When this time of year comes around, it’s nice to connect as a class or a family by reflecting on the year that has passed and envisioning the one we have before us.
With this in mind, we’ve created two inspiring printables to help facilitate this process…
Our Year-End Reflections lesson is an invitation to record our life events, both big and small. From important life lessons and beloved memories, down to our favorite foods and books—these are all features of the year that or worthy of documenting and fun to look back on.
Next, visualize the year ahead and put your ideas into action! Remember, the more specific you can be when setting goals, the better! The first step is taking your big-picture dreams and breaking them down into actionable steps—one intention at a time. It’s the small accomplishments that create a sense of well-being for children and grown-ups alike.
Spend some time imagining what it will feel like to accomplish your goals. Draw a picture of what it would like and feel like to once your goal comes to fruition.
Once you’ve shared this experience, find a creative way to save everything until next year. Then, you can reflect on your growth and celebrate your accomplishments!
Celebrate the beauty of winter and nature by trying out a classic, three-line Japanese poem called a Haiku. This type of poem requires the writer to count the number of syllables per line; there are 5 syllables in line one, 7 syllables in line two, and 5 syllables in line three. Younger children will enjoy clapping out each of the syllables in words, and older children learn that each syllable within a word must have at least one vowel.
Before writing the poem, we suggest heading outside to embark on a nature walk. Take a bag with you, because your child will want to collect wintry items like evergreens, berries, and twigs. Once inside, explore the treasures and identify words that describe the sights, sounds, tastes, feelings and emotions that these objects evoke. Cut apart the words, play with the number of syllables, and compose your winter Haiku. As an extension, grab your favorite art materials and illustrate your poem!
Current events provide great entry points for playful learning experiences. The Olympics offer many educational opportunities for young children. Some possible themes for exploration are: geography, flags, national anthems, introduction to different cultures, teamwork, and the list goes on… In preparation for the Olympic opening ceremonies, we thought it would be fun explore flags around the world!
Start out by generating a list of the countries that your have personal connections with. We started with nine countries that either we’ve been to, or know someone who lives there. Next, cut out the flags from those countries and glue them on the on the world map (see printables below). As the Olympics progress, you travel to new places or current events unfold, continue to add flags of the your countries of interest!
Science is so fascinating because it is literally all around us, and simple machines are the perfect examples! We use them daily, often without even realizing it.
Enjoy the video below and have fun searching for simple machines in your homes and neighborhoods! Learn to see the world in a new way, identifying the simple machines that make up so much of what we use in our every day lives. Our full Simple Machines curriculum is available in the, Playful Learning Teachers’ Lounge.
A profound insight that I’ve gained from spending time (both professionally and personally) in the company of children, is the powerful connection between diet and behavior. Over the years I have seen consistent patterns between the food children eat and their performance in school.
As a classroom teacher, I learned very quickly that you simply cannot give a child a cupcake + candy and expect her/him to be productive or able to focus. It’s for this reason that we always had birthday celebrations at the end of the day.
This seems like a simple concept, but it has important implications for our children. We need to make sure that the food we feed them and the habits we nurture are in line with our expectations for their behavior.
Making healthy choices is the first step, we can help children take their health to the next level by encouraging them to cultivate the skills needed to prepare nourishing snack and meals for themselves and the people they hold dear.
It’s for this reason that I’ve compiled my favorite tools for teaching even the youngest chefs important skills that will serve them well for years to come!
Below you will find recipe cards that you can cut out and use to make a delicious fruit salad using the tools we love! You can find our full curriculum on teaching children about nutrition and healthy eating in, Playful Learning Teachers’ Lounge.
What could be better than good literature, math explorations, and a dose of poetry? Good children’s literature naturally engages students and often initiates meaningful, rich discussions. Literature draws us in and keeps us together around a central theme, but also lets us enter based on our personal experiences and interests. Often, we can touch most, if not all children with a powerful story.
Kate Hosford has done a great job of personalizing abstract concepts in her book Infinity and Me. Her words along with Gabi Swiatkowska’s gorgeous illustrations personalize the concept of infinity. Uma, the main character, questions her friends and family members on how each person imagines infinity. The answers are varied and imaginative but also sweetly personal. Young readers will love to engage with this delightful story about a difficult, but now accessible concept.
After reading and discussing this book with your child, try writing an infinity poem:
Brainstorm ideas about infinity including: (1) feelings, (2) images, (3) activities one might want to do and (4) wonderings or questions.
Write a poem about the concept of infinity together to model writing to complete a sentence starter. Ask for ideas and show how to write these in sentence form.
Using the brainstorming list, have your child or students write a poem of their own.
Share finished poems with pairs or the whole class.
More to Explore…
Draw a picture to share one of the ideas you presented in your poem. Look closely at the illustrations by Gabi Swiakowska for ideas.
When we slow down and and take the time to focus on simply noticing, the natural world comes alive with inspiration. The Colors Of Nature activity encourages us to slow down with the children in our lives and take in all of beautiful color variations and subtle nuances that nature has to offer.
Often as parents we forget to see the forest for the trees when it comes to our children’s writing. It’s normal for us to get caught up in whether they’re writing letters neatly, spelling correctly, and using proper grammar. While these are important skills, they are most effective when utilized to support good writing. They do not make good writing.
Good writing comes from having something to say. Good writing comes from believing in something, wanting to explore something more deeply, or wanting to connect with others about something. Good writing comes from having a strong sense of your own voice and a solid belief in your ability to express your ideas.
A writer’s notebook is a place where children can discover all of those essential elements. When they can write on their own terms, children begin to find their voice and experience writing as it should be—an amazing medium for self-expression.
