Preview of this Week’s Activities

Normally I write up my preschool posts a week later than when we actually did them; this means I won’t be posting the activities for this week until the end of the first week in November.  However, with Halloween coming up this weekend, I thought I’d go ahead and share some of the Pumpkin / Halloween activities that I have planned for this week in case they interest anyone else.  :) 

We don’t do a lot for Halloween.  We carve a jack-o-lantern and go trick or treating, and that’s it.  Neither my husband nor I are into all the scary, spooky, or dark stuff, and we don’t want M to be either, especially at his age.  But, hey, who doesn’t want free candy? ;) 

Some simple and fun shelf Halloween activities I’ve set out for M:

A jack-o-lantern “go fish” type game from the October issue of High Five:

A pumpkin shadow matching game: 

The Five Little Pumpkins poem and felt pieces for our flannel board:

Mr. Pumpkin Head. :)  This one is going to be so much fun!  I cut 4 different pumpkin shapes from orange construction paper, then found some Mr. Potato head pieces to cut out.  I used this page, as well as some I found on Google Images. 

Our leaf and pumpkin tic tac toe game.  I made this last year.  You can find the printable in this post.

Pumpkin Life Cycle cards, from Montessori for Everyone:

M will sequence these in order from seed to pumpkin, then check the answer card below to see if he is right.I think M will love these sequencing cards because he is really into this book:

At the end there is a much shorter version of the pumpkin life cycle and it’s his favorite part of the book! 

To see Halloween-themed activities we’ve done in the past, visit this post.

Everyone have a safe and Happy Halloween with your little ones! :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

 

Preschool Corner / Weekly Wrap-Up – Bugs!

We finished our bug unit a couple of weeks ago, but… life intervened and I haven’t had a chance to write it all up until now. 

I use the term “bugs” to mean any creepy crawly thing, so although we talked about how spiders are not really insects, we still included quite a few spider-ish activities. 

I wrote about the bug books we read in this post,  and a couple of bug crafts we did here and here, in case anyone is interested. :)

To begin, I set up a sensory bin that was full of Easter grass, and hid 20 plastic bugs in it.  M had to find them, then use the tweezers to pick them out and place them on the grid.  I also had his little bug viewer out in case he wanted to examine some of them more closely.  (The grid was used so he would know when he had found all the bugs).M has been using his bug viewer (Target!) quite a bit outside – capturing bugs and them looking at them.  I’m… let’s say – not exactly a bug person… and somehow I always end up worrying about them escaping and getting on me and forget to take pictures.  But, believe me, M has spent plenty of time outside looking and learning about real bugs (even telling caterpillars that they are going to turn into butterflies – so sweet!), there just aren’t many photos to prove it. :)

We talked about the names of the various insects, then sorted them by color onto a color wheel:
For a fine motor skill, I showed M how to wrap bugs up in yarn… like a spider wraps them up in order to save them for eating later.  He had so much fun with this!  He had a little spider web and a plastic spider from a community center activity we’d done recently.   So he played for a very long time, pretending a bug would get in the web, then he’d wrap it up, then along would come the spider and eat them all up.  It was getting pretty gory, let me tell you, and M had a ball with this ! :)
At our nature center M did some pond dipping with the other kids… using a net to scoop up interesting things and then examining them in a bowl.  My pictures weren’t great, but he caught a damselfly, a dragonfly nymph, and a tiny snail, along with lots of plant life:      We also saw this lovely spiderweb, which fascinated him: 
I found an amazing bug book at a garage sale over a year ago.  It includes a tray of bug parts that snap onto each page.  You can create the bugs that are described, or use the pieces to make a weird bug creation all your own.  M had a blast with this book!
I’ve also been holding onto some beautiful bug flashcards I found about a year ago.  Here’s a sampling of them:
There’s 36 in all, and I have 2 sets.  I split them in half and placed 18 of them in a circle on the floor around the room.  The matching cards were placed in a pile.  He took a card from the top of the pile and had to find its match, by moving the way that particular bug moves, as he went around the room.  So here he is hopping like a grasshopper:
Crawling like a spider:
Wriggling like a worm or caterpillar:
And flying like a butterfly (with a bit less gracefulness) :He really worked up a sweat with this one!  But he had so much fun, he begged to do the remaining 18 the next day! :)  If only I could think of activities like this for everything we do… he is such a kinesthetic learner, and I am such a non-kinesthetic kind of mama.  {sigh}

