Preschool Learning

Working with some project that have green in it. :-)  St. Patty's Day?  Well, really, just because it's one of his favorite colors.  I've had paint bags out for him off and on.  Not once is he really ever been interested.  Goes along with his sensory hesitations.  Even though it's not making his fingers dirty since the paint is in the bag...but it was cool and squishy.  He didn't spend much time on it.  Still a great activity for most toddlers and preschoolers.  :-)

 

Don't forget the good ol' marble painting!  Always a favorite! Then I quickly drew three hearts and a stem on the back of the dried painted paper for him to cut.  He cut them out and we arranged it onto a piece of paper.  And, of course, we MUST write the word on top.  :-D

 
 

Green "C is for Cat".  He's taken an interest in making letters into animals so we are working through the alphabet and using this craft as our scissors task each day.

Simple but he definitely enjoys them. 

 

 

Salt trays are great for practicing writing letters, numbers, or drawing shapes. I gathered tactile letters with similar curving motions for this task.  After he went through the cards he had time to free draw.  No, he won't use his finger in the salt.  :-)  TeachPreschool had the idea of putting colored paper underneath the salt.  I've yet to try it, not sure why, but neat!

  

Ha!  Yes, here's a snapshot...not a very becoming one...but one that shows his disgust at getting it on his hands.  :-)  But he did enjoy the general concept of this addition.  I just gave him an eyedropper, some GREEN colored water paste spreaders (so he didn't have to use his fingers.)

 

 

More green.  Water is something that does not bother him.  And yes, he had green hands when he was done transferring the water via a sponge from one container to the next and pouring it back into the other container...and repeating. :-)  Definitely an activity toddler and preschoolers love.  And there is a control aspect.  If they spill it, they can see it clearly.  T.'s got it down pretty good. Very few spills anymore.

 

Okay, some not so green things.  One day he was looking in the cupboards and saw the stamps.  It HAD been awhile since we had them out.  He told me he wanted to stamp his name.  So we did (on the back of the paper).  But I decided I wanted to see where he was for extending patterns so I created patterns for him to extend.  AB, ABC, ABB, and AABB.  Success!  He extended them all correctly!

 

A nice simple activity here.  I wrote the numbers at the tip of the craft stick, 1-15.  I also included the word because he's starting to understand that everything you say can be spelled.  (Anyone want to join me in our trips around town and help me spell all the words he asks?  :-D)  He was able to put them in numerical order.  Poor kiddo can't say th"IR"teen for the life of him and it gets him mixed up with 14...since they sound so similar. 

 

Then we took it a step further.  After noticing the AB pattern of the craft sticks, we took all the brown ones out...leaving the even numbers.  :-D We'll do more with that over the next few days.  It was just an introduction.  I can see this being right up his ally...odd and even numbers.

I was trying to get him to mix the colors...but that requires him to get messy with playdough.  His compromise was to make balls of playdough.  This is the longest he has worked with playdough.  Yes, I know he's not all that typical.  LOL  But I was happy to see him make balls.  Great fine motor!

 

We do thank Wirt Library (Bay County Library System) for their many file folder games.  Not sure if they created them for our use or if they were donated (I'm guessing the latter), but we get a lot of use out of them.  This particular one was matching letter to beginning sounds of the pictures on the toaster. 

 

This was a fun art project that I saw as I was browsing through Pinterest. 

I have quite a bit of acrylic paints from my school-ager child care days.  Obviously they are getting old. So thought I'd start having the kids use them up. 

Some of the other kiddos wanted to do this project after watching him so they did...

 

Isn't that cool?  Frame worthy for sure! 

Not exactly sure how the original poster did her project and I can't even tell you what the site was so you can see.  Sorry!  I tried to find it again but couldn't...it wasn't something I pinned.  If you know, please pass it on so I can include the website address.

 

Well, I better stop for now.  We've had a busy couple of weeks, these are a few of the "highlights".  I've had someone ask me again how I plan for my preschooler.  Maybe I'll take a couple moments to share that again.

We have 6 children in the house ranging from 3-10.  T. is my preschooler.  Hard to believe he's just 3 months shy of 4 years old!  I do not follow a theme with him (as you can tell).  We are flying by the seat of our pants lately.  Seems odd if you know me at all, I know.  :-)  I have an idea of what I want to do each day and I try to include him in on the planning.

