Alphabet Christmas Tree

In Australia it is getting hot and water play is a large part of the outdoor programme. This activity combines three of my favourite things.....recycling, water play and Christmas.

MATERIALS

Laundry scoops

Plastic bottle tops

Water Trolley ( or if you prefer, a sensory tray filled with rice or similar)

Some material or a plastic tablecloth ( something that you can draw on with a permanent marker- not a water based marker as it will run if it gets wet)

HOW TO MAKE YOUR ACTIVITY

Write the letters of the alphabet on the bottle tops with a permanent marker.

Draw your Christmas tree and trace around the bottle tops to make the 26 alphabet lights.

Write the letters of the alphabet in order from the top of the tree to the bottom.

NOW THE FUN PART !!!

Encourage the children to take turns to scoop out one bottle top with a laundry scoop.

Get the children to name the letter they scooped and put it in the correct position on the tree.

Keep fishing until the children have collected the entire alphabet.

Admire your Alphabet Christmas Tree.

Niccola

Classroom Restaurant

The children in my class love role playing and dressing up. I love setting up different themed areas for the children to play in and we currently have a Post Office and a restaurant.

The restaurant has been a lot of fun and has provided the children with lots of hands on, valuable learning experiences.

After playing in our classroom restaurant, we decided to make some pizzas for our morning tea. The children were the chefs first and made some delicious pizzas, and then they were customers in the classroom restaurant.

Our classroom Restaurant 

A table in our restaurant with our 'pretend pizza'.

Making Aprons

We needed some dress-ups for our restaurant and I had a large roll of perfect material.

A lovely mother who is a whiz on the sewing machine very kindly sewed the children's aprons for us once the children had printed their hand-prints with fabric paint.

She made cute little chefs hats as well - BIG THANKS Angela!!

Pizza Making

We made some delicious pizzas for our morning tea. Three and four year olds don't like a lot of toppings - mainly cheese!!

Until next Tuesday - happy playing!!

Niccola

Noodle Box Counting

I had some disposable noodle boxes left over from my daughters birthday and thought I could use them on the light table at school.

I attached the numbers 1-10 on the fronts of the noodle boxes as we are working on our numbers at the moment, hence all the Maths related blog posts.

I have lots of wool scraps at school and so I thought I could cut up a variety of colours and lengths to represent noodles.

The children had to use the chopsticks to fill the noodle boxes with wool noodles and then add the correct number of pom poms to the noodles, from 1-10.  We discussed what the pom poms could represent and the children came up with lots of ideas- Chinese meatballs, vegetables, sausage etc...

Using the chopsticks was a lot of fun and a great fine motor activity. 

This activity could be done anywhere but was very effective on the light table as the noodle boxes are transparent.

You could use bowls or plates for this activity and crepe paper or ribbons as noodles.

The children thought it was great fun.

Niccola

Simple Maths Games to Make Yourself

Maths Games

Here are 3 examples of games you can make yourself to reinforce maths concepts with your children. I have used these games in my class with my three and four year olds and all of them are very effective in teaching important maths concepts and a lot of fun. They are quick and very simple to make with things that you have lying around the house.

Fishing Game

Number and colour recognition, turn taking and development of fine motor skills.

The children can either choose a colour and catch all of the fish in that colour or catch all of the fish and sort them according to number or colour.

I used plastic files, number stickers and magnetic tape.

Spider Game

Number recognition and counting using a die.

Get the children to identify the numbers before you begin and then roll the die. 

Use a homemade die with the numbers on it or a traditional die if your child is able to count and or recognise the number of dots.

After rolling the die, find the corresponding spider and position on the web.

I cut out the spiders, drew the spider web and laminated them so they can be used again and again.

Snake Counting

Number recognition, counting and ordering numbers. 

This activity is a wonderful fine motor activity and promotes imaginative play.

The children need to identify the number on the snakes head and then thread the correct number of beads on the body.

I cut out the snakes heads, laminated them and stuck them to pipe cleaners.

This was so much fun that we got carried away with the number of beads!!!!

Let me know what you think or if you have any questions, leave me a comment.

Niccola

Cutting Station

When teaching my class of three year olds to use scissors I always start with lots of pre-cutting activities and build up to cutting playdough and spaghetti. I begin by focusing on holding the scissors correctly and being able to manipulate the scissors correctly. Once they have mastered this and we have discussed using scissors safely and what is appropriate to cut ( not hair!!!! ) I move on to snipping. This is a lot of fun as you don't have to worry about staying on a line, just snipping something into little pieces. This week we have had a lot of fun snipping at our Cutting Station.

I set up our Cutting Station in our water trolley.

Firstly, I tied six pairs of scissors to the water trolley.

I then put out a variety of items that the children could randomly snip into little pieces....straws, strips of cardboard, strips of paper, wool and crepe streamers in bowls.

After a quick revision on using scissors correctly we began snipping....and snipping.....and more snipping..

The water trolley was fantastic because all of the mess was contained.

The children absolutely loved this activity. You should definitely give it a go.

Niccola

The Sleeping Princess - Draw a Story

Wooohoooo my second YouTube clip!! 

The children in my class ask for this story at least once a week so I thought I would share it with you. Let me know what you think.

Niccola

Halloween Sensory Spaghetti

My class absolutely love playing, cutting, painting and printing with cooked spaghetti.

This time, I let the children hide plastic spiders in the cooked spaghetti.

The children added black paint to the spaghetti to make it more difficult to find the spiders.

We counted the spiders before we started and then counted each spider when we found them. The children loved squeezing the black spaghetti and feeling around for the spiders.

Once the children had found the spiders, I let them make black spaghetti prints.

The spaghetti prints are fantastic- don't you think?

We were also fascinated by the patterns on our hands!!

It was a lot of fun!!

Niccola