learning 4 kids

A Box Jam Packed Full of Fun and Learning

Janice — Tue, 21 May 2013 23:54:12 +0000

This is a sponsored post.

SPIELGABEN EDUCATIONAL TOY KITS

This FABULOUS new toy I have had the pleasure in trying out is just that- an AMAZING box jam packed full of fun and learning. I cannot even begin to tell you how incredible the SPIELGABEN TOY-BASED EDUCATIONAL SETS are. There is so much to be explored and discovered with this beautifully wooden crafted educational toy. This post barely touches the surface of the potential these 13 box sets bring!

I love the way that the Spielgaben Educational Toy Sets promote learning through play and encourages open-ended and creative learning opportunities. The items included in the sets are intriguing and unique and will ignite the natural curiosity to learn within kids as it did with my kids. Miss 7, Miss 5 and Miss 2 (nearly 3)’s eyes lit up when they first saw the Spielgaben Toy Sets and could not wait to have a play.

WHAT IS A SPIELGABEN EDUCATIONAL KIT?

The Spielgaben Educational Toy Kit consists of 13 beautiful high quality wooden play sets which are stored in one large wooden trolley box with wheels. The above photo shows 11 of the 13 wooden sets more closely. It is specially designed for children between 3 and 12 years old and is the perfect toy that will grow with your child’s development and learning needs.

Each 13 boxes can be played with individually or combined with another, you will find colourful cotton balls, construction blocks which have been designed in a range of shapes and sizes for specific purposes. Other sets include three-dimensional solid shapes which can also be used for threading, there are concentric rings, 7 colourful different geometric shaped tablets and different length coloured sticks.

The Spielgaben Kits come with 4 User Guides to help you get the most from the Spielgaben sets. These user guides are AMAZING, the information provided and activity ideas are so easy to follow and the best part is that there are photos and explanatory notes too.

A BRIEF BACKGROUND ABOUT SPEILGABEN: What makes it so special?

The original inventor of this toy is a German educator Friedrich Froebel (1782 – 1852) who believed that all children were creative and that they could learn art, design structure, and Math by discovering these elements in nature. This method of learning became the basis of Kindergarten and the Montessori style of holistic learning and is utilised around the world.

WE HAVE HAD A PLAY WITH THE SPIELGABEN EDUCATIONAL TOY SET!

All these Spielgaben activity box sets are presented with limitless opportunities for hands-on and open-ended play and learning within the areas of science, mathematics, literacy and creative play. There are ENDLESS learning opportunities to be explored and discovered with the Spielgaben Educational Toy Set. I can only brush the surface of the possibilities and the potential these products bring and therefore have chosen to share how we played with 2 of the 13 toy kits.

Here is just a sample of what we did….

COTTON BALLS SET

One of the first items Miss 2 and I were instantly attracted to was the 12 Cotton Balls Set. They are bright, beautifully textured and make a wonderful sensory toy. They are the kind of toy that you just can’t help but to give them a little squish.

There are endless learning opportunities to be explored and discovered with the 12 Coloured Cotton Balls such as active play with throwing, rolling and catching and mathematics with counting, creating patterns, matching and sorting colours.

Miss 2 has been learning about colours and I thought that the cotton balls would be a great tool for continuing this learning. We played a few games such as Hide and Seek, Hidden Ball under a Cup and Throwing Balls into a Box.

Hide and Seek: Miss 2 absolutely loves to play the game Hide and Seek and it is great for reinforcing skills such as following directions, recall of naming colours

I placed the balls that were on a string in easy to find places so that they would be instantly seen when she walked into the room. When Miss 2 found a ball, she would call out the colour and then place it around her neck like a necklace and then went onto find another.

Hidden Balls under a Cup: This game can be played in a number of ways and is great for building concentration, recall and memory. I placed all of the balls underneath the cups and Miss 2 lifted the cups, said the name of the colour and then balanced the ball on top of the cup. It can also be played by covering only 1 of the 6 coloured balls and the child needs to guess which colour is missing and has been covered.

