MathStart Books: Fun with Sorting

We had some fun today with blocks and exploring sorting things by various attributes. 

Get Ready:

You will need some things from around the house that can be easily sorted by various attributes.  (Color, Size, Shape, etc.)  Some ideas would be socks, buttons, books, or shoes.  For this activity we used mini unit blocks similar to these. 

Activity 1:  One of these Things Doesn't Belong Here
We reviewed the concepts of "alike" and "different" by playing the game, "One of these things doesn't belong here."  I would line up four objects.  Three of these objects would be alike in some way.  One of the objects would be different in some way.   All of the objects would have something in common.   I had the kids pick out the different object.  I even sang the old sesame street song to the kids because I couldn't resist.

 Acitvity 2:  Guess the rule
The next game we played was called "Guess The Rule".  I would start sorting the objects and the kids would try to guess what attribute I was sorting them by.  We did some talking by asking questions like:
1)  How are all of the objects alike?  (In our case Sophie said that they were all made of wood.)
2)  How are the items in the two groups different?
 
Activity 3:  Sorting objects on your own
I then had the kids try to think of as many ways as possible of sorting our blocks.  Firs they sorted by color.

Then they sorted by shape. 

Activity 4:  MathStart Book
I love MathStart books by Stuart J. Murphy.  They are really a fantastic way to teach young children math.  Especially if your kids like to be read to.  I read the kids the book 3 Little Firefighters. 

In the book the three firefighters need to get dressed for the parade, and they need to look their best.   However they are missing their buttons and their belly buttons are showing.  (This always makes the kids giggle.) So they search the house high and low until they find an assortment of various buttons.  

The firefighters each need four buttons on their jacket otherwise they won't stay shut.  Also, since they need to look their best, the buttons need to match in some way.  So the firefighters have to sort their buttons in various ways until they find a combination that works. 

After we read the book, I printed out some copies of the firefighters from the books.  I then gave the kids a puzzle to work out that involved sorting their own "buttons".  (Except we pretended the blocks were buttons because I was too lazy to run upstairs and face by messy button box.)

The kids needed to find a combination that gave:
-Each Firefighter four buttons, and
-The buttons needed to match in some way on each jacket.

First the kids tried sorting the "buttons" by color.  That didn't work because we didn't have four green buttons.

Next the kids sorted the "buttons" by shape.  This worked! 

Well, thanks for reading everyone!!

Links to Become Attached To:
Stuart J. Murphy's Main Site (He is the author of the MathStart series and his website has a ton of great ideas for using his books.)
Math Monday Blog Hop (tons of great math ideas)
Tot School (See how others are learning with their tots!)
Preschool Corner (See how others are learning with their preschoolers!)

What we did all day...

 (Marcus is 45 months old and Sophia is 28 months old)

Here are some of our recent adventures learning and playing--


On the Learning Shelves:
*To see more information on how we use our learning shelves, please visit this tot school post here.
I rotated the following toys/activites out on the shelves this week:


1)  3D Feel & Find--  This was a HUGE hit with the kids this week.  Sophia and Marcus would just crack up laughing every time we brought this out to play.   To play this game, you put the different 3D shaped blocks into the "mystery bag".  Then, you try to feel around and find that block that matches your tile.  To make it easier, I started out with only 3 shapes that were very different from each other.  By the end of the week they seemed to need more of a challenge, so I added in a fourth shape. 

2)   See & Spell Puzzles--  This was another activity that both kids enjoyed.  I liked this activity because they had enough letters and puzzle tiles for both kids to play at once.  I started out the week with all of the letters and puzzles out.  However, I could tell that it was overwhelming for Sophia.  She was having problems finding the correct letters.  So I put away all of the longer word puzzles and left out only the three letter word puzzles.  I also only put out the letters that worked with the puzzle.  Sophia had a lot more success this way. 


3)  Bead Sequencing Set--  I have to admit that I was not happy with the quality of this activity.  The wooden cards are really difficult to get into the slots.  You have to really cram them in.  No way could a child do this by themselves.  Also, we seem to be short a purple bead that is needed to complete the first pattern.  I need to contact the manufacturer...but, you know, it is just annoying that I have to do that.  The kids enjoyed this activity very much.  They didn't seem to get the idea of following the patterns, but they did enjoy building "towers" by stringing the beads.  We will continue to work on the patterns later on.  I just brought this out as an introduction.

4)  Homemade Cinamon Scented Play Dough-

We are doing a very laid back apple unit study this month and next.  So I made a red play dough scented with real ground cinnamon to go with the apple theme.  This is my new favorite play dough recipe.  The smell is indescribably.  It has an amazing texture unlike any other dough recipe I have tried before, AND, it has a great shelf life.  My kids have left this play dough out and uncovered for hours and hours this week.  All I usually need to do is kneed it a few times, and recover it and it is good to go.  Gotta love that!  You can view the recipe here.

