Toddler Art Class: Leaf Punching

Shaped punches and an unusual medium can make for very absorbing play.

Art Project: Punching shapes from fall leaves
Supplies:
a variety of hole punches (someone loaned me the set pictured below. Similar here. But any type of hole punch will work)
leaves (I gathered mine in early fall before they got crunchy but after they'd turned colors)
glue sticks
heavyweight paper

Book:   

Leaves / Stein, David Ezra

Music to make art by:

 Through the Woods/ Okee Dokee Brothers

WonderWorks: A LEGO building game with sneaky math

Got a big stash of LEGO at your house? Got some dice? Try this fun game!

Today's Project: 
Supplies:
LEGO bricks
dice
small bowls/buckets or a divided container with 6 segments

Prep work: 
sort the LEGO into 6 different piles and label them with the numbers 1-6.  I chose to sort mine like this:
1) bricks with one or three bumps (there's not a lot of three's)
2) bricks with two bumps
3) bricks with eight bumps (I know, it's confusing....)
4) bricks with 4 bumps
5) mini-figs
6) bricks with 6 bumps

Book: 
  Raise the roof! / Suen, Anastasia

Apps in the News: Endless Reader

Learn more about the Endless Reader app here.

The app developer's site is here.

I also highly recommend Endless Spanish, which is the exact same app, only in Spanish.  Perfect for native Spanish speakers as well as anyone who is learning Spanish as a second language.

WonderWorks on the Road: Geoboards

Can WonderWorks be used for outreach visits?

Today's Topic: Shapes
Supplies:
Geoboards
Rubber bands

Book:
  Shape up, pup! / Heck, Edward 
  Perfect square / Hall, Michael

Apps in the News #1-- DipDap

I'm starting a new segment on our local news (every other Monday, on the 5:00 broadcast) talking about apps for kids.  Here's the first one, from Monday, Oct. 12!

WonderWorks: Pulleys

Do pulleys really help us to lift heavier loads?

Today's Project:  Pulleys
Supplies:
empty spools
wooden dowels (or chopsticks or hefty skewers...)
buckets
heavy things (blocks, books, bag of flour, etc.)
rope or cord or string
pulleys (a variety, from the hardware store)

Today's book:
  The Monkey goes bananas / Bloom, C. P.
(I'm actually fairly proud of this book as an option for pulleys.  Here's a photo of the pulley action:

subtle, but still totally there!