What's Been Happening in Small Groups?

Hi everyone! As promised I thought I'd pop in and share a few of the activities my kidlets worked on in their small groups this week.  Turns out that I was so excited about taking photos of the colourful crafts I shared about in my last post that the photos I have of everything else are pretty dodgy! So sorry in advance for that. :)

Let's get started!

During fine motor morning groups kidlets used spoons and cotton balls to scoop 'marshmallows' onto mugs of hot chocolate.  Perfect numeral recognition and counting practise! This set is a freebie in my store - click on one of the images to grab it. :)

I introduced Pokey Pinning using one of Mel's pinning pages.  My DIY boards were perfect for holding the page and providing a safe surface to pin into.  See how I made them here.  My kidlets loved this activity and worked quietly on it the whole time.  It's great for developing the hand muscles necessary for writing stamina.

We broke out the pool noodle beads for some lacing fun. These are easy to make, just use a serrated knife to cut up some pool noodles and add some string.

The robot number lines that we linked up last week in maths groups became a morning group activity this week.  My TA had the very clever idea of re-printing them on different coloured card - after about the hundredth time of sorting them out after they were mixed up.  So much easier!

More counting fun during maths groups with 'Number Towers'.  I wrote the numbers 1-9 on large pieces of paper.  Kidlets made a tower of cubes to match each number.  A very simple activity that's perfect for numeral recognition and one-to-one counting practise.

Our new game was 'Pirate Treasure 10 Frames'. This one is always a hit! I blogged about this game last year - click on the photo to visit that post and find out how to play!

Turns out I totally dropped the ball taking photos of our Literacy group tasks.  I did get this one though.  Kidlets used bingo dabbers to dot over their names.  We've been working on correct letter formation and using a capital letter only for the first letter so this was an easy way to reinforce that.

I hope you're having a wonderful weekend! I'm off for a walk to the beach to enjoy the later afternoon sunshine.

DIY Pokey Pinning Boards

Do your kidlets pokey pin?  Mine do!  I love this simple activity for really working out those hand muscles (so important for writing stamina) and improving fine motor control.  It's simple to do, you just need a few thumbtacks and a dotted outline.  Kidlets poke their pin through each dot on the outline.  Easy peasy!  The only tricky thing is finding a safe base for them to pin into.  Some people suggest using the carpet, but having the pins on the floor worries me.  So I grabbed a few cheap bits'n'bobs and made my own boards that have the added benefit of holding the paper in place.

You'll need some wooden clipboards, cork placemats (mine were from Ikea - $3.99 for a pack of 4) and some glue.

I bet you can see where I'm going with this. :) All you need to do is cover the board with glue and pop the placemat on top.

The placemats are larger than the board, so once the glue is dry just cut off the excess.  I tried a craft knife and it made a bit of a mess of the cork.  Scissors worked much better!

There you have it! A sturdy, safe board for your kidlets to pokey pin away.  If you're looking for some templates to use, Mel From the Pond has lots of packs in her store.  I love Tracing and Pinning All Year Round because I alternate pokey pinning with tracing in my fine motor groups, but she has heaps of packs to choose from including sight words, shapes and the alphabet.

Linking up with Tara for Monday Made It - pop over and see the other inspiring DIY projects. :)

Happy pokey pinning!

Maths, Sensory Play and Fine Motor for a Cheap 'n' Cheerful Christmas!

Our week of cheap 'n' cheerful Christmas activities has been super fun so far!  Here's a few quick and very easy ideas that we worked on yesterday and today. 

All you need this first fun holiday game is some themed bowls (or cups) and two baubles.  I labelled the bowls with numbers 0-10, but you could use any numbers.  On their turn, kidlets threw each bauble, aiming to have them land in 2 different bowls.  They either added the 2 numbers and gave the total to earn a point, or were given a target total that they had to reach with their 2 bauble throws (this was trickier!).  Each of my groups loved this game (particularly the boys) and I'm not sure why I haven't used this idea before!  It would be great even for something simple like numeral recognition at the beginning of the year (with different themed containers of course).

(Ignore the ugly towels on the table - some of my kidlets were a little wild with their throws and we needed something to keep the baubles on the table!)

Want to know the best way to make your class excited about learning at Christmas time?  Put the materials they will be using in a gift bag! :) I had a little bag of tinsel ready to go for group work time and my kidlets were absolutely busting out of their skin to find out what that activity was.  They had a tonne of fun measuring tinsel pieces with cubes, popsticks and matchsticks and then choosing their own unit to measure with.  We recorded our results and made lots of comparisons and observations.  Christmas maths made easy!

Everyone loves playdough!  An awesome way to make it Christmas themed?  Add peppermint essence (in our green batch) and glitter (in our red batch).  My kidlets just loved playing with this. (It would be perfect to use with my Rockin' Around the Playdough Tub mats! *shameless plug*)  We whip up at least 2 batches of playdough a week, the kids literally cannot get enough of it and it's a great manipulative for all sorts of activities.

Last, but not least, is this great freebie from Mel From the Pond.  Whoever invented pokey pinning is a genius, and so is Mel for making these awesome pages. I love pokey pinning for strengthening those little hand muscles and developing fine motor skills.  Go grab this page, and then go grab Mel's pack to use all year! A to Z Pinning Pages

Phew! I'm tuckered out after all that festive cheer. I'm off to bake cookies and then get some rest, ready for tomorrow's fun. :)

Lauren