Sensory Play for Kids

All play is pretty much "sensory play" as kids use all their senses to explore their world.  However, I just love creating novel experiences for the little ones to engage in.  It's a joy sitting back and watching the exploration process and the immense pleasure my kids get from simple experiences that adults take for granted like putting their hands in something gooey or smelling something new.  Here is a collection of my favorite Sensory Play Experiences over the past year...

Homeschool Preschool Weeks 25 & 26

The whole family has been fighting some sort of a cold over the past 2 weeks.  The kids had horrible coughs for a week, followed by a day of earaches and fever.  Baby H had a fever for 4 days straight,  rising as high as 103.7 which freaked me out.  I ended up with an acute sinus infection which is just now clearing up.  Needless to say, homeschool preschool took a back seat as we focused on getting healthy.  The kids ended up watching a lot of television when they weren't feeling well.  I did scatter some learning experiences here and there depending on how everyone was doing.  Here are a couple of the things we did..

Favorite Preschool Math Ideas

Math is my favorite subject and I want my kids to love it as much as I do!  I think the best way to do this is through lots of fun and creative games that let them explore and discover new concepts about the world of numbers.  Here are some of the best Preschool Math activities that I've tried with my little ones over the past year (ages 2.5-3.5)...

Making Soap With Kids

I bought a soap-making kit back in December, hoping to make holiday presents for everyone with the kids.  We ended up going to visit my in-laws a week earlier than planned, so the soap making never happened.  Instead, we made soaps as a little Valentine's Day activity.  The girls (3.5 years old) and I had so much fun.  It's such a great sensory and fine motor exercise for kids with even a little science thrown in...

Math Teachers at Play #59

Math Teachers at Play is a monthly Blog Carnival showcasing math activities and puzzles from teachers, parents, and homeschoolers all around the blogosphere.  It is organized by Denise Gaskins at Let's Play Math, and I'm very excited to be hosting the 59th carnival on Learners in Bloom.

The number 59 is a prime number, and has a twin prime 61 (a consecutive prime number that differs by 2).  It's also the sum of three prime numbers: 17 + 19 + 23 = 59.  If you divide 59 by 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 you get remainders of 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5, respectively. 

The regular icosahedron has 59 stellations.

Here's a little puzzle for you: 59 is the smallest prime that can be expressed using the digits 1 through 9 in order with only the addition and multiplication symbols between them.  Can you find a way to express it with these rules?  (one solution is at the end of this post).

And now on to the great ideas that were submitted this month...

Homeschool Preschool Weeks 23 & 24

L and E are 3.5 years old.  If you read this blog you know that over the past 6 months I've been going back and forth between structured and unstructured homeschool time.  After spending too much time being told by the twins that they're too busy to play with me, I decided to just ring a bell (a triangle, actually) and tell them that it means it's Preschool Time and they need to hurry to their table.  I still set up 6 trays with various activities, but I keep them on the dining room table and pick which one comes next instead of letting the kids decide. This system has been working great so far and we're back to doing 'Preschool' twice a day for 30-60 minutes each session.  I'm always pulling out fun activities and new manipulatives so the girls get excited about our time learning together and don't mind getting pulled away from their dramatic play adventures for a little while.  Here's a sampling of the types of activities we've been doing over the past 2 weeks..

Call For Entries: Math Teachers at Play

Be sure to submit all your math-related blog posts (anything from Preschool through Calculus) for the Math Teachers at Play Carnival by this Friday!  I'll be hosting this month's carnival on Learners in Bloom next week...   

Preschool Science Experiments and Exploration

I come from a family of scientists, so naturally science is one of my favorite subjects to do with my children.  I absolutely love watching their brains at work as we do experiments and they observe, ask questions, try new things, and make inferences - lots of fun!

I rounded up links to some of the science activities I've blogged about over the past year (twins were 2.5-3.5 years old)..

Montessori Monday - Counting Corners with Pushpins

My kids love pushpin activities - they provide great fine motor practice for the pincer grip used in writing.  Today I switched things up a little by including some shapes cut out from construction paper and inviting L and E (3.5 years old) to use the pushpins to count the corners..

Cooking with Kids: 10 Ideas

One of my favorite thing to do with my kids is to let them help me cook and bake.  I've been cooking with the twins since they were 20 months old.  Sure it takes twice as long, and the results are often less than spectacular, but it's really all about the process and I love watching how focused they can get as they work on those fine motor skills.

