Tagged with 'Games'

Stuff their stockings with STEM! Give smart this holiday season with Learning Resources. These small-sized stocking stuffers offer up big-time impact. Here are ideas for every little boy and girl on Santa’s list: fun, educational, and creative. Good things come in STEM packages!

Pretend & Play® Tape Measure
Precisely what your budding carpenter needs for their tool belt! This rough-and-tumble tool takes accurate measurements and can withstand the toughest of pretend construction sites. When done, the tape stretches to three feet and rewinds up into its home. Get ready for everything in the house to be sized up! 

Hoot the Fine Motor Owl
Hoot, the Fine Motor Owl, peeks out from over their stocking, ready and willing to strengthen skills for preschool readiness! This fine motor toy is super colorful and comes with five bright, numbered coins. Drop those coins into the slot on top of Hoot’s head –and, using scissor skills–flap the wings. Surprise! The coins come tumbling out! Spin around Hoot’s gear-shaped eyes, or push in Hoot’s nose for a squeak. Kids practice pincer grip, shape recognition, and hand strength with this friendly, wise owl. 

Beaker Creatures® Reactor Pods
Let’s face it, and kids love to collect. And if they are gathering in the name of science? Even better! Beaker Creatures are amazing on so many levels. There are three sets of series of these mysterious marvels to collect and discover. Drop the pod into the water and watch the bubbling reaction to unearth your creature. Each fit-in-a-stocking-sized box features a mini-poster with a real-world STEM experiment. All Beaker Creatures work with Learning Resources’ playsets like the Bubbling Volcano Reactor, Alien Experiment Lab, or the Whirling Wave Reactor. Let’s grab the water and get discovering! 

Three Bear Family® Basic Counter Set
All hail color recognition and sorting with these playful bears, a part of the Three Bear Family Counters. A whopping 102 Baby Bears are in the convenient bucket (which makes for easy cleanup and storage). There’s even a little activity guide. So cute (and smart)! 

Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set™
Build those little hand muscles for the preschool set! Pre-scissor and grasping skills are practiced with the Helping Hands Fine Motor Tool Set, prepping kiddos for writing, cutting, and more. An alligator grabber, a twisty eyedropper, a handy scooper, and squeeze-type tweezers…all useful for flexing those preschool muscles. 

Primary Science® Color Mixer
Awesome! This Color Mixer is constructed in the same sturdy manner you’ve come to know and love from Learning Resources. It’s a flask divided in half. Each side can be filled with a different colored liquid. Now tip upside down…out of the curvy straw comes the new color. Hooray for a little Christmas chemistry! 

Take 10! Shape Finder Cookies
Turn your holiday morning into game time! From the “Take 10!” Series (turn any 10 minutes into quality time) the Shape Finder Cookies builds all sorts of yummy skills. Inside the easy little to-go bin, it comes in. There are game options that include shape and color recognition. Maybe try to sharpen your skills by finding the right shape with your eyes closed. The Shape Finder Cookies is a delicious way to play whatever game you land on. 

Take 10! Color Bug Catchers
Catch these bugs before they scatter away! Quality time and meaningful play take on a crawly twist with this game. This tube fits perfectly into a stocking and is filled with creativity. There are tweezers to help snag the bugs, which helps to develop fine motor skills. Inside are instructions for games for multiple players, and everything takes under 10 minutes to play. Oh, what fun! 

Dual Lens Magnifiers
Drop one of these in every stocking this season! These handy little magnifiers are perfect for making discoveries up close. Easy to hold for little fingers, the magnifiers help kids explore indoors or outdoors with 3x or 6x magnification lenses. Would you look at that!

There's no quicker way to add extra fun to at-home learning than to turn your lessons into a game. If you're working on sight words in your house right now, check out these fun games that turn sight word identification into a friendly, fast-paced competition for family members young and old. We've even got some suggestions for games you can make yourself with common household items!

Sight Word Bingo

Want an easy, free sight word game you can make at home? Try Sight Word Bingo! This customizable game helps you tailor your fun to your kids' ability level. Simply make some 5x5 grids (enough for everyone in the family to play a few games) and fill the squares with a random assortment of sight words. Have one family member act as the caller, and the rest as players. When the caller says a sight word aloud, look for it on your card; if it's there, mark it with a marker. The first person to make a straight or diagonal line wins!

