Messy Play Learning

We have blogged in the past about messy play but saw that The Play Academy are looking for messy play posts for the end of October so thought we would write a new post on this theme.

Judging by the four year old's school uniform he has been doing a lot of it at school so I asked him about his five favourite messy play things and have added some learning!



1. Shaving foam
Very simple and very messy - squirt on the table and then spread out with the palms of your hand and draw shapes, patterns and pictures or write letters, numbers and even words. This is a great activity for children who don't really like writing as they are too busy drawing to realise they are practicing and developing these fine motor skills!


2. Paint
He likes paint (claims he hasn't done it this week but someone has because there was green paint on his school shoes this morning)... He then talked about rolling marbles in paint to make patterns and mixing colours.


3. Finding Buried Treasure
Hide coins in a sandpit (doesn't matter if the sand is wet or dry - wet is messier though) and dig for them - you can use spades or spoons, sieve for them or just find them with fingers.


4. Noodles
He still remembers this from Chinese New Year - a big tray of cooked noodles to stir, pick up with large tweezers (trying chopsticks if you are brave!)

5. Playdough
Probably one of every preschoolers favourites - blogged about before with recipes - lots of learning opportunities. This week they have been thinking about birthdays and have been making playdough cakes.

Marble Memories / Fine Motor Flicks

As readers of past entries will know I have just started joining in with The Gallery set by Tara at Sticky Fingers and this week the theme is "Memories" and I thought it really linked with a post that I was planning about Fine Motor Flicking Activities, so here goes...

First my "arty" picture of marbles - the toy of memories - ask any old person and they will give you tails about playing with marbles as a child (well my grandparents certainly did!).

And then about the "fine motor flicking"...

"Flicking" is a fun fine motor activity that can really help a child develop their fine motor skills. Flick by opposing each finger and thumb in turn (you can use either hand and when you get good use both together). Flicking can increase motor planning and accuracy, fine manual dexterity and can strengthen the muscles in the hand.

As you can see we were "flicking" the marbles... we had all sorts of games, for example; flick them the furthest, flick them onto the target, flick them to hit another marble and flicking two at the same time seeing if they could crash.

If you don't have any marbles (or you are worried about your children putting marbles in their mouths) you can scrunch up paper and flick that or make small balls of playdough or use peas.

Have fun flicking! And do have a look at the other photos in the "memories" photo gallery.

Today's Target: Mark Making to Writing

Children learn to write by starting "mark making" these simple marks then develop into something more recognisable as writing, from a very young age they will imitate adults, grasping writing tools and making marks on paper or any other available surface! It is important during this development that they are encouraged, as young writers as it is from this that handwriting grows.

Mark-making can be done with a pencil and paper but the wider the range of textures and media that are used the more fun it is and the more children will practice it.

Some suggestions:

• Paint using an easel and brushes
• Chalk on boards
• Draw in sand (wet or dry) with either a stick or a finger
• Paint the playground / wall with water and large brushes
• Draw shapes in the air with a wand
• Finger paint
• Dance with a ribbon in your writing hand
• Draw in cornflour "gloop"
• Draw in salt
• Write with pens on a whiteboard
• Use chunky triangular crayons
• Use felt tip pens or colouring pencils
• Draw in mud with sticks

Learning to hold a pencil and make marks that ultimately lead to writing is a complex development. Young children’s scribblings and drawings are their way of communicating and showing observation of their world and as parents and teachers we should encourage, praise and celebrate their achievements.

Examples of development - writing a weather report by my nearly four year old and my nearly six year old boys.

The scribbled circle is the sun, the sideways wavy line is the "s" (followed by another attempt - that looks like a c), then a recogniseable (but formed incorrectly) "u" and a "n".

There is a whole sentence that is recognisable (one reversed letter and the x to cross out a s which was placed without a finger space) plus a recogniseable picture!

