Constructive | Hear Mum Roar

Category Archives: Constructive

Preschoolers’ Constructive Play

Written on October 9th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Constructive, Fine motor, Preschool aged

These sunflower blocks have become something of a sanity saver for our little family.

I found these at Ebay for a very reasonable price. They’re quite small, so I’d probably avoid offering them to the under three’s. They’re made from a slightly flexible plastic.

Missy 3 is obsessed with making loads of flowers with these, then carries them around the house, proudly showing everyone her colourful creations.

These blocks encourage:

- fine motor skills and strength

- eye/hand coordination

- problem solving skills

- mental planning

- maths

- spatial awareness

- learn about colours

- and my favourite: play quietly!!

These blocks keep my kids quiet for such a long time that I often whip them out when I’m cleaning the house.

Here’s how we set up this activity so the kids can get the most fun out of it:

- we have a clearly defined area for constructive play, such as a blanket on the floor, or a little table. We encourage the kids to keep the blocks in this space. It’s not as restrictive as it may sound, and if anything, gives them the freedom to find the blocks when they come back, rather than scattered all over the house.

- we have a special container put aside to store the blocks in and encourage the kids to pack them up when finished.

Setting up the activity in this way allows them to really concentrate for quite a while.

What constructive toys have your preschoolers been playing with lately?

Pin It

10 Comments -

Playdough, homemade

Written on August 26th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Art, August 2010, Cognitive, Constructive, Craft, Fine motor, Messy play, Preschool aged, Saving money, School aged, Toddler

Missy 9 made this beautiful butterfly. Playdough appeals to all ages.

Home playdough is special. There’s no denying it. Sure, it’s fun for kids to play with the store-bought stuff, but there’s nothing like the smell of freshly cooked playdough to bring back fond childhood memories. When I smell it, I remember our old Playgroup hall and I can hear the noisy feet of my peers echoing on the floorboards. I hear table legs screeching as mums drag them away from the walls and set them up for us to play happily at.

What I love about making playdough yourself is that you get so much more to play with than what you’d buy in a lousy, plastic playdough can. It’s also great that it costs next to nothing to make. Playdough brings many benefits to the child, apart from being messy, good fun.

Playdough helps children to:

- strengthen and develop fine motor skills (use of hands)
- engage in creative play
- play dramatically, as they make up stories about what they’re making. It’s common to hear children making up pretend voices of their creations’ characters.
- develop their cognitive skills. Children use trial and error, cause and effect and basic experimentation to manipulate the dough into what they want it to do. They learn to problem solve.
- further develop their language. Children love to talk about what they are doing with their sculptures, and this in turn allows them to socialise with other children or adults.
- experiment with different tools and learn about how they work.
- watch how colours change when they are mixed together

How to cook playdough

You will need:

4 cups of water

4 tablespoons of cooking oil

4 cups of plain flour

8 tablespoons of cream of tartar powder

2 cups of salt

Dump all the ingredients into a large saucepan or frypan. I like this gigantic non stick electric frypan, because it’s less likely to spill over. Before you turn the heat on, mix it well. It should look like this:

Turn the heat on to medium-low (my frypan heats up very rapidly, so I have to watch this. You don’t want it to burn or develop a crust along the bottom). It will start to thicken and look lumpy. This is normal.

Now, just stir constantly until it is a lovely, firm playdough consistency. Put it aside to cool before adding any goodies to it.

Once it’s cool, there’s so many things you can add to your playdough. Kool Aid can be used to colour it, or food colouring. You can even try beetroot or spinach juice if you and your kids are feeling experimental!

But don’t feel that you have to stop at colour. Sight is just one of our senses. Why not appeal to your child’s sense of touch, with some glitter shaken in, or some coloured rice? To colour the rice before adding it, shake some rice and food colouring together in a jar and spread it out to dry before adding it. It looks best if the playdough colour is a contrast to the colour of the rice. Below is red and yellow food colouring added to rice.

It looks pretty, but children enjoy the granular sensation, and they notice a difference when flattening it with a rolling pin, or cutting it with a knife or a cookie cutter. This in turn often leads to much discussion! Why not throw some hundreds and thousands in for a mighty crunch? Then the children can watch the colours blend.

And what of our sense of smell? I’ve already mentioned how pleasurable the smell of playdough can be for a child (or adult. Ahem), so play around with that, if you will. You could make coffee playdough, mint scented playdough, just look around your kitchen and garden to see what you have.

The batch in the picture below has been mixed with Kool Aid and coffee, to encourage the children to experiment with different smells. We have cherry flavour, grape, tamarindo, lime, and raspberry. This cooked playdough recipe makes a large amount, so it’s excellent if you want a large variety of playdough types, or have a lot of kids using it either at home, playgroup or daycare.

Uncooked playdough

Sometimes, you might just want playdough quickly, and couldn’t be bothered cooking it, waiting for it to cool, yadda yadda, yadda… Or your kids might be keen to help you make it. Or, you might be at Playgroup and want to quickly make some for the kids, and not have time to cool it down before using it. My uncooked playdough recipe is handy for those times.

