Giveaway closed! Thank you so much to everyone who entered, I really appreciate it!
I have excellent news! Today is Manipulatives Monday, and Mother Goose Time is giving away a great prize! One lucky winner will receive TWO bags of manipulatives! Mother Goose Time will chose the prizes, but I assure you, whatever they send will be a lot of fun for your children!
Manipulatives are a big hit in our house. Every month we get two new bags of manipulatives, and every month Little Guy asks if he can play with them before the month starts. The answer is always no, but he tries every month anyways. During the month we use them for the assigned activities but after we are done with the curriculum, I let him add them to his toy collection.
One thing that is in almost every box is a set of counters. These are often in the shape of animals, which are Little Guy's favorites. They are used for a variety of activities, and are always multiple colors, sizes, and/or shapes so they can be used for sorting.
We have also gotten lacing beads, magnets, geoboards, attribute blocks, and other various manipulatives in our wonderful curriculums sets from Mother Goose Time.
Little Guy made an "F" on the Geoboard.
Attribute Blocks help children sort by various obvious and subtle attributes, including thickness.
The manipulatives almost always come in resealable bags for convenience.
One of Little Guy's all-time favorite activities: Playing with any sort of animal counter in cornmeal. Entertains him for about an hour most of the time.
In September we got a set of Family Stamps, which were different than what we usually get, which is always fun!
There are many ways to use manipulatives in teaching your children. They can be used as counters to teach them one-to-one correspondence. You can sort them by various attributes, and then sort them again for a double challenge. They can be used as toys in imaginative play (my son's favorite way to use them), markers in games or different activities, art tools, or probably a million other things I am not creative enough to think of. The variety of manipulatives we receive each year is a great part of Mother Goose Time, and one that I am happy I can share with you!
Now the GIVEAWAY*!
I receive free curriculum from Mother Goose Time in exchange for sharing our experience. All opinions are my own.
Awesome Giveaway!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite tool is my iPad
ReplyDeleteWe don't let the children use interactive screens, but I know there are some fabulous educational apps out there, sometimes I am tempted to set my son up with some :) The little girl I used to baby-sit LOVED ABC Mouse!
DeleteMy favorite learning tool for my children is jigsaw puzzles.
ReplyDeletePuzzles are excellent! I am anxiously awaiting my son being able to do some more complex puzzles so we can do them as a family project. Mother Goose Time curriculum includes a new puzzle every month :)
DeleteMy grandson is autistic and non verbal we are learning sign language and we really love the signing time videos They are excellent I am learning alot from them as well
ReplyDeleteI don't know much sign language, but I have taught my son the alphabet. Not sure if he remembers it though, I should work on it again. It must be so wonderful for him to have a way to communicate!
DeleteBooks are my favorite learning tool for my children
ReplyDeleteYay books! We don't read as much as we should, but we usually do a story at nap and a Bible story at bedtime.
DeleteBooks are my favorite learning tool for my child
ReplyDeleteI never feel like I read to my son enough, but sometimes we have book binges, where we read like 20 books all in one sitting. He just keeps bringing me more :)
DeleteBooks are my favorite learning tool for my child
ReplyDeleteWe love drawing pads for practicing handwriting.
ReplyDeleteIt amazes me how quickly my son's handwriting improved when I had him start practicing. I mean it still looks awful, but he is only three and you can tell what letter he is writing at least half the time, so I am pretty impressed.
DeleteI like books and non-technological toys!
ReplyDeletemia2009(at)comcast(dot)net
Me too! We don't actually have any toys with batteries in them. Well, that is not true, we got him a toy drill for Christmas, and left the batteries in it, but he has already killed them.
DeleteMy favorite learning tool for my autistic son is the Signing Time video. I also use the flash cards to teach him every day because he loves them!
ReplyDeleteThank You for the chance!
Fiona N
Flashcards are not popular at the moment, but I love them!
DeleteMy favorite learning tool is books. We love to read together
ReplyDeleteI love books because not only do we get to hear a story, I also get to sneak in some extra snuggles :)
DeleteBooks are my favorite learning tool.
ReplyDeleteI think books win for the favorite learning tool! There is just so much that you can teach them, while getting in some cuddles!
DeleteBlocks are my fave learning tool.
ReplyDeleteBlocks are great. My son isn't to creative with them yet. He just builds tracks for his cars or a guitar with duplos (this kid loves music). No buildings or anything.
DeleteMy favorite learning tool is flash cards!
ReplyDeleteI love flashcards. People don't seem to appreciate them these days, but they are so efficient, and I loved them as a kid.
DeleteBooks for the 2 year olds and Legos for the 6 year old. Computer for the 11 year old and books and life for the 17 year old Rosanne
ReplyDeleteI like Legos, but the only thing I ever build (unless I have a set with instructions) is a house. I guess I never learned to build anything else...
DeleteMy favorite learning tool right now is a great interactive toy by CogniToys that helps re-enforce ABC's, 123's, songs and common phrases.
ReplyDeleteIs it the Dinosaur one? That is a pretty cool idea, and not having a screen is a giant bonus in my book!
Deletei love using cookingand food as a learning tool because it is real to the kids!
ReplyDeleteI like cooking with my son, he asks me almost every night if he can help with dinner :)
DeleteI love play dough. My toddler's favorite is a paper doll dress up set. :)
ReplyDeleteI got a pasta roller for Christmas, the kind that attaches to the KitchenAid mixer. I love it, and I told my husband it is like playing with PlayDoh. I LOVED paper dolls throughout my entire childhood. My favorite part of my American Girl magazine subscription was the paper doll of a real girl in the middle every issue. They don't do that anymore though, so I guess not everyone thought it was as amazing as I did...
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