Play To Learn Diner: Counting with Fruit Salad Activity (Free Printable)

This is our first Play To Learn Diner activity designed for preschoolers.  I was a little worried about how it would be received, since one of our twins loves learning activities, but the other is resistant to them because he does not master them as easily.  I am very pleased to be able to report that both twins enjoyed this activity very much.  In fact, our son even came to me two hours later to tell me how much he liked the activity, so I hope other children out there will enjoy it just as much.

For this activity, we used Soft Fruit Counters, one plastic bowl for each child, and one of the counting worksheets (found below) for each child.  The Soft Fruit Counters set from Discount School Supply contains 108 pieces of fruit between 1" and 2" each.  You are welcome to use other types of pretend fruit, but you will need to have more than 20 pieces of fruit per child.  I liked using these because the size made them easy to manage for little hands and they fit inside the bowls perfectly.

TO PRINT:  Click on the image below to enlarge.  Then right-click on the image and select print.  Use your browser's back button to return to this page.

This activity is split into two parts.  The first part asks your child to choose any 10 pieces of fruit to put in his or her bowl in order to create a fruit salad recipe.  Then your child should count how many of each type of fruit is in the bowl and write the correct number in the box next to the appropriate fruit pictured on the worksheet.

The second part of the activity asks your child to repeat the same steps, but to choose 20 pieces of fruit, instead of 10.

(Click any image to enlarge)

This activity helps your child to practice counting from 1 to 10 and from 1 to 20.  Then there is more practice counting when he or she needs to figure out how many of each type of fruit they have in the bowl  Your child also will be introduced to writing numbers.  I had to make dotted lines for some of the numbers for both twins to trace.  Our daughter picked up writing her numbers quickly.  After the first time she traced a number, she did not need me to make dotted lines for her again for the same number.  Our son needed to trace most of his numbers, except for 0 and 1.

Thank you to Discount School Supply for sending us a complimentary product sample to use for this activity.

Play To Learn Diner: Learning Fractions & A Secret Sauce Recipe

Since our 7 year old son seems to have a good grasp on basic fractions, I thought it would be a good idea to show him how fractions can be applied in real life situations, such as cooking.  I have created a free printable activity using cooking conversions.  In this activity, your child will figure out the recipe for the Secret Sauce using what they have learned about how measurements in cups, tablespoons, and teaspoons relate to each other.  With the help of these Action Fun Appliances from CP Toys, we have also made a cooking video to demonstrate how to make the Play To Learn Diner's Secret Sauce.

To use the worksheet below, go over the conversion chart provided on the left side of the sheet with your child.  It would be helpful to provide a measuring cup and set of measuring spoons to help demonstrate your explanation.  If need be, use sugar or water to prove to your child that the left sides of the equal signs really are the same quantity as the right.

TO PRINT:  Click on image to enlarge.  Then right click and choose print.  Use your browser's back button to return to this page.

When you feel confident that your child understands the general concept of cooking conversions, ask him or her to fill in the right side of the worksheet, which will reveal the Secret Sauce Recipe.

The video below will reveal the answers to the Secret Sauce Recipe activity worksheet . . . 




These toy kitchen appliances were the perfect thing to use in our video because they look so real.  We have owned some that were fun bright colors in the past, but our three children (ages 4.5, 4.5, and 7.5) really seem to enjoy playing with these far more.

Both the Action Fun blender and mixer run on AA batteries.  The blender has a plastic graduated handled pitcher and working plastic blades inside.  The pitcher can be removed from the base.  The blender has two speed settings for add realism.  The top of the mixer lifts up just like a real countertop mixer.  There are two settings . . . Self and Auto.  Your child can choose to have the mixer run with their finger holding down the button at the top or have the mixer run with just a push of the button.  There are also two different attachments that come with the mixer and both are equally as fun to watch as they spin inside the clear mixing bowl.

Since both of these toys have spinning parts, I have instructed my children not to put there hands near the moving parts.  I have also suggested that they do not put toy food inside the blender or the mixing bowl if they intend to turn the motors on.