Growing Sunflowers

Spring has sprung this week and today at "Stay and Play" we planted a sunflower seed so I thought I would write a post about the learning opportunities that this provides

This can cover lots of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) areas of learning - here are the immediate ones to spring to mind:

Knowledge and Understanding of the World - what does the seed / plant need to grow
Communication, Language and Literacy - writing your name on the pot (mark making)
Problem Solving, Reasoning and Numeracy - how tall is your sunflower? how long is it taking to grow?
Physical development - the fine motor skills of filling the flowerpot with compost and then pushing the seed in
Creative development - decorating your pot / drawing the plant at different stages of development

I am sure there are millions more!

How to hold a pencil?

We have been trying to encourage our five year old to hold his pencil properly with the correct triangular grip but he prefers to hold it with his middle finger and thumb rather than his index finger.

So what have we tried?

In the Reception class they were told to use "tweeting" fingers to hold their pencil - so "tweet" like a bird with the index and thumb and then pick up the pencil - the novelty wore off! He recently came home with a paper aeroplane and worked out that it was the same fingers he needed to hold the pencil with so that might be another good exercise for children needing to encourage their index finger and thumb to work together.

We have tried triangular pencils but because his grip is only slightly off this doesn't help, ditto the triangular grip. The grippy pencil grip looked promising to start with - it did make him hold the pencil correctly but he found it awkward to position by himself each time he needed to pick up the pencil. Lastly, we tried the tri-go grip this has three clear spaces for the fingers and he could position is fingers independently and most importantly it did improve his grip.

What works best now? Telling him if I see him holding his pen incorrectly I will tell Miss B he needs to have more handwriting practice!

How have you encouraged your children to correct their grip?

January Sale Now On!

The January Sale is now on at Littlesheep Learning.

Save up to 30% on a range of books, games and fine motor activities.

Our favourites items are Fine Motor Fishes (reduced from £15.50 to £10.50), the Going to School book (reduced from £2.50 to £1.50) and the Timestables Lotto game (reduced from £9.99 to £8). What are your favourites?

All items subject to stock availability and the sale will end on 31st January 2010!

If there are any other Mumpreneurs / WAHMs who want me to promote your sale - please do add the details in a comment!

Writing Thank You Letters

Hopefully everyone will have had a lovely Christmas and everyone will have received lots of presents. Now we are in the new year in many families thoughts turn to writing thank you letters. I can remember sitting as a child handwriting my missives to the friends and family who had given us presents and now it is me trying to persuade my reluctant writers to carry on the tradition.

With the advent of computers into family life it is sometimes easier to get our eldest to type his messages as until recently writing was not something that he enjoyed. Typing a letter onto a computer is less personal if it is just the name and present details that are changed and it doesn't show the child's developing handwriting (although we did leave in the creative spellings!) but it does get the job done.

Having done our letters and felt proud that they are all in envelopes ready to post I then stumbled across this link on Filth Wizardry about a website where you can generate a font of your child's handwriting. You download a printable template for your child to write each letter of the alphabet (plus the common punctuation marks), scan it in and upload the image and wait for your font which you can then use in all of your documents. As I said - we haven't tried it yet but there are some great examples on the Filth Wizardry post so you can see how it works. I think we will try this for the birthday thank you letters later in the year - so watch this space!

Fine Motor Skills - Finger Rhymes

I was reading Melitsa’s blog post about finger rhymes and it reminded me how finger rhymes and action songs can help children develop their fine motor skills. Copying finger movements will strengthen muscles, increase dexterity and help children develop control of fine motor movements.

From as young as six months babies will love action rhymes like Round and Round the Garden, Pat-a-Cake, or This Little Piggy Went to Market. These songs and rhymes are great for encouraging interaction and whilst they are starting to hear these songs and see the actions they will start to join in.

One of the easiest motor actions in songs and rhymes is clapping and one of the most popular songs is "If Youre Happy and You Know it" which also incorporates the gross motor actions of stamping feet and nodding your head. Other songs which involve clapping are Clapping song, We All Clap Hands Together and Open, Shut them. Other favourites action songs and rhyme, Insey Winsey Spider and Twinkle Twinkle Little Star,

Songs that can include a multitude of actions eg Copy me are great for introducing new motor movements as the repetitive nature of the song makes it easy for children to learn and then they can use imitation skills to practice new motor skills.

