Drafting Tube Blocks - FREE

I am lucky enough to have a client who is a mechanical engineer and another who does CAD drafting, along with another that has a brother who is an engineer. So, I have a ready supply available of these HEAVY duty cardboard tubes that drafting paper comes on. 

Any architecture or engineering firm will most likely be willing to give you these for FREE, just call and ask.

These come in various lengths and are thick and sturdy, so they can stand up to the very destructive 2 year old boys I currently have with me.

I took the tubes and cut them with a standard saw blade on my chop saw at 1 inch intervals. I think I will color code them by size and mark the inches on each one. I think they will take earth tone natural stains well, to keep with the Reggio philosophy of more natural elements.

I purposefully did 20 units at 1" for numeracy teaching and exploring. 

How many did you get on your arm?

I did 1"-10" for counting and graduating, matching, estimating, unit measuring, and graphing teaching. 

Which one does that match?

I did more 2" and 3" for skip counting, fraction and multiplication teaching.

I cut several at 45 degrees and they really seemed to like those for toppers.

They started to figure out the logic/reasoning and physics pretty quick.

I kept the length at a max of 10 inches. This makes them difficult to use in any "stick" manner like a sword or bat. Not that they can't be used to hit, but it would be awkward and lack force.

A finer saw blade or slower cut would have made them less ragged. I didn't clean up the edges. You could with a wood rasp, but I found that the rough edges helped the pieces to stick together better. It also provided an extra sensory experience and fine motor activity as they picked at the edges.

6 tubes provided enough to fill a laundry basket. I will probably add an extra 2 tubes worth, but want to see how they play with them to determine the sizes we need before I make any more.

And if they get mutilated, well, there are plenty more where these came from, for FREE. Yay!
Tags: blocks, tubes, toddlers, preschool, daycare, child care, gross motor, fine motor, center, kindergarten, homeschool, frugal, 

Why We Pillow Fight

While we are a play and movement-based school, and spend as much time in physical activity and outside play as possible, there is an element of physical interaction that MUST come into play, for children to fully develop their proprioception sense. 

This is an excellent article, that I strongly recommend for all parents, care givers and teachers. Here is an excerpt: 

"Due to the busy schedules of today, children often don’t have hours to explore the outdoors, to help with the outside chores, or even do small jobs that require manual labor. Therefore, many children don’t have the same opportunities to fully develop and fine-tune the senses in the joints and muscles. As a result, more and more children are starting to have trouble regulating how much force to use when pushing and pulling and even interacting with the objects and people around them.

 This is why we are seeing children hit with too much force during a game of tag. Their senses are not quite working right – all because they are not engaged in an adequate amount of active play and movement on a regular basis." Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post 

We work on spatial skills, orientation skills, gross motor skills, etc. But there are few activities better than a pillow fight to get children really understanding the concept of physical force, in a safe manner. Pool noodle fights are another, but those are less interactive. They are, of course, well supervised, though I try not to interfere unless absolutely necessary. 

Note that these children are well versed in democratic decision making among themselves, and that our environment is based upon respect and caring for one another. Here, it could never be a melee.

What happens:

• They learn how to hit. It is not easy for a preschooler to manipulate a pillow for accuracy and force at the same time.

• They learn balance. Excellent balance. Building core strength. 

• They learn how to duck and cover and to GET HIT. Super important.

• They learn how to fall during interactions. Sometimes they all go down in a tangle. 

• They learn how to get back up, disentangling without hurting one another or themselves. 

• They learn that rules are necessary and how to create them. "STOP! Hey, I have a ponytail in and it hurts when you hit me on it. Don't do that. Okay?" "Okay!"

• They get INSTANT feedback. "HEY! Not so hard!" "You nearly made me go into the cabinet. Be more careful!" 

• They learn to counter force with a similar level of force. This is an amazing study. It is rare for a child to meet another child's force with significantly greater force. It usually escalates at a very prescribed pace.

• They learn to be very aware of multiple environmental issues...little ones, walls, corners, door knobs, etc. and to react accordingly, regulating their force and direction.

"This is even more proof that delaying physical contact in sports is very risky. So many football leagues, hockey leagues and the like have jumped on the band wagon of delaying body contact. I am talking about tackling and body checking, and other legal and essential parts of the sports, until kids are older.

 The idea behind it is to wait until they have a better handle on their bodies and the sport before engaging in the physical contact aspects. Thus preventing injury at younger and older ages. It is having the reverse outcome. The players have not had the gradual introduction to the body contact over the years, and now when they are bigger, faster, and stronger they are thrust into it. They don’t know how to hit, they don’t know how to avoid, anticipate a hit and they don’t know how to fall. They also have anger issues, as they are now being hit, and hurt and don’t know how to mentally and emotionally handle it. When I say hurt, I don’t mean injured, but just the obvious pain of being taken down.