This set also comes with a 2-slice toaster and a coffeemaker.  The toaster does not need batteries, but rather is a friction-based toy.  Your child just needs to turn the knob to the desired toaster setting and when the knob ticks back to zero, the toast pops up.  The knob takes quite a bit of strength to turn and even our 7 year old son has trouble turning it all the way to the darkest setting.

The coffeemaker does run on AA batteries.  It has two buttons . . . one for brewing and one for dispensing.  Both functions are accompanied by realistic sounds, which pleased our children very much.

These Action Fun Appliances can be purchased by the pair or as a set of 4 on CPToy.com.  Remember that you can shop through the red button on our sidebar to receive an exclusive Constructive Moms 15% off discount.

Thank you to CP Toys for providing a product sample for us to base this review upon and for providing a second product for our contest prize.

What you can win:
One lucky reader will receive the Action Fun Appliances Combo Set (includes the blender, mixer, toaster, and coffeemaker).

Limitations:
This giveaway is open to U.S. & Canadian entries only. You do not need to be a blogger to enter, but you must have a valid email address and be age 18 years or older. If you enter anonymously and do not include a valid email address in your comment entries, I will not be able to notify you should you win this random drawing.

How to Gain Entries:

Click the button below to browse the selection of toys offered by CP Toys. Then leave a comment telling me the name of one toy a child in your life would love to own. You MUST do this to be eligible to win this contest.

(Remember by clicking on the button above, you will receive 15% off your entire purchase.)

Extra Entries:

1)  For 5 extra entries, leave a relevant comment on one of my non-giveaway posts. Then leave FIVE separate comments with the name of the post on which you commented. You will earn 5 extra entries for each different non-contest post you comment on.


2)  For 5 extra entries, enter one of my other contests. Leave FIVE separate comments here telling me which contest you entered. You will earn 5 extra entries for each contest you enter.

3)  For 10 extra entries, sign up to receive CP Toys Email Specials. Then come back here and leave TEN separate comments telling me you did.

4)  For 1 extra entry each, Friend me on Facebook and/or "Like" the 3 Garnets & 2 Sapphires Facebook page, then leave a separate comment here telling me so with the link to your Facebook profile.

5)  For 1 extra entry each, follow Constructive Playthings on Twitter and/or "Like" Constructive Playthings on Facebook. Then leave a separate comment for each with the link to your Twitter or Facebook profile.


6)  Follow me on Twitter. Then leave a separate comment with the link to your Twitter profile.

7)  Tweet about this giveaway linking back to this post. Then come back here and leave the link to your tweet in a separate comment. You may do this once per day until the end of the contest.

8)  Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or you can follow me through Blogger or subscribe via email (widget is on sidebar). Then leave a separate comment telling me you did so.

9)  Subscribe to A Blog of Goodies' feed (the sister site to 3 Garnets & 2 Sapphires). Then leave a separate comment telling me you did so.

(All entries will be verified prior to awarding this prize.)


Random Drawing:

This contest will be closed on Monday, August 8th, 2011 at 11:59pm EST. A random number drawing will be held shortly after. The winner will be announced here and will be contact via email or through their blog. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new number will be drawn.

Good luck in the drawing!

Play To Learn Diner Review: Break Schedule Time Activity (Free Printable)

Recently, we received the Guidecraft All in One Play Kitchen for our three children to experience. When I saw that this kitchen had a built-in clock with mobile hands, I knew it would be the perfect setting for the upcoming time addition activity I had planned. This activity is for children who already has the basics of telling time down and teaches them to work more comfortably with time (i.e. adding hours and minutes, translating what an analog clock says into digital time, etc . . . ).

To do this activity, you will need to print out the blank break schedule worksheet below and have a clock with hands that your child can move with his or her fingers. You can also have a dry erase board and dry erase markers or dry erase crayons on hand for an extra activity at the end, but this is optional.

