cognitive | Hear Mum Roar

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?

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Quiet Time With Caterpillars

Written on February 5th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Challenges, Cognitive, Experiences, February 2011, Language, Preschool aged, School aged, Toddler

Ok, I know it’s really hard to see the caterpillars in this jar. But I promise you, there’s loads of the buggers in there. I should know. I was sitting outside, trying to enjoy a quiet cup of dandelion tea away from the chaos inside, when they were climbing all over my legs.

I went back inside, to face the noise and arguments of my two younger children. It was afternoon, they’d played everything, done everything, and were at a loose end. I racked my brains as to what I could get them to do that would get them engrossed, happy and above all, quiet. Preferably for a long time. And aside from waiting until we get our own chooks to eat up all the caterpillars, how the hell was I going to get rid of them? Normally they don’t bother me, but there were so many of them and they were becoming a nuisance.

Sometimes, two problems come together to form a solution when you’re a mum, don’t they? I scooped as many caterpillars into a jar with some grass as I could. I plonked it on the table inside and told the kids to look at it. Was there ever a simpler way to keep kids quiet for a cranky mum than this?

They looked at it for ages. They were so excited! They talked about the colour of the caterpillars, about what they like to eat, how they turn into butterflies. Missy 10 is handy to have around at times like this, as she stores so much animal trivia in her head! She told them that some butterflies like to eat their cocoon, that some caterpillars shoot out poison and it can sting and make you itchy (spitfires).

Once they lost interest, I emptied the jar back into the yard, but thankfully, further away from our house where they were bothering me. They haven’t been back. It’s amazing how things just sort themselves out somedays, isn’t it?

Knitting Project For Children – Finger Puppets

Written on January 16th, 2011 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Craft, Experiences, Fine motor, Good times, Handmade, January 2011, Projects, Saving money, School aged

Remember yesterday, when I mentioned Missy 10 was knitting something special to her? Well, here’s the end result! (Well, part of it, actually. She still wants to glue a felt shell and tail onto the back) In case you can’t make out what this is, it’s a finger puppet of a Pokemon character named Squirtle. Yes, she’s obsessed with Pokemon…

She knitted this up in 8 ply acrylic yarn, on 4mm knitting needles. She started off with ten stitches, and just worked a rectangle until it was the length to fit her finger. She ran a needle through the stitches on the needle, then gathered them. She learned that this is how fingers on gloves are often finished off. I showed her how to fold the rectangle in half and sew the seam. Next time, it’ll be her turn to attempt it. Then, to customise her character, she made up some felt shapes, drew some detail onto them then glued them onto the puppet with craft glue. It was very simple, but she thrived on the creative process; deciding what she wanted the puppet to become, designing the features, and fiddling around putting them on.

I also gave her a fabric marker pen to work with before she cut the felt shapes out. This lets her erase what she felt were mistakes, with a wet cloth. I also taught her not to use hot water to do this, as this can set the ink into a stain. The great thing about fabric markers is that the ink on the fabric eventually becomes invisible anyway. It lets the work turn out a lot less grubby-looking than drawing on the fabric with a lead pencil.

I also looked through my own knitting stash, and have put together small stash to start her out with. Some balls of acrylic yarns, a knitting needle measuring gadget (great if you have a pair of needles where the size has worn off, but the needles themselves still work well), tape measure and some knitting needles. All of these things I already had, and either wasn’t planning on using or I already had duplicates of certain items. She was psyched!

We’ve decided to make our knitting together a one hour a day (minimum!) date. It’s nice to knit with someone who shares your interest, and both of us can’t stop chatting excitedly about all our ideas, and about knitting in general. We talk about what high school would be like, events in the past and her feelings on them, her friends, pretty much whatever she wants! Also, as my stress as a carer has really heated up lately, my carer support counselor has been driving home to me the urgent need for me to ensure I give myself self-care, or as it’s more widely known, me time.

I know me time should probably not be spent with my offspring, but if it makes me happy and relaxed, then honestly, why not? I’m very blessed to have the sort of child that even when I need down time, I choose to spend it with her.

She’s interested in making a scarf, next. She’s also looking forward to playing with her new puppet once the glues dries, and decorating her room with it. It’s also something fun we can make for Missy 2 and Mr 4. They love imaginative play, so these will be excellent homemade toys to nurture that.

Can you think of other handmade toys your school-child or you can make?