Other favourite ones with small children are Two Little Dicky Birds, One Finger One Thumb, Tommy Thumb, and Two Fat Gentlemen, and as Melitsa says bigger children might like the finger play Here is the Church.

What are your favourites?

Summer Holiday: Messy Play

Today we did 'messy play' luckily for us it was at the local Children's Centre so no mess in our house for once. I've posted lots of messy play ideas before here and today wasn't any different - the eldest two liked finger painting - blobs of squeezy paint on the top of the paper and useur fingers / hands to draw patterns and mix them up and the baby enjoyed playing in a bowl of runny strawberry angel delight (don't ask how much he ate!). They also played with coloured sand, cooked pasta, playdoh, water and grains of wheat and jumped in bubbles with the bubble machine. Maybe something to do on a sunny day at home when you can use the garden so as not to make too much mess in the house!

Summer Holiday: Play dough

This afternoon we played with play dough (playdoh) and I was reminded of the fine motor benefits of playing with play dough and all the different things you can do.

First off play dough is fairly cheap to play with - you can make it yourself and make lots of different colours, textures very easily, plus you don't need any fancy tools as you can use your hands and other household objects to mould it.

Fine motor activities with play dough:

• roll into tiny balls using the palms of the hands facing each other and using only the finger tips
• make designs using toothpicks
• practice cutting using plastic scissors
• practice using a knife and fork to cut it up
• knead the dough
• stick small objects into dough and pull them out
• poke holes in it
• squeeze it
• press it flat
• pinch it (pastry pinches)
• roll into a sausage using palms
• make models
• use cutters
• squeeze in garlic press
• play with paydough tools eg spagetti making tool, rollers, molds

Most importantly - have fun.

Grow your own

We've been busy in the garden so far this Easter Holidays with the children planting seeds (mixed flowers, pumpkins for the biggest pumpkin competition and sunflowers for the tallest sunflower competition!).

If you are avid gardeners as part of BBC’s Dig In series, you can get some free seeds. The aim of the series is to introduce the joys and benefits of growing your own. It’s easy to get some free seeds - you’ll be sent tomatoes, squash, beetroot, lettuce and carrots by filling in a simple form on their site. Smaller gardeners (under the age of 16) can get their own seeds from the CBeebies website!

Letting children help to grow their own food is an fabulous learning experience for them, which teaches so much. Planting seeds involves literacy skills - reading growing instructions and writing identification labels, numeracy skills - counting the seeds and sharing them between pots, and the digging, sowing, watering involved is great for gross and fine motor skill development.

Are you going to grow your own this year? Do comment and us know what are you growing and your top tips!

Shrove Tuesday - Pancake Day

Today is Shrove Tuesday and this means it's Pancake Day - so a blog post about pancakes!

Shrove Tuesday is the feast day before the first day of Lent, the period of fasting that traditionally precedes Easter. Pancakes would have been used as a way to use up all of the eggs and fat in the house before observing a period of fasting. These days very few people actually fast during Lent (although the tradition of giving something up for Lent still survives) but that doesn't stop us from enjoying pancakes

Here's a basic recipe for the pancakes, and some ideas for fillings:

Pancake Batter
225g plain flour
pinch of salt
2 eggs
400-500ml milk

Sift the flour and salt into a large bowl. Make a well in the middle of the flour and add the eggs. Next take a whisk or fork and start whisking the eggs, gradually incorporating the flour as you go. Then start adding the milk gradually, beating well and making sure that all of the flour is mixed in. Stop when the batter has the consistency of single cream and leave the batter to stand, covered and in a cool place, for 30 minutes-2 hours.

