Tagged with 'activities'

How often do you find your child lost in their only little world of imaginative play? In our house, it’s a daily occurrence – and since school has started again this Fall, I often find the girls playing school. Pretend play is not only a critical part of early child development, it can also help you learn more about your child and their current school experiences.

4 Things You and Your Child Can Learn Playing School

Have you ever been struggling with a project at work, and you come home and think through it while you go through the motions of your day, maybe even in your dreams? Our kids are no different! While you may ask them how school was and get little more than a word or two response, left to their own imaginative play devices, they may reveal far more about their day.

So the next time they want to play school, you should not only encourage it, but listen up.

You Learn 95% of What We Teach to Others  

Ever heard the saying “We Learn . . . 10% of what we read,  20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, 50% of what we see and hear, 70% of what we discuss, 80% of what we experience, and 95% of what we teach others.

”It originated from William Glasser, a famous American psychiatrist, who pioneered work in choice therapy and its applications in education. What it means for playing school? If your child can come home and pretend to teach what they’ve learned to their stuffed animals and dolls, they are more likely to master the material.

Last week, my daughter’s preschool class was beginning a year-long alphabet study by reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin, Jr. John Archambault. She was playing school, and asked me to write the repetitive refrain from the story on her pretend play school board – she’s a pre-reader, but after I wrote it, she used the pointer to point and read each word on the board!

So instead of doing more math worksheets, or practicing sight words on paper, ask them to teach addition to their favorite play things.

Gain Insight into What’s Happening at School 

How many times have your picked up your child from school with a glum face? You ask, “How was school today?” and get met with a single word response if you’re lucky. You can push the question, but you know it often leads them to shut down even more.

If you back off, and let them play freely when you get home, you can often learn exactly what’s going on at school without even asking. Whether they are playing school, or re-enacting dialogue with princesses or stuffed animals, you might just hear what’s bothering them. Or if nothing is bothering them, you can often discover what they are learning about, who they are playing with, who’s being reprimanded by the teacher, and more.

I recommend letting them play as independently as possible, and revisiting what you learn with them when you have quiet 1-on-1 time. I find the best time to really get them talking is just before bed, after stories, when you are tucking your child in for the night.

Role Playing Develops Social and Emotional Skills 

When your child is playing school (or engaged in any form of pretend or imaginative play), you will often hear them replaying dialogue they observe in the world around them. Maybe they are re-enacting scenes from their favorite show, or replaying what happened at school that day.

Practicing the exchange of dialogue and re-enacting events are an amazing way to help your child develop social and emotional skills they will use for the rest of their life. Role playing during imaginative play is also a great tool for you as a parent to help guide your child when they are struggling with feelings, or even after they have behaved inappropriately.

If they have had an argument with a sibling or a friend at school, or even with you, when they are calmer, you can recreate the situation and offer up words, phrases and alternative actions they can use the next time the situation arises.

Discover Your Child’s Passions

Want to find out what your child is really into? Leave them to their own imaginative devices. When they are playing school, see what lessons they choose to teach. Are they reading books to their stuffed animals? What books do they gravitate towards?

When they are playing school, do they re-teach science experiments or math lessons? The areas they choose to explore voluntarily are likely the subjects they enjoy most. Be sure to encourage those passions… but also take note of the areas they often avoid. This may be an indication of subject areas they struggle with, and may need your help to develop in those areas.

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So the next time you happen upon your kids ‘playing school’, be sure to sit back, let them play and catch the conversation. Not only are they having fun, they are cementing their learning while offering you valuable insights into the part of their day you don’t often get to see firsthand.Grab your own self-storing Pretend & Play School set here. For more great play ideas for kids, check out my Imaginative Play and Kids Activities boards on Pinterest.

It’s almost fall! You’re probably spending a little less time swimming, climbing, and playing outside and a little more time relaxing indoors – the perfect place for fall craft projects with your preschooler! Luckily, fall is ripe with inspiration for preschool crafts, like the three we’ve chosen below. So pour some cider, have a seat, and let’s get crafty!

Turning Leaf Scratchers

With less sun and shorter days, autumn weather suppresses chlorophyll production in many leaves, allowing their beautiful orange, red, and yellow colors to shine through. Demonstrate this process with a fun leaf scratcher!

