Irresistible Ideas for play based learning

As part of our chatting about the sea, we read the story of “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister. Most of the children are familiar with this series and really love  it. We pulled out a memory game which the children could enjoy playing in a small group.

There are many cards in the game, but as this is the first time we have done it together, we chose a small selection so it wouldn’t be too overwhelming. The children turn two cards over when it is their turn and try to make a pair. This is a great opportunity for many of them to become aware of the concept of taking it in turns in a particular order ie clockwise around the table.

They placed their pairs gleefully in front of themselves. We try avoid the “winning” thing and just feel pleased when someone finds a pair.

We let the children reset the game, encouraging them to spread the pairs around rather than next to each other.

After a couple of sessions of the children playing this in small groups, we have a go in the large group with a game called ”Tic tac toe”.

About 10 cards are spread out in the middle of the circle and one child uses a pointer, touching each card until the following song finishes.

Tic-tac-toe,

here I go,

where I land I do not know.

They turn that card over and try to remember where the matching pair is then pass the pointer onto another child. It’s a great game for small OR large groups.

Children love games they can play with each other, especially simple games which don’t require assistance from an adult.

“What’s missing” is a memory game which can be altered to suit different age groups.

Select a number of varied items, place them on a tray and have the children take a good look at what is there.  It will help if you describe each item as well as count them, so the children are clear on what, and how many items there are. Then cover the items with a cloth and have the children close their eyes while one is removed from the tray.

We like to sing this little rhyme so the children know it’s time to close their eyes

Heads down!          Eyes closed!          Nooooo peaking!

Once the item has been removed the children open their eyes to look and see what is missing.

Depending on the capabilities of the children you can add more items and work up to removing several in one go.

We find that a maximum of ten items for our kinder children is ideal but older children will soon let you know how far they want to go.

This is a great visual and memory game the children can play amongst themselves without adult help.  How wonderful!

As part of our Star of the Week program, our parents came into kinder to do activities with the children. One made the lovely old fashioned ‘open, shut them’ games which the children just loved!

We found that the children needed a bit of help getting the folds right as it is a bit complicated, but they are great at squashing the fold lines to make them good and sharp.

On the outside sections they had colours - the words and a matching coloured spot .

On the next two layers they had numbers…

… and in the middle some fun actions, such as “Do 15 star jumps” and “Make a monkey face and noise”.

When we come back from the term holidays, we will try doing a big one of these with a large group of children. Let’s see now – there is colour and number recognition, fine and gross motor activity, literacy, playing with a friend, having fun … What a great thing to do!