To cook the pancakes, you'll need a non-stick frying pan. Get the pan hot and then turn the heat down to medium. Add a little oil, melted butter or lard, making sure that the whole base of the pan is greased. Give the batter a stir and then spoon some into the hot pan (use a ladle or small cup to make it easier) and immediately turn the pan from side to side, swirling the batter around to cover the base of the pan evenly. You can tip any excess back into the bowl of batter.

Cook on the first side for about 30 seconds - you can check if the underside is cooked by lifting an edge with a fish slice or palette knife - and then flip over to cook the second side. If you're feeling brave, why not have a go at tossing the pancake?

The second side will only take a few seconds to brown, and then you can slide the pancake out to a plate. Either serve each pancake as it cooks or stack them on a plate with greaseproof paper in between each pancake if you prefer. Keep them warm in a low oven or over a pan of simmering water, with a tent of foil over them.

Please make sure children are well supervised when near the cooker / hot oil and frying pans.

The Toppings
A sprinkling of caster sugar and a squeeze of lemon juice
Jam
Chocolate spread
Sliced Banana with ice cream
Golden Syrup
Chopped ham and grated cheese
Or use 'ice cream sauces'

So - learning and pancakes...

Making pancakes - this involves many fine motor skills; pouring /scooping the flour and milk, cracking the eggs, stirring the batter, ladling the batter into a pan, flipping the pancake and then squeezing lemons, sprinkling sugar or spreading on syrup or chocolate spread. Not forgetting the numeracy skills of measuring / wieghing / counting the pancakes (or cutting them up to practicing fractions).

Alternatively, have fun making pretend pancakes using rolling out play dough (or colour and cut out the ones on our Resources page) and flip pancakes in a frying pan to your hearts content!

Shrove Tuesday is also well known for Marfdi Gras carnivals so get creative, make opulent hats and masks sticking on coloured feathers, shiny paper shapes and sprinkling with glitter. When finished bang drums, shake shakers and jingle bells and do a carnival dance!

Operation Play Time - Sugar Chalk

I'm very sorry to say that I didn't manage to get time to complete today's Operation Playtime task - Sugar Chalk but here is the information so we can try it another day...

Regular chalk drawings smear and smudge but not if you use 'Sugar Chalk' which will stay bold and bright and it won’t smear or smudge!

You will need:
pavement chalk or regular chalk,
bowl,
water,
sugar,
construction paper

To make:
Place water and 1/2 cup of sugar in the bowl and stir until it is dissolved.
Place the chalk in the bowl ( make sure the bowl is big enough and there is enough water to cover the chalk.
Let the chalk soak a few hours or overnight.
Take the chalk out and give your child some construction paper and the chalk and them create pretty masterpieces! Black or dark blue construction paper makes the most bold chalk masterpieces but any color will work!!!

This idea and recipe came from the book "First Art" by Mary Ann Kohl.

Operation Play Time - Make bubbles

After the mess of yesterday's Operation Playtime - today it is time to make bubbles.

Blowing bubbles is great for oral motor development - developing the breath control to make a bubble, fine motor development - dipping the wand into the mixture container / popping bubbles using fingers, and gross motor development - waving the wand to create a 'stream' of bubbles / running around chasing bubbles.

We love blowing bubbles (although meany mummy keeps them for a garden or bath activity). Today it was in the bath as it's far too cold to be in the garden and we blew our bubbles using straws having competitions to see who could make the most or the biggest or (our favourite trick) bubbles inside bubbles!

Operation Play Time - Playdoh, Gloop and Yuk!

Operation Playtime got decidingly messy today with Playdoh-gloop-and-yuk!

We've previously posted about Play dough and Flubber.

Other 'substances' for messy play are:

• shredded paper
• sand (wet or dry)
• uncooked rice
• dried lentils / beans / peas
• Angel delight
• water
• jelly
• baked beans
• bubble bath mixture (very slimey!)
• gravel
• gloop (cornflower mixed with water)
• salt
• cooked pasta
• pebbles
• paint
• dry cereal
• dry tea leaves
• shaving foam
• cooked noodles
• margerine
• glass beads
• porridge
• sweetcorn
• mashed potato

Some are cleaner than others - Have fun!

