Combining engineering skills and basic numeracy to make a ferris wheel full of happy customers!
We were kindly gifted the Picasso Tiles Ferris Wheel Set used in this post. All images and opinions used in this post are our own. This post contains affiliate links.
What you need:
- Picasso Tiles Ferris Wheel Set
- we also used our number inserts from a different Picasso Tiles set (but you could just use a dry erase marker or stickers)
- some form of loose part, we used our Learning Resources All About Me Family Counters
How it works:
Before I set up the activity I gave my kids plenty of time to explore the new ferris wheel. They thought it was pretty cool and really enjoyed building different shapes on it. It was a great link to some learning about weight and balance, with 5 year old big brother initially getting frustrated that his ferris wheel carriages were collapsing.
They soon got the hang of it and settled on building a fun star-shaped ferris wheel.
I then gathered the number tiles and family counters to set up a simple numeracy invitation for them. Their task was to fill the ferris wheel carriages with the family counters and then label the carriage with the correct number.
They had so much fun filling each carriage with the people. It was a great opportunity for big bro to help teach baby sis some basic numbers.
Carefully placing the people in the carriage and switching over the tiles also required some pretty stable fine motor skills!
Once they were done they had a blast spinning the ferris wheel round and round with the passengers inside. My favorite part of an activity like this is always the play that it prompts afterwards. They soon destroyed their ferris wheel and opted to build more spacious and luxurious carriages for their customers.
This really was a fun little STEM challenge for them both. The Picasso Tiles were ideal because both ages were able to build with them confidently and they were stable enough to avoid easy collapse and too much frustration. The Ferris Wheel Set gets regular revamps and I'm pretty sure those weary passengers are ready for a break from all the spinning!
- we also used our number inserts from a different Picasso Tiles set (but you could just use a dry erase marker or stickers)
- some form of loose part, we used our Learning Resources All About Me Family Counters
How it works:
Before I set up the activity I gave my kids plenty of time to explore the new ferris wheel. They thought it was pretty cool and really enjoyed building different shapes on it. It was a great link to some learning about weight and balance, with 5 year old big brother initially getting frustrated that his ferris wheel carriages were collapsing.
They soon got the hang of it and settled on building a fun star-shaped ferris wheel.
I then gathered the number tiles and family counters to set up a simple numeracy invitation for them. Their task was to fill the ferris wheel carriages with the family counters and then label the carriage with the correct number.
They had so much fun filling each carriage with the people. It was a great opportunity for big bro to help teach baby sis some basic numbers.
Carefully placing the people in the carriage and switching over the tiles also required some pretty stable fine motor skills!
Once they were done they had a blast spinning the ferris wheel round and round with the passengers inside. My favorite part of an activity like this is always the play that it prompts afterwards. They soon destroyed their ferris wheel and opted to build more spacious and luxurious carriages for their customers.
This really was a fun little STEM challenge for them both. The Picasso Tiles were ideal because both ages were able to build with them confidently and they were stable enough to avoid easy collapse and too much frustration. The Ferris Wheel Set gets regular revamps and I'm pretty sure those weary passengers are ready for a break from all the spinning!
No comments :
Post a Comment