TEACHING TUESDAY [08.08.23]
Welcome to Teaching Tuesday! If you are new here, I’m a former teacher, have a master’s degree in Curriculum and Instruction and am now a homeschool mom. You can read more about that journey here.
Every Tuesday I’m going to share an at home learning idea for preschool and elementary age kids, new curriculum resources and a freebie or two!
Let’s talk about imaginative play for a minute. We often don’t correlate imaginative play with “learning,” but it is an essential skill for children to learn. I say learn because with the amount of technology and media that kids are exposed to today, it often suppresses that creativity. While some families may prefer home education or online high schools, it’s important to make sure you don’t avoid this vital developmental opportunity.
We have lots of toys like the ones in the pictures above and I’m going to link some of our favorites below. Jack has always loved building things with blocks so every year for Christmas, he gets at least one kind of manipulative toy that he can build with. He also LOVES Legos. He enjoys building what the item is the first time, but then it is amazing to me to see all of the different ways he alters it to become a new part of the story he has created.
Korben loves doing anything that big brother does, so it has been really interesting to watch him see big brother use his imagination and mimic that. Now, he will sit on the floor and create a whole scenario out of manipulatives.
In the pictures above, Jack (left) has created the Mars Rover. He had been reading about NASA in his science lessons, which led them to extend and do some additional research and out of that he decided to build his version of the Mars Rover. After building it, I had him draw it in his notebook and write a paragraph describing it’s functions. Writing about their creations is a great way to continue to extend their learning.
Korben (right) had been sitting on the floor of my office/playroom and working really hard on whatever he was building. I remember being really focused on the work I was doing that day and was just enjoying listening to him talk to himself about his creation. When he asked if he could show it to me, he was actually wearing his creation, so I asked him to explain it and he said that he built a “people airplane.” I mean, how creative for a 3 year old!
Here are new resources that I’ve been working on this week!
