Today was wet and gloomy outside, and since I had a lot of work to do preparing for Shabbat, I let the oldest boys run off and entertain themselves. That left me with one preschooler to entertain. Off and on for the past 4 years, I have used "Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready" to help me get an idea of where each of the boys are before we start a solid curriculum with them. I'm not very consistent with it, at all; I use it as an evaluation reference, flipping thru the last 6 months to a year and looking over what they know, what they should and maybe doing a few of the activities with them if I'm in doubt of their ability in any given area. This year, I decided to try to be a little more proactive, with my 3rd son now officially a preschooler. Little did I know that his small lesson would turn into a game that all the boys would enjoy!
Brody, exploring the clothespinsToday's lesson was a game of sorts - toss clothes pins into a small bucket from a short distance. The point is to refine hand and eye coordination, learn to gauge distance and understand that all our tries are good, even if they don't make it to the target. All good lessons, right? After Brody had a turn at tossing his 10 clothes pins a few times, the older boys asked if they could try. We played the game a couple ways and it seems like they enjoyed it! I'm sure other families have this all figured out and you can search for it online, but here are our versions that we played today:
What you need:
10 Clothes pins for each child. Be sure that they are different colors or materials ( plastic for one child, wood for another). I made the mistake of mixing and matching because some of them were in use on the clothes line... big no no! If at all possible, paint or have the kids color clothes pins in sets of 10 and just keep them around.
2 or more small containers, like baskets with no handles, coffee cans, mixing bowls, etc. If you feel like you need it, use cups for each childs pins.
A line to stand behind. Tape on the floor, a bench, the point is to stand behind it and shoot. The bench worked really well. Each child could stand to play and have a table top to put their pins on during their turn.
Ways to play:
Clothespin missles! The first game we played was something like darts. Brody tossed his pins at the basket, placed about 5 feet away (lengthen this for older kids) from the bench, and we counted how many he got in and how many out. There were no "misses". After 2 or 3 turns, his aim improved and we moved the bowl back a foot. Very easy, but everyone loved it! It was good to see the older boys challenging themselves by stepping further back for the next round.
Clothespin Shootout! Two children stand side by side behind the bench, with their clothespins (different colors!) There are two (or more) containers placed on the floor, one at 5 feet from the bench, the other at 7 or 8 ft. Depending on the children's ages, give them 30-60 seconds to toss their clothes pins at the containers. Clothespins that make it into the nearest container are worth ten points each, the farther container 25 points each. Prizes can be anything you want them to be! Again, so easy and so much fun! If you have a very competitive child (in my house, this is around 4-5 yrs old), its best not to pair them up against anyone for the shootout, but let them win a prize for their personal best of pins in.
There are so many ways that this could be played and so many items could be substituted for the clothespins (and what kid doesn't love to throw things in the house?) I'm feeling a little long winded now, so I think that I'll leave it at that and say that I hope you find a new way to play this with your kids and that you'll share it with me. We had fun and we beat the rainy day without resorting to a day of t.v.! Take care :)
