The Preschool Toolbox Blog

It’s Just a “Stone’s Throw Away” to Learning & Play the Nature Way!

pschooltoolbox — Thu, 23 May 2013 02:36:53 +0000

Kids love to play outside! If you ask any of our children what their favorite part of the day is, hands-down it will be outside play time. Playing and learning with natural items can be a FUN part of outdoor play with a few simple ideas! It doesn’t take children long to begin to develop their own ways of playing and learning with readily found items. Below you will find some ideas to get the creativity started!

Nature-Crafted Dominoes

Materials: Sticks (for making the domino outline), rocks, chalk, and assorted nature items that can be counted (Suggestions: small pine cones, rocks, leaves, acorns, flower petals, other seeds, etc.).

To Play (can be a small group or individual game): have the children gather the items in a basket or a bag. Collect as many rocks as the children can find (flat-sided ones work best for labeling with the chalk). Make a domino outline (see photo above) from the sticks the children find. Have the children label the rocks to resemble a domino (assist younger children). Have the children shake one of the labeled rocks in their hand and carefully pour it out onto the ground (remind the children to “roll” the rocks carefully like dice and not to THROW them – we had a few FLYING rocks, but not many).

Once the children roll the “rock” dominoes, have them copy the dot patterns on the rocks to their stick domino outlines using some of the smaller items. Count the total number of items in the domino. How many items do you have ALL together?

In the photo below, we used basic addition skills (4+2) and put the corresponding number of flowers under the rock domino. The kids loved playing this game and looking for different items to play with. We forgot that we were learning MATH; isn’t that the way it should be?!

For a competitive game: Have a race to see which child can collect the most items in a predetermined amount of time. For a cooperative game: See if all of the children can work together to get a predetermined amount of items in 5-10 minutes.

Patterning

Nature contains all kinds of natural patterns. If you look closely at the tulip tree petals in the photo above, you will see color patterns that are the same. Have the children look outside to find patterns that occur naturally.

To introduce basic patterning to the children, use some of the items the children collected for the domino game above. For an ABC pattern, the children would use three different items and then repeat the pattern (in the photo above, our kids used sticks (A), rocks (B), and tulip tree petals (C)). For very young children: start a basic AB pattern with two items (ex: rocks/sticks) and see if the child can complete the pattern that is started. An adult could also make an entire pattern row and see if the child could copy the pattern (using his own materials) in a separate row.

Tally Marks and Skip Counting

Materials: lots of sticks, chalk, and several rocks.

Have the children collect sticks and help them break the longer ones into shorter lengths. Label rocks by 5′s (5, 10, 15, 20, 25) with chalk. Have the children practice laying the sticks to make a tally mark set. To teach the concept of tally marks, there is a rhyme we chant with our children here.

Practice the rhyme with your children as they lay sticks to make tally marks. Tally marks are a great way to introduce counting up by 1′s and skip counting by 5′s.

For younger children: use single sticks to make tally marks. Label the rocks with the numbers 1-4. Have the children practice making single tally marks that correspond to the numbered rocks before moving on to larger numbers.

Nature-Crafted NAMES

Have the children practice forming the letters in their name with any items they can find in nature. For younger children, see if they can form any letter they have had introduced with items they can find. It is a fun way to explore and help cement beginning letter recognition.

ROCK Word Families

Materials needed: Rocks and Chalk

Have the children find several rocks. Label ONE rock with the two ending letters for different word families (for ex: _at: cat, sat, bat, pat, mat, fat, rat, hat; _it: sit, lit, hit, pit, bit, kit, fit, bit; etc.) Label other rocks with various beginning letters. The children must choose a rock that has a beginning letter that would form a word in that word family.

The rocks can also be used for: single letter recognition, CVC words, CVVC words, CVCe words, or for building any sight words your children have had introduced. It is fun to see what the children do own their own after introducing ROCKS and LETTERS!

Nature-Crafted Flowers

Have the children look for any items in nature that they can use to create something. It is amazing to watch young children assemble natural items into different forms. What items can your own children use to make….ART?!

For MORE great ways to use nature items for play, please visit some of the extra resource links below:

From Fun at Home with Kids:

Small World Floor Play with Nature and Insects and a Nature Sensory Board.

From Housing A Forest:

Nature Printing

Mud, Mud, Glorious Mud

STICKS – Nature’s Perfect Toy

Nature Stick Garden

From Fantastic Fun and Learning:

Seeds Science and How to Make a Rock with Kids

Stop the “Summer Slide” with Fun Beach Activities for Kids!

pschooltoolbox — Sat, 18 May 2013 17:09:52 +0000

Beach Theme Counting Practice (Instructions Below)

Children love to visit the BEACH! The activities offered below are wonderful extension lessons to do after a trip to the beach (or the chance to explore a beach theme if a visit to the beach is not possible.) The suggestions below are designed for children in Preschool or Kindergarten, but are adaptable for children of differing skill levels.

Road Trip FUN with Wikki Stix

Shara at Mommy Perks has some great ROAD TRIP suggestions for families! Check out her post if you are taking a trip to the beach (or anywhere!) this summer!

FUN items to look for at the BEACH!

