A Truckload of Fun

Ed seems to have a particular interest in construction vehicles at the moment. He is obsessed with the "Digger" book we got from the library a couple of weeks ago and loves to play with the 2 dump trucks from his Thomas the Tank Engine collection - Max & Monty.

We've been enjoying some much needed time at home this morning so I decided that instead of just leaving him to his own devices, I would take 5 or so minutes to collect up some materials that would help his imaginative play along a little. Here's what I came up with.



I've noticed he likes to be quite active in his play, everything needs to have something to do, so I thought I would collect up all of his dump trucks and construction vehicles form his various suitcases. I put all of these together in the wooden box. I then got some buttons, rocks and stones to act as "loads" for the trucks to carry and move around. I added the meat trays and container lids to act as places for the trucks to unload and the blocks and road signs to be included as buildings, bridges and well, signs. I didn't add the small squares of material for any particular reason, but I like to just throw things like this into their play and see what they do with it.

Ed had an absolute ball with this set up. I started him off by showing him what I had put out and talking him through what I thought he could maybe use the materials for. I then showed him how the dump truck could unload into one of the trays and left him to it while he got himself going. I find with Ed that if I get too involved, it stifles his creativity a bit, so I went into another room to leave him to it.



The activity provided lots of learning opportunities. He talked the whole time he was playing - to himself about what he was doing, creating voices for the trucks and bossing the vehicles around. He used lots of the technical, descriptive language to talk about the play - loaders, trays, ditches, flat beds, road trains. It gave him the chance to put into play the language he has learned from the books we have read and the shows he has watched about vehicles. This is a really important tool for strengthening what he is learning. He also talked about and explored lots of concepts like big/small, full/empty, loading/unloading, fits/doesn't fit. He also needed to work his fine motor skills when trying to get the small items in and out of the trucks. His brain got a bit of a workout too as he tried to determine which loads would fit in which truck and what cars were small enough and thin enough to fit under his bridge.



The wonderful thing about this sort of play is he could do it on his own. I only needed to set it up for him and then it's totally up to him what happens next and what direction his learning and exploring takes. In the meantime, I had a chance to tidy up, get the washing on and some dishes done. Of course I got lots of updates about what was going on as well as the occasional "this is so exciting". I also had to look at the ditch being built and the cars fitting under the bridge as I walked through the lounge room to put some things away but my involvement and feedback, however brief, sends a really powerful message of "I'm interested in and value what you are doing" which is also valuable for his learning and self-esteem. Can you believe we achieved so much in an hour of free-play with buttons, rocks and a couple of trucks?!

More Articles

I have a couple of articles out this month. In the August/September issue, I have "Boxing Day" on page 86 and in the Practical Parenting Annual "Your Toddler", I have re-prints of "Busy Boxes" and "Cooking Up a Garden Stew".

I've just been commissioned for a couple more to appear int PP in the next few months so I will keep you posted .....

Eye Dropper Paintings

At playgroup on Monday, I set up some eye dropper painting for the kids. I call it painting quite reluctantly because in actual fact it's more of a science activity than an art activity, but it does involve experimentation with colour and it's a great way to get children involved in an "art -type" activity who are usually a little reluctant to do so.



The other thing I love about this activity is the way it works on building fine muscle control, eye-hand co-ordination and cognitive abilities. It is also a great language developing activity because chidlren are usually so intrigued by what's going on, they want to talk about it. As I said earlier, it's a great way to get children to learn about colours and for children who are slightly older, it's an opportunity to experiement a little with colour mixing.

To do this activity at home, you'll need:

- Some eye-droppers. I bought the ones in the photo from an educational toy store for around 30 cents. They're really easy to use because they're long and the tops are really easy to squeeze, but any eye dropper would do

- Food colouring mixed into water. Less is more with food colouring, but you do need a reasonably high food dye/water ratio to get good colour. It's best to start with a few good drops and see how you go.

- Paper towel. The cheap stuff works quite well, but the more absorbent the paper towel, the more fun the activity is.

