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Teach children about time – make a family calendar

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My 3 year old is very interested in time at the moment – what day it is, what was it yesterday and is Father Christmas coming again tonight? Young children live so much in the present that the past and the future can be difficult concepts for them to grasp. When my older daughter was 3 we made our own calendar which worked well in introducing the seasons and months to her, so today I’ve made a similar calendar with my youngest. The original calendar was linear with the months going left to right across the top – which was easier to make but I wanted to emphasize the circular nature of the seasons so this time we’ve made a round version. It’s simple in design but gives lots of opportunity for questions and learning.

You’ll need: a big piece of paper (you could always stick 4 A4 pieces together), a felt pen,  a ruler, a saucer or similar to draw around,  crayons in blue, green, yellow and orange, scissors, a glue stick, photos and drawings to represent family birthdays and events

Start with your big piece of paper. We used white but you can be as colourful as you  like.

Fold it in half

And fold it in half again

Now fold this into thirds as the pictures show

Cut throught the folded paper as the picture below shows

Open out your paper to reveal 12 segments – one for each month of the year

Count them out with your child

Using a ruler and felt tip draw lines along each fold. (If you wanted to you could iron the paper with a very cool iron to flatten out the creases – but we’re not perfectionists here!)

Now think about the seasons. Does your child know what they’re called? Do they know which order they go in? Which season is it now?

Using a saucer draw a circle on a piece of paper and cut it out. Divide into quarters using the ruler and felt pen


Write the name of a season in each section and colour them in. We used cold blue for winter, leafy green for spring, yellow sunshine for summer and rusty orange for autumn. Stick this in the centre of your calendar.

Talk about what happens in each season. When might you build a snowman? When do all the flowers start to grow? We added some pictures to symbolise each season.

Write the names of the months around the edge of the calendar, aligned with your season circle. Does your child recognise any of the letters? Do they know when their birthday is? Now you can personalise your calendar with the events that are important to your family. Stick on photos of people in their birthday month. You could add a heart for Valentine’s day, a pumpkin for Hallowe’en and Santa for Christmas. My daughter loved this bit – she’s a master with a glue stick!

When you’ve finished you can play a game, taking turns to ask questions. Who’s got a birthday in the summer? Whose birthday comes straight after Christmas? Then, stick it up and admire! You can keep refering to it everytime you celebrate one of the events on it, and everytime you child asks ‘Is it my birthday soon?’

Snow many ways to play and learn

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snow games

Where I live we hardly ever have snow, but today we do! So much, that school is closed for the day. Children love being outside so when the heavens give you a beautiful layer of sparkling white snow to explore you’ve got to seize the day, wrap up warm and get out and play.  Here are ten top tips for enjoying the snow  (outside and inside) – and getting some learning in at the same time.

 

 

1. Build a snowman, of course. My daughter drew out her design before she started (what a planner!), gathered her materials and directed her team of sculpters to bring her design to life. Great chance for team work and to use problem solving skills (trying to figure out how to make a carrot nose that didn’t keep falling off).

 

 

2. Small world play construction site. We raided our sandpit for trucks and lorries and used them to transport snow over to our snowman site, imagining we were builders.

 

3. Experiment with the science of snow. Put some snow in a few bowls and conduct your own melting test. Where does it melt the fastest – on a radiator, in the fridge, under the bed? How long does it take to melt in each location? Once it’s melted, what happens if your put it back outside or in the freezer? Maths and science in action.

 

 

4. Get creative and make some snowmen pictures. You know how much my kids love cottonwool to make snowmen like this and this, but what about a white chalk picture on a blackboard or piece of black card?

 

 

5. Get some target practice. Draw a chalk target on an outside wall, line up some snowballs and shoot to score. Award different points for hitting different areas and keep tally with a score chart. Lots of adding up practice.

 

6. Get baking. Make gingerbread into snowflake shapes and ice them with some white writing icing like the decorated cookie,.

 

 

7. Paper snowflakes are easy to make using only white paper and scissors. Cutting helps develop fine motor skills and hand-eye co-ordination. The Crafty Crow has a guide to folding your paper to make snowflakes.

 

8. Make some virtual snowflakes at snowdays. Using the computer mouse develops IT and hand – eye co-ordinations skills.

 

9. Ever had snow ice cream? A Modern Mother has the recipe.

 

10. Enjoy some snow dough using the recipe at Praying for Parker. This is wonderful sensory play using touch and smell, and nurtures nimble fingers.

The snow looks like it’s here to stay for a while so have you got any more ideas for snow filled learning for me?

Let’s play….pirates!

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Shiver me timbers! After watching  A Muppet Treasure Island the kids were manning the decks playing pirates.  It’s great to see them using their imagination and trying out some fantasy roles. The addition of a few props helped to bring their ideas to life. They turned the sofa into their ship, using a broom wedged between the cushions as a mast, some fabric and a shawl for sails and a cardboard ship’s wheel:

 

I made them an anchor from a cereal box, punched a hole at the top and added some wool – so they could ‘up anchor’ when they wanted to set sail.

They raided our making box to create a treasure trove and used their dressing up jewels as treasure.

I showed them how to age a piece of paper with some cold coffee, which they were very impressed with, and then we drew some treasure maps.

We ripped a margin all the way around a piece of paper to get the shape we wanted and then soaked it (for less than minute as you don’t want it to become too fragile) in the coffee. We left it on a tea towel to dry and then drew on our design.

