Food and Learning?

by Kristin Miller on 04/18/16

Yes - we love learning with food.  I mean, come on, how many times growing up were you allowed to paint with your yogurt???  Super fun!

From painting with our applesauce and ketchup, to smearing our yogurt, coloring on tortillas, learning the colors with our fruit loops cereal, scooping up rice, and making letters with our cheese and crackers.  There are endless opportunities to learn using food.  It is so practical and easy; and the best thing, the kids LOVE it (because they get to eat their "homework" - literally!)

5 Foods to Easily Learn with at Any Home:

1. Tortilla or Bread - Have your child build their fine-motor skills to tear the pieces apart.  Then, color on them!

2.  Thick Liquids or Foods as Sauce (Ketchup, Yogurt, Applesauce, Mustard, Jelly, ect) - Just for some messy fun, let your child finger-paint (or use a paintbrush) to smear these fun sauces around on thick white paper!

3. Foods you can Cook (spaghetti noodles, rice, ect.) - After they have cooled off, throw some noodles in a bucket (or rice).  Give your child a cup, fork, and a spoon to stir.  Creative imagination and pretend play will be sure to keep your child busy as they make some spaghetti or rice for you!

4. Snack Time Foods - Like crackers and cubed cheese - Use these to teach tons of learning skills, like letters, numbers, counting, and making shapes.  Check out our other blog post specifically for ideas HERE.  

5. Breakfast Time Foods - Using a variety of cereals to teach learning concepts, such as colors, counting, making letters, and using to build fine-motor skills and literacy awareness!

- See more at: http://www.eteachingme.com/Mom-Blog.html?entry=food-and-learning#sthash.yvSzqBTg.dpuf

Matching: 25 ways to tell, show, and do!

Learning how to match things together is a necessary skill that a child should be able to begin learning and doing as early on as 2 years old.  You can teach this concept in so many different and easy ways.  Matching is the capability for a child or person to put two, or more, of the same things together to represent alike.  The easiest way to explain matching to a young child is to make it "short and sweet."

Tell child:  "Matching means putting together things that look the same."

Show child: Put two of the same looking pictures, objects, or things together.

Learn with child:  Lay out objects on the floor that will help teach your child the concept of matching.  Encourage child to match and sort objects according to same attributes.

25 WAYS

Things you can use, or do, at home to easily teach matching skills with your child:

1. Using free paint sample cards from Lowes or Home Depot to teach matching colors, as shown in picture

2. Putting pairs of socks together

3. Putting pairs of shoes together

4. Putting together same shapes, as shown in picture

5. Putting together matching colored toys or blocks

6. Matching colors using Kool-Aid packages, as shown in picture

7. Putting same coins together; nickles, dimes, pennies, and quarters

8. Matching crayon colors

9. Play dough ball sizes OR cotton ball sizes (big and small), as shown in picture examples

 

10. Matching Goldfish colors

11. Matching Fruit Loops Cereal colors, as shown in picture

12. Matching colored M&M's, as shown in picture

13. Spoons and Forks together (for 3 years and up)

14. Alphabet letters (capitol and lowercase or same case-letters), as shown in pictures

 

15. Paper strips cut in different lengths to match sizes, as shown in picture

16. Matching numbers on tickets, as shown in picture

17. Matching letters in their name usign paper or tape, as shown in picture

 

18. Matching together movies or DVD's that are the same genre, for instance, all the Mickey Mouse movies together or all of the Blue's Clue's Movies together

19. Numbers and corresponding dots on spoons and plates, as shown in picture

20. Playing a game of copy-cat.  Copying actions of someone else to match what they are doing, as shown in picture

21. Matching one-to-one correspondence, as shown in picture

22. Matching colors together using an egg carton and tortillas that are colored, as shown in picture

23. Using snack items to teach matching concepts, such as tall and short or one-to-one correspondence, see picture examples

24. Using "Memory-like" board games to match same pictures on cards - or Use flash cards

25. Have your toddler or preschooler put together matching sight words with their beginning letter on a chart like shown in the picture below

10 Ways to use Play Dough for Learning

Ever wonder how you can use play dough to learn with your child? Here is a list of verbs to use when teaching your infant, toddler, or preschooler.  Below this list are 10 FUN and EASY ways to use play dough as a learning tool, as well!  Enjoy...and we love sharing ideas, if you have an interesting way to use play dough for learning with your child, please tell us in a comment below!

