Updated Build-A-Letter Templates

My old templates for this activity have bugged me since I made them.  There are missing lines and they just didn’t look as nice as I wanted them to.  Of course I made them in a hurry, finishing them in the middle of the night if I remember correctly… so maybe that had something to do with it. 

Anyway, since I’m in the middle of transferring all my printables from Google Docs to Scribd, I thought I’d update these little guys in the process.

Go here to see the new version.  The old version is still out there, but in my opinion the new ones are much better.  I did forget about “W” (how can I forget a letter?  Is this a sign I should not homeschool?!), so if you use these, you’ll have to print 2 “M”s. :)  I didn’t realize this until I’d already turned it into a .pdf file and deleted the original.

*Never delete your original document.*

I’m working on some lowercase letter templates too and will have them posted as soon as they are done.  Making these is trickier than you’d think!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up – 5/14/10

M is 3.5 years old

We had a fun week, with no particular theme.  I am trying to have 1 to 2 weeks of theme-based activities, followed by at least 1 week of non-themed activities while I prepare for the next theme.  I’m hoping to get in a bug unit, then we will be DONE.  The plan is to enjoy a nice long break, get some much-needed things done around the house and just spend time having fun as a family.  :)

We started our week with a scavenger hunt.   This was so much fun.  M and his cousin, S, had a blast with this.  In fact, we had to do the whole thing again one evening with Daddy. :)  I created a chart for the kids, with pictures of 12 things for them to find in our backyard.  They took their little charts, a couple of crayons, and some plastic containers outside and began hunting:

My niece was the first to find everything pictured, and was quite proud of herself:

A close up of her treasures, which she insisted on bringing home with her (much to my brother’s delight, heh):I uploaded our scavenger hunt chart and you can find it here, if you think you’d like to use the same one.  It was a big hit!

The weather was awful, so we did a lot of indoor activities the rest of the week…

Fine Motor Skills:
A little fishing game where you try to catch the fish as they go in a circle and open and close their mouths:   
M’s Lite Brite made its way onto his shelves, and he really had fun with it – all closed up in his room with the shades drawn. :)
His little wooden dress-the-bear puzzle was out for him also; he played with it once and never bothered with it again:
Literacy Skills:
I made a little name train for M, and he connected the train cars in order to spell his name.  I used velcro dots so they could stick to each other:
He did his Bob the Builder Name puzzles (For these I use large flat marbles and write the letters on them with a sharpie):
Colors / Sorting:
We’ve had this file folder game forever, and M always enjoys it.  I used Jolanthe’s color cards, and created pockets with the color name cards.  M goes through the stack and places each picture in the correct pocket.  He just loves pockets. :)
Math Skills:
I found these at a thrift store and at first glance I thought they were Cuisenaire rods.  However, once I got them home and took a look at them… well, I’m not sure what they are or what to do with them.  Each single block unit is 1/2 inch.  The rods go from 1 unit up to 12 units, and apparently we don’t have a full set.  There’s only 2 8-unit rods, and only 1 10-unit rod.  Sigh.  Any ideas how we can use these?  Or, does anyone know what they are?  They are not the traditional Cuisenaire rod colors either.  I let M just play with them and explore them the first time I set them out.  I showed him how to create some designs, like a house and a stair (the stair was useful for showing the relation between the rods from shortest to longest).
I hope everyone had great weeks!  I’m linking this up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up.  Be sure to go check them out!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Bird Craft #1

One of our little bird-themed activities was this shapes bird craft.  I cut out a few shapes (large oval, circle, heart, triangle, 2 tiny rectangles), and had them waiting on the table for M one morning.  I quickly drew a picture for him to use as a guide, and added some foam stickers, a googley eye, and some decorating options (watercolor pencils, watercolor paints, glitter glue).


