building Archives - JDaniel4s Mom

One of My Favorite STEM Toys- Lock Bloxs Review

October 23, 2019 By Deirdre

I was contacted by Roylco and was asked to review one of the many STEM Toys they carry! I was thrilled to get the opportunity to have JDaniel and my students at school explore a set of Lock Blox. Your children are going to love exploring them too. They will love that they can turn the blocks rather than having them remain stationary.

Start By Exploring the Directions for these STEM Toys

Your children will probably start by building the creations that they feature in the directions. It will give them an idea of how the Lock Blox work together. We started by building the robot step by step following the directions. It took us no time to put it together. The directions were very easy to follow. When your children are building it, they will notice that knobs on some of the blocks will need to put back in place. The blocks do not lock into place totally. When your children see that they have shifted a little they will need to tap them slightly with a finger.

Next, Invite Your Children Create on Their Own

Once your children have tried building the creations featured on the directions, invite them to make their own creations. Some children will jump right in and start creating. You may have children that need you to help them start the building process. Below you will find six steps you can follow. They are the five steps of STEM engineering (ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve). You will notice that I have broken the creation process into two steps.

First, you can ask them to think of an object or maybe an animal they really like.
Second, you can ask your children to picture what that animal or object looks like.
Third, you can help your children break what they want to create into sections.
Fourth, you can decide which section they want to start with first.
Fifth, you can step back and have your children finish their creations.
Sixth, you can have them evaluate if they need to make any changes.

Using an Algorithm to Build Creations

Your children are going to notice some of the blocks need to be put in place at the beginning of the building process. The knobs that allow the blocks to twist can make them hard to connect them to other blocks. Children may have to think through what series of steps or algorithm will be the best to help them to put their creations together. First, they may need to lay the blocks out on a table in the design they want them to be. Then they can figure out which blocks will need to go together first.

If you like this STEM toy, here are some more STEM toys I have reviewed. I think your children will love them too.

Tactbit Coding Cubes

Cubetto Coding Toy and Mat

Disclaimer: I was sent a box of blocks to review.

How to Build an Igloo for a Penguin STEM Activity

January 12, 2019 By Deirdre

This fun STEM activity invites children to discover how to build an igloo for the shape penguin displayed on each of the work mats. There are four mats in the How to Build an Igloo for a Penguin set. Your children will have to come up with creative ways to stack cotton swabs to make igloos in a variety of shapes. It will be interesting to see how different each igloo will look. Each child working this building activity will come up with their own way to construct the walls and roof.

Building Background Before Starting the STEM Activity

You may want to read your children books that contain illustrations about igloos before you have them build theirs. Below you will find some wonderful books that feature igloos.

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Getting the Supplies Together for the STEM Activity

Getting the Work Mats

First, you will need to download the How to Build an Igloo for a Penguin

Then you will need to decide which shape or shapes you want your children to explore.

Finally, you will need to print out the planning work mats.

Gathering Other Supplies

Your children will need cotton swabs and liquid glue to build their igloos. Rather than count out a particular number of cotton swabs, you may just want to put out a whole box. That way your children can take as many as they need.

Conducting How to Build an Igloo Activity

You will need to decide if you want your children to glue each of their igloos to the work mat or build it so it can be lifted off the work mat. Either way will work.

Please remind them that they that their igloo needs to be the same size as the shape around the penguin. It can be a little bigger or smaller, but the goal is to try to keep in the same size.
Each igloo will need to have walls and roof. If your children want to add windows or a door, that would great. We found the structures stay more sound without windows and a door.

If you like this STEM activity, here are some more you will love

Drawing a Magical Creature Based on an Algorithm

Building the Numbers 11-20 with Crayons

Telling Time from Sunrise to Sunset STEM Activity

Creating an Olympic Flame in a Bottle

Creating a Snowboarding Halfpipe

Flying Snowman Pulley Activity

STEM Snowman Activity- Building Shapes

January 4, 2019 By Deirdre

One way to learn about shapes is to build their perimeter. This STEM snowman-themed activity invites children to build six basic shapes with craft sticks. Your children are going to love building shapes around of the whimsical snowmen displayed on each of the building mats.

Before you get started with the activity, you may want to read them a children’s book about snowmen. It is always fun to read a book that shares the same theme as an activity they will be working on. There are tons of wonderful children’s books about snowmen. Below you will find several of my very favorite books.
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Getting Ready to Start the Build Shapes Activity

You will need to download the STEM Snowman Activity Building Shapes set. It will need to be downloaded and open with Acrobat Reader. Then you will need to print it out in color. The building shapes activity mats really don’t look good printed out in black and white. They look awesome in color.

Next, you will need to decide whether you want to use craft sticks of something else to build with. You could use sticks from outdoors or long LEGO bricks if you like.

