More Bullseye BE Con Stories…

Bullseye’s conference BE Con’s theme was Crossover. A material exchange. There were glass blowers, painters, architects, a photographer, a wood sculptor, among other arts enthusiasts. I want to profile each of the speakers in the next few weeks so you can get a taste of what I experienced there. It was truly reewarding and highly educational as well as incredibly inspiring. Some of the artists I have mentioned in previous postings while they were doing work at Bullseye and I have already mentioned Silvia Levenson, who is awesome. Today I want to talk about Mindy Weisel. She was on a panel with Kari Minnick and Tom Jacobs and was discussing the collaboration between the three f them on a large courtyard installation project.

Mindy is an abstract painter that fell into glass as she put it. She started working in glass in 2005 with Kari. By 2008 she had a major commission for a large-scale outdoor kiln glass work in Maryland. She went to Bullseye for fabrication assistance and was helped by Tom Jacobs, the third person on this most interesting panel discussion. During the discussion we learned about the process from Mindy’s introduction to glass through creating a moquette and having it scaled up, and all of the challenges that accompanied that amazing endeavor. So very inspiring!! Read about all of the presenters here…

Learning numbers actually involves a few different skills, from recognizing the shape of the number and knowing the word that goes with it to understanding one to one correspondence for counting and what order the numbers go in.

A lot of this is learned best through play and activities that get kids counting and tracing and otherwise interacting with numbers. These activities can help.

I specifically mentioned tracing above because of these number formation rhymes cards from Teaching Mama, which can be used in lots of ways to practice making the shapes of the numbers, including tracing, lining up items on the number shapes (and counting them!), using playdough to shape the numbers and so on. Each number has a little rhyme to help you remember how to make it, which is cute.

And speaking of playdough, you can find lots of playdough number mats with different themes for kids to use as they learn about numbers. Preschool Play and Learn, for example, has these cute apple themed ones that also teach one to one correspondence as you learn the numbers and count to 10.

Or use these tree-themed ones from Live Over Cs to form the numbers, count out items on a ten frame and place the correct number of items in the tree to match the number (do this with playdough, little buttons or whatever manipulatives you have on hand). Your little builders will also love these Duplo number mats from Life Over Cs, which allow you to shape the number out of blocks and count out the number of blocks that corresponds to each number.

I also love these mats from The Savvy Sparrow that include the number and the word you can trace with playdough or marker, showing how to count the number on your fingers, a tens frame and a number line.

Finger plays and counting songs are lots of fun for little ones, too, and Childhood 101 has a great collection of songs and rhymes having to do with numbers (as well as printable song cards you can use with them.

This cardboard roll number chain form Hands On As We Grow would be a fun addition to singing number songs or to use in other play and counting games. And we all love something easy to make with stuff we already have.

Older kids who already know the order of numbers can also use these connect the dot number printables from Fun Learning for Kids. Or use the shapes for playdough mats or to practice tracing even for kids who don’t know all the numbers in order yet.

Have you read?