Language Archives - Page 35 of 42

Make a garden journal

10/05/2011 by Cathy James 32 Comments

Gardening with children offers so many opportunities to learn. We love growing our own fruit and vegetables, even though our garden is small, so the children get to see where their food comes from and how seeds transform into something tasty to eat.

This weekend we’ve been working on making a garden journal.

We’re using a scrapbook for our journal and filling it with all sorts of information and pictures as we go through our gardening year – making a wonderful record of everything we’ve done, seen and grown. Here are some things we’ll be including:

diary entries of our progress: what we planted, when things began to grown, what we’ve been enjoying outside (giving the kids lots of opportunities to practise their writing)
photos and drawings of the plants and animals we observe
treasures stuck on to the pages such as seeds, dried leaves, seed packets
scientific and mathematical data on how high plants are growing and what conditions they like

The journal is a collaborative project that everyone is taking part in and I’m making sure to keep it out, rather than stored away on a shelf, to encourage lots of entries whenever the kids see something they want to include. By mixing in writing, photos and pictures everyone can join in – whether they’re at the writing stage or not. We’re hoping by the end of summer – when if we’re lucky we’ll have enough produce for a harvest celebration – to have a beautiful record of all the fun we’ve had in the garden this year.

Are you growing anything with your children? Are you doing any linked activities to springboard the gardening into literacy, math, science or art? We’d love to hear your ideas.

Literacy ideas: shopping lists

05/05/2011 by Cathy James 5 Comments

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

Kitchen role play ideas

27/04/2011 by Cathy James 13 Comments

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?

Promoting writing: irresistible pens and pencils

26/04/2011 by Cathy James 20 Comments

>>>> Download our ABCs and 123s guide here

If you’re looking for ways to promote literacy and get children writing, one easy but effective way to encourage writing is to make it irresistible.

Don’t hide the paper and pencils away in a drawer – set up a creation station! Provide an assortment of papers in different colours, shapes and sizes and pots of pencils you know they’ll love. Whether they’re a sparkly, glittery, superhero, football or dinosaur kinda kid, it’s easy and inexpensive to find a few pens to suit their passion. Another sure way to get my girls interested is to mix in some ‘real grown-up’ supplies from our home office – highlighter pens are the tops! Add in some envelopes for letter writing and a roll of stickers to transform into postage stamps.

Can you find some supplies tonight and set up a creation station ready to surprise the children in the morning? Bet you can!

ABCs and 123s : fun learning activities for letters and math

All our favourite literacy activities, all in one place :: download our ABCs and 123s guide here.

How to make a rock pool

25/04/2011 by Cathy James 12 Comments

After a trip to the beach we returned with a bucket full of treasures and decided to make a rock pool in the garden for lots more beach play at home. You can see in the pictures some of the things we collected, and a few we already had at home: pebbles and shells, sand and seaweed and two mermaid’s purses (much to B’s delight).

The girls gave the treasures a clean and then settled them into a new home in a tub of water. They made some fish from scrunched up tinfoil and then were ready to play. Adding in some tea-strainer fishing nets was perfect.

Books about seasides and mermaids

My girls love stories about the sea. Here are two favourites which we’re reading tonight – the perfect bedtime stories after a trip to the beach.

Shirley Hughes books are favourites in our house and The Big Alfie Out of Doors Storybook is L’s favourite of them all. It’s a collection of short stories and poems about outdoor play and adventures. One tells the story of Bonting, Alfie’s treasured pebble who is lost (and later happily found) on a family outing to the beach. The illustrations capture the essence of a UK beach.

Can You Catch a Mermaid by Jane Ray is a wonderful story set by the sea. It’s a moving tale of a lonely little girl and a very hard decision she has to make. It’s all about friendship and features Jane Ray’s beautiful illustrations. B has a real love of mermaids so this is her top pick, and I like it because it can be read on different levels: it has a happy ending and also leaves you thinking about unanswered questions long after you’ve finished reading.

happily shared with gardening with kids and made by little hands and inspire me Monday and tot school and science Sunday and link and learn and craft schooling Sundayand preschool corner and the resource centre and it’s playtime and upcycled awesome and works for me Wednesday and tot tuesday and we play and abc and 123

Go fish maths game

24/03/2011 by Cathy James 9 Comments

This maths game combines crafting, turn taking and a bit of science as well as the chance to work on counting and number ordering. It’s easy to create the materials for the game and you can adapt it to suit whichever set of numbers you’re working on – or make a set with letters if you want to practise the alphabet.

You’ll need to start by making a set of fish.

1. Cut out some fish shapes from some coloured card and let the children decorate them. Leave a space on each one to add a number.

2. Fill in the numbers on each fish. We start out with numbers 1-10 but you can add more, or perhaps use 10, 20, 30… depending on which number sequence you’d like to play with.

3. To make a magnetic version you can add a metal paperclip near the mouth of each fish. You can then use a magnetic fishing rod (which you can make by trying a magnet to a piece of string) to go fishing for your number letters.

How to play:

Place the fish, number side up, on the floor, in a hoop or in a bucket. Or make an undersea landscape picture for them to swin in.
The easiest version of the game is to practise your hand-eye co-ordination and just let the children go fish. See if they can recognise the numbers on each fish they catch. Encourage the children to co-operate and take turns with the fishing rod.
You can aim to catch the fish in ascending or descending number order, or just see which ones they catch and arrange them into a sequence once they’ve all been caught.
Tell the children you had ten fish when you started and, as they catch the fish, ask them if they can work out how many more must be left in the pond.
You can try some sums too. Pick a number, say 3, and then catch a fish. Can you add the number on the fish to your starting number of 3? (you might like to use a number line to help work this out). Or have the children catch two fish and see if they can add their numbers together.
If you have an older sibling playing along they can practise their number bonds. If they catch a 3, what number do they need to add to get to ten? They could work on times tables too.

As an alternative, you can make version of the fish with letters instead of numbers. When they catch a fish you can see if the children can say the sound of the letter they have. Can they think of something that starts with that letter? Can they find something in the room that starts with the letter?

We like to use this game to make numbers (and letters) fun and have the children approach learning them in a playful way. How do you add numbers to your play?