Getting Their Attention Span Ready
Get a Feel for Their Attention Span
The next level for my kiddo and Gigi was at the kitchen table, playing with some Play-Doh and with his color-sorting game.
They started by making balls and "snakes." They cut the snakes with a plastic butter knife, wrote his name in snakes, counted balls, named the colors, and did more little lessons that develop hand-eye coordination and basic skills. Gigi says doing things like this is great for testing their attention spans to see what they're ready to do. If they don't want to sit still to play with you, they're not ready for structured school time.
They also built a bird, a bird's nest, and a turtle. We let our imaginations run and also cut squares and rectangles.
We played this way for about 30 minutes. Gigi says that's good enough to start structured, intentional school time.
“If they can play one thing with you for 30 minutes they’re ready for 15 or 20 minutes of school. You have to meet them where they are and do what they’re interested in when they’re starting,” Gigi says.
Double Down with Different Activities
Next, Gigi repeated those same color-recognition skills by digging this little color-and-animal sorting game out of a drawer. Before, he’d just used the tongs to move the animals around and build the fine motor skills like we talked about in the last blog, but now he focused on colors and sorting the animals into their bowls.
Next time we visited Gigi, she also made these super cute cards to introduce primary and secondary colors with Play-Doh. Her student just thought he won the lottery though, because, *gasp* we’re mixing Play-Doh and new colors were appearing.
Disclaimer: We mixed the Play-Doh as much as he did. He didn’t make the perfect balls pictured, but he tried! He left to go see what the dogs were doing… he came back. It wasn’t a “Pinterest Perfect” activity, but he did enjoy it.
The next time we did this activity (when I took these photos), he said very excitedly, “Yellow and blue make green!”
Keep it Fun. Trick them into Playing.
“Just because it’s learning and lessons doesn’t mean it can’t be fun,” Gigi says. “Kids are so much more likely to stick with something longer if they think you’re just playing with them.”
After every activity, we keep playing. We bust out more Play-Doh colors and tools or plastic cutlery. We sit with him and play. We let him mix ALL of the secondary colors together to make brown in the name of his education and to show him he can in fact, sit down and do ONE THING for an extended amount of time.
Links For Toys:
Sorting Toy with Tongs: https://amzn.to/480Kr3m
Play-Doh Accessories: https://amzn.to/47ivgm3
Play-Doh Barber Shop: https://amzn.to/4yrDPGf
Gigi suggests getting a bulk tub of Play-Doh if you're going to let them mix colors. She got a neat "Super Can" at Walmart that just has primary colors and came with more than one tub per color. Click here for the Walmart link. I couldn't find it on Amazon!
Primary Colors Play-Doh: https://amzn.to/4i5LHqQ
