My Top Eleven Websites for Play and Education
Well, there are just some sites I like to visit again and again because they are filled with awesome ideas for materials and I simply love sharing some with you. I hope you can benefit as much as I did from them. Here is the list of top 11 (extra one is bonus!) I used, in order of how frequently I used them. The ones from 5-11, I do not visit them as frequently but they are still good for ideas. Also, learning is all about practical activity, so do link up your worksheets with tangible activities for some fun and play!! :)
I have bookmarked this recently. It is good to have some practical activity coupled with these worksheets as worksheets can be well...
As Reiko loves her strawberries, I can purchase some strawberries and ask her to count till 20. Then, I would let her do the worksheet on "simple strawberry activity" (link above) and let her count. She can also learn to cancel and count. She also learn to count when the pictures are random and not in straight lines (which is what I have been practising on these days.
For Immanuel, I can use our cereals (yes the one we eat) and do a practical counting. Prepare some cereals in a box, let him count according to the numbers on the worksheet and then let him write the answer.
For me, I personally like this cause it teaches about sharing!!:) It also has ideas on magnetism, something which I touched briefly with Immanuel before.
I used this link for my Chinese Language colouring pages. I find a limited range of Chinese resources online frankly, so do share with me if you know any!
I love doing art with my kids because they instill creativity and time passes quickly :P Esp when I am handling both of them when hub is still at work. For the above "Sensory Play" link, I kind of did this before, only I used soft laminating paper so that the decorative items can stick by itself and does not require hair gel.
This website has different categories that are useful. They have recipes as well as kid printables. For me, I like the organization tables to organize activities or allow me to understand what children can do at certain ages. Above is a link on manners, very important!! :)
Creative play, woohoooo my favourite! I got some playdough ideas from here. Like making watermelon, strawberries. These are easy sensory play, only require two colours and you can add your own seeds, which is good for fingertraining and simple counting.
For the younger ages, I printed out patterns of it. The size and colour is the same as Melissa and Doug blocks. I bought mine (unbranded)sometime ago from a Popular bookstore sale and was pleasantly surprised that they fit as well! I used this to do the blocks with Reiko when I am teaching her letters. She could match the shapes and colours with help at 2 years old.
This is a good website to find worksheets. However, you have to upload your worksheets and collect points and then use the points to download other worksheets. This is good for me cos I like to create and target areas that the kids are not so good in. You can choose to buy books and do but I prefer to use worksheets.. I will print on rough paper, do and then discard. Additionally, if I were to start an assessment book, I feel a compulsive disorder to "finish" it and get it over and done with. Worksheets are the best. :) You can also print pictures to make your own flashcards.
This is a site that I used to encourage Immanuel and Reiko to be interested in reading. I actually bought the app for a year as it can also be used on ipad. It also includes components like maths. When I am super exhausted from all the playing and learning, at least they are still doing something educational and fun.
I have bookmarked this only recently. It is a writing exercise app that allows you to create any chinese words you want. Good for me because I can print out the worksheets on the day that I want Immanuel to write certain words. Superb!!
One of my favourite websites for all time and I printed a LOT of materials from here to make my tiny books for easy reading. I also read some of the ideas from Science experiments and then modify the ideas for my own use.
