Play Dough or Silly Putty – Children can use molding materials to make their favorite character from a story – or an animal from a habitat you are studying – or something that reflects a letter/sound – or a 3 dimensional shape…
Puppets (lunch bags, stick puppets, paper plate puppets) – Use these to make community helpers – characters from books – reflect feelings – illustrate poems, nursery rhymes, or
songs...
Paper Folding – (house books, snip snap books, flip books) You can find lots of these on my blog. After children construct books they can be used to reinforce reading skills (sounds, story sequence, word families, vocabulary) - math skills (sets, shapes, patterns, facts) - writing (informative, narratives, descriptions) – science or social studies themes…
Junk Box – (paper scraps or recycled materials such as TP rolls, bottle lids, plastic containers) Children can demonstrate what they’ve learned by creating a sculpture, character, 3-D shape, invention.
Blocks and Construction Materials – (wooden blocks, Legos) Reproduce patterns, measure, build scenes from stories, demonstrate math problems, cooperate to make a domino rally…
It’s all about balance! Yes, technology offers many opportunities for individualized instruction and competence, but it needs to be balanced with social interactions and hands-on activities. I’m just saying…. The funny thing is if you read my blog I’m preaching to the choir and you are probably doing all of these things. Never, ever, ever give up!!!
