Hopscotch and Sidewalk Chalk

One of our favorite things to do when the weather is good is draw with sidewalk chalk. This particular time we drew fishes and whales (and the latter eating the former…)

And then I had a stroke of genius. Teach my kids hopscotch!

So I drew a simple hopscotch board (complete with numbers) and taught the kids how to play. Baby mostly just jumped up and down the squares, but Little caught on to dropping the rock, skipping it, and picking it up on his way back. It was a great activity to help with gross motor skills like jumping, standing on one leg, and bending over to pick things up.

An added benefit was learning the order of numbers, and my favorite – they were wiped out and completely ready for naps afterwards!

Faith is like a little Seed

As part of our spring themes, we planted wildflower seeds in a little pot and watched them grow. Unfortunately, they weren’t very hardy and died before they even flowered, but it was fun to see them emerge from the soil!

We talked about how faith starts as a little seed, and if we give it water and sunshine (that is, if we study and pray, and are obedient) then the seed will eventually grow and flourish (that is, our faith will eventually grow into a testimony).

Book Marketing

I am no bookstore owner, but when it comes to our home library, I sure love my kids to pick out good books. Well, since we only have good books, I like them to pick out books – of any kind. The problem with traditional bookshelves + kids is that the books are all crammed together, the kids can never put them back on their own, and they don’t even really know what is on the shelf, nor are they curious – especially pre-readers (both of my kids are pre-readers right now).

So when I was looking around for ideas for my kids’ room, I saw these shelves (and a lot more just like them) on Pinterest. And then, I put up a few myself:

 The new reading area in the kids’ room (please excuse the pink walls – we’re working on a paint color… any suggestions?)

The books are layered 3-5 books deep in spaces, and I fully intend to rotate them every few weeks, just to make sure some new books are out on top.

“The power of face-out works even at the lowest levels of literacy. When researchers observed a kindergarten classroom library for one week, 90 percent of the books that children chose had been shelved with the covers facing out.” (here)

I had read about this a loong time ago and had every intention of making some face-out book displays for the kid’s books, but I never got around to it. I got these shelves at IKEA for about $15 each.  More expensive than rain gutter, but it was the easiest solution for me, since I am the main handy-man around here (handy-woman? eh, whatever). Three screws and it was in. I am going to go back and use some wall anchors because I couldn’t find the studs (my husband is out of town – which might have had something to do with that problem. Ha ha)

Before I even had the books up on the shelves, both Little and Baby were devouring book after book (Little is 4, and Baby is 2, so they don’t actually read them – but they can tell the story pretty well from the picture, which is great in terms of literary development).

These books will make it easier for us to pick the books we want to read for bedtime, as well. Which means faster bedtime routine (which I love – not that I don’t cherish bedtime, I really do – I just don’t like how long it takes to get to each step. I prefer to spend my time actually reading to the kids rather than hunting down books).

We keep a “book basket” in the living room, and I want to make a book sling for the family room downstairs so any book will have a home in any room in our house, and so books will be found in every room. The more places we can find to put books, the more our children will read – I’m sure of it!

How do you market reading to your children?

Baby Genius

Today I met with a student for some math tutoring. We used Cuisenaire rods for some of her instruction, and E was really interested in them.

After lunch, reading time, and putting Baby down for a nap, I told E he could play with them. He played for a while, then told me he was done, and as I was cleaning up in the kitchen he said to me "When I grow up I want to buy some of these for me."

Ha ha kids say the darndest things, don't they?

So I told E that he could just play with the set we have. So he opened the box again and I noticed that he had perfectly sorted all of the rods. Then he told me he was going to make the designs on the lid. A few minutes later, he came downstairs super excited and told me I had to go upstairs and see it "right now".

This is what I saw -



Notice the pattern on the box lid? He did that without any help! I'm so proud of my little cutie :)

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Counting in the Kitchen

Disclaimer: we had just returned home from the city pool and the kids decided they wanted a bedtime snack before taking baths, so they were running around in their underwear while we had the snack. I am not normally the type to let the kids run around in their undies, let alone photograph them in such a state. Just so you know...



While the snack (quesadillas) was cooking on the stove, I decided now would be as good a time as any to practice meaningful counting (that is, when you count a group of objects, the number you "end on" corresponds to how many there are - so that the number 3 has meaning).