Finally, the mats will need to be laminated or cover with plastic so you can use them over and over again.

Exploring the Shape Mats

You will find so many ways to use the mats in this building shapes activity set. Let me share with you a few of the activities I came up with.

Center Activity

First, the mats and sticks can be set out in a center. Your children can select the mat they want to work on or you can put out the mat you want them to explore.

Whole Group Activity

Second, the same mat can be given to a group of children. They can work on their mat and watch how other children build their shape.

Working with an Adult

Finally, you could work with a child one on one. They will benefit from you talking with them about what they are building. Great vocabulary words like sides, corners, vertices, and edges can be explained. You can even count the number of sides or edges each shape has.

If you like this building shapes activity, here are some more you will love:

First, we have a Building Alphabet Letters on the Barn Door activity.

Second, Building Letters with Crayons will be great to explore.

The third activity you will like is Building Shapes with Stickman.

Fourth, you will love this snow globe shape-building activity.

Fifth, these color-sorting cards will be fun to explore.

Sixth, a set of snowman-themed cup-stacking challenge cards will be great to work on.

Finally, How many ways can you build a shape? will be fun to explore.

STEM Christmas Building Shapes with Stickman Activity

December 6, 2018 By Deirdre

The wonderful Christmas book The Stickman inspired this fun STEM Christmas building activity. Your children will have fun building basic shapes with sticks from outdoors, Lincoln Logs, or popsicle sticks on the free set of shaping building mats.

Links below are affiliate links.

If you have not read the story Stick Man to your children, you will want to read it to them. They are going to love hearing about all he goes through as he tries to return to his family. By the end of the book, Stickman does make it home just in time for Christmas. Your children will be cheering him on from the beginning of the book to its very end.

Getting Ready for this STEM Christmas Activity

The first thing you will need to decide is what type of stick your children will use to build. As I mentioned above they could use Lincoln Logs, sticks from outdoors or popsicle sticks.

You will notice that we used popsicle sticks for this activity. They were ready to use and didn’t take any preparation work.

Next, you will need to download the STEM printable set Learning Shapes with Stickman. You can open the setup with Acrobat Reader.

Finally, you will need to decide if you want to print them in color or black and white. If you print them in color, the details of Stickman, the sticks and the border will stand out.

Exploring the STEM Christmas Activity

Your children can work on building the shapes in the set in a variety of ways. Let me share with you some of the ways I came up with. You will probably come up with a number of ways on your own too.

Center Activity

You can set out a bunch of sticks and the mats you want your children to work on in a center. They can work on building them on their own or with a partner.

You Build and I Build

Young children might have fun building each of the shapes with you. You can take turns placing a stick on one side of the shape. They may have trouble placing them right on the stick on the mat. That is totally okay! The goal of this activity is to learn what each shape looks like.

Talk and Build

You can give each of your children a bunch of sticks and the same work mat. As they build you can have them share how many sides each shape has. You can also have them talk about how long each side it. Once the shape is built, you can ask them to share with you things that they think of that are that shape. They may suggest objects they remember seeing in the book.

More Building Activities

Here are some more great building activities your children can explore.

First, we have a Building Alphabet Letters on the Barn Door activity.

Next, we have an activity we call Building a Playdough Taco.

Then you can explore the Building a Snowman with Household Items activity.

Finally, Building Letters with Crayons will be great to explore.

Building Numbers with Crayon STEM Task Cards

August 15, 2018 By Deirdre

This is the third in my STEM task card series Building with Crayons. The first set of STEM task cards focused on alphabet letters. The second set of STEM task cards invites kids to explore shapes. This set focus on creating the numbers one to ten.

I love to read books related to the concepts my children will be exploring. It helps them to activate the prior knowledge they have about a concept or build new knowledge. Below you will find some of my favorite children’s books about numbers.

Getting the STEM Task Cards Ready

You can download a free set of the Learning Numbers with Crayons Printable Task Cards. Then you can open up the set in Acrobat Reader. The task cards were designed to be printed out on cardstock using a color printer.

Once you have printed the task cards out, you can cut each page in half.

Explore the Number Task Cards with Crayons

While your children can build each number with the colors of crayons displayed on the card, they don’t have too. You can have them select any color of crayon they like to form each number. The goal of this activity is to have your children identify each number and then build it.

Children can build the numbers on or beside the card. If you choose to have your children build them on the card, it is okay if they don’t fit perfectly on top of the crayons.

Some children may ask why the numbers on the cards don’t have rounded areas. Crayons are rigid and don’t bend. I tried to create numbers that look as close to traditional numbers as possible.

If you like this number activity, here are more activities your children will love.

