You Spin Me 'Round

One of the most popular activities in my classroom this year was spinning tops. I originally introduced tops as a way to help a few of my students hone their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination, but, as things often do in an early childhood classroom, the tops ended up offering so much more. We explored physics ( what types of surfaces do the tops spin on the longest?), art (what designs look cool when spinning), math (what top spins the longest?), more physics (on how steep of an incline will tops continue to spin before they simply slide down?). And so much more. And while I labeled the explorations with the core subjects being addressed, the students explored all these things on their own, with no guidance from me. (Let kids play!!)

And I made these tops with stuff I had laying around in my classroom....

1 CD
1 marble
1 bottle cap
Some glue (I used hot glue, and was frequently repairing broken tops, a stronger glue might increase durability)

• On one side of the CD, glue the marble in the hole (the marble should sit about a third of the way into the hole, just blob the glue around the marble, making sure the bottom of the marble remains free of glue.

• Glue the bottle cap on the other side of the CD, over the marble. 

• Let glue dry.

• Spin!!!

Ice, Ice, Baby!

Here in the desert, the temperature is supposed to hit triple digits this week, and the thought of playing outside becomes unbearable; how to spend time outside and not melt away?

 Play with ice!

Ice is cold, and self cleaning. It melts and then eventually just dries - no clean up!

Suggestions for ice play:

• Dump a bag of ice into a bin, add water and scoops

• Freeze colored water (use food coloring or liquid watercolor, this might stain...) and use to paint on sidewalk

• Freeze colored water and explore color mixing

• Fill a variety of containers with water and freeze - use resulting ice to create structures

• Freeze items inside ice (toy dinoauars, marbles, cars, etc.) and challenge your kiddos to remove the items from the ice without braking the ice

• Rock salt and ice is fun

• Letter practice - draw letters on sidewalk and trace with ice

• Contest: Who can hold ice the longest?

These are but a few things to do with ice, one of the best summer play items in the desert!

Enjoy!!

Memorial Day Merriment

For many people, Memorial Day marks the first day of summer, and is celebrated by gathering with friends and family for barbecues and swimming.

Kiddos love to help in the kitchen, and picnic food offers a great opportunity for them to get in on the fun.

First, the super sweet and unhealthy, but so fun and messy to make....patriotic marshmallows!!
(Recipe courtesy of The Wicked Noodle). These are so sweet my teeth hurt just looking at the picture!

Patterning is a favorite activity of young kids, and the ability to recognize and create patterns lays a foundation for learning algebra and geometry down the line, as well as the ability to make predictions.

Fruit kabobs offer a fun way to pattern with picnic food. Let the your child choose 3-4 fruits and then allow them to create a pattern as they skewer the fruit on to a kabob stick (of course, supervise your child, no one wants to lose an eye). For example, strawberry, blueberry, grape; strawberry, blueberry, grape, etc. Math and fruit - it's a win-win!

A fun activity that helps with fine motor coordination is letting your child use  a melon baller to scoop melon. A variety of melon balls tossed together is so festive looking, and a perfect picnic food, but so tedious to make. However, your child will love this!

Tossing in a little bit of literacy to the fun....

Have your child find the letters in "Memorial Day" in old magazines, flyers, etc. Have them cut them out the letters and glue them to a piece of paper. More challenging? Have them find pictures that start with the sounds of the letters in Memorial Day. For example, a picture of a man for the "M".

Have a safe and fun first day of summer!!

Summer!!!

The summer is here!

What to do, what to do...

Where I live, it is very hot in the summer, and while I wholly enjoying the feeling of living in an oven, most folks don't. What we need are some easy, fun and inexpensive things to do, to keep the young ones engaged and their grown-ups sane.

I have gathered ideas for some fun simple and easy crafts, cooking and activities to help with the things to do dilemma. While most of these are designed for the 3-5 set, I certainly had fun doing them, and with some tweaking can be geared to most any age group.

Happy Summer!