1. Cut a large leaf shape out of a piece of card stock or other sturdy paper. You can find lots of printable templates online, if you need one.
2. Have your kids cover the leaf in red, yellow, or orange crayon (or all three), making sure to leave a thick layer of color over the entire leaf.
3. Next, have the kids cover their leaves in a layer of green crayon.
4. Using a penny (keep a careful eye on very small children), scratch off the layer of green to reveal the beautiful fall colors beneath.

Click for a simple explanation about why leaves change color in the fall!

Fall Foil Trees

Continue the foliage fun with a painting project depicting all the beautiful colors of leaves in the fall.

1. Let your kids scrunch three pieces of tinfoil into loose balls.
2. Squeeze blobs of orange, yellow, and red paint on three, separate paper plates.
3. Instruct your kids to dip their foil into one color of paint paint, then press onto a sheet of paper several times to make their “leaves”.
4. Repeat, printing the foil in different colors on top of the original colors and in different places on the paper.
5. When your foil prints are dry, use brown paint to fingerpaint a trunk and branches into your fall forest.

Don’t forget to print some fall foil leaves at the bottom of your page – as chlorophyll production decreases, the stems of leaves weaken, and the leaves fall from the trees!

Paper Plate Spider Webs

Fall trees aren’t just full of leaves – they’re also full of spiders! Garden spiders are most active in the fall so you’re likely to see more of their elaborate, beautiful webs in the trees in autumn, too. Join the fun and spin your own spider webs out of a paper plate!

1. Cut the center out of a paper plate.
2. Let your kids color the outer edge of the plate with beautiful fall colors like red, orange, and yellow.
3. Using a single hole puncher, punch 12-14 holes around the edge of the hole.
4. Tape one end of a length of yarn to the back of the paper plate and wrap tape tightly around the other to form a ‘needle’.
5. Demonstrate how to weave the yarn back and forth through the holes to create the web, then hand the plate over to your child.
6. Once, the web is spun, remove the pin from the end of the yarn and tape that end to the back of the plate, too.

Add a pipe cleaner spider for the perfect fall finishing touch – cut four black pipe cleaners in half and twist to create an eight-legged creepy crawly!

Fall is chock full of fun craft ideas and it’s so easy to slip just a bit of learning into the fun!

Do your kids like to design cities or build towers? Building is one of my kids’ favorite activities. They love using a variety of materials to see what they can create. Today I’m sharing how we incorporate pretend play into our STEM building projects.

Engineer a City

We used the City Engineering and Design Building Set to begin our play. Aiden (age 7) started by building what was on the front of the box.

The set includes activity cards with design challenges and engineering problems to solve. Building a zip line was the first challenge Aiden selected. The activity card has you build two buildings. It states that you are at the wrong build and must quickly get to the other building. “Can you design a zip line to carry you across?” The back of the card includes possible solutions to the challenge. It also poses questions about the design. “Which of the solutions above would provide a faster ride?”

Aiden designed his own zip line after seeing the suggestions. He modified the ideas shown and came up with the zip line below.

Incorporate Pretend Play

Next, we added in the Snap-n-Learn™ Counting Elephants. I challenged Lily (age 3) to help the elephants get from one building to the other using the zip line. She thought it was a lot of fun watching the elephants zip down the line.

While she was playing with the elephants, I took the opportunity to ask her about the numbers on them. I asked questions like:

• What number is on your elephant?

• Can you find the number 7?

• What color is the elephant with the number 2?

• Can you count the elephants?

This activity was a great way for my kids to play together. The City Engineering and Design Building Set is recommended for ages 5 and up. Aiden built the city and then he and Lily played with it. They took turns moving the people and elephants around the buildings. They made up stories as they played.

Keep it Going

The next challenge Aiden undertook was to build a crane.

After he built the crane, he and Lily got to work lifting elephants.

There is so much learning going on along with their play. Building the set works on lots of STEM skills - problem solving, following directions, sequential thought, critical thinking, spatial relationships, creativity, and early engineering. Fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, number recognition, and counting are also being developed here.

What’s your child’s favorite building activity? How can you add in some additional learning to the play?

About the Author: Trisha

Trisha is a science educator and stay at home mom to three. She’s the creator of Inspiration Laboratories, a blog dedicated to encouraging learning through creativity and play.