TO PRINT: Click on image to enlarge. Then right-click on image and select print. Hit your browser's back button to return to this page.

After you have printed out the break schedule worksheet, fill in the 1st column with names of several people your child knows, including his or her own name. Then fill in the next four columns to create varying scenarios. The 2nd and 3rd columns are for when the employee is scheduled to arrive and leave work. The 4th column states how many hours the employee is scheduled to work. The 5th column states how long of a break that person should get that day. After 5 or 6 entries, you can start to leave the 5th column blank for your child to fill in. By the end of the activity, your child will likely be able to fill in all the columns.

Getting Started . . .

Explain to your child that he or she is the owner of the diner. In addition to cooking and serving food, the owner must make a break schedule that determines when each employee gets to take a break during their shift. To add a higher level of difficulty, you can tell your child that the breaks must not overlap with each other.

Examples of Questions I Asked . . .

If Jake works from 9am to 6pm, how many hours is he working? To help your child answer this, set the clock's hands to 9 o'clock. Then have your child count how many hours it takes to reach 6 0'clock and have your child verify that the number under the "Total Hours" column matches his or her answer.

If Jake gets a 1 hour break for working 9 hours, what time do you think he should take his break? Your child can choose any time within the shift for the most part. Have your child fill in the digital time in the column labeled "Begins".

If you want Jake to go on break at 12 o'clock and he gets a one hour break, what time should he come back from break? To help your child, set the clock's hands to 12 o'clock and ask your child to advance the hands one hour. Then have your child fill in the digital time in the column labeled "Ends".

After repeating the above exercises several times, if you feel your child is ready, try leaving the "Total Hours" column blank for your child to fill in. Then ask your child to fill in all the columns. He or she should be able to fill in the length of each break based on the previous entries in the break schedule. My son, who will be turning 7 in two months, very much enjoyed filling in the columns himself. This activity takes playing restaurant to a whole new level and helps him to see how math applies to real (and pretend) life situations. I also think he loved being "the boss".

For extra practice with writing words, numbers, and digital time . . .

Ask your child to write out the break schedule for all his or her employees to see on a dry erase board or on a blank piece of paper. You can vary what you ask your child to include. Since my son writes large, I only asked him to put the heading "Break Schedule", the employee name, and the time the employee should go on break. If your child writes smaller, you can also ask that he or she include the time the employee should come back from break or how long of a break that employee should receive.

**********************************************************************

More about the Guidecraft All in One Play Kitchen . . .

Although this kitchen has many parts, it probably only took an hour and a half for my husband to put together with a little help from me. If you are experienced with assembling RTA, then you should be able to build this alone aside from perhaps having someone hold the doors for you when attaching them. If you are not comfortable with assembling furniture, then having two people will help to speed things along. My husband was extremely impressed by how well the pieces were packed, as well as the sturdy construction. There were no problems with holes not lining up or doors not being square. The one thing that took us a long time was attaching all the hinges, since there were so many doors. The screws used to attach the hinges are tiny, so they are difficult to handle if you have larger hands.

Some of the features that I especially liked . . .

• The stove top is not just painted on, but rather it is a thick durable plastic that is screwed on.
• The faucet turns left and right just like on a real kitchen sink.
• The oven has a rack that pulls out just like in a real oven.
• This kitchen is attractive and the colors work for both girls and boys.
• The dry erase board is perfect for leaving messages for your children or for them to write out their pretend menus.
• This kitchen provides tons of hidden storage.
• This kitchen is large enough for all 3 children to play at once.
• This kitchen is tall, so it will provide many years of pretend play.

The only thing I would change about this kitchen is the size of the hooks on the back splash. They are very thick and none of our play utensils or pots and pans have holes large enough to hang properly on them.

