Lakewood at Home

Lakewood for Toddlers: April 29

April 29, 2020 by betsy Leave a Comment

It’s Wednesday! It looks like it is going to be warm again today. Feel free to take these invitations outside.

Sensory/Science Invitation: Making granola

Toddlers are often very interested in what is happening in the kitchen. The toddlers at Lakewood spend a lot of time working with the pretend food and dishes in the classroom as they explore what it might be like to cook and serve food. This granola recipe is very flexible and easy to adjust to suit your taste. It’s simple enough that it can be made with a lot of help from little hands.

Simple Maple Granola

5 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
½ cup flaked coconut
½ cup wheat germ (optional)
½ cup sunflower seeds
¼ teaspoon salt
½ cup maple syrup
⅓ cup vegetable oil
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 250-degrees F. In a really large bowl, combine oats, coconut, wheat germ, sunflower seeds and salt. Give your child a large spoon and invite them to mix everything together. It is okay if some of the dry ingredients fly out of the bowl.

In another large bowl, mix together the maple syrup, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Pour this mixture into the bowl of oats and stir until everything is mixed together.

Pour the mixture onto a rimmed cookie sheet and bake 2 hours at 250-degrees.

Allow to cool before storing in a tightly sealed container. You can add dried fruit after it is cooled.

Dramatic Play Invitation: Setting the table

For this invitation you will need some unbreakable dishes (leftover party or picnic supplies work well) and a blanket to use as a picnic blanket or an empty table or countertop. Invite your toddler to set the table for themselves and perhaps a sibling or stuffed animal. When they have organized things to suit themselves, you can offer them a snack or lunch on the dishes they have set out.

This invitation is a way for toddlers to practice helpful household skills, acting out actions they see in everyday life. It is also an exploration of one-to-one correspondence, an early math skill.

Outdoor/Sensory Invitation: Backyard texture search

You can offer this invitation inside your home if you do not have access to outdoor space. Challenge your child to find as many different textures as they can around the space. Can they find something:

Soft
Rough
Squishy
Smooth
Thin
Prickly

This invitation gives children vocabulary to match with what they are feeling with their fingers. It also encourages children to explore the world in a different way using a sense other than sight.

Lakewood for Middlers: April 29

April 29, 2020 by betsy Leave a Comment

Good morning! It’s Wednesday and looks like it’s going to be another warm day. Here are some invitations that you can offer your child inside or outside.

Sensory Invitation: Wash muddy cars, balls, etc. in a container with soapy water. You can even make a shower for your toys by cutting holes in the bottom of a cup and pouring water into it.

Intent: We use sensory activities for the middlers to explore their five senses. This activity will allow for the middlers to enjoy multiple sensory experiences such as touch, hearing, and sight.

Art/Science Invitation: Chromatography Butterfly
Use a white coffee filter and draw a thick circle in the middle with a non-permanent marker (think about the ring around the bullseye on a target). Fold the coffee filter in half and then in half again so it’s in a cone shape. Get a short glass of water. Pull apart the coffee filter so it balances right on the glass with only the tip of the coffee filter cone touching the water. Make sure the colored marker part does NOT go in the water. Let the filter sit and watch what happens as the water begins to flow up the paper.

Note: If you do not have basket-type coffee filters, you can cut a circle from a paper towel. We had a little trouble keeping just the tip in the water, but the experiment was a success.

When completed and dry add a string or pipe cleaner to the middle to create a butterfly!

Intent: This is an art experiment for the middlers to complete start to finish. This activity helps promote fine motor development using the pincer grip. This also allows the middlers to observe how the water flows up and mixes with the color of the marker they used.

Outdoor/Nature/Gross Motor Invitation: Color Run
On your driveway or sidewalk, color four (or more) areas (draw circles or squares) with different colors of chalk. Call out a color and have your child run to that color. Call out different colors in random orders. You can ask your child to jump, run, skip, etc. to the colored area.

Intent: Get outside and enjoy the nice weather and beautiful spring scenery. We want to encourage the middlers to use all of their big body muscles to enhance gross motor development. This activity also promotes color recognition.

Lakewood for Toddlers: April 28

April 28, 2020 by betsy Leave a Comment

Good morning! It looks like it is going to be a beautiful spring day in Durham. Here are a few invitations for your toddler this morning.

Science Invitation: Shadow explorations

Where is the light making shadows in your home today? Open the blinds or curtains and let the light shine in. Your toddler can explore the light and shadows using their hands and body, pieces of fabric, or other small things that make shadows. You can also create a shadow theater with a flashlight and a blank section of wall in a darker space.

In exploring light and shadow, children are investigating the properties of both. If the light changes, what happens to their shadow? Why do shadows move? In what ways are they different from reflections in mirrors?

Art Invitation: Mark making with crayons or pastels

This invitation can stand alone, or be an interesting extension of the shadow exploration above. For either you will need some paper and crayons or child-safe pastels and perhaps some tape to hold the paper down. If you have a space in your home with bright, shadow-forming light, you can tape the paper there, or put the paper on a clipboard and set it in that area. Invite your child to see what happens to their marks in the light versus the shadow. They might also want to draw lines around the shadow or the light on their paper.

This invitation moves mark making into the dynamic realm of light and shadow. It is an opportunity for scientific exploration, creative expression, and fine motor development.

Outdoor/Large Motor Invitation: Ball and bucket toss and carry

Round up a bunch of balls (or make some from crumpled paper) and a bucket or basket. Invite your child to explore the materials. They may throw or kick the balls far and wide, throw them into the bucket, place them carefully in the bucket and then dump them out, or something else entirely.

Moving balls in and out of a container is an opportunity to explore scattering, transporting, and collecting. It also uses large muscles.

Lakewood for PreK: April 28

April 28, 2020 by betsy Leave a Comment

Good morning! It looks like it is going to be a lovely Tuesday in Durham, at least in terms of weather. Here are a few invitations you might want to offer your preschool-aged child.

Math/Art Invitation: Making patterns

For this invitation you will need something with which your child can create patterns. This could be pattern blocks, a deck of cards, or blocks. You can create an ABAB pattern with your child if they are new to this concept, or just invite them to create patterns and designs with the materials.

Understanding and creating patterns is a math skill building block for young children.

Sensory Invitation: making designs and patterns with natural objects

If your child does not have a collection of natural objects (sticks, pine needles, rocks, acorns, blades of grass, etc.), you can invite them to create one and come up with a special place to keep it. If they do have a collection, invite them to get it out and see what kind of designs and patterns they can make. This might be an interesting time to introduce images of mandalas.

Inviting children to design work builds capacity for creative expression while also working with symmetry, balance, pattern and other design concepts.

Science/Art Invitation: Baking soda and vinegar “painting”

For this invitation you will need a washable tray with sides, baking soda, vinegar, food coloring, some small jars or containers and spoons or pipettes. Spread a thin layer of baking soda across the bottom of the tray to create the canvas, pour some vinegar into the jars and add a few drops of food coloring to each. Invite your child to slowly pour drops of colored vinegar onto the baking soda. Take a photo of their fizzing designs when they are done. This invitation is especially interesting for young children if you have pipettes or other small droppers for moving the vinegar. Your home may smell of pickles after this if you do it inside.

Watching baking soda and vinegar react is always exciting and the brilliant colors on the white soda are a striking medium for creative expression. Depending on what colors you use in the vinegar, this invitation can also be a way for children to explore color theory.