We’re joined by Christie from Childhood101 today, with a great post about sorting fun. I hope you enjoy her ideas.

“Pleasure in arranging things – whether lining up pebbles or tiny toys in a row, or arranging lines, shapes and colours on a sheet of paper – is part of children’s lives, part of the human desire . . . → Read More: Thinking It Through: Sorting Fun]]>

We’re joined by Christie from Childhood101 today, with a great post about sorting fun. I hope you enjoy her ideas.

“Pleasure in arranging things – whether lining up pebbles or tiny toys in a row, or arranging lines, shapes and colours on a sheet of paper – is part of children’s lives, part of the human desire for visual order.”

~Ursula Kolbe, It’s Not A Bird Yet: The Drama of Drawing (2005)

My daughter loves to sort and organise; from collecting small, natural objects on our daily walks at 18 months of age and sorting strips of fabric two months later, to arranging fairy stones at play or helping to sort the laundry as a three year old. At various times we have sorted by colour, size, texture, shape and number. Always in a spontaneous, fun and playful manner.

Play is the vehicle through which children learn best and the key to successful thinking and reasoning activities for young children is keeping it playful. I often look for ways to invite my daughter to come to these experiences herself, presenting them in a colourful and appealing manner (as an invitation to play) or leaving them ‘strewed‘ for her to discover. This provides her with an element of independence with the activity and me space to observe her thinking processes, her interest, her ideas for the experience. I show interest and answer questions but try to avoid leading or dictating the play, and hence the learning.

There are limitless ways to practice these skills but basing a thinking and reasoning activity around the interests of the individual child helps to engage them, therefore motivating them to learn. A child obsessed with dinosaurs can line them up in a row from biggest to smallest, a child who loves home corner play can sort the types of pretend food to set up a general store, and a child mad about cars can sort her collection by colour or type of car or size. It makes no difference to the learning if dinosaurs or plastic food or cars are used, the skills being developed remain the same.

Keeping it playful IS what makes all the difference.

Christie is a qualified early childhood teacher and the Mum of one very busy preschooler. You’ll find inspiration and information on children playing, learning and growing on Christie’s award winning blog, Childhood 101, and in her recently launched quarterly play-zine, Play Grow Learn.

I’m delighted to feature a guest post idea today from Suzanne of skybluesea, inspired by The Rainbow Fish story by Marcus Pfister.

Suzanne is a freelance textile artist and she’s recently been working with a Reception and Year One class to produce an amazing collaborative work based on The Rainbow Fish book. The process incorporated art, design, . . . → Read More: The Rainbow Fish craft idea]]>

I’m delighted to feature a guest post idea today from Suzanne of skybluesea, inspired by The Rainbow Fish story by Marcus Pfister.

Suzanne is a freelance textile artist and she’s recently been working with a Reception and Year One class to produce an amazing collaborative work based on The Rainbow Fish book. The process incorporated art, design, texture, colour and numeracy. Here’s Suzanne to tell you more.

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“A long way out in the deep blue sea there lived a fish. Not just an ordinary fish, but the most beautiful fish in the entire ocean. His scales were every shade of blue and green and purple, with sparkling silver scales among them.”
extract from ‘The Rainbow Fish’ by Marcus Pfister .

I have recently completed a project with a Reception and Year One class for Curious Minds. The brief was to include collaborative and individual working for the children, numeracy and the theme ’water’. Mathematical language was used throughout : how many?, how many more?, Is that too much?, Do we need more or less?

The children experienced silk-painting, and drawing outlines of shapes with gutta. We then talked about ‘The Rainbow Fish’ and we decided to create a huge silk painting based on it. They also made small wire and tissue fishes, and they had to choose two colours of beads for threading - counting as they threaded them on.

Their fishes were then suspended from the ceiling with ribbons and displays of their silk painting, and lot of photographs of the children working. Questions  like ‘How many points does a star fish have?’, ‘How many octopus can you see?’ also became part of the display.

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The children’s project also incorporated felt making, sewing and weaving. I love how they were able to try out lots of different techniques and make their own design choices as well as coming together to create a collaborative work of art the whole class took part in.

You can see the finished result and find a tutorial for the felt making collage over at skybluesea – pop over and be inspired to try the ideas out with your children.

happily shared with abcand123

Don’t Play with your Dinner!   Games to get your toddler to eat.

As all of you are probably . . . → Read More: Games to get your toddler to eat]]> A big welcome to Alli Price from Motivating Mum who is visiting us with a great guest post for all those tricky eaters you know. She has some really fun ideas, so without further ado I’ll hand you over…

Don’t Play with your Dinner!   Games to get your toddler to eat.

As all of you are probably painfully aware, it’s tough getting kids to eat and not always because they’re fussy.  My daughter is great at eating but has the attention span of my boyfriend when discussing the shopping list!  For this reason we have been forced to get creative at dinner time and, although it is sometimes painful always having to play games, it’s certainly less painful than the alternative which is negotiation, followed by yelling, followed by the naughty step.

