Tagged with 'Activity'

Back to school is looking different for everyone, whether you are fully online, in-person, or a little bit of both. Learning Resources has you covered, we picked some of our favorite products that can help you elevate your student’s learning. This list contains five products that can be used together or separately in the classroom! As you use these products, you and your little ones will continually find new ways to use them.  

Translucent Geometric Shapes  

Using our Translucent Geometric Shapes, there are different exercises from sorting and classifying, identifying the shape, building, fractions, geometry, and more! The different angles of certain pieces allow for introduction an introduction to right, obtuse, and acute angles. This comprehensive geometry set includes fourteen different shapes in seven colors! Relational shapes are perfect for combining small shapes to form larger shapes in multiple ways. This set also features circles in whole, half and quarter increments, which open engaging avenues for fraction exploration. Encourage students to classify and sort the shapes by attribute, such as number of sides, number of angles, straight sides, curved sides, and so on. Have your students 

Shapes Don't Bug Me 

In conjunction with our Translucent Geometric Shapes, the Shapes Don't Bug Me set is bound to be a classroom favorite. Pieces are relational and translucent, so the creative opportunities are endless! Crawling in the garden or buzzing through the park, bold buggy shapes bring geometry out of the dark! Become an artist of geometry with Shapes Don’t Bug Me while learning that math can be as fun as a summer day. The best part about these shapes, is that they can be sanitized in between uses.  

Big Time Student Clock 

The Big Time Student Clock is a great way to help kids grasp time skills. Besides the fact that it is super fun to play with, hands-on, and will get them excited about telling time, it will also help them learn how a clock works, where the numbers are, and what order they go in. Teaching time can also be done in everyday conversations, have your student move the clock handles to 12:30 and explain that lunch is at that time. Telling time can be fun and the Big Time Student Clock is ready to play! 

Lights and Sounds Buzzers 

Kids will light up when they reach for the Lights and Sounds Buzzers. The lights and sounds answer buzzers get little ones giggling and imitating these silly sounds just press to listen add buzzers to any lesson for some extra fun. These buttons are great for teaching patience while waiting for their turn. The buttons include the following sounds: a siren, game-show buzzer, laser and voice saying, "Charge". 

Patterned Hand Pointers 

These engaging hand pointers are the perfect way to liven up any lesson plan-and encourage students to get excited about learning. These pointers draw student attention and interest and provides positive behavioral intervention. Patterned Hand Pointers show up sharply against light-colored surfaces, but works equally as well on pocket charts, word walls and more!  

Counters are a great way to encourage toddlers and preschoolers to develop their sorting skills. In this blog we are sharing four quick and easy ways to set up sorting activities with just a few basic materials.

• Set of counters (we used our favorite Learning Resources All About Me Family Counters)
• A4 white paper or card
• Markers (black, red, blue, yellow, green, purple and orange)
• Dot markers (red, blue, yellow, green, purple and orange)
• Ruler

Why is Sorting Important?

Before we get into the details about the activities, it’s important to point out that sorting activities offer a huge host of learning opportunities for toddlers and preschoolers. They may seem simple, but your little one is developing a range of skills when working with counters. For example, their little hands are constantly moving which is helping their fine motor skills to develop (these skills are key for writing as they get older). They will also have the opportunity to explore counting and use number vocabulary, as well as color recognition and vocabulary development. For my 3 year old, sorting activities often also lead to imaginative play, especially when she uses her family counters. 

How to Set Up the Activities

The great thing about making DIY sorting activities is that they take a matter of minutes to set up. Be sure to prep the sorting sheets before inviting your child to take part or else you risk them losing interest waiting for the activity to be ready. Simply use markers to draw out sorting sheets like the ones in the photo. Carefully consider your child’s passions and try to incorporate them into your sorting sheets. My toddler loves putting the family counters into homes, hence I made the houses sheet. She also really enjoys sorting by color and lining up her toys.  

Activity 1: Walk the Line to Meet a Friend

Whenever my little one plays with these counters she always likes to make them be friends. I drew some dotted lines in black marker and put the same kind of counter at each end of the line. I invited her to walk one of the counters along the line to meet their friend. This was great for her fine motor skills as she had to manipulate the counters around the different shapes of the lines. She also demonstrated color vocabulary, chatting away about how the red cat was walking along to meet the yellow cat. There was lots of imagination creating little personalities for the characters in her play too. 

Activity 2: Family Homes

For this one, I drew six different colored houses and then gave each house a number. My daughter enjoyed sorting the correct number of family counters into the correct colored home. There was an element of problem-solving for this one too because the houses were not big enough to fit too many large counters in. She carefully had to figure out the best combination of counters to fit in the house. I was sure to encourage as much talking as she did to support her vocabulary development. Once she had finished sorting, she then wanted to enjoy sending some of the counters to different houses for playdates. 

Activity 3: Colorful Stepping Stones

Dot markers are a great way to quickly add colorful sorting marks to a piece of paper. Here I added different colored dots to the page and told my toddler that they were colorful stepping stones. She added the correct counters onto the stepping stones (she would make them jump on, with ‘boing’ sound effects of course). I intentionally also worked in some numeracy by adding 1-6 dots instead of all the same number of dots for each color. That way my daughter could count as she placed the family counters on the dots and each time she was reaching a different number.  

Activity 4: Color Lines

This one is super simple but is always enjoyed. Just draw outlines in the different colored markers and invite your little one to line up the counters on the correct color of the line. I didn’t give my daughter specific instructions as I wanted her to have some choice. I thought she would try and line them up standing along the line, but she chose to make them lie down. This was another great way to work on her fine motor skills, as well as getting her to think about the size. She realized that the ‘Mummy and Daddy’ counters were much bigger than the ‘baby’ counters. She started to plan which order she would add them in and enjoyed trying to get them perfectly lined up. 

A Few Tips

I always find that my toddler responds better to activities like these when she has some choice. I presented her with the four sorting sheets and let her choose which order to do them in. I also provided her with all of the counters so that she had the freedom to choose which counters to use. If you are doing these with a younger child try to just focus on one simple aspect when sorting, for example color or size. If working with an older child you can make the activity more challenging by combining several aspects of sorting, for example, color and number, or size and color.My final tip is to encourage your child to also enjoy making their own sorting sheets. I always leave out the art supplies to allow my daughter the opportunity to make her own sorting sheet. This encourages engagement, and also introduces more creativity and fine motor skill work as well. Do you have a favorite way to sort counters? We’d love to hear all about it in the comments! Explore other Learning Resources counting toys and counting ideas as well.

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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