Learning Tree Store

The Learning Tree Store Print Publication  III New Year 2008  View The Learning Tree Store Publication PDF  I  Free Adobe Reader Download

 





Carol Hartery's
Creativity and Standards

Carol Hartery is The Learning Tree Store's resident guru of teacher magic.  Carol is able to incorporate and adapt diverse teaching materials into creative   hands-on activities,  lessons, games, that engage both teachers and students. Carol always incorporates music, movement, fiction and nonfiction into her training.  Most importantly, these activities correlate to state and national early-childhood standards.
Carol has done teacher training locally and nationally and the responses to her presentations are always outstanding.  Carol has created over 300 original presentations and has presented over 1000 workshops since 1997. After working with Carol, teachers are able to turn fly swatters, cookie sheets, clothes pins, socks, border trims, boxes, etc. into a whole new set of teaching tools.

  

Ideas by Carol Hartery

Play-Dough Fun
Tangrams Are Not Just for School

Fun from Jean Warren

 

   


Carol Hartery's Tools

Carol's Play Dough Recipe

Fine motor skills are small muscle movements by fingers, in coordination with our eyes. Parents often come into our store looking for ways to strengthen and develop their child's finger muscles. We show them puzzles, lacing activities, our collection of Zoo, Farm and Ocean Sticks, and puzzle boards that feature self-help activities such as buttoning, lacing, tying, zipping, and fastening snaps. We also show them our small rolling pins and dough cutters that can be used with play dough. Playing with play dough is a great way to enhance fine motor development and it's fun too.

Before my children started school I took a leave from teaching and ran a family day care program in my home. In those days about 100 cookie cutters hung from tiny nails on our kitchen walls. Quite often one of the children would show up with a new one to add to our collection. The lower cabinet in the corner of our dining room was filled with tiny rolling pins, garlic presses, and pizza cutters. The children all sat at the dining room table and played with homemade play dough. Sometimes they created "cookies" and other "delectable treats." Other times they vied to create the longest snake or the funniest creature.

Those were magical days. If the children asked for orange play dough, I'd sigh and tell them I was sorry, but I only had some red and yellow food coloring and I'd whip up a batch of each. I'd hand each child a ball of dough that had a lump of red and a lump of yellow stuck to each other. As the children played something magical would happen and suddenly one of them would shriek, "It's turning ORANGE!!!' Sometimes I'd hand them blue and yellow dough and they'd create green. Other times a mixture of red and blue turned into purple. No matter how many times I handed them a combination of 2 colors the children still believed that something magical was happening...and of course in a sense it was.

Here’s my favorite playdough recipe:

2 cups flour

2 cups water

one cup salt

4 teaspoons cream of tartar

2 Tablespoons oil

Mix all ingredients in pan. Cook until thickened over low heat. Cool. Knead.

You can add food coloring and/or glitter to this recipe. I often add a small bottle of extract (as part of the water) to give the play dough a scent. You can also add spices

to give the play dough a scent.

Store the play dough in a Tupperware container. It does not need to be refrigerated.


Carol Hartery
The Learning Tree Store
62B Montvale Avenue
Stoneham, MA 02180
781-438-8101
email address:  carol@tltree.com
Visit our web site:  www.tltree.com