5 - 7 Years SEL

Looking for some fun gym games for kids? Learning Resources is here to help. Whether you are looking for activities to keep your little one active during the winter or just some games to play in a spacious room, these games are sure to lead to hours of physical exercise and fun!

Here are some of our favorites:

Smart Toss^™ Colors, Shapes & Numbers Game

Toss and play to learn shapes, numbers, colors, and more. Smart Toss board includes four games in one, featuring one side each for numbers, shapes, and colors. Use the fourth side for free play or create your own activities. Use stickers or tape to label each hole with anything from letters, pictures of animals or places, and words. Here are a few fun games to play:

Ten-Frame Floor Mat Activity Set

Stand up and be counted! Giant ten-frame mats incorporate students into the number building fun as they represent 1–10, add and subtract, develop number sense, and more, using either the counters or themselves as interactive manipulatives. Create a double ten-frame with the second mat to extend number concepts to 20. Get them on their feet with math that really moves! Here are some fun games to use with the set:

See N Snap Picture Hunt

It's the find it, snap it, match it game that gets kids up and moving! Help your toddlers build gross motor skills while learning all about matching with the See & Snap Picture Hunt from Learning Resources. This fun twist on flashcards is as simple as it is fun: simply hide some of the set's 20 large picture cards around the house, place one of the 20 small picture cards inside the pretend camera, and send your toddler on a fun scavenger hunt to find and match the cards. In the end, they can even take a pretend picture - the camera really clicks! In addition to boosting gross motor and matching skills, See & Snap Picture Hunt also sends toddlers hunting for new shape recognition skills with the help of the set's 5 shape cards. Just insert the learning cards in the camera and see how many circles, squares, triangles, and other shapes your toddlers can find along the way.

7 more products to get you up and moving:

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Sensory Play: Plant a Veggie Patch!

Looking for a way to freshen up your little one’s play food adventures? We had an absolute blast teaming up our Farmer’s Market Color Sorting Set with some homemade ‘soil’ for this awesome hands on vegetable planting activity.

What you need:

• Learning Resources Farmer’s Market Color Sorting Set
• 2 batches of cocoa cloud dough (to make one batch mix 2 cups all purpose flour, ¼ cup cocoa and ¼ cup vegetable oil and then crumble the mixture together by hand)
• Measuring cups
• Spoons
• Muffin tins

Making the Soil

It can be tempting to make the sensory base ahead of time to avoid too much mess but I promise you it is such an enriching part of the activity to get your kiddo involved with the making process. My 3 year old loves getting to measure and pour out the ingredients! We made two batches of the cocoa cloud dough. For each batch we mixed 2 cups of all purpose flour with ¼ cup cocoa powder.

Then we added ¼ cup vegetable oil and stirred it with a spoon. The next part is really important to make sure you get a good consistency. Use your fingertips to squish and crumble the mixture together. My daughter loved doing this and she kept commenting on how soft and smooth it felt.

You want to end up with the cloud dough looking nice and brown. It should hold together when formed into balls, but when you apply pressure or poke it, the mixture will crumble apart.

Let’s get Planting

Once we had our ‘soil’ we picked out our favorite vegetables from the Farmer’s Market set. This was a great opportunity for my daughter to recognize which pieces of the set were fruit and which were vegetables. So much descriptive language and vocabulary being shared! To plant the chosen veggies we had two muffin tins ready, along with a spoon and our cloud dough ‘soil’.

My little one carefully added some ‘soil’ to each of the muffin tin compartments. This was great for fine motor skills and we even linked it to some early numeracy by using simple volume words such as empty, full, more and less.

Next my daughter got to choose which veggies to plant where. You would not believe the delicate thought process that went into choosing each one. She was so careful to make sure that her precious veggies were planted in the middle of the soil, sometimes even making a little hole for them to perch in.

It was fantastic to see my toddler so hands on with the sensory material. It is important to give your children opportunities to build their confidence when using different sensory materials. I love that she confidently touches materials and asks questions / makes descriptive comments about them.

Each time she added a new vegetable she was working her fine and gross motor skills hard. She regularly crossed the midline to place and plant the vegetables which is an important skill for children to develop because it helps to promote the coordination and communication between the two sides of the brain.

Ways to Extend the Play

The main event here was most definitely getting to plant the vegetables in the cloud dough, but there are so many great ways to extend the play. Here’s a few ways we continued to enjoy this set up:

• Numeracy links - simple counting questions such as how many green vegetables did you plant? Or how many vegetables are in each muffin tin?
• What’s missing - with just one muffin tin in front of them, ask your child to carefully study what’s in front of them. Then ask them to close their eyes while you remove one of the vegetables. Can they tell you which one is missing? Let them remove one while you close your eyes too, they will think they are being so sneaky!
• Guess which veggie - a simplified version of Guess Who where your child can ask you questions about the vegetable you have in mind to try and narrow down the answer.
• Re-planting - yup it’s as simple as that, take all the vegetables out, pour out the ‘soil’ and re-plant those vegetables in a different container. You could use a large storage container to make it more like a farmer’s field.

We truly had so much fun with this set up. It allowed for my toddler to be hands on at all times and there are so many great links to numeracy and literacy learning, as well as fine and gross motor development. The great news is that you can store the cloud dough in an airtight container or bag for use months later too. Don’t worry if you don’t have our Farmer’s Market Color Sorting Set, you can enjoy this activity with many different toys such as mini dinos, insects or even making muddy pools for people counters. Happy learning!

When people talk about the dog days of summer, they’re definitely talking about August. Although we’re slowly creeping toward fall, the days just seem to get hotter and hotter. Since keeping the kids inside all day would drive us (and them) to the brink of insanity, and since we can’t go to the pool, shore, or movies EVERY day, we’re sharing five fun water games you and your kids can play out back to keep cool until the weather lets up.

Dribble, Dribble, DUMP! – Played just like the classic Duck, Duck, Goose, the “ducks” sit around in a circle as the “goose” walks behind them, tapping their heads, and saying “dribble”. But instead of tapping, the goose dribbles a bit of water (use a plastic cup) on each head until they get to the one they’d like to tag. Then it’s DUMP! The rest of the water is dumped out on that player’s head and the chase ensues…

Wring n Run – Place two buckets at least 10 feet apart. Fill one full of water and leave the other empty. Drop a large sponge (car wash size) into the full bucket. Line your kids up behind the full bucket and shout GO. The first runner in line zooms grabs the soaking sponge, runs it to the empty bucket, wrings it out into the bucket, and runs back and hands it to the next player in line. Play continues until the once full bucket is empty. Time your kids the first round, then challenge them to beat their time and play again.

Cool Catch – Water balloons are a quintessential summer supply. Fill a few, pair your kids up by age, and place them standing a few feet apart. The kids toss and catch the balloon once each, then take a big step backwards. Play continues until one child misses the balloon. Bonus – playing toss and catch is a great way to build gross motor skills!

Happy Hose – Put your reggae playlist on speaker, hold the spraying hose horizontally, and challenge your kids to a game of limbo! Lower the hose after each kiddo has passed beneath the stream and see who can hold out the longest.

Slip N Slide – If you’ve got the space, Slip N Slide is a great way to keep your kids cool this summer – and get some exercise at the same time!

Playing out back in the heat of the summer is the stuff memories are made of. So throw on your suit, turn on those sprinklers, and join in the fun!

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