You already love to play with your 3- to 5-year-olds. Now, turn those play times into rich learning experiences. It’s easier than you think and lots of fun. In fact, your child won’t even know how much they’re learning!

 1. COLORS

Learning colors helps children identify the world around them as well as develops their ability to categorize. 

• Throughout the day, ask your child “What color is this?” or “Can you find the red one?” with foods, toys, or things in nature.
• Celebrate one color each day. Each day focus on one color and see if you can find things of that color, a giant color scavenger hunt.
• Sort toys like the Farmers Market Color Sorting Set and Super Sorting Pie into color groups.
• Using washable paints, let your child experiment with mixing colors. What do red and blue make? How about yellow and red?
• Make colored ice cubes with water and food coloring. Use the colorful ice cubes to paint the sidewalk.
• Play “I Spy” with colors. Have your child point out things of different colors in the play he or she is doing.

 2. NUMBERS

Kids learn numbers by observing and talking about what they see. Numbers, counting, and making sense of numbers are all vital skills in developing a child’s mathematical ability. 

• Count everything you can. Count the steps you take, the bites of food you chew, the number of fingers on your hand, the numbers of rocks you collect, and so on.
• Make numbers with playdough, tape, paint, sand, sticks, or markers. Give your kids something to trace or copy first to show them each number’s shape.
• Practice matching the Number Pops numbers to the corresponding dots on each pop.
• Match numbers to your own groups of items. Start number jars from 1 - 9. Collect items and put the correct number in your number collection jar, one thing for 1, two things for 2, and so on. You can use anything for your collections. Things like pennies, buttons, marbles, toys, or blocks.
• Play hopscotch.
• Play dominos.
• Play “What Time Is It Mr. Wolf?”.
• Use your Dino-Sorters and count the number of dinosaurs in each color group.
• Pretend play store using your Cash Register.

 3. SHAPES

Learning to distinguish shapes helps children become discerning and observant, important thinking skills.  

• Create shapes using play dough, Wikki Stix, pipe cleaners, tape, or craft sticks.
• Search for shapes in your house or backyard. Look for one at a time. Find circles, squares, rectangles, and triangles. It’s helpful to show your child the shape in a picture or an object so he has something by which to compare and refer to. Let him hold that shape while you search.
• Ask “what shape is that” with everyday objects like a plate, a book, or a cell phone.
• Make 2-D shapes with craft sticks and play dough.
• Sort puzzle pieces, stickers, or cut-outs by shapes.
• Draw lots of shapes with crayons and markers.
• Do a shape art project like this house project.

 4. SCIENCE

Science helps kids wonder, observe, and problem solve. What’s more, science is all about the world in which we live. 

• Learn sandbox physics! Compare the dry sand in your sandbox to wet sand. How is it different when you add water and try to build something?
• Drop different items into a bucket of water to see what floats and what sinks. Try rocks, feathers, pom-poms, balls, fruit, and toys.
• Freeze food-colored water in balloons. When frozen, peel off the balloon’s skin and observe the melting process. Try one in the sun, one in hot water, and one in cold water. Observe and enjoy the process.
• Bury dinosaurs in the sandbox. Pretend to be a paleontologist and dig to find them.
• Put different materials in a cupcake tin to see what melts in the sun. Be sure to include a crayon. Make predictions and observe.
• Go to the zoo. Learn about the different animals.
• Try the engaging science activities in the Primary Science Lab Set.

 5. ENGINEERING

Kids naturally gravitate toward building things. Engineers build and problem solve so given the opportunity, you can develop both with a little playful fun.

• Use blocks to build a skyscraper. Experiment with the base to see if it makes a difference in height.
• Build a creative castle or rocking robot using a Gears! Gears! Gears! Kit.
• See if you can build a bridge that holds the weight of a favorite toy. What will you use to make it strong? Try bricks, books, and paper.
• Build a marble run using cardboard rolls and tape.
• Make houses for your stuffed animals using recycled materials.
• Make a fort out of cardboard boxes and furniture.
• Build the three little pig’s houses -- one of straw (grass works), one of sticks, and one of blocks.
• Build puzzles like the Puzzle Globe.

 As you can see, play is learning, particularly at the preschool ages. All the activities above playfully incorporate foundational skills that will become building blocks for future learning success.