Edelweiss Learning Centre

The children were invited to explore a hammer and nails activity using pool noodles. This hands-on experience encouraged them to strengthen their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and concentration. They carefully positioned the nails and used the hammer to tap them into the pool noodles, showing patience and persistence as they worked.
It was wonderful to observe how confidently many of the children handled the tools. They experimented with different ways to hammer the nails and adjusted their movements when the nails tilted or became loose. This problem-solving process helped build confidence and independence.
After hammering, the children pulled the nails out and counted them together. This extended the activity into early numeracy learning as they practiced counting, comparing quantities, and using number words. The children remained engaged throughout the experience and were proud to share their accomplishments with their friends.

After our afternoon snack, we headed outside to enjoy the beautiful weather and explore a fun painting activity together.

What We Used
- Paint brushes in different sizes
- Painting rollers for the wall
- A plastic shower curtain as our painting surface

What We Did
The children explored painting with a variety of tools and textures.

They experimented with:
- Small and large brushes
- Rolling paint across the surface
- Making different lines, shapes, and patterns
- Mixing colors and observing how the paint spread

What We Observed
The children found the experience new and exciting. They were happy, engaged, and curious as they explored the paint in their own creative ways.

The different tools encouraged:
- Creativity and imagination
- Fine motor skill development
- Sensory exploration
- Confidence in trying new activities

It was a joyful outdoor art experience filled with creativity, laughter, and discovery!

The beautiful weather is finally here, and we didn't want to waste a sunny day indoors! Today, the children enjoyed an outdoor water play experience using the water table, pool, gutters, balls, watering cans, bottles, funnels, and spray bottles.
We connected two gutters from the water table to the pool and encouraged the children to experiment with how water flows. They poured, sprayed, splashed, and observed the movement of water as it traveled through the gutters into the pool. The children eagerly tested different tools and materials, making predictions and discovering what happened next.
One child was especially engaged in pouring water through a funnel into a bottle. He repeated the process many times, carefully watching the water level rise. When the bottle became full, he noticed the water overflowing and flowing back out. This hands-on experience helped him explore new concepts such as capacity, volume, and cause and effect through play and observation.
There were plenty of giggles, excitement, and joyful splish-splash moments as the children explored, experimented, and learned together through play.

What a perfect sunny day for water play!
We set up drainpipes cut in half, creating little gutters for water to flow through. The pipes were connected to our water table, with bins of water available for children to explore and experiment.
The children poured water into the gutters and carefully observed how it flowed down into the water table. We added floating boats made from pool noodles, sticks, and triangle-shaped foam pieces. The boats drifted along the water, sometimes helped by a gentle breeze that sent them sailing even faster!
Soon, the children began testing different materials such as toys and balls, watching some slide smoothly while others became stuck. Through trial and error, they explored how water movement, gravity, and object size affected the flow.
There were plenty of giggles, splashes, and excited discoveries as children worked together, solved problems, and shared their ideas.
Splish, splash, learning through play!

Wooden puzzle activity with trees, houses, fences, kitties, cars, and people, paired with picture cards for children to recreate the scenes shown.
This is a great activity that encourages children to observe carefully and pay attention to details while arranging the pieces to match the picture.
It also supports the development of spatial awareness and understanding of prepositions such as:
• Left and right
• In front of and behind
• Beside and between
A fun hands-on activity that builds visual perception, problem-solving, language, and early math skills through play!

Fishing Play looked simple, but it was fun, meaningful, and supported many areas of children's development.
Both our toddlers and preschoolers enjoyed joining this activity. First, the children used pipe cleaners to catch the fish. Later, they challenged themselves by using only popsicle sticks, which required patience, focus, problem-solving, and strategy.
The goal was to collect as many fish as possible. Once finished, the children counted how many fish they had caught, sorted them by color, and compared quantities. They were also encouraged to recognize different sizes by finding big and small fish.
Listening skills were practiced as children followed specific instructions. For example, when asked to find a small blue fish, one toddler picked a big blue fish instead, creating a great opportunity to discuss size differences and carefully listen to directions.
A simple activity like this supported fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, counting, color recognition, size awareness, listening skills, and early math concepts—all while having fun!

Animal matching game was so much fun today. The blocks had different animals printed on them, and the children had to find the matching animal with the one they had. Whoever collected the most blocks won the game.
At first, both children looked a little confused and needed some time to figure out how to play. After a while, they started understanding the game really well and even began racing to find more matching blocks.
This activity encouraged counting, matching, focus, problem-solving, and trial-and-error learning. We also counted all the blocks together at the end, making it a fun way to practice early math skills while playing.

Last week during our pouring and transferring activity, I noticed that he was still making quite a mess while pouring. However, he has always shown a strong interest in this activity, whether using water, seeds, or sand. He spends a long time engaged and really enjoys exploring with these materials.
Today during outdoor play, I observed something different. While other children were busy playing with other materials, he immediately looked for the bottles he loves to use. He placed some flowers inside, added water, and began pouring and transferring carefully. He showed great persistence and focus throughout the activity.

It was wonderful to see his improvement today. He was able to pour and transfer the water so well with very little spilling. This shows growing hand-eye coordination, concentration, and confidence in his fine motor skills.