Other reading:
Teaching kids to knit: school holiday fun

Science experiments for school aged kids

Crochet for children

Book review: Zombie felties

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Flower play

Written on October 10th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Fine motor, Language, October 2010, School aged, Social, Toddler

I was outside picking more lavender for drying, only to discover that the daisies growing next to the lavender were growing out of control. It seemed such a waste to just leave them there, so I picked lots of daisies and brought them inside to put in vases, and do some fun things with the kids.

Missy 10 was keen to try my idea of giving the daisies a coloured water ‘drink’. We recycled the water from the spray paint we made, as you can see in the photo above.

Missy 2 saw the goings-on, and wanted to imitate what we were doing. So, I found a disposable plastic cup from Missy 10′s birthday party and taped it to the table. I then gave her a glut of daisies to put into the cup, then take them out, then put them in. Much like posting. She was in heaven and this kept her busy for at least an hour.

She had a ball walking around with her bouquet and showing everybody in the house what she’d been doing.

Once the novelty of that wore off, I made some daisy chains for her to wear on her head. Weekend play at its best.

This is how Missy 10′s daisies look now:

If the colour gets any deeper, I’ll show how they turn out.

What have you been doing this lovely weekend?

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The origins of food

Written on September 10th, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Cognitive, Food, Good times, Language, September 2010

So yeah, it was my birthday a few days ago… Been having a wonderful time, despite having to stay home waiting for a plumber to come around. My birthday strangely was celebrated more heavily yesterday than the actual birthday the day before. So, after a solid case of cabin fever we realised we were beyond overdue to shop for our groceries. With Missy 9 at school, we took Mr 4 and Missy 2 shopping with us.

We like to teach them how to shop and get them as involved in the process as possible, bringing items from the shelves to the trolley, and packing the groceries away when we get home. These jobs, they do with relish. They’re learning excellent self-help skills that will serve them well in grown-up life.

…But today when we went shopping, they learnt that food doesn’t just come from the supermarket. In fact, now it’s Spring, everything looks different when we drive to the supermarket. And it was that drive that taught more about where food truly comes from than anything we could ever teach them at the shops.

Because this is what they saw out of our car’s window today. Fields and fields of bright yellow canola. They didn’t know what canola was, of course, so we explained to them about margarine and canola oil as foods, and they looked confused. Mr 4 asked, ‘so do we eat the flowers?’ Which led to a conversation about how the oil needs to be pressed out of the plants and made into margarine, or just sold as the oil itself. I could see him thinking it over. To give you some idea of what the hills we drove through looked like, we had splashes of bright yellow and vivid emerald green to look at for most of the drive.

We also talked to the kids about that deep green in the fields. It’s also food we buy at each grocery trip. Wheat. So our kids learnt about how the wheat grains get crushed to make flour for our bread and pasta, etc.

I don’t have a photo, but my fiance stopped the car to let the kids out to talk to some calves, and yes, that became another supermarket topic too! Missy 2 ended that convo with an enthusiastic, ‘bye moo!’

Aww…

(I must make a special thank you to my lovely fiance who gave me the phone/camera these photos were taken on, for my birthday. Love you!)

Chalk drawings

Written on September 2nd, 2010 by Hear Mum Roar in Uncategorized

Missy 2 and Mr 4 had fun in the Spring weather making amazing chalk drawings. Missy 2 is obsessed with drawing, and she does it often. It’s good to let them experience different ways of doing things they love.

This activity held Mr 4′s attention for a long amount of time. His drawings are becoming more detailed, and he is putting more mental planning into his art as he gets older.

Drawing is an important part of childrens’ play. It gives them an opportunity to be creative. It’s a great fine motor activity, yet it’s also highly cognitive.

I added water to the chalk bucket to let the colours really ‘pop’. This is also a good thing to do if anyone involved has asthma, it can reduce the amount of chalk dust floating around somewhat. Although, as Missy 2 soon learnt, we still end up wearing the results of our work!

Daisy, our lovely puppy, insisted on being right in the thick of all the proceedings, of course. Once the children tired of drawing, they had a nice run with the dog. What a fun start to Spring.

Come play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up

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Tag Archive: cognitive

Preschoolers’ Constructive Play

Quiet Time With Caterpillars

Knitting Project For Children – Finger Puppets

Flower play

The origins of food

Chalk drawings