Exploring shapes using the gigantic scrunchie or cooperation band

A while ago I posted a tutorial (here) on how to sew a giant scrunchie which could be used for the classic schoolyard game Elastics. In our household the gigantic scrunchie, which is also otherwise known as a co-operation band in the educational and sport's sector, has been used for more than just Elastics. In an earlier post (here),I showed how the children used it to play 'horse and carriage' as well as an obstacle to jump and tumble over.

Today I want to share with you another way we've been using our gigantic scrunchie. With this beautiful sunny weather we've been having in Germany, we've taken the scrunchie back outside to use it as a tool for making and exploring shapes.  With just my daughter and I playing, we we're able to make squares, rectangles and a range of polygons. In order to see what shape we had made we looked at the shadows we casted on the lawns.

I really liked using the scrunchie for making polygons. This also lead to a chat between my daughter and I  about  how we can find out the name of some shapes by counting how many sides they have. I also explained that if she could count to 10 in Greek it would be easy for her to work out the name of these shapes as they relate to the names of the Greek numbers.

For those of you who are interested, numbers 1 to 10 in Greek are...

Image from http://gogreece.about.com/od/greeklanguage/a/learn_to_count_in_greek.htm?utm_source=pinterest&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=shareurlbuttons_nip

As you can see Pente is very close to PENTA gon. Exi is very close to HEXAgon. Epta is close to HEPTAgon. Octo is very much like OCTAgon. Ennea is probably the only one this is quite dissimilar with the shape name being NONAgon. Deka is again similar to DECAgon. The small differences are due to the way English speakers have translated some sounds. The letter E in Greek represented by H when translated or used in English. You might have seen t-shirts from Greece with HELLAS written on them. We pronounce the H but in Greek it is ELLAS.

Here we are attempting to make a hexagon. Unfortunately it was sometimes a bit tricky to get the shape just right but we could still count the sides and name the shape.

This was our attempt at a pentagon. We achieved 5 sides but not the typical pentagon shape we are so used to. My head kept getting in the way!

I can imagine this would be a great activity with more kids. Each child could create a corner and position themselves to make more regular shapes. With more children you could also attempt more complicated polygons and try to work out their names. You could learn to count beyond 10 in Greek to see how similar the names are to the Greek numbers.

Doing it in this fashion the shape would not cast a shadow before the children but underneath the shape. You would have to look at the shape from above to see what it was. Here is an example of my little monkey and her cousins making a triangle.  As you can see there is still a shadow but just from underneath.

Well there you have it! Who would have thought I'd be posting about giant scrunchies, polygons and Greek numbers all in the same post? I sure as pie didn't see it coming.

Well until next time, happy learning and happy playing.

DIY Backyard obstacle races without spending money on equipment!

Continuing the theme for Moving it in May we decided to get really inventive and make our very own backyard obstacle course, out of nothing but what we had lying around. Sometimes you find yourself thinking you need to fork out money on expensive equipment for your kids to get a real physical workout. I know I get caught up in that trap from time to time. In Australia we bought everything from trampolines, swings, slides and a climbing set. Now that we are on an extremely tight budget, there is no option but to make do with that we have.

As you can see in the photo above, our obstacle course has 7 elements.  The course was designed to include elements that required balancing, crawling and jumping so that the children were forced to work on their   vestibular system, their core muscles and proprioceptive sense. Jumping, crawling and tumbling also provide fantastic opportunities for children to further develop their body awareness and gross motor skills. 

Note: If you feel your children are not that great on their feet, maybe they have extra physical needs, a good idea to keep them safe is to get them to wear bike helmets. I tried this with my child before I knew that she could manage the course easily.

Following are a few photos to help you see the components of our course, how we made them and how we used them.

The course begins with sliding down this slide, which my in-laws have permanently in the garden. It's just a plastic kids' slide that you could easily pick up second hand if you don't have one. 

Next we found two long wooden poles on the side of the house. Not sure where they came from but we tied them up with some tape and they became the 'balancing beam' to walk across. 

Two more sticks, a few old bricks and tada! you have some mini hurdles. 

We were super lucky to find some old tires in the shed. This made a great balancing element for our course. Initially I thought the kids could jump in them but they decided to walk on them, balancing their way across.

A few old pots spaced like this acted as a running section with the kids having to run, weaving through and around the pots. Though at one point the kids decided to just jump over them. 

This here is a pool noodle cut in half length ways and pinned into the ground in an arch shape using tent pegs. For this element the kids had to crawl under the arch.

The last part required an adult's help to hold the hoola hoop up. For this part of the race, the kids had to do a somersault through the hoop and then run back to the slide, finishing the race.

To make it more of an official race, we wrote out names down on pieces of paper on which I then wrote the times they kids had completed the race in. I used my phone as a stopwatch which made it easy to time each child's attempt. The kids loved finding out if they'd beat their personal best time. I think timing the kids was what motivated them the most to play this game for over an hour. I am sure at the end of it they went through the course at least 30 times. (I ran out of space on the paper for writing all the times down)

Here are some shots of the kiddies going through the obstacle course.

 Anyhow I hope this post has shown you how easy it is to set up a fun physical activity for your children without breaking the bank. Of course the beauty of it is that you can redesign and arrange the course every time you set it up again, keeping the kids interested and challenged!


Until next time, happy playing!

Bowling without a ball or pins, how do we do that?

We have had the most shocking weather this afternoon, gloomy and rainy, not that cold but still not the kind of weather you go out in. My daughter thought this was a great opportunity to beg her mother for a Disney film but we'd already watched one the day before, ok and the day before that. So not today kiddo!

So while she continued to nag and play the 'I'm tired, I need a quiet film' game I searched the house for stuff we could use to play a fun and inspiring game and specifically one that did not require us to sit on our bums.

So with a hoola hoop, some bean bags and a bunch of balloons we invented our own version of ten pin bowling, minus the ball and pins.

Just to let you know this kept the whole family entertained for around an hour and we only stopped because we had to sit down for dinner. Best thing about it, the nagging for a film instantly stopped!

So if you are wondering how balloons, a hoola hoop and bean bags become a game of bowling continue reading!

What you will need

• 5 bean bags
• 10 balloons 
• 1 hoola hoop
• Something to mark a line to throw from. 
• All breakables removed from the area. 

Just like bowling, the aim of the game is to throw something that will move ten items. This time you throw the bean bags to knock the balloons out of the hoop. Like in bowling you get a limited amount of shots to knock out the ten balloons. In the our version that we played ,we let each player have 5 shots.

Once you've had your shots you need to count how many you've knocked out and mark that down on a tally sheet

Note: If you have a preschooler or first grader you can easily use this game to introduce subtraction. Just count the balloons left in the hoop and subtract that number from ten!

Just like in regular bowling, you can play a round of 10 turns and at the end tally how many balloons you knocked out of the hoop to get your total score. Person with the highest score wins!

For anyone trying this with a non-verbal child, below are two aided language displays you can use with this game. One is specifically for this game and other other is a general numbers 0-10 that you can use with the game or for other games with numbers. Feel free to use for personal use only.

Note: If you don't know how to use aided language displays please see my post here for more details. 

I hope you get to try our version of bowling. If only I had video of my daughter playing. How she laughed every time she hit the balloons making them fly into the air! This is seriously some great family fun!

Happy bowling and happy playing!