Do your kids love Lego? Just manipulating the pieces, snapping them together and pulling them apart is a great work out for fingers, helping to develop fine-motor skills, but Lego is a classic open-ended toy that can be used in so many different ways by creative kids.  My girls most often use their Lego to build imaginary buildings . . . → Read More: Lego math games]]>

Do your kids love Lego? Just manipulating the pieces, snapping them together and pulling them apart is a great work out for fingers, helping to develop fine-motor skills, but Lego is a classic open-ended toy that can be used in so many different ways by creative kids.  My girls most often use their Lego to build imaginary buildings or enclosures for their toy animals but recently L has been using them in lot of math games.

Lego math games

Building chains of Lego in repeating patterns, with the same sequence of colours going along the line, is very good mathematical patterning and are early steps towards addition and times tables. L loves spotting repeating pattens and she’s started to add more complex elements to the patterns she joins together. Last week she presented me with this symmetrical combination of Lego and we decided to build this into a matching game.

Lego symmetry challenge

We took it in turns to build half a picture and then see if the other person could complete it. This is a butterfly but you can just make patterns rather than specific pictures. You can make this as simple or complex as you like, to suit your child’s level – and I bet they’ll try and make the pattern you have to complete as difficult as possible!

Make sure you have enough spare Lego blocks to complete the other side of  the pattern and then see how long it takes you to find all the right pieces. This lets you play and learn, working with ideas about colour, shape, size and orientation.

More lego math games

There are lots of fun ways to use Lego for maths games. You could…

:: use lego to measure and graph your results

:: use lego to add and subtract

:: use lego to classify and sort colours

:: use lego to follow patterns and shapes

How do you use lego for math play? Share an idea with us in the comments.

We always have a well stocked making box ready to create with but it was a bag of colourful marbles that we found in a charity . . . → Read More: Marvellous marbles: how to make a marble run]]> It seems fitting after yesterday’s inauguration of the Junk Model Hall of Fame that today’s post is about how to make a marble run from – you guessed it – junk!

We always have a well stocked making box ready to create with but it was a bag of colourful marbles that we found in a charity shop that were the inspiration for this marble run. It’s all B’s creation and she had to use lots of problem solving and adaptations a she went along, to make a marble run that would be fun to play with. Here’s how she made it.

How to make a junk model marble run

The basic materials B used are cardboard and plastic boxes in various shapes and sizes all stuck together with sticky tape. (Regular readers know my girls will not hang about waiting for glue to dry.) Doors were cut out with scissors and toilet roll tubes uses to create tunnels. B had to do some problem solving and make some adaptations to get her marble run on the right level so the marbles would indeed run, rather than come to a halt half way down. Creating tilted layers was the answer.

She added in some excitement by making it so there were two ways the marble could go – with a toilet roll tube trap sending the marble out of the game into a penalty area.

The egg box at the end is a great way to catch the marbles, so they don’t end up skittering all over the floor and also lets you turn the fun into a game. Allocate a score to each section of the egg box and collect points to see which player becomes Champion of the Marble Run.

What have you been creating from junk this week? Come and join the Junk Model Hall of Fame.

 happily shared with abcand123 and monday madness and  glitter link party and link and learn and sunday showcase and craft schooling sunday and preschool corner and  fun sparks and  for the kids friday and your green resource and it’s playtime

Maths activities for preschoolers work best when they are fun (of course!) and practical – using real objects the children can feel, rather than abstract numbers on a worksheet.

Try this fruit cocktail maths activity for some tasty number practice.

1. Talk about the fruits that . . . → Read More: Eat some numbers: Fruit cocktail maths]]>

Maths activities for preschoolers work best when they are fun (of course!) and practical – using real objects the children can feel, rather than abstract numbers on a worksheet.

Try this fruit cocktail maths activity for some tasty number practice.

How to make a counting cocktail

1. Talk about the fruits that would be great in a fruit cocktail and have the children write or draw a list of possible ingredients.

2. Go shopping or raid the fruit bowl to find your ingredients and wash, peel and chop the fruit into pieces.

3. Recipe time.  Have the children create their own fruit cocktail recipe and write or draw them out on a recipe card.

You could use a 1, 2, 3 ,4, 5 recipe, where the children must pick one of some kind of fruit, two of another, three of another, and so on.

Or use an ‘Adds up to ten’ recipe, where the children can pick any combination of fruits they like so long as they total ten pieces all together.

