Michelle My Bell Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 I have puzzles, pattern blocks, UNO, counting bears and a few other things for my 5 year old but I would like to add a few more things for him. What fun learning games, manipulatives, activities do you have for your kindegartener? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheReader Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 We have a variety of Melissa & Doug toys. Let's see...we have a few of the food sets (toy grill, toy pizza set w/toppings, and a slicing set; all Melissa & Doug). These are great for motor skills (slicing, putting "food" onto a skewer) and for sorting - the pizza one is great for sorting as there are individual pizza slices with multiple toppings. He can sort by putting one topping per slice (grouping like toppings together), he can dabble with parts of a whole, etc. Once he starts writing, he can use a little notepad and "take our order" and write it down. He does this already, writing random letters, but once he is able to read/spell simple words so much the better. We also have a Melissa & Doug letter thing. It's individual boards with a picture and then cut outs below where letter shapes belong to spell the word. Then a slew of wooden letters to fill in each board. He loves that one. We have a Melissa & Doug shape sorting clock; the numbers are painted on different shapes, and the corresponding shapes are cut out in positions around the clock edge. Good for shape recognition (of odd shapes, not just square, triangle, etc.) and number order, telling time, etc. We have pattern blocks, teddy bear counters, cuisenaire rods, gram/centimeter cubes, some square tiles that he mostly uses for color sorting (they are the same colors as the counting bears; he does one-to-one matching, placing one bear of the same color atop each tile; he also makes patterns with them such as red-red-yellow, red-red-yellow). What else.....he has some other math manipulatives, but I'm blanking on what they are..... We have a tub of letter tiles for spelling work. He has some dominoes, with the colored dots. Boggle &/or boggle jr. He loves to play with various Think Fun games -- rush hour jr, block-by-block, etc. He loves perfection. Uno. ABC flash cards -- we have some just plain ABC flash cards, which have the letter on one side, a picture with the word spelled below it on the other. I have him use these for copy work to practice his handwriting and hopefully sink in about spelling words. He has another set that is 3 letter words, one letter/part of the picture per card and he puts them together like puzzles. Pick up sticks (well, pick up snakes) for motor dexterity. The dwarves and dice came for visual dexterity, for finding things based on criteria (find the dwarf with both red and blue). The Teddy Bear Matching game, which he does random things with and has lost all educational value because he mostly uses it for games of battle, in which he lays out the board and remembers where he's placed each bear, then you must draw a match in order for your pair to "beat" the other person, as each bear is assigned a super power........oh, and Guess Who, again for visual dexterity, sorting, etc. He also has free reign over various toys -- Legos, various Lego board games, Magnetix, etc. He comes up with all kinds of things with those, but those are not strictly school related. Definitely imagination building, though! Then of course various craft/art supplies. Paper, pens, crayons, paint, play dough, etc. We are very heavy on hands-on with this kid as he learns in a much different way than my older boys did, but hopefully this gives some ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Sensory tubs are huge with my crew. Lacing cards and pattern blocks are also favs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michelle My Bell Posted July 19, 2011 Author Share Posted July 19, 2011 Sensory tubs are huge with my crew. Lacing cards and pattern blocks are also favs. OK, I never really heard of Sensory tubs before so I googled it and I found this: http://countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/search/label/Sensory%20Tubs Here is one on weather: Is this what you do as well? These look really fun! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Lulu* Posted July 19, 2011 Share Posted July 19, 2011 Yes! I love, love, love that site! I have gotten a ton of great ideas to freshen up pre-k and k for my youngest. (Who I was sadly slighting b/c I was a little burned out on pre-k/k teaching.) They are terrific for fine motor skill development as well as early math, pre-reading, and early science. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kubiac Posted July 24, 2011 Share Posted July 24, 2011 Are you a millionaire? If yes, then by all means get the kiddo wooden geometric solids from the fabulous Red Hen Books & Toys store as well as either the complete or the expanded set Froebel's Gifts. (For more on the latter, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Froebel_Gifts.) Or, you know, blocks. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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