He does our group lesson with us if he can. That's about 30 minutes.  Then we move onto his cart.

 

File folder game (usually Language Arts)

Book on tape/CD

Scissors (letter craft)

Number/math concept

art

sensory

writing

and "extras"

That is usually what he does from 8-9:30A.  We take a snack/outdoor break and he comes in to watch a 20-30 minutes educational DVD while I wrap up some 1:1 with other kids.  Then it's free play time for him until lunch.  A nice little routine!  Pinterest is my buddy!  A lot of ideas come from what I've seen on Pinterest.  I have a lot of preschool resources but I still come back to Pinterest because I love pictures!  I can quickly decide if I can tweak an activity for what I need just by the picture vs. going to the site and following it exactly as they said.  Ah!  Technology is making teacher's lives easier!  (USUALLY!)

 

 



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.

Learning the alphabet...beginning with their name.

 

It's so important to begin learning the alphabet with something that is meaningful.  Yes, I use the HWT's order of alphabet for teaching children how to correctly form their letters.  And I use Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lesson's  order for teaching the children how to read.  But what do I do with 3 year olds who are not ready for any formal learning of the alphabet?  I start with something that is MOST meaningful.  Their name!

 

At the supper table last night, Great Grandma (who had been away for a week and a half) was over for supper and was wondering what T. does when the other children are here.  So I just commented that he has his "school work" to do.  So we got talking about his name work he did last week...

 He told us without looking at any of his work, this was just a conversation at the table..."T, R....there are two Ts...at the end" holding up both pointer fingers.  He needed me to air write the E and the N and remind him what the E was but he got the rest of it.  I'm not quite sure whether he really knew the answer when Daddy asked "So what does that all spell?"  but I'm quite pleased with what he has already progressed in!

 

First off I should say that we also do a "tracing" name sheet each day.

 He matches the letter tile/manipulative and I trace the name with him.  With my young ones, I always trace hand over hand with them.  Doing this helps them get the correct letter formation engrained early!  The large blank area is a place to try to write it down himself. At this point he doesn't do much but he has moved beyond scribbling to creating somewhat of a closed circle!

And on this day, Mom was a bit slow in getting to him when he was ready and he decided to trace the letters himself!  :-)

  

  Below is an activity we did throughout last week.  It's simply a letter of his name created with 1" circles in Print Shop.  I added some block letters that he and I traced together while saying the word above them, emphasizing the beginning letter sound.

 

Since we've already worked with the letters in his name and posted it up on the wall...

 

I decided to give him a gluing activity that included the foam letters of his name and some big, medium, small shapes.  I was curious if he'd

1) recognize the letters as ones being in his name. 

2) Glue them in order.

There it is! :-) Obviously he wasn't interested in the letters of his name.  LOL (Whew!  I wasn't really ready to move onto the next step yet!)  However, he was very interested in gluing in circles-or the very least, closing up lines.  Very interested in that actually...

During his name writing practice he had that whole bottom section covered with lines that connected.  I think it was close to 3 minutes he spent on the bottom section, carefully drawing lines.  :-)  But what I wanted to share in this picture was the baby sock on his hand.  Perfect eraser for toddlers.  :-)  I use plastic page protectors and dry erase markers quite frequently.  This way he can actually erase his work himself, which is half of the fun ya know! 

 

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One other activity we did every day last week were our 12 piece alphabet puzzles.  I know I've posted about those before.  We purchased ours from Lakeshore Learning.  I had a gut feeling he could do these but I never really had time to find out for sure.  So I knew I'd have a bit more time on Monday (and had it again on Tues.) so I put out the T puzzle on Monday.

 

I needed to help him with almost all of it.

Tuesday...

I needed to help him get it started.

 

Wednesday 

 Letter E, all by himself!  And I couldn't really get a good picture because EVERY time he got a piece he threw up his arms and half yelled, "I did it!"  "I did another one!"  :-)  We had a smile-y morning that morning!

 

 So, Thursday he got the letter N and then back to T on Friday.  All's well!  He now can officially complete a 12 piece jigsaw puzzle all by himself!