You will need:
3 cups of plain flour
1/3 cup of salt
1 and 1/4 cups of water
Plain flour for dusting
Colouring of your choice

Mix the first three ingredients together with your hands. Then turn it out onto a bench dusted with flour, and knead it until you are happy with its consistency. It should be just like bread dough.

Separate into the desired amount you’d like for each colour, then knead the food colouring through. Or you can use some of the suggestions mentioned in the cooked playdough recipe.

One thing that’s lovely about uncooked playdough, is that if children make it, they can give it to friends or family as a nice little homemade gift. We kneaded a little glitter through part of the batch for a little extra sparkle.

Fun ways to play with it.

The ideas here are endless, but I’m going to give you some good ones to get you all fired up.

- using bare hands only.
- rolled into ‘sausages’ and children encouraged to cut it into pieces with scissors. This is an excellent way to familiarise children with scissor use and strengthen their little muscles in preparation. It’s also much easier to cut playdough with scissors than paper when a child is starting to learn.
- provide an old garlic press and let the kids watch the playdough squish out like spaghetti. Again, this is great for fine motor strength.
- raid your useful box for straws, lids, cupcake cases etc for your children to add to their play.
- give your children rolling pins and cookie cutters to play with. We’ve not unpacked our rolling pin since the move yet, so I improvised and gave the kids this empty tissue cylinder.

Make sure to store your playdough in some cling wrap or a sealed plastic container. It’s great to encourage the kids to help pack up, too!

Mr 4′s caterpillar. He became deeply engrossed in this activity.

Now, to make life a little bit easier for anyone who likes to make their own playdough or fingerpaint, not only can you find the recipes at Hear Mum Roar, you can also download them in a handy printable format to keep in the kitchen. Click here to download.

I’d love to hear what your kids like to do with their playdough.

Edited to add: Here’s where Aussies can source Kool Aid (not sponsored links, just adding on request):

USA foods

This isn’t where I bought it from. I checked the place I bought it from last time, and they don’t sell it anymore:(

Pin It

11 Comments -

Cuisenaire rods

Written on June 27th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Constructive, Fine motor, June 2010, Preschool aged, School aged

I hope you’re all enjoying your weekend! Our three here have been having fun playing with these cuisenaire rods. Remember using these for maths at school? I found these at a local discount store a few years ago and snagged them as soon as I saw them.

Cuisenaire rods

They do have small parts in the set, so although I do let Missy 2 occasionally play with small parts with close supervision, this time I simply picked out the smaller blocks so that my fiance and I could let the kids play with these blocks as we rushed around doing other jobs.

Cuisenaire rods are fantastic for teaching maths concepts, as each colour is a different size and represents a different number. The smallest unit represents 1, and the rods go all the way up to 10. If you’re not feeling all teachy, the rods are also a brilliant, simple, open-ended play idea for imaginary play. Children also can experience the cognitive benefits of constructive/destructive play, as my kids are doing above. They also love banging them on the table. Lots.

I’ve done a quick little search on the net to see where you could buy them online, and for Australia I’ve found this site and for America I’ve found this site. (I haven’t purchased from these stores, so can’t vouch for the quality, but it gives anyone interested a starting point)

Does anyone else have these? We love them!

Pin It

8 Comments -

We love Hama beads

Written on June 25th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Constructive, Craft, Fine motor, June 2010, School aged

Hama board

You can see in the photo above, a very well-loved Hama bead bulletin board. My daughter made this a few years ago as a present for her Grandpa. He’s kindly taken all his messages off to send me a photo so I can show you. I purchased the board ready-made, then we glued the Hama bead designs in place.

The first time my partner went into hospital for his paint poisoning, she made him this cute little fridge magnet to cheer him up.
Cat magnet

Have you ever used/tried these wonderful, melty beads? If you haven’t, I’ll give you a brief run down. If you’d like a tutorial, let me know and I’ll do one in the near future (they’re still packed away for now). Basically, you buy these great little beads from craft/toy stores. You need a plastic template that has little stumps sticking out. The beads are placed on top of the stumps, so the stump is sitting inside the hole of the bead. Your childs’ fine motor skills and eye hand coordination are challenged as they carefully put on the Hama beads. Designs can be made out of these, with either pre made shaped templates, or children can place the beads in their own creative patterns.

Once they’re happy with their design, an adult needs to place a sheet of greaseproof paper over the top of the beads and iron it until the beads have melted enough to stick together. It’s then left to cool down and harden. Then you’re left with something like you see in the photos above! If you have some craft glue or a hot glue gun, then you can stick the designs to a cork board, a magnet, or whatever you wish. At my daughter’s old school, many kids used to hang them on their bags as a keyring.

Pin It

11 Comments -

Benefits of fish oils for kids.

Written on November 7th, 2009 by Hear Mum Roar in Behaviour, Care, Challenges, Constructive, Emotional, Health and beauty, November 2009, Parenting, Preschool aged, School aged

Fish oil is creating quite a buzz among parents everywhere. We’ve been giving our nine year old daughter and three year old son fish oil for seven months.

I’ve been involved in discussions about this on parenting forums during this time, and the consensus is that it’s a fabulous supplement to be giving children. It’s certainly got my vote!