One thing I want to point out is that, since we already had a kitchen in our play area, we ended up putting this kitchen in one of the bedrooms. Once I saw a toy kitchen online that was designed to also be a desk. This made me think, why not have this kitchen double as a dresser? I did not end up using it to house clothing, but I do have the right and middle bottom cabinets filled with toys. So, if you think you cannot find the room to add a toy kitchen such as this one, you could consider replacing an existing piece of furniture with the kitchen instead. The children are thrilled to have the kitchen to play with upstairs and I did not lose any storage space by adding it.

To learn more about this and other play kitchens, visit Guidecraft.com and Guidecraft on Facebook.

Thank you to Guidecraft for sending us a complimentary product sample to base this review upon.

Play To Learn Diner: Basic Multiplication with Dim Sum

After I felt that my 6yr old son was somewhat comfortable with the simplest concept of multiplication ("2 x n" means to double "n"), I wanted to take another baby step into the wonderful world of multiplication. To help me in this task, I created a worksheet to show my son how to multiply with 1, 2, and 3. Then I used three pretend dim sum sets to illustrate, practice, and reinforce what was in the worksheet. I really think that one would not successfully do the job without the other. In the end, we want the child to be able to tell us how much a dim sum order would cost based on how many of each item is ordered.

This Chinese Food Set from Discount School Supply comes with 9 pieces of plastic food plus a plastic bamboo steamer (the plates and bowls are part of our own collection). In addition to learning multiplication, my son had the added chore of reading the names of each item on our a la carte menu. For this reason, I eliminated two items to simplify the lesson and to make it shorter. (My son pointed out at the end that this activity was longer than any of the other ones we did in the past.)

The first thing we did was tackle the worksheet before we started playing with the food. The worksheet is meant to show your child that two times a number is the same as two of those numbers added together and that three times a number is the same as three of those numbers added together. Your child will have to look at the legend at the top of the page to find out how much money each shape is worth. My son found it helpful to write the number each shape represented right inside that shape.

This Angeles 30" Square Baseline Table

is available at DiscountSchoolSupply.com

in 7 sizes and 10 colors.

(To print, click on the image to enlarge. Then right-click on the image and select print.)

To help with the next part, I hand-wrote an a la carte Dim Sum menu, which included the name and price of each play food item. In order to make it simpler, I used all whole dollars.

Here are examples of some of the questions I posed to my son . . .

How much would each plate of food cost?

Instead of adding the price of each item on the plate together, what if you used 3 x $1.00 instead?

How much would both plates of food cost together?

What if we grouped together all the items that cost $1.00 and used 6 x $1.00?

We did several similar lessons with different quantities of food.

This was by far the toughest learning activity I have tried with my son. Although I think that he is beginning to understand the concept of basic multiplication, I will need to design additional activities for more practice. If anything, my son became very good at adding a series of numbers together in his head.

After we were done with the lesson, my son was excited to serve me some dim sum. I was so pleasantly surprised that he remembered the names of most of the food items. What makes this set great is that there are so many different items, which is a main characteristic of having dim sum. If you have never had dim sum, I highly recommend it. It would be a great experience for both you and your children.

This dim sum toy sells for just $11.99 per set on Discount School Supply. You should note that the lettuce leaf in the set that I received is rounded, but the one shown on the site is a flat single leaf. If you are thinking about giving this toy to a child as a gift, there is a wonderful book that would make a perfect add-on to that gift . . . "Yum Yum Dim Sum" by Amy Wilson Sanger. This is one of my favorite board books to read to my children.

Thank you to Discount School Supply for sending us three food set samples free of charge to use in this learning activity.

Play To Learn Diner Giveaway: Learn Fractions by Cutting Bread [CLOSED]

Since I was so pleasantly surprised at how receptive my 6yr old son was to my introduction to very basic fractions, I decided it was time to teach him about how to discern between 1, 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4.

To aid me in this task, Gummy Lump, one of the leading online resources of play foods, sent us a Melissa & Doug Cutting Bread Play Food Set. This toy was perfect for this lesson because it has an English muffin, a bagel, sandwich slices, and a loaf of bread that can all be split into halves, a baguette that can be cut into thirds, and a bread loaf that can be divided into fourths.

