Learning Games Archives - Page 20 of 20

Dream Big- Read.Explore.Learn

August 3, 2012 By Deirdre

Links below are affiliate link.

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called Dream Big: Michael Jordan and the Pursuit of Excellence by Deloris Jordan. This lovely picture book by Michael Jordan’s mom is about how her son dreamed of going to the Olympic to play basketball from an early age.

He loved basketball, but basketball coaches didn’t always pick him for their team. Michael was cut from his high school basketball tryouts. He never gave up on his dream and I think we all know what happened to his dream to play basketball. His mom says, ” I guess you aren’t a dreamer, but a doer.” Michael was so blessed to live out his dream.

JDaniel announced a few weeks ago that he could do almost every big boy thing he could think of except tie his shoes and read. I guess you could call them his big boy dreams.

Learning to Tie Shoes

When I mentioned to a friend that JDaniel wanted to learn to tie shoes, she said she learned to tie them by practicing on her dad’s shoes. We took out my husband’s shoes and we have been parallel practicing. One of us has it mastered and the other still needs a lot of practicing.

Learning to Tie Dad's Shoes

I hope he learns in the next few months. I just ordered his school sneakers for the fall with laces on them.

Working on Sight Words

I created little basketballs that contain the first 36 Dolch Preprimer words to help JDaniel work on his dream of reading. We have been working on four words at a time.

Every time he reads me on the words he can move an orange pom-pom to the basketball hoop on paper.

I don’t want to overdo the word practice. He gets to work on each word only a few times at each sitting.

Here are some wonderful book Read.Explore.Learn post that were linked up last week:

Crafty Moms Share linked up a great dress the mole activity to go with the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.

Keitha’s Chaos linked up an amazing bento lunch to that explored the book Hour of the Olympics.

Please share your book extension and exploration post below.

Olympics for Kids: Color Sorting

July 15, 2012 By Deirdre

With the Olympics right around the corner it is the perfect time to use the symbols of the Olympics to create Olympics for kids activities that allow children to review or explore learning concepts.

The Olympic symbol of interlocking rings of red, blue, green, black and yellow is a wonderful tool for practicing color identification. Placing colored pom poms to their appropriate colored ring with chopsticks is a fun way to practice finding color matches.

This Olympics for kids activity is so easy to put together. You will need a bag of multi-colored pom poms, a container to hold the pom poms before they are transferred to the rings, a copy of the Olympic rings with the rings colored in, and a fun way to transfer the pom poms. Chopsticks can be used to transfer the pom poms if you have them, but a spoon or tweezers could be used instead.

After moving the pom- poms to the rings on paper you can, introduce moving them into plastic cups that have been arranged into the Olympic ring configuration. Children will need to have the paper displaying the color arrangement of the Olympic rings to use as a guide or a single pom pom could be placed into appropriate cup to let the children know which color belongs in each cup. Using the paper ring display as a guide will provide an extra challenge for children who might easily move the pom-poms into a cup already displaying the color.

There may be some pom-poms in the container that are not the right color for this activity, but you may choose to use them in your pom- pom mixture. This will make sorting more fun.

Why?

They will cause your child will have to dig into the container to search and find the colors they need.

Children will have to analyze whether pom pom is needed before they have it in their transfer tool.

The extra pom poms will also give your child objects they can use to create a border around their Olympic rings or a flag pole at the edge of their ring paper.

More Olympics for Kids Activities

Olympic Torch Painting

Olympic Themed Graphs and Charts

Read.Explore.Learn.- Gilbert the Goldfish Wants a Pet

June 8, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

Gilbert in the story Gilbert Goldfish Wants a Pet by Kelly Dipucchio is lonely and really wants a pet. He has a number of animals visit the outside of his bowl. Each time a new pet stops by Gilbert gets excited and swims around in circles and the new pet runs around his bowl.

Each possible pet ends up leaving him, wanting to eat him, or gets squashed (the fly). Gilbert’s little heart then goes pitter- patter- plop.

Finally having much disappointment, he does get a friend. You will be surprised to find out what it is.

What did we do with the book?

