Website Archive - January, 2007
Spotlight on Problem Solving
Children
Here are some websites with activities for children to enjoy online.
Julia’s Rainbow Corner, designed by Julia and her parents, is a fun website with lots of online games and activities for young children. Be an Earth Hero and help Julia recycle, Create Something Cool and design and make fun faces, play in Julia’s playroom in Fun For Brains, try instruments in Sounds, feed the Animals, read along with stories in Letters, and count in Numbers.
The bbc.co.uk website has a Schools – Pre-school section with lots of learning activities centered about their TV characters. Play games, try the activities, sing songs, and read stories with the Teletubbies, the Bobinogs, and the Tweenies, among others.
Parents
NAEYC’s Early Years Are Learning Years has a one page article Helping Toddlers Become Problem Solvers (PDF) that explains how toddlers use materials and toys to develop thinking skills. It also highlights simple activities for exploration and discovery leading to problem solving.
Here’s a simple game from the iVillage Preganant and Parenting website that uses your child’s favorite stuffed animal or doll to develop their listening, language and thinking skills. Check out Who’s That Knocking on My Door?
Fisher-Price’s Play and Learn Family Activities has a What’s Missing? game that is fun for you and your child. Just select some items from your home and go from there! This simple game develops classification, thinking and problem solving skills as well as language development.
Teachers
There are so many websites offering resources on thinking and problem solving skills, and we’ve highlighted just a few. So check them out!
PBS TeacherSource offers a number of PreK – Critical Thinking Skills through the PBS characters of Arthur, Caillou, Clifford and Dragon Tales in their Arts & Literature Lessons and Activities.
Also through the PBS TeacherSource website, there is a section From the Start: A Ready To Learn Resource for Pre-K-2 Educators dealing with The TV to Lesson Connection: Problem-Solving. This site includes programs to view, activities for classtime, online games to play, and books to read.
The PBS Kids Berenstain Bears website has a lengthy See, Think & Do Activity Guide (80 pages) that is intended to expand upon the television series. For each activity area there is an educational goal, learning area, objectives, materials needed, activities with detailed discussion questions, and suggested readings. Although there is a section of the guide that deals with series and video episodes, most of the activities can be adapted for use without viewing the episodes. Pages 75-76 contain an Index of Activities where you can locate activities based on the grade levels, learning areas, type of activites, etc.
Check out the Teachers.Net Lesson Bank – Category: Pre-school for over 200 lesson plans and activities on many developmental areas. Most of these activities involve developing thinking and problem solving skills.
[Posted on December 28, 2006]
