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

Non-Standard Measurement Mayhem!

Phew! I am one tired teacher!  Our first week of Term 3 is almost over and my kidlets have worked super hard learning new concepts and practising skills.  In Maths we've been looking at non-standard measurement, and in our Maths Time (group rotations) we have revised length, looked at weight as a new concept, and explored capacity before we formally learn about it next week.  

Here's a photo round-up of what we did!

First was the review of length, after we had worked on it last term.

I took this activity idea directly from Kylie, The Down Under Teacher from her wonderful post earlier this week.  She has some amazing ideas!  This activity involved 'racing' a car down a ramp.  It looks like I created a starting line and lanes, but this is a handwriting chalkboard. :)  Once the cars have travelled down the ramp, the kidlets used paddlepop sticks, matchsticks and cubes to measure how far their car went.  We made sure that they practised laying their materials end to end.

I had put the balance scales out for Discovery Play late last term, but this week we really got stuck into thinking about the weight of different items.  We used the balance scales in our group work and learnt to use the words 'heavier' and 'lighter' to compare things from our every day lives.  We also completed a quick craft, an idea I borrowed from Casey over at Lifelong Learners in Prep.

A horse is heavier than me.

A house is heavier than me.

An elephant is heavier than me.

Finally, before we start working on the concept of capacity next week I gave the kidlets the chance to play in water with containers of various sizes to explore the idea of capacity in a really informal way.  Some of them even began testing out how many smaller containers of water it took to fill a larger container etc.  This was possibly the favourite activity of the week.  Luckily here in Queensland our Winter temperatures are warm enough for water play!

I hope you've had a great week so far!  I'm hanging out for a lazy Saturday morning catching up on my blog stalking... only one more day! :)

Lauren