Using this play food set, I demonstrated to my son how we go about changing "one whole" into fractions. Here are some examples of the statements and questions I posed:

• If we cut this bagel into two pieces, what did we make? Halves How many halves do we have? 2
• If we have two halves, what do I have if I take one piece? 1/2
• What else do we have here that can be cut into halves?
• If we cut this baguette into three pieces, what did we make? Thirds
• If we have three equal pieces and I take one piece, what do I have? 1/3 If I take two pieces, what do I have? 2/3
• If we cut this loaf of bread into four pieces, what did we make? fourths
• If we have four equal pieces and I take one piece, what do I have? 1/4 If I take two pieces, then what do I have? 2/4 or 1/2

Once I felt my son was fairly comfortable with the concept of one whole, 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4, I gave him this free printable worksheet that I made, which asks him to color each shape based on what the shaded area represents. I did the first row with him to make sure he understood how it worked. He actually colored most of the shapes correctly. The ones he missed were partially due to his rushing and not double-checking which color corresponded to which fraction.

(To print, click on the image to enlarge. Then right-click and select print.)

By the end of this lesson, I was pretty confident that we laid down a good foundation for understanding fractions. I asked my son if he thought fractions were hard and he said that he thought they were a little bit hard, which made me happy.

Once the lesson was done, it was time to play. My son could not wait to cut into the bread and butter again and again. I was served an assortment of yummy food, such as French bread with imaginary chicken soup.

You can find this play food set along with a large assortment of play foods by Melissa & Doug, KidKraft, Haba, Voila, Guidecraft, and more on GummyLump.com . For a limited time, Gummy Lump is offering a Buy 3 Get 1 Free promotion on Melissa & Doug play food sets.

Thank you to Gummy Lump for sending us a sample toy free of charge to use in this learning activity and for providing a second toy for our contest prize.

What you can win:
One lucky reader will receive one Cutting Bread Play Food Set by Melissa & Doug.

Limitations:

This giveaway is open to U.S. entries only. You do not need to be a blogger to enter, but you must have a valid email address and be age 18 years or older. If you enter anonymously and do not include a valid email address in your comment entries, I will not be able to notify you should you win this random drawing.

How to Gain Entries:

Browse the selection of new products on GummyLump.com . Then leave a comment telling me which product is the one that looks like the most fun to you. You MUST do this to be eligible to win this contest.

Extra Entries:

1) For 5 extra entries, leave a relevant comment on one of my non-giveaway posts. Then leave FIVE separate comments with the name of the post on which you commented. You will earn 5 extra entries for each different non-contest post you comment on.

2) For 5 extra entries, enter one of my other contests. Leave FIVE separate comments here telling me which contest you entered. You will earn 5 extra entries for each contest you enter.

3) For 10 extra entries, blog about this contest linking back to this post AND GummyLump.com . Then come back here and leave TEN separate comments with the link to your blog post.

4) Friend me on Facebook. Then leave a separate comment with the link to your Facebook profile.

5) For 1 extra entry each, follow Gummy Lump on Twitter and/or "like" Gummy Lump on Facebook. Then leave a separate comment with the link to your Twitter or Facebook profile for each entry you complete.

6) Follow me on Twitter. Then leave a separate comment with the link to your Twitter profile.

7) Tweet about this giveaway linking back to this post. Then come back here and leave the link to your tweet in a separate comment. You may do this once per day until the end of the contest.

8) Subscribe to this blog's feed. Or you can follow me through Blogger or subscribe via email (widget is on sidebar). Then leave a separate comment telling me you did so.

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10) Add my button or blog link to your blog's sidebar. Then leave a separate comment with the link to your blog.

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(All entries will be verified prior to awarding this prize.)


Random Drawing:

This contest will be closed on Monday, May 17th, 2010 at 11:59pm EST. A random number drawing will be held shortly after. The winner will be announced here and will be contact via email or through their blog. If the winner does not respond within 48 hours, a new number will be drawn.

Good luck in the drawing!