Building an Algorithm While Sequencing Numbers

Muffin Tin Math Activity- Dinosaurs Walking on Numbers

Creating Numbers in Shadows

Peter Rabbit STEM Activity – Building a Garden Fence

March 21, 2018 By Deirdre

Your children will have fun designing and building a fence to keep Peter Rabbit from getting to the farmer’s giant carrot. They will work through each of the STEM engineering processes as they create their fence. First, they will ask what problem they will need to solve. Next, they will imagine and brainstorm what their fence will look like. Then they will create a plan by drawing a diagram and gathering supplies. Children will next create their fence and if necessary they will see if there are any ways they can improve them.

Links below may be affiliate links.

You may want to read carrot shaped fillable translucent plastic containersto your children before starting the building project. If your children aren’t familiar with the story, hearing it will help them gather information on the rabbit and his visits to the garden.

Getting to Start the Peter Rabbit Fence Building Activity

Gathering Supplies

You will need to print out a copy of thePeter Rabbit- Create a Fence for the Carrot STEM Challenge printable for each child. It was designed to be printed out on a black and white printer.

Each of your children will need the following supplies:

Duct Tape
Popsicle Sticks
Cardboard Squares
Glue Sticks
Scissors
Carrot Shaped FillableTranslucent Plastic Containers

Building the Fence

There are so many different ways your children can design their fences. You may want to give them guidelines like:

Use 20 Popsicle sticks.
Make it taller than the carrot standing up.
Make each side of the fence as long as the cardboard.
Attach the fence to the cardboard.

If you like this plastic egg activity, here are some more you will love:

Muffin Tin Plastic Egg Number Match

Plastic Egg Parachutes

Plastic Egg Greenhouse

Free Printable Easter STEM Activity Cards

STEM Plastic Egg Towers Challenge

Patterning with Plastic Eggs

Plastic Egg Gutter Ramps

Magnetic Plastic Eggs

Below you will find links to fun plastic eggs you could use for the projects above.

Awesome Toys for Six Year Olds- Boys

November 13, 2014 By Deirdre

My six-year-old and I recently sat down and looked through catalogs my mom received to look for gift ideas. She loves for him to pick them out for her. She just then has to order one or two of them. I thought you might want to see what awesome toys for six-year-olds that he selected. Also included on this list are some toys and gifts that I have seen him enjoy playing with during the year.

Since he is a boy I have chosen to call this post 9 Awesome Toys for Six Year Old Boys. I think that girls will love these too.

The links below are affiliate links.

Awesome Toys for Six Year Old’s

Magna-Tiles 32-Piece Clear Colors Set, The Original, Award-Winning Magnetic Building Tiles for Kids, Creativity and Educational Building Toys for Children, STEM Approved

JDaniel has really loved playing with these at the library. It is amazing what creative structures you can build with them. He will really enjoy creating with them.

Spot-It Party Game (Color of Packaging May Vary)

We have the original Spot It game and JDaniel really likes to play it. It reminds him of Where is Waldo and I Spy books. I thought he would like to have a version of the game that works on reading skills. ( Actually I thought he would like the game. I would like that they worked on reading skills.)

Scientific Explorer Scientific Explorer Magic Science for Wizards Only Kids Science Kit, A247

This is one of the gifts that JDaniel pointed out in one of the catalogs. He really loves science. Magical science really looked like fun to him. I think it looks like fun too.

Elenco Snap Circuits Jr. SC-100

Last spring I got JDaniel a Snap Circuit Kit for his birthday. I didn’t realize at the time that there was a junior version of Snap Circuits. He needed assistance with the kit we gave him. I think this kit will be a better toy for six-year-olds.

LEGO City Construction Bulldozer 60252 Toy Construction Set, Cool Building Set for Kids, New 2020 (126 Pieces)

JDaniel is super big into LEGO. He just loves building with them. He will be getting this kit for Christmas. I love the bricks come in a sturdy storage container.

Lot of 3 Lego Accessories Orange Brick and Axel Separator Tool piece

A brick separator was included in a kit that JDaniel got as a gift. It is the best thing ever. It makes separating bricks so much easier for him and for me. I think it would be a great stocking stuffer.Lego Parts: 630 Classic Brick Separator (Pack of 2 – Orange)

Kinetic Sand The Original Moldable Sensory Play Sand, Green, 2 Pounds

This sand looks like it would be amazing to play with. We haven’t tried it, but I think we will have some under our Christmas tree. JDaniel thought it looked great.

Perplexus Rebel, 3D Maze Game with 70 Obstacles (Edition May Vary)

We both think this sphere game looks like fun. I like that you really have to think and use eye-hand coordination to play with it.

DuneCraft Carnivorous Creations Dome Terrarium

This is another awesome toy for 6 year old’s and older that my son thought he might want for Christmas. He points it out to me in several catalogs.