You know once he saw the glitter glue he was all over this, right?  :)  Mmmm… sparkly…

As he put his little bird together I guided him by naming a shape for him to pick out, asking him where that shape was on the picture I had drawn, and then talking about that particular part of the bird.  This was a more mama-led activity than most of our crafts, but I wanted a little shape reviewing, and I used it to talk about the parts of a bird.  They have wings, not arms; a beak or bill instead of a nose and mouth; feathers  instead of bare skin or fur, etc.  I was sneaking in a little biology. ;)

After he glued everything in place the decorating began!  Of course he went straight for the glitter glue first, then used a couple of the watercolor pencils (although he did not actually paint over them with water), then used q-tips in the watercolor paints to fill in some areas. 
I just love how this little birdie turned out. :)  M named him “Easter Bird”.   He sure is a colorful one!

I made a template of the shapes we used, although it would be simple to do without them.  If you are interested you can download it here.

It would be neat to use feathers to decorate this little bird, but I. can. not. stand. feathers.  Uggh, the mess they make!  M can use feathers at Grandma’s house, hee hee.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Birds – Picture Cards and Songs

We are so blessed to live where we do… with almost a full acre’s worth of yard and an abundance of trees, we have many different little feathered friends. :) The pretty one above is one of my favorites (that’s a public domain photo, not actually one of our goldfinches, but ours are just as sweet-looking).  Additionally, we have a handful of trails near a creek bed in a wooded area to our north, and a small lake to our south.  We see plenty of wildlife, including some amazing birds.  The lake often has bald eagles near it and we even saw one on a tall pine in our backyard a couple of years ago!  This is all despite being pretty near a major highway, the one drawback to our neighborhood.

Now that spring has sprung the birds are out in full force and we’ve been learning a lot about these little guys.  I couldn’t believe when I sat down to make a list of all the different species that I came up with 25!  I’ve learned all their names over the past 10 or so years thanks to my nature-loving husband.  And it’s so neat and fun to share this knowledge with M.

Another post about all our little bird-study activities will be coming soon (I hope!), but for now I wanted to share with you some little cards I’ve made.  These are the 25 species of birds we’ve encountered in our own yard or within a mile of our home.  I’m sure there are others, but really 25 is enough, don’t you think?  These could be used as Montessori 3-part cards if you made two copies of each.  They’d also be great for a matching game or “go fish” type card game.  We are using them simply to learn their names and talk about them.   And as long as I have them made, I might as well share them, right? :)  Click on the picture to go to the download page:

One of our favorite activities has been learning the various bird songs.  I’ve made a list at enature.com of all 25 species… we use the list to learn more about each bird and most have an audio file to listen to the sounds and songs of each bird.  I’ve found it fascinating and M seems to really enjoy it too!  The link is here, and you’ll need to use BirdCards9 as the user name and blogger as the password. Along the top of the page (about an inch down from the top) you'll see a menu bar; under "Local Nature" click on "Personal Wildlife List" to go to the list I created.  Any questions or problems, contact me!  You'll need to click on the birds and then you'll see a yellow button labeled "listen".  Click on this to hear each bird!

If you use these and blog about them, please include a link back here.
Have a beautiful day! :)

Letter Dd Lapbook

While M was sick last week I gave myself a break from housework (well, except laundry, dishes, and cooking) and spent some time completing a few projects. This lapbook was one of them and I’m excited to share it with M this week. The entire lapbook is laminated so M can use dry-erase markers for some of the activities.

First, Things that Begin with D:

Color the Daffodils (laminated right onto the folder):

Which Dinosaur is Different?:

Writing Skills Practice:Trace the D and d on the outside of the pocket, and follow the lines on the little card inside to help the baby ducks find the mother duck.

Sorting upper and lower case letters:

Dinosaur Patterns (I chose to laminate this right onto the back of the folder, but I did include a pocket for this in the printables – your choice.):
We’ve been doing a lot of other dinosaur activities too… I hope to post about them soon!
You can download all the pages for this lapbook here. Use them as activity packs or in workboxes… however you want!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Easter Basket Counting Game

This is a pretty simple game…. place the baskets in numerical order from 0 – 10 (obviously you can do 0-9 or 1-10 if you prefer), then place the correct number of eggs in each basket.  Here’s what the playing pieces look like:OR place the egg with the correct number of flowers painted on it in each basket.  OR turn it all into a file folder game and do both.

