Pre-writing

So much of this going on right now- lots of symbols, letters and numbers- the trick is when he asks me to read back what he wrote. We're working on that pencil grip too- normally it's just a matter of saying "Are those two tricky fingers hanging out together again?"

Subitising

Subitising wasn't a concept in the maths curriculum when I went to Teacher's college and quite possibly it's just an Aussie thing- but they were very keen on it at the first Kindy Will went to and I made up this game back then. It's pretty simple- each person has a game board dice and pre-inked stamp. We take turns at rolling and stamp the square beneath each number. Who ever fills their board first wins.... no prizes for guessing who won this one. :-)

Lego

Lego is big in our house and it gets created and played with most days. Sometimes to plan, but most often not. There's also a lot of imaginative play that goes with it- most of the fighting, super hero type- some violent which I'm not fond of but I'm super glad for the creativity and imagination going down so I take the bad with the good.

Number Works

A super simple activity gluing 11 felt shapes onto out number 11. This goes in a clear file when the glue is dry- we're building up a collection of numbers from one to 20. When we done we might go up in 10's with something small like lentils. I know Tama would love to represent one hundred it's one of his favourite numbers!

Colouring Together

Colouring in is something that Tama and I just enjoy doing together. It's also great for his fine motor skills. :-)

Magnets

Tama is enjoying manipulating these magnets to make shapes and structures. I'm hoping we can add to this set at some point- they're very cool.

Tinkering

Plasticine for fine motor

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Magnets

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Drawing and Colouring

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Seeking out what you need

Tama is at an age where he is refining his fine motor skills- something that needs lots of practice. I love that children naturally seek out what they need. I pulled the old pages off the calendar and put them on the making table. Sometime later Tama picked them up and cut them first into week sized strips and then into day sized squares... lots of great practice- independently sought and achieved.

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Engineering Challenge

The question was simple: How high can you go? 

Pulling blocks out of a solid Jenga tower to add to the top

A staircase just because.

That high.

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Shaving Foam

This is the activity I tried to finish my first day of homeschool with. In reality Will and Tama demanded that homeschool continue 'officially' for another hour and three quarters that day- more, more, more!

This was just something fun, and tactile with a little fine motor stuff (writing in the foam) thrown in.

We tend to do a lot more of this active/physical stuff when Tama is home. And more solid academic and bookwork type stuff when he is at kindy and not around to interrupt. I have zero interest in him doing the academic stuff this year or next- he's four, he just needs to play and play and play. 

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Big Button Numbers

Making extra-huge numbers with buttons on an abacus.

Picking the buttons is half the fun. Also super good fine motor work for little fingers.

745,357,263 Awesome!

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