Beach Scavenger Hunt - Beach Items

Print the beach items and laminate for each of the children. At the beach, have the children look to find each of the items. The scavenger hunt is a fun game to reinforce letters/words at the beach. How many of the items can your child find? If it is not possible to go to the beach, let the children look through books/magazines to locate each of the beach items in the file. There is a great list of beach-themed books located in the EXTRA RESOURCES section at the end of this post.

Extension Games to Play: for older children, cut the word and picture cards apart. Have the children work to match the word with the corresponding picture. For younger children, print two copies of the beach items file above. Cut the strips apart and place each strip face down on a table or the floor. Have the children play a memory game by turning two strips over at a time to see if they match. If the strips do not match, both strips are tuned face down and play continues to the next child. The game is over when all strips have been matched.

Beach Theme Counting (pictured above)

Materials needed: Small beach-themed counters/shells, beach-themed plastic cupcake flags, homemade or commercial playdough, and a dry erase marker (to label the cupcake flags).

Label several plastic cupcake flags with any number the children have had introduced. Have the children roll large balls from playdough and then flatten to a “pancake-shape” on a table or playdough mat. Have the children place one labeled cupcake flag on each of the playdough shapes. The children must then press the corresponding number of beach-themed counters into the playdough shape. The children will love playing with the playdough and beach-themed objects! It is a great way to PLAY with one-to-one correspondence and retain basic counting skills over the summer.

Beach-themed Patterning

Beach Patterning - Blank Pattern Strips

Materials needed: Small Beach-themed items/seashells and the blank pattern strips (linked above).

Print the blank pattern strips above for each child. Set out an assortment of beach-themed items or seashells for the children to use. For very young children, start an AB pattern on the blank pattern strips and see if they can finish the row. Young children might also copy a complete pattern row that has been done for them. For older children, have them make more complex patterns without using the pattern strips.

Roll and Remove Math for Preschool and Kindergarten

Roll and Remove Math for Preschool and Kindergarten - Sunshine Math

Materials needed: Sunshine Math file (linked above), permanent or dry erase marker to label the flags, Wikki Stix, and 1-4 dice.

Print the Sunshine Math file for each child and laminate for durability (if laminating supplies are not available, clear contact paper will work). Cut out each of the suns in the file and label with a number the children have had introduced. Place each labeled sun on top of a Wikki Stix to make a numbered flag. Arrange the flags in a random order on a mat or a table top. Have the children roll 1-4 dice. As the children roll the dice, they must count the dots and remove the corresponding numbered sun flag, The game is over when all sun flags have been removed.

Flip Flop Craft for Kids

Wikki Stix Flip Flop Zipper Pull Craft for Kids

Materials needed: Two colors of Wikki Stix and scissors (safety scissors will work).

Have the children make a spiral shape from two strands of the same color of Wikki Stix (this shape becomes the bottom of the flip flop). The children can cut two small pieces of Wikki Stix from the second color to make top portion of the flip flop (^). Our kids made zipper pulls for their backpacks by attaching a small craft circle to the back of the Wikki Stix flip flops. It’s a fun summer craft for the kids to make!

Oyster and Pearl Cookie Craft

For MORE Beach Activities including food crafts and Seashell games, visit EXPLORING THE BEACH at Squidoo!

Extra BEACH Resources to check out!

13 Books about the Beach

Scented Homemade Playdough with Jello

Recipe for Play Sand

Beach-themed Sensory Table

Sandy Handprint Keepsake Beach Craft

Seashell Crab Craft for Kids

13 Creative Ways to use Wikki Stix at Home or in the Classroom!

pschooltoolbox — Mon, 06 May 2013 23:49:41 +0000

Wikki Stix are versatile and creative tools that will help young children learn new skills at home or in the classroom!

1). Use Wikki Stix as shoe laces on a tying frame. The Wikki Stix will hold the loops much better than a regular shoe lace! For tiny fingers, it is a great tool to enhance learning.

2) Use Wikki Stix to make tally marks. The Wikki Stix will help cement important concepts.

3) Use Wikki Stix for stringing and patterning. The Wikki Stix do not have sharp points like pipe cleaners; they hold the beads better than strings, too!

4) Use Wikki Stix to create numbers. It is a wonderful fine motor task!

5). Use Wikki Stix to circle counted groups of items – more than, less than, etc.

6). Use Wikki Stix to create a tic-tac-toe board.

7). Use Wikki Stix to create wheels for art projects.

8). Let the children make the letters of their name with pieces of Wikki Stix.

9). Use Wikki Stix to replace the strings for sewing cards.

10). Make Wikki Stix Clocks and have the children make one or both of the clock hands.

11). Use Wikki Stix to hold pony beads for counting coin values.

12). Have the children trace the outlines of pattern block shapes with the Wikki Stix.

13). Teach the children how to braid using three Wikki Stix strands.

About Wikki Stix

Wikki Stix has been entertaining parents, teachers and children for more than twenty years! Wikki Stix One-of-a-Kind Creatables are the award winning original waxed yarn creativity toy. Wikki Stix are Made in the USA. Follow on Twitter and Facebook for periodic discount codes.