Yesterday I was busy in Sydney and Georgia’s room, rearranging the furniture. Sydney and Joel were enthralled with the tape measure: the way it springs back into place, the interesting numbers, just the fact that I was “playing” with it.
So today, when Sydney started whining about having to do her “rest time,” I remembered the tape measure.
I grabbed a clipboard, the tape measure, and a pencil and made a list. I wrote down about fifteen things that Sydney could walk around and measure. A couple of them were Joel’s ride-on toy, the Wii remote, the bathroom stool, Daddy’s shoe, and Joel’s shoe. Sydney is learning to read, so I just wrote the words on her paper, but for the younger set you could draw a simple picture.
Sydney spent a happy fifteen minutes carrying the clipboard around the house, measuring things. She wrote down her measurements next to each item and when she was done with the list, she trotted back to tell me all about it.
This is a great activity for preschoolers or even younger elementary kiddos because it gets them involved with math in a real-world setting. They get practice both “reading” and writing numbers (Sydney definitely could use more practice with that one), and their understanding of concepts like bigger/smaller becomes more defined.
Sydney is the kind of girl who likes to do a lot of different things, and it’s often hard for me to come up with toys she hasn’t seen in a while. But this afternoon I remembered that real-world learning activities are always a big hit with her. I guess I should plan something like this for her more often.
Because a happy preschooler at rest time is a happy mommy at rest time!
Are there any learning activities that your preschooler has enjoyed recently?
photo credit: jronaldlee
by Susan Cain. We’ll also be chatting live with Susan Cain at 1PM Eastern on January 26. As a member of From Left to Write, I received a free copy of the book to facilitate my participation in this discussion. All opinions are my own.