I found some storyboard pieces here that go with the book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle.  I made them into magnets and M had fun retelling the story with them. 
I made a file folder game, inspired by this one at Mama Jenn’s blog, but using butterflies from Prekinders that I had already printed out. 
The idea was to match up the halves.  We talked about how butterflies are symmetric, meaning each wing is a mirror image of the other.  M understood this, but was completely NOT into this activity.  I’m not sure if the more muted colors were not to his liking, or if it was a bit overwhelming – it is a pretty tough visual discrimination activity, with many looking almost alike, but not quite.  Or maybe he’s just tired of this sort of thing. 

He loves doing “what’s different” activities, so I made up these little cards for him  (you can download them here):They were laminated, so he could use a dry-erase marker and erase them – something everyone loves, right? ;)

I put these little foam capsules out for him and he enjoyed watching them open up in warm water.  This time we used pretty hot water and he took them out with tongs.  They dissolved so much more quickly than they have in the past with only lukewarm water.   These were all bug-shaped and we identified each one, then made them into stamps by gluing them onto peanut butter lids.
We played some basic grid games using bug grids that I made and printed out.  These can be downloaded here.  These are great for math and reading skills!  Going from left to right and top to bottom mimics the movement of reading.  He loves doing these – we just roll the die and stamp out that number of bugs.
I found the following two activities online, and thought they were great ideas.  M did not like them.  Not one little bit.  Maybe he wasn’t in the mood, I don’t know, but they were huge flops! However, I still think they are good ideas so I’m sharing them anyway. :)

First, a ladybug visual discrimination activity from Making Learning Fun:
And a phonics activity from Sparklebox, using caterpillars.  I wrote all the letters of the alphabet on 26 flat glass marbles from Dollar Tree, and the idea was to match them up to the beginning sound of the objects pictured on each caterpillar section :
Look at that face… bored out of his mind! :)  Oh well, I try to not let this kind of reaction discourage me.  Writing these posts helps with that, because I can see how many things he really enjoyed and learned!

I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up – check them both out for some great activity ideas!

Have a beautiful day! :)

All About Birds

As we’ve been having our little bird theme, I’ve seen M’s love and understanding of nature blossom.  He has been spending every spare second outside… enjoying being a kid.  He’s gotten more baths in the past 3 weeks than he has in his entire life.  Ok, that’s an exaggeration, but that’s pretty much how it has seemed to me. :)

The first thing he does each morning is look out his window to see if any bunnies or squirrels or maybe even deer are having breakfast:and he can recognize the songs of cardinals, robins, blue jays, chipping sparrows, and chickadees.  He even does a good imitation of them!  He’s picked up the names of many flowers and trees just by… osmosis I guess?  Sometimes I just don’t know how he knows so much!

So – on to our bird activities…

Math Skills:

I found a cute little game here.  The birds are made by taping pennies onto the playing pieces, and there are 3 dice to choose from – easy, medium, and difficult.  We used the medium one which made us go back one space and/or lose a turn once in a while.  The first birdie to hop along all the clouds and make his way to the tree wins. :)

Visual Discrimination:

I put out this bird matching game from Homeschool Share (it’s supposed to be a file folder game, but I just made it into mats).  M loves this and was very interested since he hadn’t seen it in a while.
Here’s a better picture; you match up cards with enlarged details to the correct bird:

Language Skills:

I made a set of bird picture cards of birds we have near our home.  I printed two sets, then cut the name off of one set.  We used these like Montessori 3-part cards. 
M matched up the pictures first, then found the correct name for each bird too.  This was the first time we’ve tried something like this and it went really well.  Some were easier than others, like Mallard Duck and Canada Goose since they have two words in their names.  He usually looked for the first letter, then decided if the rest of the word looked correct.  I divided these up into smaller groups for him (there are 25 in all which would’ve been a bit overwhelming). I made an online list of these birds at enature.com so we could listen to their songs and sounds.  You can read more about the cards, as well as find the link for the enature list in this post.  M really enjoyed listening to the birds on the computer!