I just started playing a game with my fingers - I hid both hands behind my back, chose some fingers to hold up, then whipped them out and asked Little E to tell me how many there were. Lately we have been talking about how "5 is our one hand number, and 10 is our two hands number". So to mix things up I made sure to have fingers from each hand and to avoid sequential fingers. E did really well counting the fingers, and he seems to really understand that when he finishes, that number means "how many there are" - although he does like to get goofy with his counting sometimes and purposely mixes up his numbers. He thinks he's hilarious. Silly kid.



Then we moved on to "which hand has more fingers standing up" which E was really goo at spotting, and we reinforced meaningful counting by having him count each hand and then we would say "4 is more than 3" or whatever. When I held up all five fingers on each hand and asked "which hand has more," E surprised me by pointing to both hands. I don't know if I was more surprised that he knew they each had the same, or if I was surprised because he did t know how to describe the situation with words (he is usually quite loquacious - if he doesn't know how to tell us something, he usually makes up a new way to tell us). So I told him the had "the same" number of fingers and that led us to talk about number conservation (that 3=3, even if you've got apples and oranges... Or kiwis in our case).


I set out three apples and three kiwis and asked E which there were more of, apples or kiwis. You may remember we did this with our sensory tub a while ago with the beans. True to form, E picked the apples. Then we paired them up together, counted them, and discovered there were the same amount of each.




Meaningful counting and number conservation and two very important pre-math skills (remember one-to-one functions from algebra?). Developing these math skills while kids are still young will help them tremendously later in life. Now is the time for us to build all those processes in the brain.

I love doing activities that require nothing but me and the kids and whatever is within reach. You could do this activity with toy cars and balls. Or toothbrushes and hairbrushes, or pillows and blankets.

How do you find ways to play and learn?

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Find more great preschool activities over at

Uma Corrida

What does racing toy cars have to with learning?







Plenty.

Which car is faster? What colors are the cars? How many cars are racing?

These are all classification questions to talk with your kids about while they are playing with ... well, with anything, really.

Classifying objects is an important math skill.

I've started a blog about math and I'll be posting some more about classification and other pre-math skills over there. Be sure to check it out.

*the title is "a race" in Portuguese

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Wednesday Wanderings – LDS Church History Museum

Remember to link to your Wednesday Wanderings post! It doesn’t have to be something that occurred on a Wednesday, nor do you have to write about it on a Wednesday – just link up to a post about somewhere you went!

Several months ago, we went to the LDS Church History Museum in Salt Lake City, UT with some friends. We spent our time in the children’s exhibit - A Book of Mormon Fiesta: A Latin–American Celebration – where we learned about all sorts of faithful Latter Day Saints from Latin America.

The exhibit was a lot like a children’s museum, but with a gospel focus. The kids loved it, and so did I!

This dump truck was a big hit. The kids loved putting anything and everything they could find (mostly puppets from the “rainforest” area) in the back. The story about the dump truck was fun – there was a man who would drive his dump truck to church because they lived so far away from the chapel, and they would often pick up people on their way to church and give them a ride in the back of the truck! How fun would that be to ride to church in a dump truck!? Okay, probably not as much fun as riding in my comfy car – but still, I bet the kids had a blast!

And of course, we better plant a garden! They had carrots that were shaped like a pyramid, round onions, and the potatoes were a rectangular block, so the kids would “plant” them into the shape that matched! Educational and fun! Not to mention great for learning about gardens. I think he ended up feeding some of the carrots to this lizard puppet.

And then Baby and I had to dress up and dance! They had little videos that would teach you some basic steps to a Latin dance, complete with costumes for dress up! Baby didn’t really like having the dress on, but at least I got moving!

The museum was a lot of fun, and on our way out, we passed by a life-size replica of the angel Moroni statue that graces the top of every spire of the LDS temples. Vince knew exactly what it was (we’re blessed to live very close to several temples, and pass them frequently).

Ratings:

Value –   Can you say “For freeeeeeeee!” (if you don’t get it, go watch Adam Sandler’s Bedtime Stories – seriously, it’s a cute movie – I have no idea how they got Adam Sandler to do it, but it was fun and clean!) You may have to pay for parking if you don’t want to walk super far (it’s in downtown Salt Lake City), but hey, $2 isn’t bad.

Location –   Four stars because a I have a love-hate relationship with downtown areas. Love – the culture, the sites, the fun, the buildings, the actions. Hate – parking, keeping my kids from darting into busy roads, pollution, etc. But there is definitely more love than hate.

Fun Factor – So much fun! And we got to talk about the gospel, the Book of Mormon, and the examples of some really great Saints!

Now it’s your turn!

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