Colour-Matching Drop Box

This September I started training to become a Montessori-qualified teacher.  It’s been busy studying with a pre-schooler and a toddler at home, but I’m hoping the course will help me to facilitate my children’s learning and to enable me to share our experiences on here with you.

The inspiration to create drop boxes came from an attempt to apply the principle of “control of error” to the children’s activities.  Control of error refers to a mechanism whereby a child can perceive his/her own mistake when undertaking an activity because the activity is designed according to the principle of one-to-one correspondence.  A typical example of this would be a jigsaw puzzle in which every piece is different and only interlocks with the correct corresponding piece.  

The first drop box I created was for my 2.5 year old who has developed an interest in colours (or at least the names of colours).  He would point to a red car and say “I want the green car” and this would lead to some frustration on his part and confusion on ours.  Rather than correcting him each time, I thought it would be more effective for him to realise his mistake through a self-checking element incorporated into the drop box. 

I purchased a sturdy box from Hobbycraft and cut some windows into the lid.  Around the edge of each window I created a border using eight different-coloured marker pens to correspond to the different-coloured pom poms to be posted into the windows.  One of the pom poms was multi-coloured, so I represented this with a multi-coloured border.  (I added the names of the colours above each window so that my 3 year old could also use the box and become familiar with the words that correspond to the colours).  Inside the box across the base, I made coloured circles to correspond to the coloured edges of the windows, so that when my son posted the pom poms into the box, he could remove the lid and check whether he had posted the pom poms into the correct window.  To make the self-checking element more pronounced, I could have created sections inside the box (as I did with the letter-matching box), but as I used only a few pom poms in this activity, they tended to fall exactly on the coloured circles, making it obvious which window they had been posted into.  The decision to use just a few pom poms worked well as I found my son’s concentration was beginning to wane as he came to the end of the activity.

The drop box managed to grip my son’s attention and after six or seven attempts over the course of a couple of weeks, he was able to match the pom poms correctly and refer to the colours of objects in the room accurately. 

What we used:

• A sturdy cardboard box (a shoebox would have worked well provided the coloured borders were not obscured by writing/patterns)
• A craft knife
• Marker pens
• Coloured pom poms

Click here to see our letter-matching drop box

Singaporean Shop Tiles: Exploring Patterns, Colour and Symmetry

A stunning decorative feature that you cannot miss in Singapore is the beautiful tiles that adorn the traditional Singaporean shophouse.  My parents bought me a book called "Singapore Shophouse", by Julian Davison and Luca Invernizzi Tettoni.  The book is full of the history and images of the shophouse and Wugs loves to flick through it pointing out the pretty designs. Following on from our coloured "glass" tile craft yesterday (that I've featured in the picture on the bottom left), I painted some more tiles in traditional shophouse colours for Wugs to decorate.

The craft yesterday made me realise that Wugs' interest would only last long enough to decorate possibly two tiles, so I decorated the tan-coloured tile using a black marker pen to show what an older child could be capable of.

What we used:
Egg cartons
1 Packet of Heinz Baby Pasta Stars (which looked like miniature flowers)
Le Fantasie flower-shaped pasta
White, red, green, tan-coloured paint
Yellow, red, blue food colouring
White Distilled vinegar
Ziploc/freezer bags
Black Marker pen
Fake flowers
Cornstarch/Corn flour Glue

Yesterday I coloured the pasta by placing it in Ziploc bags, adding the food colouring and a teaspoon of Distilled white vinegar and squishing it around until the pasta had soaked up the colour. Then I left it to dry overnight.

This morning I laid out the materials including the cornstarch glue we prepared for our tile yesterday.  (This was made from 30g of cornstarch/corn flour mixed with 150ml of water.  I mixed just a little of the water and cornstarch to remove any lumps and then I added the rest of the water gradually to the mixture in the saucepan over a low heat).  We covered the egg carton with glue first and then Wugs added the decoration.  The egg carton was a good material to use for creating tiles because it encourages a certain amount of balance not only because of its shape but also because Wugs has used one for counting and sorting before.  It also enabled him to explore the materials and colours without them sticking firmly to the tile.  In fact all day he has returned to the red and green tiles and added bits to them from around the house such as real flowers, pennies etc. I like the fact that the patterns are not permanent, so we might leave them that way, but if we want to display them on the wall, we can easily tap out the pasta that didn't directly stick to the glue and then add another layer of glue to seal them down.

This tile craft was easier (so definitely appropriate for a 2.5 year old) than the glass tile craft we attempted yesterday as it wasn't necessary for Wugs to cover the whole tile and the pasta shapes formed the intricate details and gave a sense of balance to the tile.

Exploring Colour, Symmetry and Light with "Glass" Tiles

Today's craft was inspired by my love of a place in Singapore called Kampong Glam, a neighbourhood with Malay and Middle Eastern influence.  Along its streets are rows and rows of shops selling jewellery, rugs, lamps, fabrics and coloured glass tiles - all with intricate patterns, bright colours and a variety of textures.  I wondered how we could re-create some of this beauty through our crafts and a craft that a 2.5 year old could do.

I managed to get hold of an egg carton that carries 30 eggs and I cut it into squares (so that there are 9 egg holders to every tile).  I will use the other 3 tiles for a Singaporean Shophouse tile project that I have planned tomorrow.  I coloured this tile in white paint so that the tissue paper would easily shine through.  Meanwhile I cut out squares of blue and red coloured transparent paper and squares of tin foil (the tiles I've seen have a combination of coloured glass and mirrors in them) and I thought it would be nice for Wugs to handle a different material other than the coloured paper.  As Wugs would also be sticking the paper to the carton, I made some child-friendly glue using 30g of cornstarch and 150ml of water.  I added some of the water to the cornstarch and stirred it around to remove all of the lumps.  Then I placed it into a saucepan on a low heat and kept stirring the mixture until it boiled.  Once that had cooled down we started to add the glue to the egg carton with a brush.  I found it easier to cover the egg carton with glue before adding the paper as the paper tends to get stuck to the brush and hands and can be frustrating and distracting.

What we used:

Egg carton 

White paint

Blue and red coloured transparent "sweet wrapper" paper

Tin foil

Cornstarch Glue

I found this craft a little challenging for a 2.5 year old as it involves creating symmetry and balance.  Wugs did so in terms of adding the tin foil squares, but I think a child of 4 years or older would appreciate it better.  Having said that, Wugs enjoyed sticking and using the brush to spread the glue and appreciated the reflectiveness of the tin foil.

Colour Matching Wheel

As Wugs only naps once or twice a week, I've been looking for activities that will keep him entertained in the afternoons when he is too tired to go out, but still requires some stimulation.  I've discovered the wonderful world of busy bags!  They are activities that can fit into a small bag (usually a freezer bag) and can be useful in occupying children when travelling etc.  The colour-matching wheel is popular on the web.  I created this one by drawing around a plate, dividing up the segments and colouring them and the wooden pegs.  Then I laminated the wheel.  This isn't necessary, but I didn't fancy doing all that colouring when the inevitable will happen - some water or juice gets spilt on it.  This was a good activity to teach Wugs about colours and by using the pegs, he got a chance to develop his fine motor skills.

What we used:
White card
Felt tip pens
Wooden pegs
Laminator