Like any other form of over protection, it is short term and only serves to make the parents feel better. The parents feel better because at that exact moment they prevented their snowflake from adversity, and yes potential injury. What they never see, is that they are actually creating a problem. Being that their snowflake is now ill equipped to handle the sports natural progression. Just like in life." - Comment by Warren

That's why we TEACH it here. 

Box = Learning

I still say that a box is one of the MOST important elements in early childhood learning. Not only does it promote large motor development, it presents so many additional learning opportunities. 

Mr. L is 11 1/2 months old.

This is a few pictures in a single day.

Risk Assessment

Sometimes he just likes to hang out like this. 

• Analysis
• Logic/Reasoning
• Handling Frustration
• Thinking Outside of the Box [lol]
• Perseverance

It's easier to get in on the low side. 

He's learning that.

Cause/Effect

Rocking a little too hard while sitting inside.

• Dramatic Play
• Imaginative Resourcing

Sitting, hiding. Popping up and down.

• Positional Location
• Climbing Coordination
• Volume and Measure
• Height and Depth Assessment

Climbing and surfing, sitting and laying on top. 

He hasn't gotten the nerve to stand on top yet. 

I'm waiting.

Notice the dinosaur hidden inside.

"[L]! Are you ON your box?

Where's your dino? Is it INSIDE your box?" 

• Force
• Offsetting Forces
• Work
• Coordination
• Balance
• Strength Training

Carrying it all over.

Pretty heavy box for such a little guy.

That doesn't hinder him in ANY way.

•  Physics

Putting it off-balance so that he can rock it like a maniac.

But yes, it's all gross motor. 

And tiring.

Tags: box, gross motor, boy, girl, infant, toddler, daycare, child care, learning, education, homeschool, early childhood education, ECE, DAP, Reggio

Christmas Activities and Crafts

Here are a few of the activities and crafts we did this Christmas season.

SNOWBALL TOSS & GRAPH

Using our bins from the block area, I made up the point value numbers, laminated them, and used packing tape to put them on the buckets. The first day worked counting by fives and multiples of fives for the bigs, and number recognition of 5 units for the littles. We changed it up on other days for 2's and 10's. 

Skills: Hand-eye coordination, taking turns, following directions, spatial awareness, number recognition, multiples, graphing, interpreting a graph, ordinal count

CHRISTMAS TREE ORNAMENTS

These are darling keepsakes. I used hotglue for the popsicle sticks. They chose their color and added the gems. I cut out their pictures and added them to a background of scrapbooking paper. The date is simply written on with a fine Sharpie. They used a brown marker to color in the popsicle piece for the truck if they wished.

REINDEER CRAFT

More product than process, but it's really cute. Traced a handprint on folded brown construction paper and cut out. Bigs could do their own cutting. 

Cut two triangles from a sheet of brown construction paper by marking the long sides into thirds and using 2/3 of each side as the bottom of the reindeer. They folded over the top of the triangle, and added the eyes and nose. The bigs could have pom pom noses if they wanted. The big girls wanted to make Clarise, so of course that meant a BLACK nose and bow. The littles I let use the google eyes, but not the pom poms, simply because I know what works and doesn't with them. Pom poms would not work.

Big Miss H asked if she could make her reindeer into a mask. Huh. SURE! Miss A also thought that was a wonderful idea.

REINDEER SANDWICHES and KIWI ORNAMENTS

Yeah, it might be a stretch on the ornament piece, but they bought it. I just used a large heart cookie cutter to cut out the sandwiches for breakfast.

SUGAR CONE CHRISTMAS TREES

Thinned down frosting in squirt bottles, M&M's, sprinkles, and candies. Only the big kids got to do this. They had fun, but it was MESSSSSSYYYYYYY! Eating them was a whole 'nother problem. Most of it got thrown away. I do not recommend this activity for anything other than using them on a gingerbread house display.

JINGLE BELL DANCING

One of those super simple, surprisingly amazing activities. The all LOVED this one. Just jingle bells in a container of water with a strong magnet wand to move them around. Note that the jingle bells were rusting pretty good after a few weeks in the water, but the use they got out of it was worth it.

SNOWMAN PANCAKES

Okay, so this was my first effort at pancake art, so give me a break. The kiddos loved them and thought I did a great job.

And of course, check out the posts on our Christmas Dramatic Play Area,

and our Christmas Sensory Bin from this year.

Tags: child care, daycare, kindergarten, preschool, pre-k, craft, activity, math, Christmas, holiday, season, theme, unit, homeschool, homeschooling, education