I decided to create a file folder game.
   
I laid the baskets out on the inside of my folder and taped them down with small pieces of double stick tape along the top and bottom edges.

Then I laminated the entire folder with contact paper.  (Note:  I tried adding a pocket for the game pieces, but it just wasn’t working for so many pieces.  I ended up putting them in a zipper baggie which I stapled to the back of the folder.)

Next, I took a very sharp pair of scissors (you could use an exacto knife) and made a slit in each basket.  I had to be careful to go only through the top layer of contact paper and the basket, and not through the file folder itself.  This turned the baskets into little pockets for the eggs.
M counts out the correct number of eggs and then places them in the appropriate basket/pocket: Then, if he wants, he places the flowered eggs in the correct baskets:
Despite the lengthy instructions for putting this together, it actually only took about 1/2 hour.  Let me know if you use it… we are really loving it!

The printables can be downloaded here.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Easter Egg Games

Last Easter (pre-blog) M was 2 1/2 and crazy about opening and closing plastic Easter eggs.  He could not stop playing with them.  He was also obsessed with trucks at the time and the idea of flat tires.  Every day he hoped out loud that we would get a flat tire.  Nothing would have made him happier. :)

Well, these loves/obsessions/fantasies of his all came together in my mind one day and I put together a little game for him, which we have been playing all year long.  Seriously.  Our plastic eggs were never put away, and my husband and I now groan whenever M mentions the “flat tire game”.  It is actually pretty fun…  at first.  52 weeks later, it can get a little old. ;)

It has been such a hit that I’ve thought about posting about it before now, but decided to wait until it’s kind of normal to have plastic eggs out and about.  And I’ve changed it up a bit too, with new clip art, which makes it into a brand new game in the mind of a now 3 1/2 old.  (I wish I could share the trucks and flat tires clip art, but I have no idea where I found it!)

This is what the game pieces look like:

And here’s a color cube (with playing instructions) to go with them: (If  your plastic eggs are not these particular colors, there’s a black and white version that you can color in.)

Put the game pieces in the eggs; there are 20 chicks and 5 other animals.  The other 5 animals (cow, elephant, giraffe, zebra, and lion) each get their own egg.  You can give each chick its own egg too, or put several in one egg and just a couple in another, etc.   It depends on how long you want the game to last and how many eggs you have on hand.  Place the filled eggs in a basket and mix them around.

To play, each person takes a turn rolling the color cube then selecting an egg of that color.  Open the egg and see what you have.  If it’s a chick, yay!  You get another turn.  Put the chick in front of you and discard the opened egg.  If it’s an animal whose life doesn’t really begin in an egg, your turn is over and it’s the next person’s turn.

Count the chicks at the end and see who has the most!

We’ve played some variations of this, which are just as much fun.  Those variations are explained in the .pdf file.

It's a good game for counting, learning to take turns, and learning that some animals hatch from eggs and others  are born from mamas.

Click here for the printables.

Have a beautiful and fun day! :)

ABC upper and lower case matching cards – Printable

Sometimes I like to play simple little games with M.  We print out a grid, or a do-a-dot page, or a magnet page, and I print letters or numbers or whatever we are working on in the spaces.  (You could do it for sight words, simple math equations, colors, shapes… lots of stuff.) 

I’m always stumped though, when it’s letters we are working on, about how to make this into a game, because a game is the best way to get M to participate in just about anything. 
I could just call out a random letter and have him find and stamp it out on his page, but this isn’t very engaging for him and he hasn’t been interested when I’ve approached it that way.  I wanted to find some ABC cards that had separate cards for upper and lowercase letters.  There are a lot out there (and they look great!) that have the upper and lowercase letter on the same card (where you can match up two halves of the same card in a matching game)… but that wasn’t quite what I was looking for.  I want to be able to work on lower case and upper case at the same time… or not… or match a “mama” letter card to a “baby” letter card… or just whatever!