5)  Wedgets
The whole family had fun playing with wedgits this week.  I have to admit that Doug was much better at building with these than I was. 
I put these out on the shelf in a basket/tray thing, with a building board, and a few of the easier design cards to give them some ideas.  The kids didn't care much for the building board or the design cards.  They had a lot more fun just building with them on their own. 


Nature Study:
We went on two nature walks this week.  The first was throgh a wooded area and then metro garden.  The second trip was a visit exploring a stream.  You can read about our adventures and why we study nature here.

Litterature & Reading with Mommy:
You've heard of Oprah's book club right?  Well, Sophia and Marcus have their own little book club .  I let them pick the books they want to read during the week.  Here are their picks for this week.   You can check out their past choices by looking at the "weekly reading" labeled entries. 

Field Trips:
We also went on a field trip to the post office.   We actually did this a few weeks ago, but couldn't blog about it until now because I didn't want to give my grandparents a chance to read their letters before they had a chance to open them!  :)   

We were reading in the book What Do People Do All Day by Richard Scary about how post offices work. 

Fantastic Book! 

The kids decided that they wanted to receive some mail of their own.  I told them that in order to receive mail, they needed to write a letter to someone.  So we wrote to their great grandma and grandpa.   I let them pick the colors of paper and marker that they wanted to use.  On one side they drew them a picture  (Their "writing")  and on the other side they dictated a letter for me to write to them.

Here are Sophia's letters:

Sophia drew some pictures for Great Grandma and Grandpa

Sophia (aka She-She) then dictated what she wanted to write to Grandma and Grandpa.  These letters cracked me up.  My favorite line is "You're Grandma.  I She-She." I like this in a letter, sometimes we need simple reminders like this.   I also thought her letter to Grandpa was very sweet.    Also, can you tell that she likes Winnie the Pooh?  :)

Here are Marcus's letters:

Marcus took "writing a letter" very literally and literally wrote the letter M on one page.  The orange page is what he said was the "number 10".  I don't see it, but that is what he says he wrote.

Unlike Sophia, Marcus did not beat around the bush in his letters.  He got right to the point and asked his Grandparents to "write him back". 

Here are some snaps of taking the kids to the post office to mail their letters.  Sure I could have just put the flag up on our mail box...but this was more fun.

Art:
I found some Easel Art Pages on the blog "Making Learning Fun".  The idea is that kids paint simple objects by following graphic instructions.  I printed out an apple to go with our theme.  (Also becasue an apple is one of the more simple designs to print.)  Marcus showed no interest in wanting to paint on the easel.  Sophia was very eager to try this.

I laid out three baby food jars filled with red, green, and brown paint.  I also gave her three matching paint brushes so the colors would stay separate.  

Here is Sophia and the apple that she painted in the background.  If you can tell, she tried to paint a red circle, a brown stem, and a green leaf. 

I honestly regret introducing this art project to her.   I showed her how to follow the instruction and paint the apple.  (Which she did.)  But it seemed to take a lot of the joy out of her painting.  Before she would just go wild and cover the board with dripping paint.  But after I showed her the instructions she seemed to second guess everything she painted and wanted to know if it was "right" or not.  That kind of made me sad.  So I have decided that I like the unstructured art activities a lot more for now.  I won't be doing another one of these easel projects for awhile.  I would rather her just have fun and experiment with the process of painting at this age.

Well, if you have made it this far..  CONGRATULATIONS!!  Sorry for such a long post, but we had lots and lots of fun to share. 

Also, please check out the Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection on my blog.  It is a collective of many, many great ideas for teaching children letter recognition and sounds.

To see what other tots have been doing this week, please visit this blog here.

Thanks for reading!!

Tot School: Week 4

(Sophia is 16 months and Marcus is 32 months)

What is Tot School? Well...don't let the name fool you. Tot School isn't school at all! It is just a fun time spent playing and learning with my two tots.

Here is a recap on what we did this past week.



Sorting By Shape:
Marcus likes to ask me if he can play a " new game". So I am often time racking my brain trying to think of a new game he can play. Here is a game I put together for him where he could work on sorting by shape.

I laid out three 1/2" beads in three different shapes into a divided wooden container.

Then I gave him a bowl full of beads (in various colors) and had him sort by shape. Marcus did this without any problems or hesitation. (Even though he has only sorted by color before.) Also, while he did this, he pretended that the beads were bouncing out of the bowl into their "houses".




Animal Classification Game:
Most of our learning and play is completely spontaneous. I hardly ever plan things for us to learn or do. However, any play we do seems to bring about all sorts of learning. It is so neat to see.

