After months of never wanting to play play dough, Bear requested it today. Our batch of play dough from January (our favorite recipe is from My Montessori Journey) was still okay so we got to work playing.
After making a few cakes,
Bear pulled out the container of all the play dough tools (I only usually have a few out, but she is welcome to go select what she wants from the box) and chose the Play-Doh fun factory
.
She made a snake and she had such a long snake I suggested she lay it out on the kitchen floor. This prompted her to ask for Daddy's tape measure. And this is how play dough became an impromptu math learning experience.
Measuring the longest snake.
(91 inches)
Comparing two shorter snakes and finding the difference in length.
And finally running out of play dough when we added a third.
This kept her busy for over an hour. It was that fun.
The reason - she had totally initiated the project.
There was no Mommy agenda.
Has anyone else had a neat impromptu learning experience with their child(ren) lately?
Bear pulled out the container of all the play dough tools (I only usually have a few out, but she is welcome to go select what she wants from the box) and chose the Play-Doh fun factory
.She made a snake and she had such a long snake I suggested she lay it out on the kitchen floor. This prompted her to ask for Daddy's tape measure. And this is how play dough became an impromptu math learning experience.
This kept her busy for over an hour. It was that fun.
The reason - she had totally initiated the project.
There was no Mommy agenda.
Has anyone else had a neat impromptu learning experience with their child(ren) lately?
Thats awesome.Kid's ideas are so much better than ours!lol
ReplyDeleteSelf-initiated activities are the best! Tonight, JC took the unifix cubes and challenged me to make one longer than hers. She ended up beating me by using all her 52 cubes! She thought it was hilarious when mine kept on breaking. I love moments like these. Also, I left some letter magnets on the refrigerator and she had a blast making all kinds of words with them...crown, exit, slim, etc. It seems as though when they initiate, there's actually more learning than when I try to direct the activity.
ReplyDeleteThose are pretty long snakes! Our impromptu learning experiences are mostly around Anna's questions. She asks some interesting questions about different subjects lately and sometimes even manages to get me stumped.
ReplyDeleteWe did something similar with gummy worms, but this sounds like just as much fun and a LOT less sugar! We'll have to try it sometime!
ReplyDeletehttp://quirkymomma.com/2010/learning-to-measure/