Create Goop and a Fish Wash

Gilbert the Goldfish- Exploring Goop in a Watertable

I found a recipe for goop on the internet and we tried having JDaniel’s ocean bath toys swim in it. It turns out they needed a friend to help clean them up after they played.

We then created an animal wash in the second section of JDaniel’s water table.

Here is the recipe for Goop:

1/2 cup cornstarch
1/4 cup water
small bowl, tin pie plate, water table, etc..
A little more water
Food coloring

Add the water to the cornstarch in a small bowl, tin pie plate, etc. Mix it together using your hands

Fish Counting

I created a sheet with a number of fish bowls on it. I then wrote a number on the rim of each bowl and JDaniel had to put the correct number of fish in each bowl.

Talking about Possible Fish Friends

I created a sheet with a giant fish bowl on it and put a big plastic fish in it. JDaniel then selected various plastic animals and told me why they would or would not make a great pet.

Talking about the pro and cons of each animal encourage JDaniel to think at a higher level. He had to analyze and sort through real reason they would or would not be good pets.

Read.Explore.Learn.- That’s Not Fair, Hare!

May 25, 2012 By Deirdre

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badgeon your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

This super clever tale of the turtle and the hare by Julie Sykes and Tim Warnes is really fun. In this versions, the hare thinks he has totally outsmarted the turtle only to find the turtle has put one over on him.

The turtle wants to share the cabbages in the farmer’s field and the hare does not. He challenges the turtle to a race. A race he thinks he can win.

Along the way, the turtle’s friends try to cheer him on and they need rescuing. The turtle is sure she will lose when she has to stop and help them.

In the end, the turtle tricks the hare into to giving them all to her. You will have to read to see how.

What did we do with the book?

Ribbon Spool Race

We placed pictures of a hare on one ribbon spool and a turtle on another spool and raced them.

Animal Name Letter Search

JDaniel had to search in magazines for the letters needed to spell out the words turtle and hare. When we had found all of the letters we glued them over the letters on this page.

I created this activity by pasting clip art of a turtle and a hare into a Word document and then typing the type of animals under each picture.

If you like these That’s Not Fair, Hare! activities, here are some more book-themed activities:

Coding Activity- Going on a Bear Hunt

Hungry Caterpillar Money Activity

Knuffle Bunny Color Activity and Cardboard Washing Machine

Read.Explore.Learn.- Tweak Tweak (An Elephant with Many Questions)

May 4, 2012 By Deirdre

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. the badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

The little elephant in the book Tweak Tweak by Eve Bunting reminds me of JDaniel. His mama tells her to tweak her tail when she has a question and just like my guy she is filled with questions.

Does she want to know what the frog is doing? She is jumping says his mom. The little elephant wants to know if she can jump. Her mom tells her that she can’t but, she can stomp.

As she goes on her walk with her mom she wants to know if she can do the same things monkeys and many other animals can do. Each time her mom points out that he can’t do what they can, but she can do special things that elephants can do.

Her mom also tells her she can walk with her mom, ask questions and learn. Oh! and remember the way home.

What did we do to extend concepts from the book?

Elephant Puppet for Retelling

An old cd with felt ears and wiggling eyes makes a perfect elephant puppet. After reading Tweak Tweak, JDaniel stuck his finger through the hole in the center of the cd to add a trunk to the puppet.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Tweak Tweak (An Elephant with Many Questions)

This is so much fun to play with!

It was a lot of fun to watch the elephant’s nose wiggle up and down while he retold the story. I like pretending to be the elephant too.

Elephant Foot Letter Searching

JDaniel used this elephant’s foot to search for letters in his favorite book.

The toilet paper tube was really too large for isolating letters. I will need to think of a smaller tube for this activity.

Sandpaper and Yarn Letter Practice

JDaniel had fun trying to place pieces of yarn onto sandpaper with the letters of the alphabet written on them.

Here is the E for the elephant he used.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Big Bear Hug Based Activities

April 20, 2012 By Deirdre

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badge on your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

I love the Big Bear Hug by Nicholas Oldland. It is my favorite new library book. JDaniel likes it too, but it isn’t his favorite and I am not sure why. He loves to give hugs and so does the bear in this book.

