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Crafting with children can be a wonderful time to sit with them and have a conversation or explore an idea. The children who made these spring lamb pictures are aged between one and three and a half. And each in their own way created their answer to the same question: what does a lamb look like?
We recognise the important value of nursery rhymes for very young children, as they pass on the sounds and rhythms of our native languages, but the value of poetry doesn’t diminish as children get older. Approached with passion, poetry can be inspiring, and how it’s shared with children makes a vital difference to their engagement with it. [Read more…]
A very simple but effective way to encourage your children’s writing when you’re going out shopping is to have the children write the list.
This shows them that writing has a purpose and involves them in serious, grown-up business. Don’t worry too much about spellings and neatness, the idea is to promote writing as something practical that they can do, not something where they make mistakes or get things wrong.
Have them add picture clues if they like, especially if they’re shopping with younger siblings who might like to join in too.
And then when you’re shopping, let them be in charge – giving them the added practise at reading their list. Letting them direct the purchases might even make for a happier trip to the supermarket with less pestering now they’re in charge.
happily shared with abcand123 tot school
We’re enjoying the warm weather this week and the opportunity to play outside in the sunshine. As well as playing in their rock pool, the children have been cooking up sand pies and pebble cakes in their play kitchen. Do you have an outdoor cooking area for your kids?
As you can see, ours was improvised by the girls from a deckchair and items borrowed from our indoor home corner – a great reminder that you can encourage lots of creative play outdoors just by relocating resources from one area to another. Do you like the fire they made to heat their oven? Add in few pots and pans and they were ready to get cooking.
Play kitchens give children the opportunity to take on different roles, trying out the skills they see the adults in the family using. There’s lots of measuring and counting to be done and plenty to chat about as they prepare their meals. Providing sand, water or mud offers sensory play and science exploring, as the children combine wet and dry materials and observe how the textures change. Physical skills develop as they try out utensils and spoon and pour their ingredients. But even better than all of this, outdoor play kitchens are fun!
For more inspiring outdoor play kitchen ideas have a look at Worms Eye-View and let the children play. The Frugal Family Fun Blog has a diy travel kitchen, which you could take with you wherever you play – I’d like one made in a wipe-able oilcloth fabric which we could take with us to the beach. And Childhood 101 has a tutorial for transforming a cardboard box into a stove.
Do your children enjoy pretend cooking?
Put down your books! You don’t often hear me actively encouraging children not to read but have you ever tried oral story telling with your children and having them make the story up? Children most often have stories told to them, so let them be the story teller for a change.
Help them stretch their imaginations, practise using words in different ways, and build their confidence to find their voice and speak up. You might also get a real insight into what’s going on in their minds and they could surprise you with what happens in their story.
Telling stories aloud is fully mobile: whether you’re cosy on the sofa on a rainy day, walking to school or waiting for an appointment in the doctor’s surgery, you can tell each other stories.
There are no rules really – take it in turns to tell the story, following on from each other, or pick one person to be the story teller this time.
Use a familiar tale and give it a twist, or make up something completely new.
If there’s pause and the children need a prompt, try asking ‘what happened next?’, ‘why did that happen?’ rather than steering the story yourself.
Try these story starters as a springboard and see where your imaginations take you:
happily shared with New For Us Friday and For the Kids Friday and ABCand123 and We Play and Tot School and Pre-School Corner
