For Parents:
Here are 5 perfect times of the day when using your bricks introduce a way of consolidating skills and having fun at the same time:
- As you prepare dinner, set up the activity and get your child started. They will continue on their own until they cannot go further and might need some prompting. That’s a lot more stimulating than watching TV passively.
- Bring the bricks out on the breakfast table for some free play to get their minds ignited and ready for the school day. As your child uses these manipulatives, they begin to charge up their imagination and creativity.
- If you drive to school, have a few bricks in the car and use some of the activities on the go. For example, take the green brick and as you drive ask your child to point out anything they see that is the same colour as the green brick. Then switch colours. This builds strong observational skills.
- When your child arrives home and is frustrated or fatigued, set up a quick activity with the bricks. This is a great way of grounding them and bringing the ‘heat levels’ down by focusing their attention on something positive and playful.
Reminder:
Your Yay4Play educational kits are intended for repeated use. They aren’t a ‘one-off use’ way of building your child’s skills.
Your child develops and grows their skills as they become adventurous and try out activities that they haven’t done previously.
They improve as they repeat activities that didn’t turn out successfully. They learn perseverance as the level of difficulty in the activity lifts higher and gives them more of a challenge.
For Teachers:
The Six Bricks activities become a daily habit! When you harness the power of the method to cater for auditory, visual and tactile learners, you will find your own best ways to use the bricks in your class.
Here are 5 times to introduce the six bricks to make an enormous difference to your classroom:
- At the end of the day, when your group is becoming tired, the activities are a positive way to end the day. They allow children to unwind and have some fun whilst at the same time working in groups with classmates.
- Bring the bricks out first thing in the morning. That’s such a great way of sharpening children’s minds and focusing them as they prepare to learn.
- There are times when the class just needs a ‘brain-break’. As they do activities based on the six bricks methodology, they re-energise and are ready to move onto the next topic.
- The six bricks method is a way of doing brain-gym. Any time the class becomes de-focused or restless, take a pause and bring out your kit.
- When you need to consolidate key concepts from the curriculum such as mathematical functions. The bricks are a concrete tool that helps to reinforce conceptual, abstract ideas to make them come alive in a practical way.
Reminder:
Children love creating and inventing their own activities. They spontaneously start to use their bricks for a whole range of different reasons. Encourage them to continue to innovate and think outside the square as they develop their own games and rules.