Following are the games we have devised to get our toddler to eat and if even a few of you out there can benefit from what I share then it’s a blog worth posting!

1.     I hold up the five fingers on my hand and wiggle them about.  Amelie then has to make them disappear one at a time by eating a mouthful of food.

2.     I ask Amelie to eat something red and she eats a pepper.  I ask her to eat something green and she eats a bean.  She’s usually so busy working out the colours she forgets she’s eating at all.  You can also do this with the alphabet i.e. eat something beginning with ‘g’.

3.     I tell Amelie she’s going to be a magician and she has to make things ‘disappear’ from her plate (while I’m looking in the other direction).  When I turn back I’m amazed that it has disappeared.  When I pretend that it has turned up in my mouth she finds that hilarious.  When I protest that I don’t want her to make any more broccoli appear in my mouth as I’m full she can’t wait to eat more to fill me up.

4.     We also use simple subtracting.  If she has three beans I ask her how she can make it two.  When she holds up a bean I say ‘quick eat it and make it two!’

5.     We make food into families i.e. if there are four pieces of carrot they are mum, dad, brother and sister.  When she eats one, I ask her which one it was and who misses them the most.  Whichever she indicates has to be eaten too so she can reunite them.  If there is one left on the plate, they must be lonely so they also have to be eaten!

6.     I also play the animal game with Amelie which is what does this animal eat?  She then has to be that animal i.e. pretend to be a rabbit to eat carrot.  When it comes to something like broccoli you have to bend the truth a little!  We use a turtle for broccoli!  If there is a particular food your child doesn’t like it might help if their favourite animal eats this food.

7.     We also play a fun game where eating food provides visible results of regaining energy.  For example, eating one piece of carrot gets your finger moving, eating two pieces gets the hand moving and eating everything gets the arm moving about all over the place.  This can be a bit wild and messy but is ultimately enjoyable!

8.     Have you ever played musical dinner?  Everyone has to eat until the music goes off and then you have to hold a pose.  While the music plays everyone has to eat in a circuitous manner i.e. one piece of meat, one piece of potato, one pea and so on..

Alli Price runs Motivating Mum – website and events for mums in business (or those wanting to start up).  She is also a mum to Amelie, 3 ½ and Freya, 2 months.

Over at Red Ted Art, my son (Red Ted (2)) and I (Maggy (old)) do lots of crafts projects. Sometimes Pip Squeak (0) joins us. Usually I am inspired by . . . → Read More: Pebble art]]> We have the great pleasure of having another guest post today. Please welcome Maggie from Red Ted Art with ideas for combining nature and art…

Over at Red Ted Art, my son (Red Ted (2)) and I (Maggy (old)) do lots of crafts projects. Sometimes Pip Squeak (0) joins us. Usually I am inspired by books that we read (the tagline from another crafty mum being – story + art = great stART). This time however, we were Inspired by Nature as well as the Arts! (come visit “Get Crafty” for a host of nature related ideas):

The V&A is running a World Beach Project with artist Sue Lawty. This is a project involving sculptures and pictures made from stones. Check out the V&A website for more info. Here is Sue Lawty’s project.

We couldn’t get to a beach, but still wanted to “take part”, so friends of ours brought us some Brighton Beach stones and we got Inspired by Nature at home… we have 6 BIG stones and lots of pebbles from the garden.

*** PLEASE TAKE CARE WITH THE PEBBLES AND SMALL CHILDREN – DO NOT LEAVE THEM ALONE – CHOKING HAZARD***

This is what we got up to:

Whilst playing with the stones we learnt lots of things:

“Just Feeling” – enjoying nature and playing with the pebbles. They feel nice, don’t they?!

Lots here:

• Big & Little. Which is the biggest? Which is the smallest?
• Counting 1-6.
• Shapes – e.g.  Triangle.
• Heavy. Red Ted told me that some were “heavy”…
• Warm & Cold. He also pointed out to me, that after we had left the m in the garden overnight that they were cold (“Brrrrr, mummy, brrr”) and could I warm them up (beep beep beep – I am ashamed to admit, that that means the microwave).

And finally! Some “artwork” and some playing (Red Ted did the flower pattern when I had turned my back).

Happy & Sad! We made a stone caterpillar with petals for eyes. Turn the stone one way and he is sad (“hungry mummy”), turn the stone the other way and he is happy!

Hurray for Brighton Beach stone (and pebbles from the garden)!

If you enjoyed this post, do pop over to Red Ted Art and see what we get up to on a regular basis – Get Inspired by Nature in Nature Get Crafty or just visit for Wednesday Crafts!! We look forward to meeting you!

Maggy & Red Ted (& sometimes Pip Squeak)