time with your little ones!

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