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Cakes often collects a selection of items and sorts them into colour. The most recent interest is Daddy's poker chips. So many households have a set of poker chips these days, though very few children would have the opportunity to play with them (if their Daddy is anything like Cakes's Daddy, she is just very persistent in her requests). Cakes has just noticed that the "colour circles" have numbers on them, opening up a whole new set of possible learning. With a little help Cakes has started making patterns and comparing the poker chips. These are essential pre-number understandings for young children. What other items could you use to develop your child's pre-number understandings? I would love to hear from you!
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When Cakes was 7 weeks old I made her a mobile. At the time it was more about my desire not to waste. We had received two boxes of Huggies nappies as gifts which had the cutest Winnie the Pooh pictures. On the box it explained that young babies see in black and white, so simple patterns in black in white are very appealing to young babies. After some research I learnt that this encourages babies to focus on objects, track with their eyes, encourages them to reach and helps develop their attention span. As I knew that babies like things that are shiny I added some aluminum foil. Cakes really enjoyed this mobile and played with it often (her cat did also). As it was made with items that she could choke on if she were to mouth it, this was only played with under supervision. When Cakes a little over a year old she gave it to her Little Pixie friend. So for a home made mobile it has proven to be pretty sturdy.
Do not leave baby unattended with a home made mobile like this
While Cakes was at Kindy last week I needed inspiration to clean my very dirty floor. While scouring Pinterest (just to avoid the cleaning task at hand) I stumbled across a post on Toddler Approved using painters tape on the floor. Due to Cakes's unhealthy obsession with 'colours' we had purchased some nice coloured tape only a few days earlier that would be perfect for this purpose. I rushed around madly cleaning the floor in most of the house so I could get the tape down and pick her up early. The first thing she did when she got home (after grabbing a snack) was tracing the shapes with her fingers. During each shape she would ask "whats that shape Mum?" (except the circle) and repeat after me. She then raced off (I thought she was finished) and got herself some cars. She continued to trace the shapes with each car. This took sometime as she used each car on the same shape before moving onto the next shape. She also packed the cars back into their tin in-between each shape (she can be a bit obsessive compulsive at times). As most toddlers Cakes is pretty keen on matching at the moment so I was a little worried she might only like to drive the cars on the 'correct' colours so all the time she spent sharing the cars across each shape was a very pleasant surprise. It then occurred to me she could use the shapes to do more than just trace the shapes. We added some pompoms and they became colour sorting spaces. Cakes lined the matching colours along the lines and talked about all the colours, which ones were her favourite and how many pompoms she was using. She is still learning to count so she often started at two and missed eight though she had added another concept she was interested in learning and practicing. It always amazes me that when setting out with one concept or task in mind Cakes adds another. I always felt facilitating the learning was me directing it though now realise I am just collecting resources and encouraging her to drive her own learning.
Other posts you might like -Cakes is a good matcher and finds matching activities in many of the things she does. I have been collecting resources and materials that are opened ended for years in the anticipation of either having a child or a classroom full of children. Though the mountains of toys I have also collected in this time Cakes usually prefers these open ended resources such as pompoms, paper rolls, milk bottle caps, etc. Recently she has shown an interest in matching and where these open ended resources would be perfect, she has chosen to play with some of the commercially purchased toys we own (I say we, as I am very fond of toys and possibly own more of them than she does). None of these items were placed together for her to practice matching on every occasion she found one set of toys to match to other items. The top are her new Scooby Doo figurines she bought with her birthday money (new favourite everything books, tv show, toys, songs, etc) and the cut outs from the box (I am a bit of a hoarder, I cut and keep most things). Then my old Simpsons toys and the Simpsons that Daddy and I were watching when she was supposed to be in bed. The numbers I recently put out and her hopscotch. Then my favourite as it was the first obvious form of matching several months ago, the paint chips I took from Bunnings just incase we found something to do with them and the Teletubbies that her Nanny bought her for Christmas (even after I told her she really didn't need four more stuffed toys to love, love, love like she does).
A few months ago Cakes had a growing interest in circles. This led to her pointing out circles in many areas of her life, at the park, in the house and out at the shops. On our way to the railway museum one morning (we were running an hour early) we decided to stop at the park and find all the shapes we could. Needless to say Cakes mostly found circles within the park. More encouragement was needed to get Cakes looking for shapes other than circles. However once she started there was no stopping her. She found triangles, squares and rectangles though is yet to correctly label them. I expect this will take her several months to grasp hold of but with lots of exposure she will get there eventually. Once we returned home Cakes initiated a circle hunt. Below is all the circles she could find with only a little bit of help.