Science:

We looked through some old encyclopedias – old, as in I had them as a child and have kept them for some reason.  M was fascinated with all the exotic birds pictured.
We also looked at some egg pictures and I pointed out the ones for “our” birds:
The encyclopedia also did a great job of covering the various types of beaks and feet that birds have.  
We made these pipecleaner bird feet… the one on the left has three toes in front and one in back.  Songbirds curl their toes around branches (M did this on his finger, and really liked it), and even sleep this way!  Birds of prey (eagles, hawks, owls) also have three toes in front and one in back like this, but they have very, very sharp claws on them (the better to catch mice with – yum!).   The foot on the right is like a woodpecker’s foot – two toes in front and two in back.  They use their toes to dig into a tree’s wood as they climb.

We also took a look at some information I found at the Fernbank Science Center website.  We learned more about bird feet and beaks and did the activity sheets pictured below…

Match the foot to the correct type of bird:
And match the beak to the type of food it’s meant for:
I was searching for ideas to make this a more hands-on learning experience for M, and the next time we do a bird theme, I will definitely use two great activities from The Adventures of Bear.  First, a great hands-on beak activity here, and a bird diagram puzzle here.

Other Bird Activities:

M cut yarn into small lengths (about 4") and we put it out on our doorstep for the birds to use in their nests:
Last summer he planted some gourds, specifically meant for wren houses.  Daddy drilled a hole in one, cleaned it out, and hung it up to dry all winter.  This spring M painted and glazed it and we hung it in a tree.  It looks like a cozy home, and we are waiting for you to move in, little wrens! 
We did some super-fun bird crafts; click on the photos below to go to the post about each one…

Birdhouse Suncatcher:
Shapes Bird:

Paper Bag Bird’s Nest:
To see a list of good children’s books we used during our little bird unit, see this post.
We learned some new songs too!

And we finished it all up with a science experiment about air pressure.

For more preschool posts, check out Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Preschool Corner - Bunnies

M is 3.5 years old.

This week we had an impromptu bunny theme going on.  You can see the many (very good!) bunny books we read in this post.    

I created an indoor hopscotch on an old roller shade:

M loved this.  L-O-V-E-D it. :)  We had a couple of rainy days and it was the perfect game to play inside.  He’s actually gotten very good at hopping in the past week.  Just like a bunny! ;)  This was a fabulous gross motor skill workout – for both of us!  It also is a good help for number recognition.

After we played this a few times, he decided to get out our buttons and count them out onto the squares:

By the way, he really doesn’t wear jammies all day, every day.  You wouldn’t know that from reading this blog though (sigh).

We sorted these “If-Then” cards for The Runaway Bunny: I found these in a lapbook file at Homeschool Share.

 

As well as this patterning worksheet:

And this counting, cut and paste worksheet from Bry-Back Manor:

We also did a leftover Easter activity – a matching egg designs game: I believe this was originally intended to be a file folder game.  I’ve had this for at least a year if not longer, and think I originally found it at Childcareland (check out the free printables there!).  This time I gave all the mats and all the eggs to M at once so he had to sort through everything to find the right matches.  He did great of course, and most likely this won’t be coming out again.


Other activities this week…

Playing Bingo:
And lots of fine motor work, like sharpening crayons:
Sewing yarn through a foam tray:
Lacing beads (and drinking a smoothie):
Putting together elaborate Kid K’nex structures:
Punching holes in foam strips:Sorry the photo above is blurry.  I wanted to share this activity anyway because it was definitely a favorite!

And I put together this little cardboard rectangle and ponytail holder activity.  He really enjoyed doing this also (no action shot, sorry!).  Work those little hand muscles by stretching the elastic bands over the cardboard and pushing them down.  This would be fun patterning work too!  This idea came from Nicole at Mama to 3 Blessings.  She used a star shape; she’s much less lazy than I. ;)  
For more Preschool Corner posts, go here!

Have a beautiful day! :)