Aggh! LEGO! I have a love-hate relationship with LEGO. On one hand, it’s an amazing toy for kids of all ages. It’s open-ended, encourages imagination and free-play, fosters fine-motor skills, provides practice in following directions, can lead to various math and science investigations, etc. etc. LEGO is wonderful! But…on the other hand…It takes over the
My almost 2 year old son used to LOVE Kermit the Frog. He had a stuffed Kermit toy that he played with and he was always asking to watch videos online of Kermit signing songs. When it was time to make the cake for his second birthday, I knew he’d love a Kermit cake! This
One of my favourite art activities involves combining watercolour paint (or in this case, blue food colouring and water), and salt. It creates a beautiful frosty effect that is perfect for Winter themed art. I chose birds for the theme for this project, but it could work equally as well with drawings of Arctic animals,
Some Benefits of Using Story Stones: Oral story telling: Telling stories helps foster imagination and creativity and increases vocabulary. Listening Skills: Have children listen to others telling stories with the stones. When done, they can make a positive comment about the story told. Comprehension: Ask various questions about what happened in the story. Ask both
Leaf Art Autumn is a great season for crafts! Treasures found outside in Autumn, such as leaves, pincecones, and twigs, can easily be used for a wide variety of crafts. I love exploring outdoors with children and watching them discover the wonders of nature. This Leaf Art activity is an annual favourite of both teachers and children
Piet Mondrian Paintings Piet Mondrian (1872-1944), was a Dutch painter with varying styles, but he is probably most well-known for his abstract geometric style. The bold black lines, square and rectangular shapes, and bright primary colours make the style visually appealing to children of all ages, and easy for them to reproduce. I have done
Volcano Experiment I can’t remember what prompted this activity, but when my kids get hooked on an area of interest, we usually just run with it and learn all we can! And the current area of interest was: Volcanoes! We researched volcanoes on the internet and checked out a stack of library books and learned a
Calm Down Box As a classroom teacher, I found it useful to have items in the room that students could use when feeling mad or upset. Teaching students to learn to control and manage their emotions in a healthy way was very empowering for them. These items were often specifically intended for the use of just
Bear Counters are a math staple of many elementary classrooms, but these activities work with any variety of counters, such as bugs or farm animals. There are many different types available these days. We have a set of Learning Resources Three Bear Family Rainbow Counters. These have bears of three different sizes/weights and six different colours.
Mosaic Art The preparation for this art lesson was a bit time consuming. Cutting out so very many small squares of construction paper – by hand – was difficult. But worth it! The students loved this art activity. It allowed them to sit and create on their own terms, with no direct instructions or expectations.