Throwing Balls: We used the Coloured Cotton Balls for a throwing game. It is a great way to exercise and develop gross motor skills and hand-eye coordination. We used the wooden storage trolley as the catchment box; it is the perfect size, nice and big for not so accurate throwing abilities. Miss 2 had so much fun throwing them in and missing the box but it was also great for her to learn her colours as she called them out each time she threw them.

There are lots of great ideas in the guides that I have never even thought of before such as a Fishing game which involves placing a paper clip through a hoop on the cotton balls and catching them with a magnet placed on the end of a rope (fishing rod).

COLOURED RINGS SET

We had so much fun playing with the Coloured Rings Set which comes with a range of shapes and sizes of rings and half rings. They are brightly coloured and my girls were instantly drawn to them.

The Spielgaben Toy Sets are so diverse and encourage open-ended activities and creative play that other items found around the home can also be added, enriching the learning experience. We included pompoms into one of our activities as it was a great match for the colours and shapes of the Coloured Rings Set.

Coloured Pompom Sort: We used the larger and smaller coloured rings in this set to form the coloured sorting barriers for placing matching coloured pompoms into. The aim of the activity was to match the larger coloured pompoms to the larger circles and the smaller pompoms to match the smaller circles. The pompoms also needed to match the same colour of the circles. I also introduced a set of mini tongs to encourage fine motor strengthening and coordination. It is a great way to reinforce the learning of colours, and spatial awareness of larger and smaller. The Geometry Dots Set can also be used for this sorting colours activity as the colours all match in the full sets.

Creating Pictures and Faces: Experimenting with spatial awareness and shape to create pictures and faces. The activity involves the process of trial and error, experimenting with what works and what doesn’t and finding another way to create the desired result. The Coloured Rings Set along with a combination of the other sets in the kit can also be used to create names and words.

A bit of fun with pretend play: The Spielgaben Educational Toy Sets encourage creative play. Miss 2 could not help but use two rings to form a pair of glasses. She put on a silly voice and pretended to be another character. Pretend play is great for language development, creativity and the imagination.

There are lots of great play ideas to be found in the user guide for the Coloured Ring Set. They are great for encouraging learning about fractions, spatial awareness, shape, creativity, the imagination and pretend play.

EDUCATIONAL BENEFITS

As a Primary School Teacher I value toys that are educational and offer a large range of hands-on learning opportunities, that promote critical thinking, problem solving and creativity, and most importantly will be fun! The Spielgaben Wooden Educational Toy Sets are a quality educational toy that fulfils these important qualities. It encourages children to think critically, explore, engage, challenge, experiment, discover and play while covering a range of learning areas and subjects.

I believe that these beautifully crafted wooden educational toy sets will enhance children’s natural gifts and provide many educational benefits such as:

Construction: balancing, stacking, spatial awareness
Mathematics: numeracy, fractions, measurement, patterns, shapes, spatial awareness, mathematical thinking, geometric principles
Science: balancing, solids, scientific thinking
Imaginative Play: boost creativity and creative thinking
Problem Solving
Trial and Error: exploring strategies
Cause and effect
Promote active play
Sensory – texture, hands-on
Fine and Gross Motor skills and development
Coordination
Concentration and memory skills
Communication and language development: encourages interactions
Self-esteem: sense of pride and achievement

LINKS

If you would like to get your hands on the quality Spielgaben Educational Box set jam packed full of fun and learning, they are available in Australia for an amazing introductory price which you can view . (Offer ends 4^th June 2013).
It will be available in the US on Amazon later this year and also in the UK early next year, so keep an eye for when it comes available.

Visit the Spielgaben website for more information and watch a video about the Spielgaben Educational Toy Kit.

{Disclosure: This is a sponsored post for Spielgaben. We were given a set of Spielgaben toys. I was not compensated in any other way for this post. The opinions expressed are purely my own and those of my children.}

Learning Colours – Orange

Janice — Wed, 15 May 2013 10:55:36 +0000

Come play with the colour ORANGE!

