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Thursday,
January 24, 2002
Circles from Play Dough
Recipe for Play Dough
1 cup flour
1 cup salt
1 Tablespoon cooking oil
Add small amounts of water slowly until
you have worked up a dough. Allow your child to help you with this,
punching it with their fingers, rolling it with a rolling pin, until it
forms a solid ball.
Have child roll dough into cylinders,
"snakes" and form them into a circle. Some of the circles cut off one
edge with a dull knife to make a C. Put this on a cookie sheet into a
cool over 200 degrees to dry.
While play dough is drying in the oven
pull out old magazines. Look for circles and show the child what they
are, as soon as they learn allow them to find their own circles. You
will be surprised to see them find circles from round flowers, faces,
car tires and on and on.
With a pair of children's scissors allow
the child to cut these circles out after you have torn the page from the
old magazine. You may have to shape them a little yourself if they have
never used scissors before.
On a large piece of poster board glue
these circles in place. Take the now dry circles and C's out of the oven
and allow them to cool a bit. Paint them with acrylic paint, allow to
dry. Glue them to the large piece of poster board with the cut out
circles of things there. Paste one of the C's at the top and write the
word circle there.
Painting
his name:
With a flat bristle brush John Ross was
allowed to paint his name on anything and everything possible. You will
have to hold their hand to help them with this. His name is now on his
wagon, sides, back and underneath. His shoes have his name on the soles.
His name is on his rubber ball, and on the back of the chair where he
sits (the chair is a fold up chair with a plastic seat. His grandfather
fixed it so it is steady and will not fold up).
We shaped some of the play dough into his
name and glued it onto a board his grandfather had prepared with his
help. The board had two holes drilled in the top and the knotted a small
rope for a hanger. After the name was glued to the board, Ross painted
the whole thing with a wide, wall painting brush. He now has a sign for
the door to his room.
We used a cookie sheet with salt
sprinkled on it to draw the letters in his name.
Friday, January 25, 2002 We used a ruler
to draw straight lines across a paper. We used lined note book paper so
we could see the lines. Colored felt tip pins are good for this because
of the many colors. After we drew the lines, we cut the paper into
strips. We glued the strips together at the ends creating a chain,
making circles from a strip of paper.
Next we took colored pins and drew
"straight lines," without the benefit of the ruler. This was almost an
instant ability since the practice was already done with the ruler.
We drew straight lines, cut out wider
strips, glued the edges together to make cylinders. We did numbers of
these. After we practiced on the paper, we took heavier colored paper
(old note book folders are good for this) cut the strips from these and
made heavier cylinders.
We took paper plates, cut a straight line
to the radius (center) of the circle. Use the correct terms, children
are amazing sponge like in their learning and will use the correct term
also. With the radius line cut you then can fold the circle into a cone.
You can trim it to fit atop the cylinder
and it becomes a "silo," for feed for the imaginary cattle. Put the cone
upside down, place the cylinder into it, drop glue on the edges, hold
for a moment and it will stay for a roof.
We drew a straight line, set a half
circle at the top, drew around it, angled a straight line for the letter
R. A straight line, a half circle with a kick, for the letter R.
We took an old catalogue and cut out all
the ladies who looked like Ross's mother Kathy. He cut them out and
glued them to a sheet of paper. We wrote Kathy's name across the bottom.
We did the same for his Aunt Kay. It was fun to see him pick out the
people who looked amazingly like the person, same hair style, body size,
clothing preference. We wrote the letter Kay under his aunt's pictures.
As we wrote the two names, we emphasized
that these letters were all made from straight lines.
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