“The mother’s heart is the
child’s schoolroom”
– Henry Ward Beecher
{M is 4 years old}
We were fighting colds (and losing) this week, so not a lot happened on the preschool front.
Here are a few of the activities I threw together on the spur of the moment for M…
Hammering “nails” (golf tees) into a cardboard box:
Honestly, I’m not sure what, if any, skill this works on. Practical life, maybe? But it sure is fun. He used to love doing this with styrofoam, but cardboard does not give as easily as you might think and gave him a new challenge. He decided to add some colored paper to make a design:
And then he turned the whole thing into a surprise for Daddy. The “design” on the left is a smiley face, and on the right he used the golf tees to spell his name. What? You don’t see it? ;)
More “picture pies”, like those mentioned in last week’s post:
About a year ago I found a little wooden puzzle on sale at Michael’s. They are basically tan gram pieces, except the two large triangles that are normally in tan grams were cut into 4 medium-sized triangles. I’ve looked all over the internet for printable puzzles to use with these, but haven’t had much luck in finding ones large enough to actually place the pieces on. I finally picked up a book full of puzzles (I can’t remember the name and I’m too lazy to go look right now). I’ve copied a few of the puzzles and enlarged them. I’ve been placing a new puzzle on our fridge every few days and M has really enjoyed doing them. He does need some help, but I’ve been very impressed at how well he’s done with these:
I glued magnetic strips to the backs of the pieces, and used wood glue to make the 4 medium triangles into 2 large triangles like a traditional tan gram set would have.
We have had some beautiful weather, and M bundled up to go outside and ride his bike on the cleared-off driveway. Ah, the feeling of freedom that comes from a bike. :)
And, of course, there was some valentine making. I will not bore you with the hundreds of valentines M made, but I’d like to show you the ones he was most excited about:
These are for Max and Thor, two dogs. Yep – he loves them and a whole lot of love went into making these valentines. :)
We also baked up some yummy valentine cookies, which we also painted. I think I first saw the idea over at The Artful Parent - she used food coloring and water for the paint. I’ve been reading MaryAnn Kohl’s book, Discovering Great Artists, and in it she mentions egg yolk painting, which sounded awfully interesting to me, so we decided to combine the two ideas. We whipped together an egg and some food coloring, painted it onto cut out heart cookies, and had a lot of fun!
I’m linking this post up to Preschool Corner and Weekly Wrap-Up; be sure to check them out!
Have a beautiful day! :)
Last year I set out folded scrapbook paper with half hearts drawn on his activity shelves, and he happily sat and cut out about 20 hearts, acting surprised each time. :) Oh, the joy that was 3 years old. 
(My craft/school supply room is also our exercise room. So, yes, that is a treadmill that the art box is sitting on. It’s the most use it’s gotten in months, hee hee.)
This was a quick, simple activity to put together – I just punched some holes around a heart cut from fun foam and set it out with a lace from some lacing beads.
For this activity I set out a jar (filled with glass pebbles to keep it from falling over while M worked with it) and some elastic ponytail holders. He stretched each one out with his hands, then manipulated it over the top of the jar and slid it down. He really, really, really enjoyed this and it was definitely a challenge for him. I got this idea 
M made these sweet little beaded hearts for the grandmas. Each one was made with a 3” length of pipecleaner and pony beads. Once the beads were strung on we formed them into tiny hearts. 
This was a great idea found 
M enjoyed doing his 
I turned these little valentines from our most recent High-Five issue into pom pom counting cards. M used the tweezers to put the correct number of pom poms on each card.
We played a memory game with our 
We bought some tiny seed starter kits at Target and planted some forget-me-nots and a shamrock plant. :) M has been checking them every day to see if anything is growing yet.
We made a batch of valentine playdough – pretty red with glitter in it and a dash of cinnamon too – yum! M wanted to make a snowman like we did with our white playdough in December… so that’s what we did! I called them *Valentine Guys*. M just called them red snowmen, heh. 
We actually used our old baby bathtub for this because our regular bin was being used for something else. We had fun tearing it up, feeling it, and hearing how crinkly it is. Then we tossed the pieces in the air and watched them float down. M thought they float “probably because they aren’t very heavy”. :) 
Then we had the best time blowing them up into the air and across the room. Finally we just took handfuls and threw them at each other. We both had a LOT of fun with this! Thank you so much to April, who gave us this idea with her 
Our lovely friend 