December Special Offer: Wikki Stix

You can save £2 on all Wikki Stix Activity Sets at Littlesheep Learning until 20th December 2008.

The Wikki Stix Activity Set contains 48 brightly coloured Wikki Stix, a dry wipe board to use with the Wikki Stix, a reusable bag and a storybook. Wikki Stix are coated with a unique patented wax formula, they stick to almost any surface and each other with just fingertip pressure. A great resource for fine motor activities - mould them, bend them, shape them, use them to 'edge' handwriting lines / colouring sheets or for creating tactile raised pictures.

A great Christmas present for all children.

Wikki Stix Activity Ideas

What are Wikki Stix?

Wikki Stix are waxy sticks which look a bit like pipe-cleaners. They are made from a combination of a strand of acrylic, hand-knitting yarn and a microcrystalline, food-grade, non-toxic wax. Wikki Stix stick to smooth surfaces (like the Wikki Stick boards included in the Activity pack or onto white boards) and to each other. They are a colourful, tactile, sensory and engaging product that can be used in many different ways.

Who can use Wikki Stix?

Wikki Stix can be used by children and adults alike. Their non-toxic nature means that they are safe even for children who may try to eat them however their use should be supervised. Wikki Stix are also great for children with various disabilities – they are fun for children to manipulate and can be used to help children develop their fine motor skills, their clean mouldable nature makes them an ideal ‘fidget’ toy and their ability to make 3D pictures makes them a great resource for children with sight difficulties.

How to use Wikki Stix

There are endless uses for Wikki Stix so use your imagination to see what you can create however we have included some ideas here:

During pre-writing activities, Wikki Stix can be used to create patterns and mazes to draw between. They can also be used make raised edges to colouring pictures to make colouring inside the lines easier. In handwriting exercises, Wikki Stix can be used to make a raised border margin to show where to start and stop on the edges of the paper, or to make raised lines to prompt letter placement and size. Wikki Stix can also be used to create boxes to write letters / numbers within. Different colour Wikki Stix can be also used to add prompts of where to start and where to stop. Wrapping a Wikki Stix around the base of a pencil can also be used as a grip and a reminder of how to hold the pencil. Placing a Wikki Stix under the top of the paper will help prevent slippage during writing and drawing activities.

Wikki Stix are also good for kinaesthetic learning activities. Once patterns / letter and numbers have been created they can be traced with the finger to practice the formation. A fun game is to try to identify letters, numbers or shapes by touch alone.

Playing with Wikki Stix can help develop a range of creative skills. They can be moulded to form shapes, letters, numbers and pictures. As they are easy to peel up and reposition modelling with Wikki Stix is virtually ‘mistake-free’ which helps build self-esteem. Wikki Stix are a quiet and creative fidget tool, providing a calming effect which may help children better focus on classroom activities. Wikki Stix may help generate verbal interaction, as children create while using them. This may also be helpful in the development of social skills, through tactilely engaging play.

In literacy activities, Wikki Stix can be used to highlight parts of words or a sentence. A Wikki Stix cut into shorter lengths can be used to show the division of words into syllables. Different colours of Wikki Stix can be used to code types of words in a sentence for example red = adjectives, blue = nouns and green = verbs or divisions of compound words. Wikki Stix can be used to loop or underline responses for example; words that rhyme, have a certain ending or include certain sounds.

In numeracy activities, Wikki Stix can be used to teach concepts of long and short, as well as maths symbols. They can be used as counters, to demonstrate place value and also for patterning and sequencing.

Wikki Stix can also be used to improve independence and self-help skills. Wikki Stix can outline the area where an item should be placed, for example a cup on the table or toothbrush on the shelf. A Wikki Stix threaded through the hole on a zip and twisted makes it easier to pull up and down with the Wikki to hold onto improving independent dressing skills.

Buy Wikki Stix!

Wikki Stix are part of a range of Fine Motor Activities available from Littlesheep Learning.