As part of our Learning Colours Series here on learning4kids, today I am sharing with you some of the activities we have been doing as we explore and play with the colour ORANGE. Our ‘orange activities’ involved reading The Big Orange Splot followed by some ‘splot’ painting, also playing with orange water beads, orange play dough and making a orange sensory ice box.

By completing all these activities we are not only learning about the colour orange but we are also promoting other learning, development and skills building.

If you have only just joined our Learning Colours Series here on learning4kids and would like to find out more, click here

ORANGE SPLOT PAINTING

A fun and simple activity which involves reading the story The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater followed by making orange paint ‘splots’ with oranges cut in half pressed into paint. Books are a great way to introduce new ideas and concepts and this story is perfect for introducing the colour orange.

I set up our activity table with newspaper and placed 2 orange cut in half faced down onto an orange paint tray. Kids will love to create their own ‘splots’ with paint and cut oranges on paper!

ORANGE SCENTED PLAY DOUGH

Making Orange Scented Play Dough is a great way to create a fun sensory learning experience that promotes fine motor development, creativity and learning the colour orange. We have used this play dough before in a previous activity with Number Play Dough Mats.

Click here to view and print Orange Scented Play Dough Recipe

Click here to view the full activity Number Play Dough Mats and print your FREE Number Play Dough Mats.

ORANGE ICE CUBE SENSORY BOX

Another orange activity Miss 2 had fun playing with was an Orange Ice Sensory Box. I filled a jug of water and added a few drops of orange food colouring and then filled a range of different shape containers, some small and some larger ones. I placed the containers onto a tray and into the freezer. When frozen the colour appears to be a more pale orange.

To make the ice sensory box a little more fun we added a small amount of bright orange water (food colouring) to the box, a pair of tongs and different orange objects to create an invitation to play in an unstructured and creative way. I added the tongs to encourage Miss 2 to pick up the ice blocks.

We also have a Blue Artic Ice World here on Learning4kids.

ORANGE WATER BEADS

I absolutely love water beads, so when I found these orange ones I thought it would be perfect for our learning the colour orange activities. On our activity table I laid out a bowl of orange water beads, an orange spoon and orange cupcake pans. Miss 2 spent hours picking up the water beads with the orange spoon and placing them into the cupcake holders.

OTHER ORANGE ACTIVITY IDEAS

Threading Beads: Threading ORANGE beads onto ORANGE pipe cleaners.
Wear ORANGE for a day: Dress your child and/or yourself wearing the colour orange for the day. Where your favourite green scarf or socks.
ORANGE Discovery Box: Go on a ‘orange treasure hunt’ around the house with a box and fill it with as many orange things as you can find. You can involve your child or make the discovery box for your child to explore. A box filled with so many ‘orange’ treasures to pull out to touch and feel, smell, listen to, look at and explore.
Make an ORANGE morning tea: Cut up a range of orange foods such as carrots, melon and oranges for morning tea.
Sing Songs about the colour ORANGE: You can basically take any song and replace some words with the colour green. Why not make up your own song or chant with the word orange?
ORANGE Bath: Fill the bath with water and add a few drops of orange food colouring and orange balloons filled with water. Adding bubbles makes it even more fun!

Click on the links to see our other Colour Activities from our Learning Colours Series

RED

YELLOW

BLUE

PINK

GREEN

Valentine’s Day Activities for Kids

Janice — Mon, 28 Jan 2013 07:00:04 +0000

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, I thought I would collate all the activities we have done so far here on learning4kids.

STRAWBERRY SCENTED VALENTINE’S DAY PLAY DOUGH

To inspire creativity and the imagination set up a hands-on play dough activity with bright red play dough with sugar heart sprinkles and decorative heart shaped tooth picks. Read more…..