Bear is a hugger. He hugs everything and everyone he comes across. He freaks out a rabbit by hugging him when the rabbit thinks he is going to eat him. He tries to hug a moose, but his arms don’t reach around him. He hugs small birds, smelly skunks, and scary snakes too.

Bear’s favorite things to hug are trees. He just loves trees. He hugs trees that are big, little, apple, peach or pear. He will hug trees of every kind everywhere around the woods.

One day a man came to the woods and tried to cut down a wonderful tree. Bear freaked out about the idea of cutting down a tree. At first, he wanted to kill the man, but he decided he is not that kind of bear. Bear ended up doing what he loves to best and freaked the man out. The man runs away after bear hugs him.

With the man gone Bear does what he loves best to the tree. He hugs it.

What did we do after reading the book?

Tissue Box Bear and Story Retelling

JDaniel and I found pictures on the internet that matched many of the things the bear-hugged. After printing them out, JDaniel used watercolors or markers to color most of the pictures.

When the pictures had dried we used them to retell the story. After our retelling time, JDaniel stored the stick puppets in the tissue box the bear is hugging.

Reviewed Items to Recycle

I found a wonderful chart on the internet that displayed the items that can be recycled and lists the ones that you can not recycle. We did two activities with the chart.

The first activity involved using chopsticks to pick up things that should be recycled and placing them in the bear tissue box. I am sure the bear would only want items you can recycle in his box.

The second activity was to go through one of the grocery store circulars that we get in the mail and circle the items that had containers that could be recycled.

What did you do this week?

Reminder: The Tissue Box Challenge will end on the 22nd of April. There is still time to add your own wonderful tissue box creations to the link up. The winner will receive a $20 Amazon Gift Card.

Read.Explore.Learn.- Celebrating Dr. Seuss’ Birthday

February 24, 2012 By Deirdre

Tomorrow is Dr. Seuss’ birthday. JDaniel and I will be heading to the celebration of his birthday at Target tomorrow. I think Target stores everywhere are having a celebration. In honor of his birthday, I decided we would read three Dr. Seuss books.

Dr. Seuss Books We Read

This post contains affiliate links.

The Lorax

We started with the The Lorax . It is all about saving the trees and an awareness that we have to give back.

What did we do?

I made JDaniel a Lorax sandwich with his favorite cheese rolls. I think it came out well. JDaniel announced that he was not into cheese rolls anymore. That meant I got to eat the Lorax sandwich minus his eyeballs. It turns out he still likes those foods.

The Tooth Book

Then we read The Tooth Book. JDaniel is big into grouping things right now. He loved that this book is all about teeth.

What did we do with this book?

JDaniel and I searched in magazines for pictures of people with teeth showing. After gathering the pictures, we put them in a roasting pan and covered them with Moon Sand.

JDaniel then used an old toothbrush to uncover everyone’s teeth. This fine motor activity gave JDaniel the opportunity practice the motion used to brush his teeth. It was fun to clear off green Moon Sand and see the pictures that had been covered up.

If you like these Dr. Seuss activities, here are some more that you will enjoy:

Cat in the Hat Math Mats

Green Eggs and Ham Activities

Lorax File Folder Math Game

Truffalo Tree Sight Word Game

Thing One and Thing Two Shape Craft Activity for Kids

How to Create a Fox in Socks Sock Puppet

You will also find wonderful Dr. Seuss activities on my Seuss board on Pinterest.

What did you do that tied in with books this week?

12 Ways to Learn Using Plastic Easter Eggs

April 2, 2010 By Deirdre

1. You can place a toy in a stack of eggs and search for the one with the prize.

2. You can put a capital letter on one end of an egg and its lower case letter on the other. Break them open, mix them up, and have your child search for the match. I did eggs with matching capital letters for JDaniel.

3. You can put together a set of toys or pictures and have your child put them in the egg that has the beginning letter on it.

4. You can put a number on one end of the egg and a set of corresponding dots on the other end. They can then match the tops and bottoms or place the correct number of objects in the egg.

5. You can mix up the colors of the tops and bottoms then have your child match the colors correctly.

6. You can make maracas with whole grain circular cereal. Just watch that is doesn’t come apart and become a bowl for a snack.

7. You can put objects in the eggs and have the children match the sounds like Activity Mom did this week.