Domino Maths

Doing child lead learning sometimes leads to lots of fun! 

Mini Miss was very keen to play with the dominoes last week. I was busy trying to clean up, so I tipped them out in an out of the way place. I told her that we would build the dominoes up to knock them down, once she sorted them into colours.

Mini Miss was very excited by this, and set about sorting the colours. As I worked, we talked about the colours. She then counted the number of each colour.

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Activities - Part 1

So Mini Miss needs to be challenged and constantly wants to learn, be taught and understand. I try to do this through a mix of guided learning, and more importantly, play, art and craft. 

I decided we would look at the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. 

If you haven't read this book, then go out and buy it! Now! Go!! Especially if you have kids! Its an endless source of educational points, and kids just LOVE it! The illustrations are colourful, the story simple but entertaining, and Mini Miss LOVES the ending! 

I read it to Mini Miss, who immediately insist that we read it again, and then she wanted to "read" it to me. Being able to retell a story is a great skill, and she did a fantastic job using the pictures as guides for her story!

Then we got stuck into a couple of craft activities! 

Egg Carton Caterpillar

Materials Needed:

Egg Carton

Red and Green Paint

Pipe cleaners

Googly Eyes

Mini Miss loved this activity. As I said, I don't often do a guided activity, but I also find value in following step by step instructions to make something. We started by painting our caterpillar just like the Hungry Caterpillar in the book.

Then, when the paint dried we stuck on his Googly Eyes, and I put small holes in his head and his body using a skewer, and Mini Miss added antennae and legs.

So simple, yet a lot of fun for miss almost 3!!

Then sticking with the slightly messy theme, we made some

Painted Butterflies

Materials Needed:

Coloured construction paper

Paints in the colour of your choice

Pre cut butterflies (I did these beforehand as Mini Miss is not yet ready for scissors)

This was as fun as it was messy! Mini Miss LOVES paint! The hardest part was convincing her to just put the paint on 1 half of the butterfly! I got her to put some blobs of paint on the butterfly, then fold it in half. We used 2 or 3 different colours each time, so we could look at how colours mix to create new colours. These butterflies also help us talk about mirrors and how things can be the same on both sides.

 

These were 2 simple and fun activities, and a great way to start looking at this book. As she is SO obsessed with the story, and insists on reading at least 3 times a day, I figure we will continue with some more activities based around the story tomorrow. Some more advanced, possibly challenging activities. Will post these next week!