Skip to main content

Traffic Light Project

Today we decided to do a little painting. I like to have a couple painting projects available for Jake. When he asks to paint I am ready with a project that corresponds with our Monthly Theme. Today Jake wanted to paint so I decided to pull out the egg carton and paint a traffic light.
We have spent a lot of time discussing traffic lights because he does NOT like to be in the car. What's worse in the car; sitting at a red light! Ugh, my son does not have a lot of patience! Although we have talked about traffic lights and he knows the colors and what they mean when I say, "red light." He still yells, "GO!!!!!" I thought this project would be fun for him, extra practice and nice toy to add to the Sensory Box with his trucks.

I held the egg carton and gave him one color at a time to paint. I covered the two sections he was not painting  so that the paint would not get on the other sections. 
This worked perfectly. Now because of Jake's age and ability I did not take it a step further to paint around the lights. I knew his skill and patience would not allow for this, but I would do more with an older child. This provides an opportunity to really get creative. I did use a hot glue gun to glue a Popsicle stick on the lights. We also made some Stop Signs.
After letting them dry and gluing the sticks on, we stuck them in the Sensory Box and got playing! It did not surprise me at all when Jake took his truck and ran right into the stop sign and "Crashed!" This guy is NEVER getting his drivers license. :) 

While playing with his Sensory Box, he does pull the rocks, trucks and signs out of the box. He plays on the floor and back into the box. He obviously feels he needs more room. I am happy to see that he does this instead of losing patience or giving in and not playing.

Linking to...

Labels:

Comments

  1. UnknownAugust 16, 2011 at 12:03 PM

    What a fantasic sensory box!! I love the stoplight made from the egg carton. Such a creatiev idea! We just did some stop light activities at our house too and paired them with the book "Red Light, Green Light" by Anastasia Suen.

    I am so happy I found your blog through Beneath the Rowan Tree. I'm following you now and can't wait to read more of your blog. Hope you'll stop by my blog to say hello and follow back. :)

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name.  We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts.  He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing fo...
2 comments
Read more

Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter.  As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge...
1 comment
Read more

Building Good Readers

"Your boys are such good readers! I wish mine loved to read like yours do! How did you do that?" Can parents build good readers? How do parents build good readers? This might seem like a daunting question, a task too difficult to tackle. But truly, it does not have to be.  As our children grow and become readers on their own accord they often feel that they do not need or want parents to read to them. It is very common for this to happen, but as their parents, it is our job to push back.  Readers are not born, they are made.  We must find times to read to our children. That might mean reading aloud looks different as they get older. Maybe instead of before bed; you are reading at the dinner table, as they are playing, or during snack time. The point is to share books that will pique their interest and hold their attention. You might have to choose books you might not otherwise choose. The key to reading aloud is to m odel reading for them and to sho...
2 comments
Read more