Art Table at Playtime

Besides being a fun activity, doing art with young children also gives them excellent benefits for physical growth.  Holding brushes, squeezing glue, and gripping crayons builds fine motos skills and hand strength.  Guiding markers, crayons, or paint brushes helps kids control their physical movements and fine tune their hand-eye coordination.  Early scribbling and drawing is excellent writing prep because it uses the same musles needed for future handwriting. 

Some open-ended art activities that I introduced at the Playtime art table:

-          Glue black stripes onto a white zebra body

-          Crayon rubbings on animal print plastic plates

-          Q-tip and glitter glue painting on bear coloring sheet

Flannelboards at Playtime

 

Interacting with flannelboards help children develop cognitive thinking and important math skills.  They can reinforce counting, sorting, and pattern recognition.  Children also learn about cause and effect when pieces stick, move, or disappear. 

I usually bring out two flannelboard sets at each playtime.  Some of the popular sets include:

-          Zoo animals

-          Five Green & Speckled Frogs

-          Old Macdonald Had a Farm

-          One Little Bluebird

-          Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd

Board game table at Playtime

Playing board games with young children helps them grow socially and emotionally.  Children practice taking turns.  They learn about fairness and respecting others by following rules.  Plus, they learn about handling feelings, such as winning and losing gracefully.

Some board games available at my library that are fun to play with  young people:

-         Hoot Owl Hoot

-          Hedgehog game

-          Sneaky Snacky Squirrel

-          Perfection, Preschool Version

-          Hi Ho Cherry-O

 Hisss 

Educational Toys at Playtime

 

Children should play with toys because they boost cognitive development, cultivate motor skills, and encourage social growth. Play-based learning helps young children make sense of the world through safe, engaging exploration. 

The National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC) has a nice article about selecting toys for your child: https://www.naeyc.org/our-work/families/why-this-toy.

Toys enjoyed at my Playtimes:

Forest and safari animal footprint stones

Animal puppets

Dinosaur number train

Clothespin counting set

Shape turtles

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More Flannelboards at Playtime

Interacting with flannelboards helps build early literacy while also supporting math concepts.  Telling a story with felt pieces builds vocabulary and may also mimic the left-to-right process we use for reading in English.  They can be used to teach counting, sequencing, sorting, and shape recognition.

I love watching a caregiver and child tell a story together using the felt pieces. 

I usually bring out two flannelboard sets at each playtime.  Some of the popular sets include:

-          Five little penguins

-          Mouse Loves Cheese

-          Great Enormous Turnip

-          Five Little Umbrellas

-          Number set 0-10

The Art & Crafts Table at Playtime

According to the Children’s Museum of Pittsburg, the benefits of art in early childhood learning include Physical Development (Fine Motor Skills and Multisensory Engagement), Cognitive Development (Visual Processing and Creative Thinking/Imagination), plus Social-Emotional Learning (Self-Esteem, Cultural Education & Perspective-Taking, as well as Self-Expression & Emotional Development). 

Some open-ended art activities that I introduced on the Playtime art table:

-          Paper plate snowflake collage – Drew a simple star on the paper plate that the children then glued on cotton balls, q-tips, and shortened straws

-          Dinosaur scales – glue tissue paper scales onto a dinosaur drawing

-          Polar bear snow scene – snowflake stamping with receipt cores and polar bear cut-outs

-          Paper plate cookie - bingo dabber pens onto a paper plate

Playing with Toys at Playtime

Toys are learning tools for all children at all ages. Playing with toys promotes cognitive, social, and physical development by encouraging children to safely practice real-world skills, experiment with cause and effect, and navigate feelings. 

Toys the children at my Playtimes enjoyed:

-          Popsicle alphabet/counting toy

-          Threading or lacing beads

-          Box of polar animal puppets and stuffies

Wood and velcro pizza cutting toy 

Flannelboards at Playtime

Flannelboards are an interactive and hands-on tool for reinforcing narrative storytelling skills, for practicing fine motor control, as well as for teaching concepts such as sequencing and counting.

I love watching a caregiver and child tell a story together using the felt pieces. 

I usually bring out two flannelboard sets at each playtime.  Some of the popular sets include:

-          Five Little Penguins

-          Counting Pets

-          Color Butterflies

-          Five Enormous Dinosaurs

-          Dino Colors

Building Block Play at Playtime

According to NAEYC (at https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2015/ten-things-children-learn-block-play), playing with blocks and other building toys allows children to learn nine important skills: 

• Problem solving
• Imagination
• Self expression
• Mathematics
• Continuity and permanence
• Creativity
• Science
• Self esteem
• Social and emotional growth

During the Playtimes at my library, the wood blocks are always out.  I rotate several other building toys.  Some of the popular toys include:

• Big blue foam blocks
• Large dinosaur bones
• Wood stacking rocks
• Bristle blocks
• Temi flower garden building set

Favorite Playtime Arts & Crafts Activities

Doing arts and crafts with young children helps to build fine motor skills like cutting, gluing, and hand-eye coordination.  It also boosts confidence through completed projects.  It provides an outlet for emotional self-expression while naturally teaching children how to follow instructions.

The arts and crafts activities that the children who attend my Playtimes like to do the most:

-          Playdough with cookie cutters and playdough toys

-          Watercolor paints

-          Rubber stamps

Board Game Table at Playtime

 

Playing board games with young children is a powerful learning tool disguised as fun. They help to build foundational social-emotional skills like turn-taking, sharing, and emotional regulation.  They reaffirm every day skills such as counting, color recognition, and pattern matching.  Board games also encourage screen free play with family and friends. 

I love bringing out board games for the children to experiment with.  There are a great many available, old classics along with some entertaining new games.  Even if a child is not ready to play the game according to the written rules, it is fun to watch them interact with the game pieces in imaginative ways. 

 

Some board games available at my library:

-          Pengoloo

-          Chickyboom

-          Dinosaur dominoes

-          Candy Land

Pretend Play at Playtime

 

Pretend play allows children to safely practice social interactions, experiment with language, and develop creative problem-solving skills.  It doesn’t take much for children to start pretending!  My pretend play (a.k.a. dramatic play) corner consists of a box with the lines of a stove top on the lid, a cash register, some toy pots and pans, plus some plastic fruit and other foods. 

Gross Motor Play at Playtime

Gross motor activities are essential for children of all ages to build large muscle strength, improve balance and coordination, and boost overall physical health. Most people think of activities, like running, jumping, and climbing when they think about gross motor play.  In an indoor Library Play Time (intended for ages 6 months to 6 years) I bring out these toys to get the kiddos moving:

-          Stepping/balance stones (plastic)

-          Hopscotch rug

-          Ladybug tunnel