Pirates and Mermaids

Weekly readers of An Idea on Tuesday would know that we have had a long hot summer here in Australia and that many of the activities recently have revolved around the theme of summer. At school I have been looking at summer, sun safe behaviour, the beach, sea creatures, summer activities and the list goes on... 

We read the book 'Magic Beach' by Alison Lester and I decided to set up a pirate and mermaid discovery scene on the light table. You can set this scene anywhere of course, but the light table is my favourite resource. 

As usual, I made these peg people last night and fortunately they took no time at all. I just used whatever I had (It would have been better if the mermaids hair matched the clothes for colour sorting and extending the activity). The children loved them and it was very popular in the classroom however EVERY girl wanted the pink mermaid!!

Have a go at making some peg pirates and mermaids!

Niccola

Fun with Fish

Last night I bought some inexpensive fresh fish from the fishmonger for the children to touch, hold, poke, feel, examine and smell of course! The children then painted the fish and made prints. They looked amazing! They LOVED this experience and all were very keen to participate. A fabulous hands-on activity that provided soo much great learning and language.

 I covered the light table with a cheap green plastic semi-transparent table cloth to create and underwater backdrop which was extremely effective. I then placed a small tray with tiny shells and some larger shells with the numbers 1 to 10 written on them. Small plastic cups with numbers were included on the tray so the children could put the correct shell in the corresponding cup. (I saw the alphabet written on shells on The Imagination Tree and thought that numbers would also be a great idea.)

LIGHT ON

 LIGHT OFF

I really appreciate your comments. Thanks soo much and have a super Tuesday!! 

Summer Sensory Tray

Our Summer sensory tray was extremely popular today. Partly because we are having an extreme heat wave at the moment and putting our hands in the blue water was nice and cool but more importantly it provided a huge variety of play opportunities. Children were pretending to be the tiny people swimming, lying under the umbrellas and playing in the sand. It provided a wonderful platform for language development.

Two trays were used to create the Summer scene. A drop of blue dye added to the water made a crystal clear ocean. Pebbles, shells, cocktail umbrellas and little felt towels were used to set the scene.

Before long the children had collected pebbles and sea creatures from the water trolley and incorporated them in the play scene. It was really great to see the children sharing the resources, listening to each other and putting up the cocktail umbrellas (this was a great fine motor skill!) 

*Before giving children the cocktail umbrellas snip the sharp point off.

Continuing the sea theme we added turtles to the playdough and let the children make prints with the turtles. We also provided a variety of materials to print patterns on their playdough turtles.

Happy Pancake Tuesday!!

Sunny Tuesday

As it is very hot here and the first week back at school, we filled two water trolleys today. One outside with coloured boats and one inside to provide a home for our lovely floating fish. 

I cut plastic lids, foam lids and kitchen sponges into simple fish shapes. Alongside that was the water trolley containing rocks and shells. Within minutes the children were putting the sponge fish in the water and squeezing them out. 

A sample sponge fish.

The water trolley filled with shells and blue glass pebbles.

The children loved this activity and helped them keep cool. Simple activities like this provide great learning experiences for young children. This promotes language development, creativity, fine motor skills and even maths skills like counting and size.

The children were excited about taking home the fish to play with in their bath tonight!

They look fantastic don't they?

Bringing Nature Inside

HAPPY AUSTRALIA DAY!

I have been busy making resources for my classroom this week and really wanted a 'Nature based theme'. I am making a wall hanging out of tree branches and rope as a tool to display the children's work, in particular samples of their writing and drawing. While I was out walking through the bushes looking for some lovely branches with my children, I couldn't believe the number of gumnuts on the ground - A natural resource too good to step over! I have used gumnuts in the past (you may remember A Little More Nature on Tuesday). As I want to combine an environment rich in print and natural resources, I thought these would be perfect.

I used an acrylic white paint to roughly paint a circle and then a permanent marker to write the letters of the alphabet. I made extra letters so they could make their names. The gumnut letters will be stored at the writing station for the children to explore.

The letters made out of twigs and branches will hang on the new grid I am making. 

Tree branch letters - another resource for the children to explore at the writing station.

I used a permanent marker on freshly cut tree branches. These are not only lovely to hold but also smell beautiful.

I still haven't made the wall hanging - very typical of me. I get soo excited by one project and then get more excited my other things along the way. It will get done though, as school finally starts next week after the most glorious Summer holiday. 

Thanks for all your lovely comments and feedback. See you next Tuesday!

Inexpensive Holiday Fun

This is the sixth week of Summer school holidays and as it has been very hot! My kids have spent HOURS and HOURS in the pool. My youngest thought it would be great to freeze some sea creatures that he bought at the $2 shop and also made some frozen boats to play with in the pool.

As each sea creature thawed, it sunk to the bottom and he had fun diving down to retrieve them.

Creative Weaving

Weaving on garden trellis

We had this roll of gardening trellis in the garage and my daughter thought she would make a heart in preparation for Valentines Day.

You can cut the trellis using scissors into any shape you can imagine!

As I am an avid crafter, we always have a huge supply of craft materials. Here we used wool, tulle, material, ribbon, lace, felt and feathers. We chose shades of pinks and reds, as we were making a heart. She was very creative as she experimented with different ways to attach the materials and didn't only use the traditional method of over and under.

Squares are most suitable for young children to manage. This is an excellent fine motor activity and can be extended to introduce pattern as well. When I have done this activity in the past with my class of three year olds, it has promoted a lot of new language. On the whole, it is a fabulous learning experience for all ages.

Weaving by three year olds!

Happy weaving!!

Maths Fun on Tuesday

This week we continued on the challenge of making games to keep us entertained in the school holidays.

We began with a simple die made from an old, clean custard carton.

After cutting the carton to have equal sides, we covered it in plain white paper. My daughter used circle stickers to make the sides of the die and then we laminated them.

A fun game that we all played.

An empty donut container was used for some simple counting and number recognition fun. By using tongs and chopsticks you can incorporate fine motor skills as well as maths concepts. All of the materials were things we had lying around at home and the activities were endless. 

I made the numbers out of cellophane scraps and laminated them, but didn't stick them in the container so that we weren't limited in our activities. Being cellophane and plastic, it will make a perfect resource for the light table.

Throw the die and use the tongs to put the correct number of objects in the container.

We made the numbers out of straws and pipe cleaners and put them in the corresponding containers.  

More complicated maths challenges.

Have a wonderful week and see you next Tuesday!