HEART SHAPED PAPER CHAINS

Heart Shaped Paper Chains are so much fun and super easy to make. They are a great activity to do with the kids this valentine’s day and use them to decorate their bedroom, play area or classroom with. Read more…..

HEART FLOWERS

Making craft heart flowers in a vase is an activity that you could do with the kids to celebrate Valentine’s Day as a special gift to give or a pretty decoration. Read more…..

BUBBLE WRAP HEART PAINTING

To keep with the theme of Valentine’s Day why not try this paint printing activity with bubble wrap and red and pink paint. The bubble wrap is cut into different size heart shapes which are used to create painted heart prints on paper. The painted artwork makes a perfect gift wrap paper for valentines. Read more…..

HEART TISSUE PAPER WINDOW COLLAGE

Create a Heart Tissue Paper Sticky Contact Collage with cut out heart tissue paper pieces and clear contact attached to a window. When the sun shines through it shows the different shades of reds and pinks created by overlapping the tissue paper. Read more…..

Eye spy with my little eye…….other FABULOUS Valentine’s Day activities I have found around the web!!

Click on the links to take a look!!

Toilet Paper Roll Heart Stamp by Rust and Sunshine

Lollipop Flowers Valentine’s Day Card by Spoonful

Roller Painting by Artful Child

Homemade Heart Sponges by Learn Create Love

Valentine’s Heart Scented Tied Pillow by De Tout Et De Rien

Musical Hearts by Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Simple Homemade Lemonade Recipe

Janice — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 22:46:00 +0000

When I think of a refreshing summer’s drink, Lemonade is usually one of the first drinks that springs to mind. So after receiving a bag of lemons from our neighbours recently, we thought we would give making homemade lemonade a try. This is the Simple Homemade Lemonade Recipe we came up with!

Involving the kids is a great way of opening up the many learning opportunities that comes with cooking with kids. The social interactions, processing information, following directions and instructions, problem solving and coordination and so much more!

Please note this recipe involves using boiling water, this part of the recipe is to be completed by an adult and as with all cooking activities with kids should be fully supervised.

What you will need?

1 Cup of Freshly Squeezed Lemon (Approx. 3 medium lemons)

2 Cups Boiling Water

1 Cup Cold Water

1 ¼ Cups Caster Sugar

Slices of Lemon

Instructions

Boil the kettle and place sugar into a heat proof container or jug.
Remove and squeeze juice from lemons.
Add boiling water to sugar and stir carefully until all dissolved.
Add cold water and lemon juice to the sugary water mixture.
Refrigerate until cool.
Add slices of lemon and ice.

Learning Opportunities

So much learning happens when we cook with kids….

Sensory- hands on feeling and manipulating the dough through the senses.
Fine motor skills- strengthening little muscles through manipulation and moulding the cookie dough.
Hand and eye coordination- watching and doing and coordinating these actions.
Language development – cooking is a social activity requiring speaking and listening, also developing vocabulary.
Self-esteem- a sense of pride and achievement.
Numeracy- measuring quantities.

Download and print the full recipe here: Printable Simple Homemade Lemonade Recipe

Learning Tray – Matching Colours

Janice — Wed, 23 Jan 2013 12:10:18 +0000

What the Activity Involves?

Matching and Sorting Colours with match sticks is fabulous hands-on fine motor learning tray.

It is so simple to set up, colourful, engaging and is sure to grab the attention of any child!

The Matching Colours Learning Tray involves the child sorting the different coloured match sticks and matching them to the relevant coloured section on the Styrofoam block. When a colour match is made, the child gently presses the match stick into the Styrofoam. It is a repetitive activity that requires concentration, fine motor control and coordination.

What you will need?

You will need a Styrofoam block, coloured paints and coloured match sticks.

Learning Opportunities

Fine motor control
Hand and eye coordination
Concentration and problem solving
Determination and perseverance to accomplish a task
Colours and patterns
Matching, sorting and classifying

Click on the links to find out more….

What is a Learning Tray?

Why Learning Trays?

More Learning Tray Activity Ideas