New Product: Wikki Stix

We've recently added the Wikki Stix Activity Set to our range of Fine Motor Activities.


The Wikki Stix Activity Set contains 48 brightly coloured Wikki Stix, a dry wipe board to use with the Wikki Stix, a reusable bag and a storybook. Wikki Stix are coated with a unique patented wax formula, they stick to almost any surface and each other with just fingertip pressure. A great resource for fine motor activities - mould them, bend them, shape them, use them to 'edge' handwriting lines / colouring sheets or for creating tactile raised pictures.


Look out for an article soon about some of the many uses of Wikki Stix.

Playdough

Another term, another town, another 'Stay and Play' group! We went to a new toddler group today and the 'take home idea' was play dough.

Playdough is great for children to play with and learn new skills at the same time. Play dough is:

• good practice for sharing / turn-taking
• soothing / calming
• good for releasing tension
• good for strengthening muscles / developing motor skills
• good for developing language
• creative
• multi-sensory
• fun!

Recipes

Cooked Play-Dough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
2 tablespoons cream of tartar
1 tablespoon oil
1 cup water
food colouring

Mix dry ingredients and mix wet ingredients and then stir together.
Stir constantly over a medium heat until the ingredients change from a lump paste into a more rubbery blob.
Turn out onto a working surface and knead the dough.
Store in an airtight container.

Cooked Play-Dough

1 cup flour
1/2 cup salt
1/2 cup water
food colouring

Mix flour and salt, add water and food colouring.
Turn out onto a working surgace and knead the dough to make a clay consistency.
Store in an airtight container (doesn't keep as long as the cooked version though).

Other ideas:

Add:

• glitter
• spices
• mint
• herbs
• cocoa powder
• yeast (makes a stretchier dough)
• raisins
• pasta
• ginger
• lemon juice
• curry

Use a variety of tools to play with the dough, for example;

• lolly sticks
• fir cones
• toy cars
• cutters
• rolling pins
• paper cases
• straws

Play dough is suitable for children over a year old. Make sure that you supervise the play and use protective coverings for the floor, clothes and surfaces. Some children may try to eat the play dough but because it is so salty after a few tastes children will discover that it is much more fun to play with than eat!

Please feel free to share more playdough recipes / activity ideas.

Fun Fine Motor Activities

I've just had my weekly email from Play Activities and it had two fun fine motor activities I thought I'd share with you.

Activity ~ 3-D squeezey chalk

Materials:

• 1/2 cup of cornflour
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 1/4 cup of water
• food colouring
• glitter
• bowl
• ziplock bag

Instructions:

• Mix the flour and cornflour together.
• Add water and 3-5 drops of food colouring
• Add the glitter.
• Mix until it looks like paste.
• Pour mixture into the Ziplock bag and seal.
• Cut a small hole in the corner of the Ziplock bag and squeeze the chalk out to make patterns / write words / draw pictures.

Activity ~ String picture

Materials:

• sheets of paper
• different coloured paints
• string 40cm or longer
• old newspaper

Instructions:

• Lay a sheet of paper onto a newspaper covered table top
• Dip the string into some paint until it's covered.
• Place the string in an interesting shape on top of the paper.
• Make sure small part of the string is off the sheet of paper.
• Carefully put on a second sheet on top of the string.
• Parent: hold the sheets paper together.
• Child: hold string and gently pull it out from between the paper.
• Remove the top sheet of paper and you will see a pattern.
• Try another colour and repeat.

Play-activities is a free and fun educational e-mail for parents of children under 5. It is run by Melitsa Avila who is a qualified teacher. Melitsa wanted to create a source of activities for parents and children to enjoy, which offered a balance of gross and fine motor activities, social & personal activities, and problem-solving and language activities all in one easily accessible place. If you sign up you can gain access to a wide range of activities to help your child develop a balanced play life, have fun, and enjoy a good mix of the early childhood skills identified by child health professionals. They also have a blog with lots of other ideas and links to other sources of ideas to keep your children busy!