Heart Activities (Valentine's Day)

We really do not get into any holiday here...but Valentine's is an easy planning day for me because I have so many preschool heart themed activities.  So, I pulled out my tub labeled "hearts" and I filled T.'s cart.  :-)

 Cart from Discount School Supply

 

 www.childcareland.com

T. is interested in letters, words, reading.  No, he didn't know those sight words, but he enjoyed matching the sight words!  The tray on the right, circle the sevens.

I've been been watching T.'s circle formation.  I usually use the ability to close a circle and cross a T, going from left to right instead of starting in the center to go right and center to left, as a clue to when to start more formal letter formation activities. 

  

Play-doh, heart hammer, heart cookie cutter and heart "picks".  :-)  Great fine motor!

 

Scratch board from Discount School Supply.

Older brother helping out since I was busy.  But T. really didn't enjoy this for whatever reason.  Ah, well, that happens sometimes.

 

T.  did enjoy this activity.  I normally use eyedroppers and colored water (that was the sample heart from another child awhile back).  Chose to use actual watercolors this time so that it's a bolder color.  He then glues it to paper when it is dry and uses "crazy" craft scissors to cut around the heart shape. 

 

He didn't get to this one on the same day and I don't think I got a picture of him working on it either.  We placed the sheet of paper on a mini bulletin board.  Had him trace the heart shape with dark marker and use a push pin to make punches around the shape.  If they get the holes close enough, the shape will then come away from the paper on their own.  This is a take from a Montessori activity but I have found that most of my preschoolers can only take this in small doses.  :-)

 

I believe these little alphabet sorting cards are from ChildCareLand also.  I hand wrote the lower case letter and he sorted upper and lower case letter tiles.   We've been working our way through the alphabet in an organized way to not miss any upper and lower case letters.  :-)  I do about 4-5 letters at a time, not necessarily with the same activity though.  I find that for as "routine/structured" as he is, he does not really care for doing the same activity more than one day in a row. 

 

Don't forget the dollar store stencils for painting.  :-)  These don't always turn out well for preschoolers but the process has always been a favorite.  :-)

 

 

Reinforcing pink and purple.  These are the two colors he gets the words mixed up yet.  :-)

 

 

 

By far, my favorite activity of the day.  :-)  And that he did them all correctly was icing on the cake.  I believe the heart links were from Oriental Trading.   

      

 

 

This was actually part of a cover-up game that I used when I had more than one preschooler.  They rolled the dice and covered the number rolled with a heart marker.  Today we used it more as a fine motor activity since these numbers are mastered with T.  He rolled the dice and stacked the correct number of heart erasers onto the heart mat.

 

 

No picture of him working on this wreath either....just the end product.  :-)  I hear a lot of people liking these sticker foamie shapes.  I don't.  I'm disappointed that I can't find theme shapes (only can find basic shapes) without sticker backs.  Even some of my school-agers have a hard time removing the backings on these.  I'd rather just use glue to affix the shapes.  Teaches glue control then.

 

One of the reasons why I didn't get a picture of his working on this wreath was because we were doing school and decorating cookies at the same time :-D

3rd grader

 

4th grader                                          1st grader

 

 For whatever reason, most likely because we were getting done with our first part of the morning, these two kiddos didn't get a snapshot of their cookie decorator.  Got one of C. at the table with his cookies but why not of E.?  I'm not quite sure.  But can't go back and change it...

2nd graders

 (The boy in the picture on the right is actually doing a little activity that went along with our metamorphic rock lesson.  :-)  He's causing a snickers to change by adding pressure and heat.)

 

T. made one also but right as we were eating snack so no picture of him either.  Ah well, can't get do everything!  :-D  We have very busy days...I love the social aspect of having all the kids here...but like everything, there are pros and cons to having such a large group in a small house.  I don't often get posts published on either blogs but if you are interested in our Schooling at Home Adventure you can visit us at www.schoolingathomehappenings.blogspot.com.

 

Shapes and Sensory!

Here's one of the activities that was a "favorite" for Mr. T. this past week.

This is "so him".  :-)  He picked through the shapes to find two of each kind to arrange them in this orderly fashion.  He almost had a heart attack when he couldn't find another yellow circle.  :-D  Had to help him out before he lost it.   Tee hee!  Oh my, I so wonder if this will carry through until adulthood.  This activity reinforced basic shape names but what I liked best was that it reinforces basic shape "drawing" twice.  1st he spread glue on the shape and glued them on the paper.  Then he squeezed glue around the shape to add his "snow sugar" as he called it.  It really was just a mixture of salt and glitter.  Later on he pointed to his paper and told me he really liked his snow sugar and wanted to do it again.  Wow!  He has come along way...this was an extremely messy activity for him (and me...it was everywhere!) but he handled it well and only washed his hands at the end.  (Very quickly after he finished though..."I'm done, I going wash my hands."  LOL) 

 

Have  I mentioned that T. is not an easy "preschooler" to plan for?  He's very academically minded and prefers order.  I really do not have time to work with him 1:1 during "school hours" so his activities have to be pretty much independent.  He doesn't care for the sensory or the art projects.  Heaven help me!  :-)  He definitely prefers something to do with...

