Activity ideas

Freehand Drawing

One of my favorite things when I was a little girl was to look at an object while attempting to draw it.  My art teacher said to pretend that an ant was crawling along the outside of the object and as it crawled my pencil should move with it.  This was a great visual for me and it helped me to replicate objects the best that I could. 

My goal today is an open-ended “writing” activity, okay okay so it is actually a drawing activity, BUT don’t forget that drawing builds fine motor skills which makes for efficient writers!

First, you are going to assemble your sketchbook…  That’s right, make a custom sketchbook that is even more meaningful to your little one because ya’ll made it together.  Grab two stacks of computer paper (as thick or thin as you’d like), hole-punch the top of both stacks, slip ribbon (yarn or whatever you have) through them, tie double-knots and then make curls or  bows. Why two stacks?… Because it means so much to your little one to do activities TOGETHER, and you are modeling “how to” draw.  Write your name on your cover and your little one’s name on theirs (or let them do it if he/she can).

 

I aligned the 3 hole-punch so that only two holes would be punched in the center of my stack of paper.

 

I then tied ribbon into a tight double knot, and held the bottom of the ribbon between my thumb and the scissors and pulled out toward the end to make the curls. 

Next, ask your little artist to pick something around the house (or in the backyard) to draw, and you will BOTH draw in your own book.  Talk about it: what shapes you see, what part you are going to draw first, if it has a word on it (like Tonka) what letters you are going to write on the Truck and where. 

This can be such an open-ended experience where your child’s creativity and imagination has the chance to shine.

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An Activity For Active Children

I love how little kiddos get so excited to participate in activities that include moving around. So many kids learn through movement; in fact, kids with this learning style are called kinesthetic learners. For this reason, I used to come up with a lot of little activities that I could pull out at any moment that would get the kids moving and that would reinforce some of the things that I was teaching (numbers, letters, shapes, colors, etc.)

SO today’s activity is to roll two dice.  One that reads a number and the other that reads an action clue.  This way, your little one will have to move the way the dice tells them to, and move however many times the dice tells them to.

To make these dice, you simply cover an empty, square-shaped tissue box with paper, and write numbers on each side. This does not have to be fancy! If you have a small mailing box or present box, use it!

If your child is already REALLY familiar with their numbers 1-10 and you have started teaching the numbers 10-20 you can reinforce those numbers by writing them on the cube (make sure you use the language “cube” with your little one when referring to the dice because it is great to introduce 3-D geometry terms early).

Then make another dice and choose the theme of the game that you might want to play, and make clip art to represent the motions or cut the pictures out of a magazine and tape them on the sides of the cube.

My action cube is pictures of animals so when playing the game you might have to hop like a frog 10 times, or flap your wings like a bird 7 times, etc.

You might want to make one with exercise motions on it and do jumping jacks, push-ups, or sit-ups for each number.

You could even do colors and find that many items of that color around the house.

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Stuffed Animal Overload

I have a very vivid memory of myself as a five year old running into my mom’s room, trying to convince her that I needed to sleep with her because there was just not enough room in my bed.  When she walked me back to my room to see what I was talking about I showed her all 20 of my stuffed animals tucked under my covers too snug to move them.  Of course at that point my mom figured out a way to re-arrange them without completely crushing my hopes that they could all sleep in my bed, but she made sure that I stayed in my own bed. 

I know you might be considering purging your stuffed animal collection, but before you give them ALL away, here are a couple ideas of how you can teach your little ones two important math skills:

1. Measure those Teddy bears:  Two important standards to teach young children when it comes to measurement is to measure with “non-standard” units and to measure with “standard” units.  Some non-standard tools for measuring would be tape, cubes, your hands and feet, or yarn (as pictured below).  Standard measuring tools would include rulers, yard sticks, measuring tape, etc.

So, help your child measure his/her stuffed animals, and then compare which is longer, shorter, taller, etc.

2.  Sequence those stuffed animals:  This would be a perfect activity for following up measuring your child’s stuffed animals.  Simply ask your little one to put them in order from smallest to biggest, or shortest to tallest. 

 

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Hundreds ch-ART

My sister Ali shared an activity that she and her 5 year old, Kaylee, worked on together for a Kindergarten class assignment. Today, we are going to simplify the activity for our 3 year olds OR use the activity for our 5 year olds. My sis is an AWESOME Mommy Teacher to both her 5 year old and her 2 year old girls.

Here is Ali’s description of the activity for your 5 year old,
but stay tuned for my modification for your 3 year old:
“This was for her 100th day of school; it was a home/family project that Rick, Kaylee’s dad, joked was more of mommies’ project. The assignment was to find 10 items around the house in groups of 10 and glue those things in groups on a poster board. The school gave examples like pennies, paperclips, etc.  Kaylee is very creative and I always call her “My Little Picasso” (which she got very mad the first time thinking I was calling her a bad name), but she wanted to do more colorful and unique items for her project.  For learning purposes, any small items would work and not take as long as we took, but she was “creating art” so to speak and the 2 hour project began.  We ran around the house finding a huge variety of items, jewels, sugar packets, even cut-up glass tile samples.  We counted each item up to 10 and spread them out in groups on the poster board. I was prepared for her to just start gluing them down when she said she wanted to make pictures out of each… put the bougainvillea tree flowers into a heart, the colors into a sunset, the sugar packets into a sun with rocks as the face in the sun.  The only input I had was the ‘K’, ‘R’ paperclips for her name, and the jewels in the shape of the flower. When everything was glued down, we counted by 10’s and 1’s to 100. It was really fun to do together because she was not only learning, but was being creative at the same time.

They also had another assignment that same week to hug 100 people. It could be the same person on the list several times (like moms, dads and siblings), but basically giving a hug to someone who needed it.  She must have given over 40 hugs to the staff and even customers at Lupe’s Restaurant and the dentist… she is already a social butterfly, but it really put a smile on everyone’s face too, amazing what a hug can do!”

I LOVE this whole assignment and this is the kind of hands-on project that really creates a sweet opportunity for shared learning and chances to BUILD on what your child already knows. If you have a 3 year old, collect as many groups of 10 things as your little ones attention span can handle….which might only be ONE group of 10…..and that is fine; consider it their work of art because you want quality more than quantity. Don’t try to do too much at one time; leave plenty of room for brain breaks (movement, outside playtime, music, snack, etc.). Finally, MODEL counting the objects by ones up to the number of objects you collected. And you can go ahead and INTRODUCE modeling counting by 10s if you collect more than one group. But make sure your little one has mastered counting to 10 by 1’s first (one object at a time).

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Spring Forward

The weather is warming up and it is time to get outside with your kiddos!

Definitely allow lots of time for free play, running around outside and playing in the dirt a bit, but today I want to remind you about a GREAT outdoor writing activity. Of course, chalking is a great writing activity, but one that I love equally as much is painting with water.

All you need is a Tupperware (bucket or even an old empty paint can) and a paintbrush!

Kids love to write and watch it disappear. It is also a mini science lesson because they are learning about evaporation! Kids watch the pavement absorb the water and then the heat dry it up.

Talk to your kids during the experiment “What is happening to the letter you wrote?” “Why do you think it is disappearing?”, model different letters and words and see if your child can paint what you paint. Get wild…paint with the water on the brick of your house and remind them that painting with water is the ONLY time they can do this.

This is a great family fun writing activity to enjoy the outdoors 🙂

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