Your preschooler consistently expresses her preference for tactile play.
As young children seek to grasp new information, this form of play provides the perfect forum to apply newly acquired concepts.
As they interact with peers, their teacher, and provided materials, your budding ornithologist forms relationships to learned notions that enable them to make sense of their world.
For this particular activity, we learned about how baby birds are born. Because they are reptiles, most birds lay eggs. Using play dough, tiny birds, sticks, and rocks, we created our very own bird nests!
We first made the play dough (using salt, flour and water), and then created our nests!
Your little scientist enjoyed spinning elaborate tales of baby birds cavorting through the “forest” as they followed their “parents”.
Their conversations allowed for the processing of new vocabulary and the enjoyment of working together toward an idealized goal.
There are many ways to teach young children about music theory. For the younger child, I use colors to teach pitch, recognize notes, and enhance ear training. I like to use toys to teach a variety of musical concepts, because it engages the child, while teaching them at the same time.
For this activity, I used cars to reinforce the concept of the Solfege scale. Students were given cars of a variety of colors. They were then told to play the different cars onto the notes with the same color, singing as they did so. Following this, they were told to “drive their cars” on the staff at various tempos.
For this activity, we drove Adagio (slow), Moderato (medium speed), and Allegro (fast). After this, they were told to drive their cars at different speeds to different notes. For example, they would drive the yellow car “slowly” (Adagio) to Mi (the yellow note). They would also drive the light blue car rapidly (Allegro) to So (the light blue note). Doing activities like this enables children to play as they learn!
One activity involved learning all about eighth notes. There were five components to this activity. First, students would clap out the rhythm Titi. They were then directed to “walk” their fingers across a tabletop. The first “steps” of their fingers entailed them chanting Ta Ta Ta Ta and then finishing with Titi Titi.
Following this, they were given a variety of blocks to first create one eighth note, and then two together.
They were then given play dough and were instructed to create two eighth notes.
Next, they were given a white board and were told to draw an eighth note.
Lastly, they played several exercises on the keyboard, aimed at helping them feel the rhythm of Titi in their fingers. They would initiate the exercise with the red note (or Do), chanting Titi as they did so, progressing up the solfege scale (playing Titi on each note), and then returning back. Providing several learning activities enables different learners (whether visual, auditory, or tactile) to grasp material more effectively.
One activity that helped your little one identify pitch was a game that I call, Solfege Fine Motor Transfer.
In this game, students used pom poms and tweezers to add “notes” to the Solfege scale. As they added the pom poms to the staff, they sung the pitch.
To encourage musicianship, students sung and placed pom poms on a variety of musical intervals, such as Do-Mi-So and Re-Fa.
This enabled them to both recognize and apply their understand of common musical intervals.
We did this, first with the treble clef, and then with the bass clef.
Following this, they played these intervals on their keyboards.
Young children are constantly assessing the patterns in their worlds.
From how items fit together, to the similarities between objects in their environments, their awareness of logic and order compose a significant part of their play. To cultivate this, we used a variety of colored buttons to create sequences!
Sequencing hosts an array of developmental benefits; it enables your little one to see how items are alike and different; it helps visual acuity; AND, it fosters critical thinking skills. This activity consisted of students matching buttons to a diagram. Each diagram contained a missing item, and it was up to the student to determine what item it was. Through some trial and error, we enjoyed manipulating a variety of colorful buttons, laughing and learning in the process!
With color paper, googly eyes, and pipe cleaners, we practiced counting with this exciting math activity!
This activity consisted of each child constructing a caterpillar. To begin with, each child was given eight abdominal segments with numbers drawn on them. These numbers were to be attached to the “head” and counted, 1-6. We initiated this activity with a discussion of the numbers involved, and then clapped the amount of each.
Following, your budding mathematicians were shown a card with a number on it. They were then directed to place the correct segment to the head. This provided a forum for talking about “more” and “less”, counting to nine, concepts such as adding and subtracting, and more vocabulary associated with numbers!
By relating mathematical concepts to things that children are naturally curious about, (such as bugs) young students are more engaged and intrinsically motivated to learn! It is for this reason why we are always playing with bugs!
Understanding the one-to-one correspondence of object to object is necessary before young children can carry out meaningful counting and higher calculations.
Children can find many opportunities in their daily life to experience one-to-one correspondence. They can place one sock inside one shoe or one shoe on one foot; they can get one napkin or snack for each member of the family or class; they can place one lid on each of several containers; they can place pieces in one-piece puzzles.
Once children understand these relationships, they can link one number with one object and then count with understanding. When students are ready to develop the skill of counting, they can benefit from learning several counting strategies to increase their accuracy and efficiency. Students sometimes develop one or more such strategies on their own, but it is to their benefit to provide training in this area.
As with any concepts or skills, it is important to start working with real objects and manipulatives and to continue providing these as learning aids. For this particular activity, we placed a predetermined number of petals on three different daisies. We practiced adding and subtracting the various petals, noticing the changes in quantity.
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