 

numbers

(Dollar store Winnie the Pooh flash cards.  Together we set the numbers out from 0-10.  Then he matched the honey pots to the correct number card.  Then together we went through the number word cards.  These are neat because when they are all matched correctly, when flipped over, there is a Winnie the Pooh scene corresponding with the number so he gets the counting reinforcement again.)

 

letters

(Sandpaper letters-stick letters only, and an Othello game.)

Oh, he'll explore with sensory for...

5 minutes or so!  Usually takes longer to set it up.  :-D

Surprisingly enough, he dumped the rice into the pool on this occaision.  Typically he likes it contained in a tub with him sitting in a "clean" pool.  I remember my other kids and other preschool students playing in sensory for 30 minutes or more.  Just goes to remind us that every child is different.  :-)

 

Make a Word Preschool Tray

Just a quick post about a tray that was enjoyed by 3 year old and may just end up being a new favorite of his mom's.  :-D 

First we layed the cards out to spell his name.  This could be done for other family member's names or sight words!  I like these cards because they show both upper and lowercase one under the other vs. next to each other.

 

Then he sorted out the letter beads (Discount School Supply) onto the cards.

Finally he used pipe cleaners to put the letters on to spell his name.  This was great for color reinforcement and fine motor activity also. 

 

Fun stuff!  Right up his alley :-D

 

Simple...But Busy Times!

Well, I wondered about whether I'd get to post very often here.  :-)  Obviously the answer is no, since the last post was a month ago.  I find that I don't get very many pictures of Mr. T. either but he surely seems to be enjoying our busy mornings.

 

Number Rings 

Have I shared the bead "bracelets"?  I know I did last year with the preschoolers but not sure if I did with T.  He loves these!  We've done them a few times.  I placed beads on pipe cleaners 0-10. He can move the beads to help him count correctly and then he places the corresponding number in the center.  He recognizes all the number 0-10.  However, he does place the numerals 01 for ten.  He doesn't count to 10 in the correct order consistently yet...but he's getting there!

 

Family Name Snowmen

Learning to cut circles.  I did try the glitter glue around shapes to help him with his cutting but he has enough strength in his hand that he cuts right through the glitter glue.  Oops!  He was so disgusted with himself.   Anyway, decided to just go back to plain paper with thicker lines and encourage him to turn the paper not his scissors.  Teaching him how to cut is trickier than it was for the other children. He's a left-y...I'm a right-y.  Same for writing.  Been quite interesting!  He really did enjoy this activity.  We did a name every day. 
 

 

Go Fishing

T. is actually picking up letters and their sounds just by listening to the other children (mainly me with the first grader).  Heaven help us but he even is starting to grasp finger stretching words to hear the different sounds.  So, I decided it's probably time to start doing a little more "formal" activities.  I first thought I'd do the order of learning how to read but then switched to the order of writing them because he's interested in writing letters also.  Rather have him learn letter formation correctly.  So, we went to F this week.  HWT's order.  Though we did a bit with building the letter...we focused a lot of the sound it makes.  One of the very simple activities he loved (we actually did it multiple times) is to "go fishing".  Yarn with a magnet at the end and fish shapes with a paper clip on them.  An oldie but goodie activity.  I've done this activity for years and every child loves it.  Anyway, I found these lovely F fish at Ms. Carlie's Little Learners.  Each fish has a picture that begins with /f/.  And since another thing T. is picking up on his own is patterns (notice the snowman hats in the above activity) I encouraged him to set the fish in an abab pattern on the table in front of him.  He doesn't know what I mean when I say "well, what would come next?" but that's okay.  I got a laugh out of it.  He looks at me with his nose wrinkled and then down at the tray on the floor and tells me, "none-zero-I don't have any left."  !!!!  Love it! 
 

If T. could do numbers and letters only for "school" he'd be quite happy.  :-)  Actually, it's probably because that is what he witnesses the most...especially with the 1st grader.  Language Arts and Math take up most of the day.  He's usually sleeping when we work on the 1st graders other subjects.  The tactile numbers he placed on top of a number line that I created in PrintShop using animals in the form of numbers.  Mini erasers are great counters!  Check Oriental trading for a large selection.

Another very simple but pleasing activity for T.  Taking a deck of cards and sorting.  What I liked was I was able to reinforce the difference between a letter and a number.  He'll tell you to "count" with any numbers he sees and he'll tell you to "read" with letters but he still interchanges the words when he's talking about them.  Definitely normal for a 3 year old.  No concerns...but I'm always looking for ways to slip that concept in.  :-)
 

What a kid!  He's quite the loud mouth which causes some problems during the morning but he surely makes us all smile.  I hear my 7 year old say a lot "He's got a big vocabulary!"  (C.'s all into vocabulary right now because he does "vocabulary" every day.  I was just thinking...the other day my husband was trying to figure out why we can do online vocabulary on a particular computer so he was going through a lesson.  He said...these words don't have anything to do with each other...they seem random."  At the time I thought "Whatever, he's learning because I hear the new vocab in his talk."  But now that I'm thinking about it...even though Vocabulary seems random...it's not...because it's pulling in words from all the subjects that he's working on at the time.  Interesting.  Ha!  This is the preschool blog.  Well, guess that should have went over on the Schooling At Home blog. Oh well, that's the way it goes...everything is intermingled in my brain.  :-P)  Back to "big vocabulary".  T. does.  It is so neat to listen to him.  One benefit with being with older kids day in and day out. :-) 

Had a few more pictures to share but my card reader decided not to work, once again.  Odd how it randomly decides not to read the card.  Anyhow...all for now. Hoping that you are having lovely days.