Some tips:
- encourage your child to do just a few drops and see what happens. If they're anything like my boy, they'll squirt the entire contents of the dropper onto the paper and end up with nothing but a soggy mess. It's all part of the learning though. Encourage them to go more slowly and see what happens.
- food colouring is messy and doesn't wash well, so a plastic cover for the surface you'll be using is highly recommended, as is a water-proof smock
- use only a small amount of liquid so that if it does spill, it doesn't go EVERYWHERE. Glass jars are a really great, sturdy container to use, but if you have some of those non-spill paint pots, even better

Finding Facts at the Library

I love going to the library and yesterday we returned for the first time in about three months after I found the courage to face my $22.50 fine incurred by an (almost) lost book (doesn't it feel good to deal with these things, and the librarian wasn't even cross with me??!!). Anyway, we came home with a great big bundle of treasures.

After getting a couple of story books for bed time from the children's section, we headed over to the non-fiction section to look for some information books. We always find the best treasures here.

Ed chose a couple of digger books, something about Boeing 777s, a book about the history of Holden's and one about Porsches (I don't know how we ended up with such a rev head!). He actually wanted to take home about 6 car books, but I had to narrow it down to 2. He just loves to soak up the facts in these non-fiction books.




I chose a bunch of general animal and insect information books for my playgroup



and then for Em, I got some early reader books, a book about drawing and a kid's cookbook which is her absolute favourite thing to do at the moment.




In the past, we've had gardening books, truck books, art books, photography books, car manuals, bird field guides, insect books, whatever takes the children's interest. It's amazing how long they'll spend pawing through the glossy pictures, taking in what they can, asking about the facts and figures that cover the pages, and it always seems to lead to other activites - car shows, nature walks, art and craft. It's one of our favourite ways to pass the time and a wondeful way to learn about the world we live in.

Ed's Creative Space

I ventured into Ed's room the other night to do a bit of a tidy up and found the usual suspects - random train tracks, cars and trains strewn all over the floor. As I looked more closely, however, I found a little haven of calm, organisation and in the end intrigue as I stumbled across a game he had set up with his Thomas trains.




In the middle of Ed's room I have a large white, wooden toy box, that his garage and train sheds are kept on. I set up this space as a place for him to organise his own play and carry out his games without them being a great big mess all over the floor. He has access to it all the time and his trains and cars are kept in small suitcases at the bottom of the toy box. He can take himself there and start playing with out any intervention from me. Stumbling upon his Thomas game the other night made me remember why I had provided this space in the first place and just why these areas are so important to children.

Looking closely, you could see how intricate and involved his play had been. Each train had specific, matching carriages. Some trains were in sheds, others were lined up, some were facing each other, clearly involved in conversation. You could almost hear the busy station at work, things looked so animated.



I decided not to pack this scene away for the time being. There is nothing worse than having your creativity and momentum stifled by packing away something you're in the middle of and there is so much learning and development going on in this sort of involved play - memory and recall, language, fine motor, problem solving, organisation, empathy, social interactions, just to name a few.

I'll keep my eye on the play and when it gets messy and seemingly disorganised, I know he will be done with it and it will be time to pack it away, but for the time being, the Island of Sodor is alive and breathing in Ed's bedroom!

Travelling with Kids

So, about my road trip. I drove the 800 or so kms back to my sunny home town of Adelaide, on my own with my 2 kids. Once we got there, we did lots of hour or so trips visiting family and/or sight-seeing and then drove home with mum via the Great Ocean Road. It was fantastic, we had a great time, but we did spend A LOT of time in the car.

The kids weren't too bad, given that all up we did nearly 2000 kms. I put a lot of thought and planning into what i would pack to keep them busy and entertained and i have to say, they never complained about being bored in the car (although there were a few "Are we driving again?! comments from my 5 year old)

So, what did I take?, I hear you ask, well my attack (or maybe my defence??) was multi-layered.

The first was that they absolutely love art and craft and drawing, so I set up 2 separate plastic containers with a blank note-book each, several small blank drawing pads, gluesticks, stickers, post it notes and a pencil case full of brand new textas. They each had their own containers and each container held pretty much the same items except Eds had a car/farm theme and Em's had a fairy/animal theme.