I hope that you find these gift suggestions helpful. They lean toward creating and learning about science. (My son is interested in those areas.) If you need to buy toys for six-year-olds, I hope you think about buying some of the toys I have listed.

Follow Erica • What Do We Do All Day?’s board Gift Guides for Kids on Pinterest.

Kids Building with Drinking Cups and 365 Penguins

July 1, 2014 By Deirdre

Play Dr. Mom sent us the book 365 Penguins (Reissue), some craft supplies, and over 400 drinking cups as a part of The Educators’ Spin On It’s Love Books Summer Exchange. After only a few minutes of looking at the book, it became on of our favorites. The book contains a lot of humor, fun pictures and a cute story. Play Dr. Mom had told us we would love it and she was right! She also said kids building with cups would be a hit and she was right. She is one smart lady.

Before I tell you about building or stacking with cups let me tell you about the book 365 Penguins. In the book a new penguin is delivered everyday for a whole year. There is very unclear explanation that comes with each penguin in their shipping box until the very end of the book. What we do learn is that the family that receives them has to figure out what to do with them. Stacking them in just one of the fun ideas they come up with. What they do with the penguins and where they put them in their home is where the humor of this book comes in.

Kids Building

We were supposed to create a penguin using the craft supplies that were sent to us and at least one of the drinking cups. After seeing the penguins stack up in the book, JDaniel really wanted to try stacking all the cups instead. About that time the next door neighbor called to ask if he could play. Both boys ended up creating grand walls on the kitchen table. One set the goal of having the longest wall and the other the most fancy. Both walls turned out great!

Later we took the cups outside to build water gun targets. It was a little windy and the walls kept falling over. JDaniel and the now two boys from next door kept building them up and looking for areas on the front walk that were free from wind. It was wonderful to watch and hear the plans they were making to get walls to stay up.

First a long wall was built.

Then smaller walled buildings were built.

Finally they used the cups to create a walled city on the front porch. Each boy picked an area and worked on creating a wall. It was less windy there. These walls stayed up until it was time to head in for dinner.

The front of the porch received its wall first.

Then we all worked on the side of the porch and the area near the front door.

I just love watching the kids buildings grow. Each one required creative thinking and planning.

I need to thank Play Dr. Mom for a book we have read numerous times since her package arrived and many hours of many days filled with building. The plastic drinking cups have become the boys favorite building toy. We will make the penguins later. I promise.

I also want to thank the ladies from The Educator’s Spin on It for including us in their book exchange.

For more book related craft and learning activities you will want to check out my Read.Explore.Learn Pinterest board.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Read.Explore.Learn. Ideas on Pinterest.

Taking Time to Play- Follow His Lead

June 26, 2012 By Deirdre

I am sharing a post called Book Activity: Pledge of Allegiance and that includes how to make an American flag mobile. After reading this post, I would love for you to stop by Not Just Cute to check it out. Let me share with you why taking time to play is important. Here is special time my son and I had recently taking time to play.

Taking Time to Play

Sometimes I know just what you want to play when I go the closet that houses all of the games, building toys, and crafts supplies.

Sometimes my child knows what we should play together as his eyes scan the two shelves that house their things.

The game or toys just jumps out at them and calls to be played with.

Bristle Blocks were calling to JDaniel last Tuesday when we took time to play together in the afternoon.

Our morning had been busy. JDaniel was in his first day of a three day camp on the Orient at his preschool. I had been rushing around getting things ready for my trip to the Type A Conference and gathering the foods my guys would need while I was gone.

It was wonderful to just sit at the kitchen table and work with Bristle Blocks.

JDaniel had in his mind that we needed to create the building and car on the front of the box. He pointed them out as soon as we sat down.

Taking Time to Play- Follow His Lead - Deciding on a Project

We tried constructing the building just as it was on the box. It was a little difficult though. We bought the box of Bristle Blocks used and I think some of the pieces are missing. We had to substitute some pieces with others.

Taking Time to Play- Follow His Lead -Building a Project

There was also a stability issue with our structure. It kept wobbling and swaying. I suggested to JDaniel that it was caused by an earthquake that we couldn’t feel, but the building could.

Taking Time to Play- Follow His Lead -Building on a Project

He smiled and laughed at me or with me and then tried to help me add blocks to make it more stable. The car he had seen on the box he told me he wanted to create all on his own. He knew how to do it and was going to show me that he could.

Taking Time to Play- Follow His Lead Picture Two

As the sun shone on the kitchen table lighting the way for the car to travel across the road made from the slats in the blinds, JDaniel pushed his car forward. He had created it all on his own.

Taking time to play always gives me insight as to how JDaniel is doing. Today he showed me has the patience to create the replica of a car on box, the desire to work together to complete a task, and great laugh.

I hope you will take time to play with your child today!