Sight Word Memory

Here's another easy sight word game you can make at home! Grab a stack of sticky notes, and fill 20 of them with 10 pairs of sight words. Then, arrange them in a random order with the words facing. Have your kids flip over a card, say the word, and look for the match. The player who finds the most pairs wins! Want an additional challenge? Add more word pairs to accommodate extra players or advanced learners!

Pop for Sight Words

Our Pop for Sight Words game bundle helps you and your family discover snackable, munchable learning fun every time you spot a sight word! In this fast-paced game, players pull and read popcorn-shaped sight word cards from the popcorn box to see who can collect the most. Watch out for the POP cards, though; if you draw one of those, all of your pieces go back in the box! With two full game sets, the fun keeps popping!

Sight Words Swat!

Grab a swatter, listen up, and start learning sight words! During games of Sight Word Swat, plays have to pay close attention to the words called out by the reader. When they hear a word, they have to search the bug-shaped cards for the right sight word, and be the first to slap it with their swatter! The player who collects the most flies wins!

@mrs.ashleyann

Slam Ships! Sight Words Game

These sight words are out of this world! Early language skills go intergalactic with Slam Ships!, the sight word game where each player controls a super slammable spaceship. When they spot the right sight word, the race is on: the first player to grab the card with the spaceship's suction cup is one point closer to victory!  

@kbteacherstore

At Learning Resources, we’re here to help you make the best of this challenging time. Stay safe and healthy, and check back with our blog for more tips and learning ideas as the situation unfolds. 

Host a STEM-tastic Playdate to Celebrate November 8!

Invite the whole crew over for National STEM Day this November 8th with a science-, technology-, engineering-, and math-themed playdate!National STEM Day began in 2015, as our nation began to recognize that STEM-centered careers were growing 70 percent faster than other occupations. Research has shown the introduction of STEM concepts to children can improve their social and emotional development, as well as their rational thinking skills.

STEM really goes beyond conveying knowledge from teacher to student. Kids learn problem-solving, critical thinking skills, and collaboration with their peers. Connections are made between school, community, and home that seem to stick. The real-life implications of STEM pull together ideas that teach children that what they learn, as well as the ideas they share, benefit our world as a whole.

Let’s bring together all these concepts into a big, fun playdate. With the help of Learning Resources’ STEM-centered products, we engineered an engaging afternoon with our friends, completely screen-free.(And another beauty of STEM? It knows no age. If little brothers and sisters want to join in on the fun, the more the merrier!)We sent out invites, had our friends over, and made an afternoon of activities!

STEM Station #1: Botley

Spread out on the living room floor for our first STEM Station was Botley. This little coding robot lives up to its reputation for out-of-the-box fun. From the first moment Botley lit up and began chatting with our friends, it was love at first code.

With just a quick skim of the directions, the friends were coding in minutes. Before we knew it, Botley was pushing around blocks and racing toward the finish line.

A solid 45 minutes was spent at the Botley station, as the friends took turns sending Botley backwards and in circles. (It was hard to tear the kids away to move to the next station, but our playdate clock was ticking.)

STEM Station #2: Beaker Creatures

Our friends moved from the floor to the kitchen table to discover the fizzy, funny wonder of the Beaker Creatures Reactor Pods. Each mysterious pod is filled with an alien traveler. Who were they going to discover?Each individually wrapped pod comes with a classification card that will help our friends figure out who is who.Time to drop in our first discovery.

As they waited and watch the water foam, the friends tried to figure out which alien could be lurking in the inky waters.

All set! Who did we get?

Filling out the identification card made the friends feel like they were classifying new species from out of this world.

And soon one bowl was not enough. Let’s dissolve more! Who can we add to our collection?

STEM Station #3: Coding Critters

We set up an additional folding table in the family room to accommodate all our scientists, technicians, engineers, and mathematics for more STEM-tastic discoveries. Station #3 included the Rumble and Bumble, the adorable Coding Critters. Similar to Botley, Rumble and Bumble are screen-free, coding fun. The Coding Critters come with a storybook. First things first, the older friends read to the younger ones about with whom they were about to play.

Rumble and Bumble’s playset was fun to set up, but even more fun to knockdown. Once the friends figured out how to get Rumble moving, the crashing began!

The Coding Critters have a “code mode” and a “play mode”. In the play mode, our friends began to interact with Rumble like it was a real live pet! There were even challenges in the storybook…one was how to teach Rumble to have a snack with Bumble.

Like all awesome playdates, our time had to end. But the afternoon of STEM-centered fun will not soon be forgotten!Happy National STEM Day!

Save it for later!