This and That

Little guy and his brothers. 

He wasn't so fond of putting on a costume, as usual, but I'm betting that next year won't be an issue.  We didn't have to walk up to any door with him once he realized there was candy involved...and though he wouldn't say Trick 'or' Treat...he did give a resounding "Thank-you" after most houses.  :-)

A few things T. enjoyed recently...

Letter Sort

Tiles in mashed potato flakes.  :-)  A little messy but easy clean up.

He'd dig through with the spoon but not really "shake off" the extra flakes.  That made too much mess for him since he couldn't control the spoons so well...so he ended up digging through with the spoon and when one got on top he'd pick it up and place it on the mat.  Mr. Perfectionist here...time to go outside (his favorite part of the day, of course) but he was missing 2 letters and COULD/would not go outside until someone helped him find them.  LOL

 

I think this little book was a birthday gift and we are just now getting to it. :-P Actually, I had to find time to tear all the pages out of the workbook and put them in plastic sheet protectors...to allow him to do it again and again. :-) I'm fond of the Kumon Tracing workbook. This one is nice also. It's called Fun to Trace the ISBN number is 978-1-60553-648-4.  Beginner lines, shapes, letters, numbers, and more "maze" like lines in the back. He loved it! And...this is the first time he actually did loops!

 

Now, this is a great picture of Mr. T! LOL Wonder what he was saying to me.  T. does not care for playdough. Really?! Yes, really. I can't get him to play with it at all. But, if I create snakes for him to cut, yes, that's okay. Got to love this kid!  :-)

 Should probably think twice about posting this picture.  I know there was quite the controversy over this not too long ago.  Yes, those are thumb tacks.  

I wouldn't say the process of this was his favorite activity.  It worked the muscles in his fingers and it took him 5 days to do (one day per letter) but the great thing about the project was that when he was done...he was very proud of it!  So, that in itself is a good thing to learn young...perseverance!  Anyway...please supervise if you are allowing your children to use thumbtacks.

 

Give him a tub of sand in the pool and will he explore?  Nope.  Give him some sand at the table with a spoon, funnel, bottles and happy as a pea.  :-P

 

If you haven't done this yet...please do!  :-)  Fill a clear jar over 3/4 of the way full, squirt shaving cream into the jar to fill to the top.  Two primary colored containers of water and two eye droppers.  The colors will eventually make it through the shaving cream and mix.

 

Another, "right up his alley" activity.  :-)  I didn't hide the tiles this time.  Just plopped them on a tray.  He loved it and even started singing ABC song.  The stickler...he actually started going from left to right and the pumpkins went in a vine like pattern left to right then right to left.  Messed him up...but it did show me that he's starting to internalize the left to right movements. 

 

He enjoyed the end product of his paper cutting pumpkin. 

I often had him snipping paper and then we'd paste it into a project.

 

 

 

Water Beads are always a hit!  These have been around for quite awhile.  They have even been outside in the garage in hot and freezing temperatures.  No mold (that's what I was afraid of) and did not freeze.  Cool beans! Oh, look at that...you have Tuesday on the left in the digger shirt and Wedneday on the right in the Thomas shirt.  LOL  Have you noticed all the digger and Thomas shirts?  No, these weren't taken on the same days.  :-P  And I promise they are clean...and on the rare occaision we talk him into a red or green striped shirt because the other two are in the laundry...he's not all that happy.  :-) 

 

Mr. T. has moved from 12 piece puzzles to 24 piece puzzles.  Um, well those won't last long either.  Next stop, 63 piece.  One benefit of the larger puzzles is that it gives me a few more minutes!  I particularly like these dollar store nursery rhyme puzzles.  The quality isn't the best but it's nice to reinforce the song.  T. hasn't learned them like the other kids did.  I think they are great for teaching phonological awareness.

 

 

Oh my, not very happy here...blurry pic, sorry.  This was his first "real" cutting project.  I put glue on the border to make it a little harder for him to cross over into the acorn...but it didn't help and heaven help us when he accidentally cut inside the acorn instead of outside.  But, he did pretty well and the next step was to crunch up leaves and paint/glitter the acorn...the really neat thing was that I thought he'd balk at crinkling up the leaves but he didn't!

I wouldn't say the end product was beautiful but the process sure was!  He's proud of his work and that's what counts!
 

And there he is!  Mr. T.  3 years 5 months...even had his first dentist appointment today and though he refused to talk to anyone...he did great.  :-P