For example, this week we went to visit our Nana. (Nana is my mama.) Nana's house has a gazebo down by a lake that has all sorts of fun animal toys for the kids to play with. The kids naturally took the animals and began to pretend with them. We learned so much from this simple play time. Sophia beefed up her language and communication skills while she practiced learning and saying the names of the different animals. She also practiced making their sounds. She would also tell me that the Elephant is "BIG" and stretch her arms up to the sky. Also through this dramatic play, Marcus learned where different animals live and what they eat. Marcus also practiced sorting and classifying different animals while we played "zoo". For example, one time we sorted the animals by type. (All of the zebras go in this "cage". All of the lions go here. etc. etc.) The next time we sorted the animals by where they live. (All of the birds go here. All of the ocean animals go here. etc. etc.)




Dress Up:
Sophia is also very into dressing up right now. Marcus never did this at her age. Whenever she finds a necklace for example, she will always want to put it on.

She also tried on Mama's shoes:

We also dressed up and played pirates at Nana's house.

Nana's house also has a pirate fort down by the lake for the kids to play in. It is a swing set/fort completely decorated in a pirate theme. It is also full of various pirate accessories like hats, swords, hooks, and eye patches for the kids to dress up in. AND...the pirate fort has a treasure chest full of plastic necklaces for Sophia to try on. It is a pirate lovers dream. The kids had fun playing pirates, singing pirate songs. Then, we worked on some gross motor skills by having fun running up and down the hill at Nana's house.



Playing with Blocks:
We had our giant cardboard blocks out this week. They are a great open-ended toy and the kids did so many things with them.

On one day I taught Marcus how to build a simple bridge with the blocks.

He had fun walking his dinosaurs through the bridge.

Another time he lined his blocks up in a row creating a wall of a building.

Next, after he built his "wall", he pretended that he was spiderman walking up the building. (The blue blocks were evidently his "web hands".)



After a while he got out his walking dinosaur and pretended that it was a dragon coming to knock down his building. Uh-Oh! Here comes the dragon!

But don't worry! Spiderman saved everyone and knocked over the scary dragon with his "web hands".




Playing Flubber and Dough: Stretching, Rolling, Pinching, and Bouncing:
Flubber-
At a local science museum we played with a really neat substance called flubber. (Recipe to come soon! Keep checking back!)

Flubber is a very strange substance that can be bounced, stretched, and molded. Here Marcus presses the flubber into a sail boat mold.

Here Sophia experiments using a cookie cutter on flubber.

We also learned not to put flubber into your hair! Marcus did this, and Sophia copied him immediately.



On another day Marcus asked to get the play-doh out.

Here Sophia puts the dough into a builder-bob mold.

Marcus practiced cutting the play-doh with scissors. (He still uses two hands to cut. I don't try to correct him though because that just seems to make him want to stop trying.)

We learned colors by talking about the dough. We said things like, "Hand me that blue play-doh please." or "Hey, lets put all of the red play-doh in this can."

Marcus pretended to make me play-doh spaghetti. He served it up to me on a play-doh can lid for a plate. Ah! A favorite meal for preschoolers to serve for generations.

Sophia practiced pinching and pulling the dough. All great for her fine motor development.



Craft Day:
On another day we went to a craft time at Sprout Soup. The craft was to make some very cute little puppets out of Popsicle sticks. Neither kid was very interested in actually doing the craft...BUT, we had lots of fun playing with our friends. Oh well! Maybe next time!



Fun at COSI:
As I mentioned before, we went to a local science museum for kids called COSI. COSI was recently voted the number 1 science center for kids in the US...AND...the number 1 indoor playspace for kids in the US. It really is a great place to bring little tots too. We always have so much fun and learn so much.

Sophia learned about big and small as she experimented dropping various sized balls down this funnel.

We climbed all over their HUGE facility. Here is Sophia going down a slide.

"Peak-a-Boo Mommy! I see you!"

Sophia was amazed when she was able to float a ball over a stream of air coming out of the floor.

Marcus pretended to be a builder working with tools in a little play house they have set up there.

Sophia cooked for mommy in the play kitchen.

More cooking. This was great because it really helped increase her vocabulary as we talked about what tools she needed to cook with.

Marcus found two eagle puppets over in the puppet area and brought them over to the kitchen area. He pretended to be a daddy eagle making eggs for his baby eagle. (OH...how ironic! Bird eating eggs!) Here is the daddy eagle cooking the eggs:

And here is the baby eagle waiting for his breakfast.

Later Marcus walked throughout the entire area looking for these giant oval balls. He said they were his eggs.

He put them in this large nest and brought out a bunch of other birds to live there with him.

Then he found some baby bird nests that he loved. He carried those around for a good part of the day. Here he is building a bed for the baby birds using large foam blocks.

Next he drove the baby birds around in the ambulance.






Favorites of the Week:

Fun with Glasses-
I caught Marcus trying on my glasses. (Note to self: Marcus can now reach things off of the middle of counter. Nothing is safe!)

On another day Sophia and I had on our giant sunglasses together.


Sophia cracks herself up!
Sophia thought she was very funny holding the fork in her mouth like this! She was just laughing and laughing at herself. (Which of course made us laugh!)