10 Ways to use Play Dough as a Learning Tool:

1. Use it to make big and small balls, teaching the concept of size.

2. Make creatures out of it and have your child (or you for an infant) use describing words to explain what you created, why, and its characteristics such as color, size, and features!

3. Use play dough to make shapes!

4. Use play dough to make letters!

5. Use play dough to spell out your child's name and teach them the letters in it!

6. Use play dough to teach colors.

7. Use play dough to teach sorting skills.

8. Use a ball and play dough to flatten out, building hand-eye coordination and motor skills.

9. Use play dough to practice tracing letters!

10.  Allow child to free-play with play dough; play is how learning occurs!

Spring Experiment - Will it grow?

 

SPRING DAY ACTIVITY EXPERIMENT

For Tots - 2 years - and Up!

 

Question to ask child:  What do you think will grow and sprout???

 

Length of time for experiment: 10 minutes to prepare; observe and water daily for 1 week

 

Scientific Method Steps (simplified!)

Prediction: Which of the 4 items do you think will grow?

Hypothesis: Have your child guess, or tell you, what they think will happen.

Conclusion: After doing experiment, observe the "plants" with your child daily to find out and record what happens.  Complete experiment observation to conclude findings after 1 week.

  

Materials Needed:

 

 

cups

soil

water

lima beans

blue berries

pretzels

potato half (cut end)

 

** All materials listed above are optional for you to use depending on what you have at home handy.  Try to limit the experiment items to 2 that grow (i.e.  lima bean and potato half end) and 2 that wont grow (i.e.  blue berry and pretzels).

 

 

What to do:

1. Put all four items on plate, explain what they are to or child first.

2. Put soil in 3 cups.

3. Have child help add in each item per its own cup, pressing into soil just a little bit, but just enough to cover item so it is unseen under the soil.

4. For the potato half, fill cup half with water, put potato end cut-side down in water so the top half is sticking out of water.

5. Label all cups and draw picture for child to remember.

6. Have child water them each.

7. Put on porch outside, safe from wind and rain but where they can still get sunlight.

8. Go over them each with child again; naming them.

9. Ask child: What do you think will grow and sprout?

10. Tell child: We will check on them and water them every day for 1 full week.  Do just that and watch with your child to see what happens!

11. Remember:  Teach the Scientific Concept (Predict, Hypothesis, Conclude and Find) with your child early on!

12. Don't forget to teach what 3 things all plants need to grow:  Sun, Air, Water

 

**You can even make a visual drawing/graph with child to chart findings and the steps of the experiment and growth processes of each item.  Refer back to the chart each day as you observe  the "plants" (items planted) and have child record on their chart what they may see or not see happening with them each.

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Find Your Letter

Teaching the ABC's to your child does not have to be hard, it is actually simple and can be loads of fun for your child!  Check out this FUN and EASY activity idea to teach your child the alphabet letters!  Watch the Video

Join eTeachingMe.com during April for our curriculum theme is "Spring into ABC's" and we have a letter lesson plan specifically for your child's age group (6 months - 5 years) every day of the month!  Practical, fun, learning with your child...

Activity: Find your letter!!!

Materials Needed:

1. Flash light
2. Dark (lights off) room or bedroom
3. Sticky Notes
4. Marker

What to do:

1. Write the alphabet letters, or the letters in your child's name, on sticky notes using the black marker. (I only did ABC to teach at this time)
2. Post them up on blank wall around the dark room you have chosen to do this activity with your child in your house. (We chose the hallway)
3. Give your child a flash light.
4. Explain to them to use the flash light to point and find the letter you are asking them to find.  Such as: Parent says to child: "Can you find the letter A?"  Child would turn on flash light and point the light to the letter A on the wall.
5. Continue teaching and learning like this until all letters have been "found" or your child no longer shows any interest.

Milestones this activity teaches child:

1. Hand-eye coordination
2. Literacy and Alphabet letters
3. Early print recognition
4. Spatial awareness
5.  Listening skills
6. Following verbal directions
7. Object permanence
8. Trial and Error

Modifications of activity:

1. For younger children (1-2 years old), just let child use the flash light to find and shine on the letters. Once they see one, parent would say/teach the letters name to child.  Help child learn how to shine the light onto the letters to find them.  Assist their hands/arms to do so.
2. Write the same letters on index cards, put inside a brown bag.  Have child pull one out one at a time and then use the visual letter card to tell child which one to find on the wall using their flash light.
3. Preschoolers - Have child find letters in a specific order, pull it off the wall when "found" with flash light, then put on another wall, building specific, easy, short words! Such as "MOM"!  Great phonics activity to teach word-building!