Putting the same items in both containers was absolutely deliberate and the fact that i packed 2 of everything was also deliberate. I think the key to eliminate (or at least reduce) fighting when you're in a confined space like this is to minimise the need to share. Sharing is good and children should certainly learn how to do it but not when mum is alone in a car and travelling at 110kms per hour! In this case, sharing is bad, very bad if it leads to fighting and so I tried to make it so they never had to do it.

The next thing I packed for them was a bag of toys. I just used a basic back pack, but i stuffed it as much as i could with building/thinking and imaginative play toys. Ed of course had his cars. I put them in a separate zip up bag so they were easy to find and keep together. I made some easily-transportable roads by getting some A3-sized pieces of foam and cutting them into long strips that were wide enough for 2 cars to drive down. I also added a new bag of plastic farm animals from the 2 dollar shop, some rocks, jar lids and buttons, as well as some small pieces of plastic building equipment.

Em had some tiny plastic babies i grabbed from an educational toy store and some little matchboxes from Riot Art and Craft to act as their beds. I also included some small squares of material. She also had the plastic animals and bits and pieces as well as a small puzzle.

To make sure they had a sturdy place to play and draw on I took a couple of lap trays we got from Target a few years back. They have the beanie stuff on the bottom kind of like an old "Stable Table" (which you can still buy in Big W)

I also got them each 4 work/colouring books. Ed loves stickers so he had a couple of sticker books while Em had more activity/puzzle books. I put the books and trays in the pocket behind the front seats. I made very sure that they could reach and have access to everything before we left. The containers went in the middle on top of each other, the bags went at their feet. For Ed I put them on top of a small case we wouldn't need until we arrived at our destination.

The next part of my plan was food. Little bits of it in small containers and plastic bags, hidden in the containers and toy bags. I used food that it would be difficult to choke on (for obvious reasons) and also things that are not eaten quickly - small crackers, sultanas etc. As a treat, they had a lollipop and a packet of mini M&Ms (or nemmy-nemmy's as Ed likes to call them). But i have to say the lollipop ended up in the pocket of Ed's car seat, which was a little yucky, because apparently he was too busy to eat it (good for me, bad for the seat!).

My in-case-of-emergency items were the portable DVD players my Mother-in-law bought for the kids. I was not a huge fan of these when the kids first got them, but they have won me over with their ability to soothe the kids just as i think their heads are about to explode. They really only used them on the extra long trips we took and only ever in the last hour or so when they really had done well to amuse themselves with what was going on around them.

Em even used hers as a CD player which is where my last, and perhaps most important as it turns out, purchase came in very handy. Some Fisher Price headphones. They cost me $29.95 and of course I got 2 - no sharing remember. They saved mum and I the experience of listening to John Farnham's "You're the Voice", over and over and over again as we drove the Great Ocean Road. After the fifth rotation of that song, those little headphones became worth their weight in gold.

My last line of defence was to stop drivng and we did that every 2 hours while I was driving alone and every 3 or so when mum was with me. I stopped in Horsham over night during the trip over on my own, because I thought expecting the children to be in the car more than four to five hours was asking a little too much of them - especially given I had no-one with me to help them if they needed anything while I was concentrating on the road. When we stopped, I made sure we had fun, we had a treat and ran around and it gave them something to look forward to. Now that they're a bit older, even the promise that we would stop soon, bought me a little time.

It was a great trip and I would absolutely do it again but not without raiding two dollar shops and packing those headphones first!!

Magazine Articles in July and Missing in Action!

I have another article in "Practical Parenting" this month. It's all about "Busy Boxes" and how putting together a selection of open-ended materials for your child to explore can trigger creativity and development. It's a subject very dear to my heart.




My "Mother & Baby" article is still out too!

My posts have been very few and far between for the last month. I've just taken the kids on a road trip all on my lonesome and while we survived (and had a really great time), my time has been spent preparing for our trip, enjoying our time together and then, for the last week, recovering (and washing!). I have much to report on what I planned to keep the kids busy, so will reveal more details in the next few days.