Why do some parents resort to trying fish oil on their children, you may wonder? Well, some parents try it to help with behaviour problems, from mild, to full-blown ADHD. Some parents want their children to have more focus, or better sleep. I’ve even come across parents who use it for children with bowel problems, to soften their stools.

I personally wanted to try it, because my son, who was two years old at the time, was showing some challenging behaviour. We discipline him, provide interesting things for him to do, and mostly give him healthy foods to eat. The trouble was, his focus and attention span was poor. He would hit, kick, bite, push his sisters. When we tried to talk to him about his behaviour, he would hit us, or kick and pull our hair.

He had a lot of trouble sitting still at any time, and even settling down to sleep proved difficult. The kid was just wired! My fiance and I started to get concerned, and considered getting him diagnosed for ADD or ADHD. Then I remembered vaguely hearing something about fish oil.

It was when my darling partner had his first hospital visit from his paint poisoning that I became desperate. The added stress to my son, and complete change in our routine made his behaviour quite unbearable. One night, I stopped off at a supermarket on the way home from hospital, and by this point, my son was in a particularly vile mood.

A jar of fish oil caught my eye, and as my son announced to the entire supermarket that I hit him all the time (I have never hit any of my children, so you can imagine how mortified I was!), I grabbed that jar in desperation and raced to the counter.

My nine year old daughter is a really well behaved, calm, polite child. She is above average at school, and it’s rare for her to have any sort of behaviour problems, apart from normal child development, testing boundaries, etc. But, I decided to give them to her also, as I’d heard it suggested that even if a child doesn’t have any problems or issues, it’s great for the healthy development and growth of their brains. Plus, I was curious to see if it would have any impact on her as well.

And so I began my oldest two children on fish oil. After one dose, my then two year old son began to hug me more often, and constantly started to tell me he loved me. I could’ve cried with joy! Within a week, his sleep habits at night drastically improved, and he was playing more nicely and calmly.

By this stage, he was still misbehaving now and then (what two year old doesn’t?). But, the great thing was, when we tried to talk to him and explain how we wanted him to behave, he didn’t hit, kick or pull our hair. He sat still, quietly listening to what we had to say. At the end of our talks, he would say ok, instead of screaming ‘NO!’ at us. He began to show genuine remorse afterwards, too.

We quickly realised how much the fish oil was helping our son. Our then eight year old daughter was experiencing less mood swings, and said she just felt better. We also realised that with two kids on these capsules, it didn’t take long for the jar to run out. This was getting expensive! And oohh boy, when we ran out of capsules, our house became like a zoo! Our kids became irritable, and suffered terrible mood swings.

Thankfully, some forum friends recommended a cheaper, yet high quality version of omega 3 fish oil that comes in bulk. Healthy Care Kids Omega – 3. It has 125 lemon-lime flavoured capsules for $14.99. This company tests their fish oil for mercury and pesticide levels to ensure they are safe. Our son eats two a day like lollies, and my daughter bites the ‘fish tail’ off, sucks the oil out, and throws the capsule shells into the bin. I know that some parents squeeze the oil onto cereal, or into a chocolate milk. Whatever works, huh?

We buy these at our local Chemist Warehouse, but there is also an online store here, too.

After a few more weeks of taking these capsules, my son really started to act even more differently. He started hugging me more, telling me he loved me and saying over and over again that he was sorry he’d hit me. Then it dawned on me – I couldn’t remember the last time he had hit me! Or kicked, bitten, pulled hair, or generally hurt anyone in this family.

My son around this time, was also starting to really accelerate his speech development. Prior to this, he was talking just fine, but he really started firing along in his vocabulary.

Other unexpected things that happened for him included: beginning to sort the alphabet in order (not planned, this came from him), he began staying at the same activity for much longer periods, and began to show an interest in learning to read.

Now he is three, he is the little boy we always knew was there inside. He still likes to muck up and be a cheeky little three year old, and we wouldn’t have it any other way, LOL.

Our daughter is now nine, and has topped the nation in her NAPLAN scores, getting band six results in each area (highest for her age is six), and in some areas, her little ‘dot’ indicating her mark, went up and outside of band six! She has always been extremely clever, but I’ve not had her teacher tell me she sometimes daydreams or loses focus this year. This was what other teachers had told me in first and second grade.

She went on to get credits in her uni exams for math, computer skills and science. Plus, she got a high distinction for her uni exam in English. Let’s just say, we knew she had it in her!

My fiance and I sincerely believe that the fish oil is helping our kids become the happiest ‘them’ they can be. Now they really can unlock the true person inside.

I’d like to add, that whilst I have no problem with paid advertorials, this isn’t one. This is my personal recommendation to anyone who is interested. I am so thrilled with the results, and am so keen to share it with other parents, that I tell every parent I know about it, in case it can be of help to them. Unfortunately, in my excitement, I think some parents may have thought I was insinuating their children had ADHD or were badly behaved, LOL. I firmly believe though, that for anyone open to it or able to, these little capsules are worth a try, and I highly recommend them.

Have you tried fish oil for your children? If so, how has it affected your children?