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.

 

Heart Math

So since it's Valentine's Day...we're a digressing and doing a bit more with hearts.  :-)  We are also doing most of our activities "together" to encourage sharing and conversation about friendship.

A few of our math activities we did today...

Number Line Addition/Subtraction

I believe I've already posted a similar activity we did recently.  There was some changes I wanted to do with it to make it more helpful to the children so we did it again and yes, it was more helpful.  One of the changes was to put them on the same side of a number line (instead of having them face each other).  Today we shared a number line because we did quite a few "sharing" activities today as it was Valentine's Day.

The sharing led to "closer quarters" and I love this picture!  We had done a few addition and subtraction facts together and I had stepped back out of the conversation to see if they really understood what we were doing.  Here they were discussing what number they needed to start with.  :-)

Odd/Even Number Exploration

I like to provide various ways of looking at concepts.  Truthfully, my students have already picked up odd and even number concept by our daily calendar activity using craft sticks. 

One child passes out the craft sticks (ie: today is the 14th so they are passing sticks to the rest of us and then add as many as they need to get to 14), we set them out in front of us in a row and then buddy them up.  They know that if all their sticks have a buddy than it's even, but if one is left without a buddy it's an odd number.   We also take the time to talk about who has more/less or equal number of sticks and K. has been in the habit of counting her sticks by two's when she has quite a few at the end of the month.

Today, we just simply used heart beads and pipe cleaners to show that connection. 

A closer up of one of the children's numerals.

The extra fine motor component of putting small beads on small pipe cleaners is a plus also!

Pattern Crowns

:-) I love K.'s expression...she had just dropped her purple play doh on the floor. 

Hard to see their actual patterns so...

H. is a young 4 yet and so he was encouraged to an ABAB pattern.  I wouldn't say it's mastered completely yet but he did do this ABAB mostly on his own once he got started.  I say that it's not mastered yet because he can copy and extend but he doesn't truly recognize a pattern on it's own and usually he needs help in getting a pattern started.  K. is 5 yrs. now and I told her she could create any pattern but it could NOT be an ABAB pattern.  It's hard to see her's but she did an ABBC pattern! 

Our pattern pieces are simply cut from  Valentine gift wrap from the dollar store!  I love these cheap veggie/dip containers.  I have a bunch but use the black one the most because it's more appealing visually.  Allows for the children to see all their materials in a somewhat organized fashion.  Actually, I find that they use more of a variety when offered like this vs. all sorts of materials mixed together (which, yes, I've seen some teachers do-goes along with my toy box philosophy!  :-D). 

Hope you all are having a great week.  This week looks like it's going to be a short week again.  Was hoping to get I and J together in one week but since we had Valentine's day, Friday is a day off of school, and both preschool children have appointments this week.  So we'll change up our plans.  :-D

I Love You This Much!

Disclaimer:  I do not claim any of the activities as "my own".  Often I tweak an activity I have found in resource books and off the internet to make it reinforce the skills we are working on.  This idea came from a "Mailbox" publication called Arts and Crafts For Favorite Themes, though I have used something similar over the last 15 years, many times, prior to being reminded of it this past week.  :-)

A favorite from today was our "I Love You This Much!" Valentine. 

Skills focused on:

   Fine Motor- scissors, accordian fold, drawing/writing

Directions:

1.  Fold a 12"x18" piece of construction paper in half.  Draw a half of a heart starting at the folded center.  Child cuts the half of heart and opens it up to see they have made a whole heart.  Vocab:  symmetrical.

2.  Trace hands on a colored piece of construction paper. 

3.  Cut two 2-inch strips for the arms from a 12x18 piece of construction paper.  Show your child how to "fold and flip" to create accordian style arms.
4.  Since most preschool students are not yet able to cut out handprints, while the child is creating the arms, you can cut out the hand prints.
5.  Glue a hand at the end of each "arm" and glue the arms to the heart.
6.  Encourage your child to draw facial features and write/copy "I love you" and "this much!" on the hands. Rebus works well with preschoolers! We also flipped the heart over and the child wrote "To: _____" and "From:_______".  We paperclipped it shut with the arms/hands folded inside so it's a "surprise hug".