If you’re interested in colours, you could make the rule that they need five different colours in their cocktail.

If you’re interested in letters you could require that all the fruits in the recipe start with a different sound.

4. Eat and enjoy your bowl full of numbers.

You can find lots more preschool maths activities in our maths archive.

happily shared with tot school and preschool corner and smart summer for the kids Friday and it’s playtime

Our tallest is currently 1m 65cm. They got up to 2m 47cm last . . . → Read More: Sunflower Challenge 2011]]>

Today’s the Day!

If you’ve been growing sunflowers with us as part of the Compton Hospice Sunflower Challenge you need to measure your sunflowers today. There are fabulous prizes on offer for the tallest bloom, so measure up and contact Compton with your vital statistics.

Our tallest is currently 1m 65cm. They got up to 2m 47cm last year, so there’s plenty more growing to be done. How tall are yours?

Sunflower Festival

If you’ve been enjoying growing sunflowers (whether you’re joining in the official challenge or not) and have a sunflower-themed play idea to share with us – we would love to see them. Please add a link to the Linky at the end of this post. We’ve shared some ideas for art, science and math in our Sunflower Activities ebook, and here’s one more idea for sunflower fun.

How to make a Sunflower sundial

Sunflowers love sunshine of course and grow best when they’re in full sun (challenge contenders take note!), so why not combine the two with a dash of horology science to make a sunflower sundial.

Materials: a stick, a flowerpot filled with soil (or something else to hold the stick upright), a clock timer, yellow chalk, a patio / driveway /yard and sunshine!

Place your stick in the flowerpot, so it stands upright and then place the pot in a part of the patio or yard which gets the sun all day.

This stick will be the gnomon (good word!) which is going to cast a shadow on your dial, and you’ll use the yellow chalk to draw sunflower petals on the floor to mark out each hour of the day. We made our clock from 8am to 8pm

At 8 o’clock use your chalk to draw a petal on the ground, with the tip of the petal marking where the shadow of the gnomon falls. Add a number 8 to the tip of the petal.

Set your clock timer for 9 o’clock. When the alarm goes off, it’s time to mark out the location of the 9 o’clock petal. Continue setting the timer and marking off your petals throughout the day.

You could try out some the the ideas in our Sunflower Activities ebook or from the linky below to help you pass the time. We had lots of excited shrieks when the alarm rang!

Talk with the children about what’s happening with your sun clock. Why do the shadows move? Why are the shadows longer sometimes and shorter at other times? Do they think the pattern is different each day or the same?

Join the Sunflower Festival

Share an idea with us for any kind of sunflower-themed play idea, craft, activity or experiment. The linky will be open until the end of the month, so plenty of time for you to join in if you would like. Help us gather a great resource of sunflower ideas.

happily shared with get your craft on and  science Sunday and  craft schooling Sunday and  something for the weekend

I’ve written before about taking a child’s passion and using it as a way to explore different areas of play and learning. Here’s an idea for mixing in some maths – which we’re doing through the medium of Lego, but you can adapt it to suit whatever your child is interested in, be it cars, dinosaurs . . . → Read More: Measuring with lego]]>

I’ve written before about taking a child’s passion and using it as a way to explore different areas of play and learning. Here’s an idea for mixing in some maths – which we’re doing through the medium of Lego, but you can adapt it to suit whatever your child is interested in, be it cars, dinosaurs or shells.

Measuring with Lego

• Gather your investigation equipment: clipboard, pencil and some Lego

• Select your experiment: what would you like to measure? The size of everyone’s feet? The height of your sunflowers? The length of your dinosaurs?

• Make an estimate: how many Lego blocks would it take to measure your foot? Mummy’s foot? Daddy’s foot? Let your child record their guesses on their clipboard. A group of children can interview each other and record everyone’s estimates to see who comes closest.

• Get measuring: counting out in Lego bricks is great for fine motor skills, numbers and for having a visual representation children can see and compare. Make a tower as long as each child’s foot (or whatever you are measuring) – you could add a sticker so you know which tower belongs to each person. Then you can order the towers in ascending or descending order, and even transfer this to a bar chart graph if you want to.

• Compare your results: compare your lego towers with your estimates and see how well you did.

• Let your explorers loose: hand over the Lego and see what else they can measure.

happily shared with abcand123 and math Monday and tot school and  Link and Learn and preschool corner and For the kids Friday