We also played hide and seek with the treasure: I hid the treasure box around the house and drew them  a map to guide them to where ‘X marked the spot”.

This was child-initiated play but it gave me the opportunity to introduce some geography as we looked at a world map so they could plan where they were going to sail. This got them asking lots of questions about which animals they might find around the world and how the different countries and islands compared in size. Big sister also liked passing on her North, South, East, West knowledge to little sister.

You can introduce lots of new language through imaginary play. In this case we used lots of pirate language (‘shiver me timbers’ and ‘thar she blows’ and so on.) And there are of course sea shanties which you could sing:

Row, Row, Row Your Boat

My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean

Bobbie Shaftoe’s Gone to Sea

Thou Shall Have a Fishy

If your kids like dressing up, AlphaMom has a guide to making pirate hats and eye patches too.

To enhance this pirate play here are two great pirate books.

Captain Pike isn’t really a modern father and hasn’t had much experience looking after his daughter. All this changes when he volunteers to take the baby on his next voyage with him. His crew are less than impressed and Captain Pike soon realises raising a baby takes a lot of hard work. An enemy ship approaches and it’s all hands on deck, but the tale ends well when the pirates learn it’s better to be friends than fight. And Captain Pike learns babysitting isn’t as easy as it looks.

This is a great book for all girl pirates out there and shows how anything boys can do, girls can do just as well. When she encounters Captain Firebeard, Molly has to use her cunning and courage to save herself. You go girl!

2010 The Year of Play

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So here we are on 1st January and, after helping the children with theirs yesterday, I’ve been thinking about what resolutions I’m making myself, especially about how I can nurture my family this year. Over at notimeforflashcards Allie has been rounding off an inspirational year with a review of her most popular posts from 2009, and in number one spot she’s sent out a call to ‘Let them play‘. This got me thinking that letting children play is really the most important thing we can do to nurture their learning. I believe children learn best by doing (not just watching or listening) and giving them the space to be creative and explore is vital. Filling their weeks with non-stop activities isn’t the way I want to spend 2010.

So, here are my suggestions for making 2010 the Year of Play in your home:

1. Make an enabling environment. If you can arrange the play space in your house so that your children can access toys independently it means they are able to be in charge of their own play and use their imagination. We have open shelving in our play-room, with toys sorted into baskets with photos on to show what’s inside. This means that if my daughter is playing with her toy dog and needs some wooden blocks to build a kennel she knows exactly where they are to include in her play.

2. Provide  open-ended resources. I like to provide different props to spark play ideas and I favour open-ended resources. So I’d rather give them wooden blocks, fir cones and sea shells,  and different scarves and fabrics which they can use in anyway they want rather than a ‘toy’ which runs on batteries and only does one type of thing when you press a button.

3. Let them have freedom to play their way. So, I know that a jigsaw should be put together to make a nice picture but my daughter wants to put the pieces in a saucepan and ‘cook’ them. Is she wrong? Of course not, and if you encourage this child-led play you’re giving you child valuable space to explore what’s important and interesting to them.

4. Sit back and watch. Taking the time to really observe how your child is playing gives a window into what they’re ready to learn. By watching you can find out what they’re really interested in and use that as a springboard for other activities to develop their knowledge and understanding. Maybe they’re spending a lot of time playing with cars and you realise that it’s the circular motion of the wheels that’s fascinating them. You could then offer them some balls and a ramp to explore, or make a windmill together. Children don’t learn things in isolation but instead link together information and experiences. So if your child has been playing with a toy farm, combining this with a visit to a real farm, making a tractor from a big cardboard box and reading stories and singing songs songs all about animals is a very effective way to nurture their learning.


5. Sneak in the English, maths and science. Of course it’s important to incorporate these in your child’s world but this shouldn’t be instead of play. Therefore, your job is to ditch the flashcards  and in their place include numbers and letters almost without the children realising. If they’re playing ‘shops’ you can make an ‘Open / Shut’ sign for the door and price tags for the produce. When you’re having a teddy bears’ picnic you can count how many plates you need. Adding different sized funnels and buckets to the sandpit or at bathtime lets them explore different volumes. And growing a sunflower in the garden is a great way to introduce biology.

How about you? What will your focus be for nurturing your children in 2010 – I’d love to hear your plans.

Happily shared with ABCand123’s Let’s Get Organised

Organise your school run morning routine

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It’s back to school next week and I find it can be hard to swing back into the school-run routine – for me and the children. One thing which has worked really well for us is to have a pictorial ‘Get Ready’ chart to help the kids organise themselves more, ready to head off to school. It also saves me having to ask / remind / yell so much in the morning, which everyone is happy about! It also encourages the children to be more independent and take responsibility for themselves – good life skills.

It’s easy to make:

1. Make a list of the individual tasks the children have to do each morning – in the order which you’d like them to do them. (After all, there’s no point them putting their coat on if they aren’t yet wearing their jumper)

You can include things they need to do (brush their teeth) things they need to put on (socks and shoes) and things they need to take (lunch bag) – whatever suits your routine.

2. Take photographs of each item / action. My kids think it’s so cool they have their own personal chart featuring their own items.


3. Make a poster of the photos in the right order. (You can add a word description too, even if the children are young, as it’s always good to promote reading and letter recognition).

4. Put your chart up somewhere prominent and at the kids’ eye level, so they can use it easily each morning.

We’ve been using ours for over a year now and it’s definitely made our mornings run more smoothly. Hope this works for you!


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