 

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Hope you all have a lovely week!

Fly Swatter Painting and More Buggy Fun!

Fly Swatter Painting

We were lucky to have such lovely weather today so we spent a good portion of our morning outside with painting, lunch, and extended outdoor play.  I dripped "flies" on the paper and they had a bunch of fun swatting the flies.  :-)  Yes, it's messy, that's why we did it outside.  They didn't get as messy as I expected though!  Makes for neat painted papers.  I'm sure we'll be able to use the paper in some sort of project.  :-)

Buggy Sensory Pool

"Easter" grass in our pool.  Bugs, magnify glasses, bug containers, tweezers and whatever else the kids ended up putting in there.  :-)  I wouldn't say this is a favorite sensory material.  They tend to use it for dramatic play vs. any of the typical sensory explorations they usually do.  That's a-okay!

Stomp Boards

I ordered these last year and they are finally in.  Yeah! Early Childhood Connections had some connections.  :-P  They found someone willing to make these stomp boards for us for only $3.50.   You can purchase a stomp board for $25.99 at Discount School Supply.  So, yes!  I took advantage of this and purchased multiple for here and for gifts.  We started out with a couple bug bean bags and they went on to explore with other soft items such as stuffed animals, sponge balls, etc.  They got a lot of use this morning!

Sponge Bugs Basketball

This little basketball hoop is the same brand of the bean bag toss that I pulled the bug bean bags from for the stomp boards.  Soft play, perfect for toddlers and preschoolers indoor use.  Not the most durable but works okay.  :-) 

Leaf Math Mat (Grid Games)

PreKinders

 We also call this Cover Up. The goal is to roll the dice and cover that many spaces until you've covered the whole page. PreKinders has many theme related Grid Games available.   Interesting observation I made, oldest child went from left to right and top to bottom, for the most part.  Younger preschool child just put the bugs anywhere on his board.  The youngest went from left to right but started at the bottom.  :-)  Now my husband would say...well, would probably just think..."So, what."  :-P  This reinforces where I pegged them each in their development.  T. is really taking off, he starts counting on his own but then gets off and then wants us to count with him.  Awesome!  And so proud of himself too.  He's taking his own step up.  One nice thing about having teaching my own kids during preschool is they can definitely go at their own speed all year around.   

We won't get to this as planned but PreKinders also has free Bug Jar Math Printables! Check them out, especially if you have younger preschoolers.   She has a set for sorting by type, color and counting.

Who Am I?

From Kindergarten With Love

 I didn't do it exactly like she suggested.  I do not have the Target bugs and my Planet Earth bugs do not fit the clues so I just laminated her pictures to put on the mats. :-) Might add velcro though. Would help keep the pieces a bit more secure for the younger kiddos.  It was a perfect way for K. to practice her reading and for H. to work on listening, recall, and comprehension.  I also found that a couple just weren't clear enough...one reason being that the color she had on the clues didn't match the color of the bug in the picture.  But that's fine, I just removed those.  I can make a new clue card easily enough.  FYI, if you print these...they aren't exactly aligned so consider that if you are using your paper cutter.  :-) 

I Wish I Were...

This was a song I had in my files.  As usual, the picture uploaded crystal clear and than immediately changes to this blurry image.  Can anyone help me out with this?  Obviously it's changing the quality.  So the song goes like this...

Tune:  If You Are Happy and You Know It
Oh, I wish I were an eensy weensy spider.
Yes, I wish I were an eensy weensy spider.
I'd go creepy creepy crawly down the hall and up your wall-y.
Oh, I wish I were an eensy weensy spider.

 The bugs it incorporated are spider, bee, caterpillar, ant, mosquito, and fly.  I do not know who the original author of the song is.  The kids really really liked it.  I created a little booklet so the parents would have the words also, and it allowed me to slip in cutting on a narrow straight line and tracing letters.  You can download a copy for your own personal use here, if you wish.

Today's Menu:

PB Tortilla Wedges/Yogurt

Raw Carrots

Dried Apricots

Juicy Watermelon

1% White Milk

Ah, the fountain is back in business.  :-)  They are always enthralled with the fountain the first days it's running.  If only Ms. Amber would let them put things inside of it and play with the water there.  :-P