Here are ten of my favorite Cooking with Kids blog posts from the past year...

Happy Blogoversary to Learners in Bloom!

Yesterday (February 1st) was the anniversary of my first blog post on Learners in Bloom.  I'll be celebrating all month by putting together collections of my favorite blog posts, including:

Favorite Montessori Activities
Ideas for Cooking with Kids
Early Reading Activities
Best Preschool Math Activities
Science Activities for Little Kids
Favorite Sensory Experiences
Physical Movement and Dramatic Play Activities
Homemade Learning Games
Literature-based Activities
Crafts and Art Experiences

Stay tuned to this blog and Facebook Page for updates.

Tot School - 16 Months

Baby H is 16 months old.  I have to admit that I'm super-excited about him reaching the age where he understands more and can do focused activities.  It's been hard dividing my attention up between three young kids, especially when his older sisters are doing things that are, frankly, more interesting for a parent to engage in.  Although H is perfectly content exploring various toys on his own or watching me work with his sisters, I've still managed to carve out certain times of the day just for him.  I really enjoy our special one-on-one time playing and learning together.  I usually don't "spoil the moment" by taking out my camera when I'm playing with H, but I managed to capture a couple of the homemade games and activities we've been doing..

Picture Pie

The other day, L (3.5) and I played with Ed Emberley's Picture Pie book and made our own unique artwork using pieces cut from circles.  It was a fun math/art activity that used lots of fine motor skills like tracing, folding, cutting, and gluing.  Check it out...

Homeschool Preschool: Weeks 21 & 22

L and E are 3.5 years old.  I've been busy working on some new educational games lately, and the girls have been having such a great time inventing all sorts of dramatic-play adventures for themselves (they always say "we're too busy playing stories" when I ask them if they want to do activities), so we're back to a more unstructured homeschool approach.  On days when they decide that they do want to do 'activities', we work together for hours and they concentrate and work hard on their tasks.  On the days when they just want to go camping in the living room or build an airplane out of the dining room chairs, that's fine too.  Here's a little glimpse into some of our homeschool time..

Legend of the Golden Snail: Sailboat Craft for Kids

The Legend of the Golden Snail by Graeme Base is one of our favorite picture books - the adventure story is wonderful (with a good moral), but the illustrations have so much gorgeous detail that the girls (3.5 years old) and I spend a lot of time looking over them carefully.  The other day we read the book and decided to make a little sailing ship (or "snailing ship") craft to go along with it.  Here's what we did...

Montessori Monday: Child-Led Learning

I've noticed recently that L and E (3.5 years old) are starting to take the lead in making up educational activities for themselves.  I love watching them as they make observations and invent new experiments and activities.  I'm getting much better at sitting back and following their lead rather than getting too enthusiastic and trying to dictate the process.  Here are three examples of child-led learning that I remembered to take photos of...

Math Teachers at Play #58

The monthly Math Teachers at Play Carnival #58 is up at Let's Play Math.  It includes inspiring math articles and activities for a variety of age groups, ranging from early learning to advanced math. 

I'm excited to be hosting next month's carnival right here on my Learners in Bloom blog!  Please submit any math-related posts you want to share to the Math Teachers at Play Submission Form, and check back here during the week of Feb 11-15 for Math Teachers at Play #59. 

Homeschool Preschool - Week 19 & 20

L and H are almost 3.5 years old.  After a long holiday break, we're getting back into our Homeschool Preschool routine.  Some days are definitely better than others.  Even on the more frustrating days where I feel that the kids watched too much TV and didn't learn anything, looking back I still see that there was plenty of learning going on.  The girls always see me taking photos of our activities, so they've been asking for their own cameras to take pictures as well.  Here's what we've been up to...

Baby School - Stacking and Building

H is 15 months old, but all these pictures were taken last month at 14 months old.  He's really been into building and stacking lately, and I wanted to post an update featuring his latest talents..

Top Ten Chapter Books to Read to My Kids in 2013

Today I'm joining Top Ten Tuesday from The Broke and the Bookish and sharing my top 10 books I resolve to read in 2013.  I'm sure I'll be reading grown-up books, too, but I have no idea what those will be (whatever is free on Kindle), so I'd rather list the chapter books that I'd like to read aloud to the kiddos..