Category: Activities (Page 2 of 3)

Making play dough with your children is an activity that encourages and supports learning in math, science, sensory, social/emotional, creativity, language and vocabulary.  Let you child get their hands messy and busy making play dough.

You will need:

2 cups flour

1 cup salt

2 tablespoons Cream of Tarter (found in the spice aisle)

2-3 tablespoons Vegetable oil

food colouring (I use a food grade Icing colour paste)

2 cups boiling water

***depending on the brand of flour you use, you may need a little more or less.

Mix the flour, salt and cream of tarter together in a large boil.

Add in the food colouring, oil and boiling water. (add 1 3/4 cups of water first, hold off the the last 1/4 cup, depending on the brand of flour you use, you may need less water or more flour depending on the texture you want for your playdough)  Here, I mixed yellow and a bit of red to make an orange (although it’s showing up yellow.

Stir all together until everything is well combined.

Start kneading the mixture into a dough.  If the dough is too wet, add some more flour.  Knead some more.  Knead until a ball forms and everything is well combined including the colour.

Let your child participate in making the play dough by measuring out the ingredients, stirring or whisking the dry ingredients and putting the ingredients into the bowl.  For safety, adults should pour in the boiling water and do the initial stirring of it.  

Other things to try adding to your play dough before the kneading stage, cocoa powder, Instant coffee to the boiling water for both the scent and colour, lavender buds/essential oils or glitter!  There are so many options you can experiment with.

Tools to consider: rolling pin, butter knife, scissors, garlic press or cookie cutters

Some Fun additions:  Googly eyes, buttons, rocks, animals, sticks, pipe cleaners

Store the play dough for up to 2 weeks in an airtight container.

Here is an easy homemade ABC activity made out of  large popsicle sticks and clothes pins (items from the “Learning Materials,” Dollar Store post).  This is a great activity for fostering letter recognition, vocabulary, eye-hand coordination and fine motor skills.

I wrote the “Lower” case alphabet on one side of the clothes pin and the “Upper” case on the other side.

I made two sets so there are extra letters to build words from.  Consider making extra vowels, “a-e-i-o-u” to build longer words.

On the large popsicle sticks, you can print simple words that your child can easily connect with, for example:   your child’s name, cat, dog, car, tree etc.  I used a Black Sharpie marker for this.  Make sure to space out the letters on the popsicle sticks so there’s enough room to clip OVER the existing letters (see photo).  I also added toys/props  to further support the learning.   These props help make that connection in recognizing the word and the item, making it a more concrete experience.

Also, please take a look at the Fall-winter programming for Burnaby provided by Anita Olson, our Early Childhood Community Consultant (click on the link):

FREE EDITED Programs fall-winter 2020 Master Burnaby

Anita Olson – Early Childhood Community Consultant (ECCC) – supporting parents/caregivers with children ages 0-5 years old. Questions/concerns about behaviour, development, needing strategies or other resources call/text/email for a free virtual or socially distanced consultation.

604-723-9548 or email aolson@fsgv.ca

Join Monday’s Coffee and Chat parenting support group to get connected with other parents, learn some helpful tips about parenting and discuss your own parental celebrations and challenges. Meetings are via MS Teams – email aolson@fsgv.ca, subject line JOIN COFFEE AND CHAT, and an invite will be emailed to you. For assistance in MS Teams installation click here.

If you are interested in joining the ECCC Resource Newsletter please email aolson@fsgv.ca, subject line ADD TO RESOURCE NEWSLETTER and you will begin to receive children’s activity ideas, family resources offered in Burnaby and so much more.

Think outside the box.

There are so many possibilities at your local Dollar Store for learning materials we call as, “Loose Parts”.  You can slowly build an assortment of “loose parts” for your child to explore and experiment with.  These versatile materials can be used over and over.

Loose parts provides so many endless options and opportunities for learning skills such as:  numeracy/math, fostering imagination, creativity, language and vocabulary, critical thinking, hand-eye-coordination and fine motor skills.

Choose an assortment of materials with different textures, shapes, and colours  and size to provide endless possibilities.  In the photo above, there are:  Medium and large popsicle sticks, (both natural and in colour), Pompoms, Pipe cleaners, wooden clothes pins, feathers, buttons and coloured matchsticks.

“I wonder what you can do with these?”  There are no rules.  These materials can be used for building, sorting, making patterns, counting, stacking, making portraits,  and more.  Give your children opportunities to stretch their imagination.

You may recognize these materials in the containers.  These are just some of the ones used in our StrongStart classroom. Majority of these are from the Dollar store as well:  pompoms, assorted sized googly eyes, bottle caps, wooden cubes, buttons, coloured matchsticks, seashells and dried beans.   I stored these materials in recycled take-out containers for easy access.  Please keep in mind, smaller items are a choking hazard and always supervise your child when using these items.  

Another great way to acquire FREE materials is to collect them on your walks.  Sticks, rocks, pinecones, chestnuts are just a few you can start collecting.  Make sure they dry out properly before storing in containers and then they can be kept for years.

I invite you to start collecting and building your own “Loose Part” learning materials.  Keep an open mind about how these materials can be used.  Children always surprise me with how they choose to use these items.  Give them the freedom to explore and create  using these open-ended materials.

Save all those vegetable scraps that would normally go into the compost bin.  This is a science experiment to see what will grow and what will not.  Let’s do this together and keep track of the process.

I have the ends of green onions, part of a potato, carrot tops, seeds from a butternut squash, garlic segments, romain lettuce end cut and a red onion!

I placed them all in their own containers with about a 1/2″ of water.

Change the water every two days and place them by a window where they’ll get some sunlight.  Now all you have to do is sit back and keep an eye on them for any changes.  Other veggies to try are:  the base of a celery stalk, basil, cilantro stem, beet root top, leeks and a pineapple top.  I am sure there are more things to try.  Experiment!

After only 5 days, I have noticed some big and small changes with the veggie scraps.

If you look closely, there are a few buds appearing on the potato.  Nothing is happening with the squash seeds and the red onion roots have gotten longer.  On the right, two new lettuce leaves have started sprouting out of the Romain stalk.  The green onions have started growing with darker green stems shooting out from the middle.  The garlic bulbs were the fastest to grow.  The growth is over 4 inches tall after 5 days.  Remember to change the water regularly!

If you are trying out this or any of the past activities, please take photos and share them with me via email.  I would love to see them!

Have fun and happy planting!

This simple activity only requires scissors, pencil, ruler (optional) and empty cereal/food boxes.

First, I cut out only the FRONT side of the box.  Then all you have to decide is how you want to cut out the shapes.  You can keep it simple and just cut it up into squares, like the Cheerios example.  You can cut it in different, odd shapes such as the Cheese Macaroni one.  Cutting it up with curves and waves or straight lines like ribbons are some other options.  It may help to turn it over and draw out the lines/shapes to assist your planning and cutting.

You can make it as easy or challenging you want depending on your child’s age.