As usual I had several projects on the go already with Cakes's garden and found this awesome idea on Reading Between the Lines and decided we needed one. As my husband doesn't like to wipersniper I felt it was important to ensure they were in the ground low enough to not effect his mowing. We have too many cats in our neighbourhood to put down the pinebark like the hopscotch we got inspiration from. I also thought if I poisoned the grass where we wanted to place the pavers I would just be putting out the welcome mat for the weeds. These are the steps that were taken to complete the hopscotch for Cakes.
First we spent weeks looking at pavers at various stores, the dump and in the local paper. As Cakes was paying for them it took weeks before we found a price that I was willing to let her pay. Fortunately Papa Coco (Cakes's newest Uncle) was throwing out some pavers. They were a little bigger than what we were after but with a price tag like that and Aunty Teen delivering them how could we go elsewhere. Next Cakes and I painted the pavers with two coats of left over white undercoat. She only painted a tiny bit and lost interest and played outside allowing me to finish all ten pavers. Once dry I printed out the numerals using the Queensland font that Cakes will learn when she heads to school in three years time. Once these were printed and cut I placed them in the middle of the pavers and painted around them with the paint samplers we got for free from Masters (during a promotion they had when you spent $10). As yellow is Cakes's favourite colour I made sure the extra colour would be yellow. I am sure this has no relevance to her now though I am hoping she will notice this in the future. Then the digging commenced. As I decided not to poison the grass, it was very tough around the edges and took sometime to dig. Over several weeks I slowly dug out each hole and placed in the pavers. Cakes and Big Cousin H helped using small shovels to level out the holes. This process would have been much easier if I had seen the Better Home and Garden's segment on making a hopscotch that shows you how to level it out. Though the way we did it was a little harder and more time consuming our final outcome is still better than I was hoping. After the mow test these held up to Daddy's standard, it didn't get in the way and looks just as good each time he mows. Cakes is still yet to master the hop, though enjoys jumping on them, sitting on them, counting the numbers and colour matching things to them. We are hoping this hopscotch becomes a well loved part of our back yard. With a continuing desire to get Cakes outside and moving (she is more of an indoor bookworm) we are continually trying to improve the backyard with practical activities she can interact with at any time by herself. I had been collecting drink bottles for sometime (we were given a soda stream a few years back and with my preference for cans we don't buy many bottled drinks) with no intended purpose. After looking at possible designs for water/ball run I decided that I was not ready for a project using drain piping as yet and needed to build up to it. So after seeing this post on Inkerlab, I decided the bottles would have a purpose. Cakes and I set out cutting the middles out of the bottles (well she handed me the bottles as I was ready for each one and ran the rubbish to the bin). I then collected a hammer and some nails. This was a bust as the wood on this very old gate was too hard to hammer through. I considered moving to another fence with softer wood though decided this would not be approved by Daddy. My husband has a very large dislike for wipersnipers and finds it extremely difficult to mow close enough to the fences if I place too much in the way of the handle such as on our music wall (post to come). As he was not home I anticipated his suggestion to use the drill and screws, so I put it on charge to work on the next morning. Cakes and I headed out with the drill and the screws and it appeared I was not strong enough to get through the hard wood. With a cute smile and a really nice "peease Daddy" Cakes headed inside and Daddy was more than happy to help. Within ten minutes there was an awesome bottle marble and water run. Once this was put together Cakes spent enough time to send every marble my husband and I had as children threw the bottles. The delight on her face was so precious. We had many discussions about the marbles travelling, why they changed direction and how they were moving down the bottles. Cakes also included discussion around colour and number. So proud of her desire to extend her learning no matter what the situation. First thing the next day Cakes wanted to play with her "bottles". This time I encouraged her to use water (despite it being a cold winter morning), as I offered her the choice of coloured water it wasn't too hard to convince her. Trying not to assume I headed for the yellow food colouring as she called out "yellow peease Mummy" (great to know she has a favourite colour). I convinced her to put on an apron to cover her pyjamas though this didn't last too long as we were in direct sunlight she needed her jumper off and then there was no chance of getting the apron back on. She spilt very little water on the front of her clothes, most of it was in her hair and over her back as she tipped the cup up to the top bottle almost out of her reach. The conversation was mostly about the speed of the water and how the bottles looked yellow as the water ran through them. This activity was left outside all day and Cakes returned to it many times until all the water had been spilt out on the grass. Cakes requested to use blue colouring next time with the yellow. I am looking forward to pouring the two different colours from different sides and watching them mix together. Cakes knows all the names for the colours and is interested in how colours change when you mix them. I am hoping this will give her a hands on experience to see how primary colours can form secondary colours. Watch this space, once we do this I will add it so we can show you if it works for us or not.
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