Anyway, here’s what I came up with:

Now when we play our little grid games I just plug in the letters I want to focus on.

Sometimes these are all lower case letters, sometimes they are all upper case, and sometimes they are both!  Then I go through the cards and pull out the ones we’ll be needing.  I shuffle them, M cuts them :), and we take turns drawing one from the top of the deck and then find it on our page.  Whoever gets all their spaces filled in first wins.  It’s a great, fun game, and while M is enjoying himself I know he’s much more likely to retain what he’s learning!  

We also use these to play matching games.  Having the same picture on the big letter and little letter cards is a nice help in being able to match up those mamas and babies. ;)
We’ll use these for other things too… phonic sorts and who knows what else.   I’m open for suggestions too, as always!

If you are interested in printing these for your own use, you can download them here.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Panda Shapes Craft – printable

Ever since M made this adorable little shapes-raccoon,he’s been asking to make a panda bear.  Why a panda bear?  Well, your guess is as good as mine, but panda bear it is. ;)

So, finally, we got around to doing this and I love how it turned out!

I did the cutting because some of the pieces are pretty small, but M did all the gluing and arranging and coloring by himself: This is the rare albino-pastel panda bear. :)  But isn’t he adorable?  And that’s a green pom-pom on his face for a nose.  I wish he was 3-dimensional so I could cuddle him up!  He is made completely with circles and ovals, which we talked about, and counted, prior to putting him together.

You can download and print him out here.  If you are going to make a black and white panda bear, you can use the shapes on page two as a template for cutting them from black paper.
 
Have a beautiful day! :)

Letter J j Lapbook Printables

Well.  I’ve finally gotten another letter lapbook finished up.  As much as M enjoys his cut and paste ABC pages and his ABC book, I really felt he was getting a better grasp of phonics and letter formation (etc.) from the lapbooks we had done.  He really enjoys these and they are fun for me to put together too.  They take some time, but we are in no hurry. :)

I have to admit the J lapbook was a difficult one for me… I had the toughest time coming up with good ideas.  Ah well, D is next (for dinosaurs, yay!) and I’ve already got a good hundred ideas floating around in my head.

So, here we go… our J j Lapbook: That’s the inside.  No craft on the front as of yet.

First, Things that Begin with J:This is a standard for all our letter lapbooks.  We go through the pictures and reinforce the beginning sound.  M enjoys this very much for some reason.  It kind of ends up as a chant… j-j-j-jellybeans, j-j-j-jackhammer, j-j-j-jumprope.

Next, Color Sequencing with Jellybeans:
Now, admittedly these jellybeans are a bit larger than regular jellybeans, and M did call them eggs as they were printing out, but he believed me when I told him they were jellybeans. :)  There are 5 colors and 3 jellybeans for each color.  M will sequence them from darkest to lightest or vice versa.

Number Sequencing with Jars:Pretty simple here – just sequencing the jars from 1 to 5. 

Then we’ll count our jellybeans from above onto the jars:

Jack and Jill Poem Sequencing Cards:The sequencing cards are from here.  And there are 4 of them; I was missing one when I took the picture.  I added a little card that has the poem on it too.  I printed the sequencing cards much smaller than the originals, making them each 3”x2” so they will fit into the lapbook pocket.

Big J and Little j Sorting:This is simple and pretty self-explanatory.  M loves jackhammers (and all things destructive), so I’m sure he’ll enjoy this.  In the future I may print the letters in various fonts too, but for now a simple sort seems best.

The back of the lapbook has one last pocket, Dot-to-dot J and j Letter Tracing:These are laminated so M can practice on them with a dry-erase or window marker over and over again.

All of these activities are available for downloading and  printing here.  Like I always say, you don’t have to make  lapbook!  Just use them for activity packs or whatever! ;)

Have a beautiful day! :)