Starting a Writer’s Notebook
Did you know that almost all of your favorite authors keep a writer’s notebook? Writing does not need to be an overwhelming process, it can be fun, light, and all about capturing the magical moments in our lives. Keeping a writer’s notebook is where it all begins…
Here’s a list of our favorite writing supplies…
1. Post-it Arrow Flags – Add a fun dimension to capturing memories and writing down thoughts.
2. Japanese Washi Masking Tape – Fun tapes are a wonderful way to add mementos and for the decorating of your cover or pages.
3. Glassine Wax Paper Bags – These are great for taping into your notebook to inspire writing about found treasures.
4. Jumbo Paper Clips – Another great way to capture and save different memories.
5. Sticky Tab Markers – These come in handy if you want to create different sections in your notebook.
6. Blank Recycled Notebooks – We love using these blank notebooks. They offer a clean slate, so that children can make them their own.
7. Photo Corners – Wonderful for adding and writing about family memories and special events.
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Printables
For an extra dose of inspiration, here are some printables that can be glued into your notebook and used as writing prompts. You can find our full writer’s notebook curriculum on the, Playful Learning Teachers’ Lounge.
I may have just stumbled upon the golden ticket to opening up meaningful conversations with tweens and teens about technology!
We started the Digitally Savvy workshop in the Studio on Saturday. It’s been an interesting experience developing the curriculum for this workshop. I have a tough crowd to please—my 11 and 13 year old daughters are participating. I was humbled when a few days before our first session they looked me in the eye and said, “Mom, please don’t tell us this class is going to be about how much time we spend on our phones and online safety.” That very minute that I knew, I needed to take a different approach.
Yes, of course we want to get the message across that they need to make good choices about their time and they need to be aware of certain things to keep them safe, but before we have their ears, we need to establish an open dialogue.
So, I took some time to create an introductory learning experience that would help establish these important lines of communication in a fun and meaningful way. The Emoji EQ lesson acts as an ice breaker to get older children excited—to start them talking and to open up the conversation. You’ll be amazed at how everyone can relate to the language of emojis!
The tweens and teens couldn’t wait to get started and were giddy and full of enthusiasm as they shared their emoji experiences. I highly recommend that you do this activity with your children as the discussions that ensue are priceless. Our conversations went from emojis as a form of communication, to cyber-bullying, to the politics of group chats on text messages. I realized how important it is to meet children where they are. If we start with our own agenda in mind, we will more often than not lose them. However, if we begin with their agenda in mind we can weave in our goals and thoughts throughout the activity.
Aside from the goals mentioned above, It’s also helpful to use emoji’s as an example of ways that things can be misunderstood when communicating through digital technology. We started by talking about the very first attempt that humans made to use pictures as a tool for communication—cave paintings. Then we moved on to hieroglyphs, then verbal and written language. I explained that once humans were able to communicate digitally, it became hard to express emotion and/or pick up on someone’s tone, so we invented emoticons :-), where we used an interesting combination of punctation marks to give our digital communication a bit more emotion. These emoticons then lead to the pictorial images (emojis) we have today, and although we don’t think much of them, I can assure you that our children are very aware of each and every emoji they use and why. I thought it was fascinating that they said they often have to use more than one to get there true meaning across. We were very amused when we realized that all of us had different interpretations of what certain emojis convey and the implications that might have for developing possible misunderstandings.
Note: It’s really important to listen to your child’s ideas and responses throughout these activities, without judgement. We really just want them to open up and feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and experiences, and emojis are something this generation of tweens and teens love to talk about!
Learning to measure our world is a welcome experience for young children. Children love being able to use “real tools” to measure things that they encounter on a daily basis. This experience introduces children to both standard and non-standard measurement and helps them to develop the important skill of estimation. For the younger mathematicians this activity is great for number formation and identification
Start with a small Lego® (approximately one inch) and the Lego® measurement sheet (printable M14). Ask your child to hunt around the house and see how many items they can find that are approximately the same length as the Lego®. It is fun to you’re your child a clip board, which makes the search that much more “official.” Encourage your child to record her/his discoveries on the measurement sheet.
When your child is finished, explain that grown-ups do the same thing when they want to know how long an item is—but instead of using Legos® they use rulers or measuring tapes. Next, take out the 12”x2” pieces of paper and invite your child to make her/his own ruler. Explain that he/she can use their Legos® to make the marks (starting at one edge, making a mark after each Lego® all they way to the end of the sheet). When she/he is finished making and numbering their rulers, take out one of your rulers and show your child how similar they are. Your child may notice that each sheet had enough space for 12 Legos®. You can mention to her/him that those spaces are called inches. You can also bring up the fact that 12 inches makes one foot.
It is helpful to remember that for this experience it is not important that your child’s measurements are exact. What is important is that your child begins to create mental images of items that are approximately an inch long. This will help them tremendously when it come to estimating measurement as well as gives them internal mechanism for knowing if their results are in the right ball park.
Once your child’s handmade rulers are complete you can encourage her/him to put her/his new tools to work. Print out the body measurement sheet (printable M15) and invite your child to measure the various parts of her/his bodies (it is nice to work with a partner for this part of the experience). Explain that she/he can start out by estimating how long an item will be, then have her/him measure the item and finish by trying to figure out how far off she/he was from the estimation.
It is fun to compare and contrast the different sizes of nose, fingers, etc. among your family members
After your child is comfortable measuring items by the inch, you can repeat the same process with the smallest Lego® piece (see bottom portion of printable M14) and introduce the centimeter as another unit of measurement.
Challenge your children to measure longer items with the use of a tape measure (keep an eye out for hurt fingers) or yardstick.
Maker sure to check out our Playful Picks for Introducing Measurement.
