Preschool fun!

One Schooling at Home struggle, is that my very academic preschooler really doesn't get the 1:1 I like to provide at this age...especially with reading.  But, really, he's probably more advanced than either of my other two were...mainly because preschoolers are like sponges and he is just absorbing so much that happens around the kitchen table!  But I do thank our 3rd grader who takes him under her wing often and does things like read a book to him!  :-)  So sweet! 

 

  Oh yeah!  Lite Brite.  We were so excited to get some new patterns for our very old Lite Brite.  He took his time sorting out pegs (this helped reinforced which color when with each letter) and then painstakingly put each peg where it needs to be only to find out there wasn't enough whites!  Ugh!  I so don't like it when things like that happen.  And do you think we can just purchase pegs by themselves?  No, I can only find small packs with the new cube Lite Brite patterns.  :-(  So, anyone have any Lite Brite pegs they want to get rid of?!!  :-D

 

3rd grader brought in a craft she created at home with T. in mind.  How sweet!  He enjoyed the alphabet board and matched foamie letters to it.  He's starting in with sounds of the letters now...how fun! 

 

File Folder Games...an ol' time favorite.  Unfortunately I do not have time to make them...but glad that our local library has a few we can check out!  T. loves them!  Rhyming, goes together, letter sounds, size, shapes, colors, etc. 

 

T.  loves to do things similar to what the other kiddos do.  (One day I gave him a few "worksheets" to do...I'm not big on them but he loves them.  When he finished them I said, "You can put them in the basket now."  Oh, it was hilarious!  "Really?!  Put it in the kids' basket?"   Yes, T.  :-)  That made his day!  Anyway, 1st grader is working on counting money so T. was sorting coins on a mat. :-)

 

This is what T. often chooses to do during our minute test in the mornings.  I like to see how his drawings change over the course of time. :-)

 

He cut the lion out all by himself! 

 

Then he added a pattern mane, flipped it over and wrote his name.  :-)  Then he wanted to write the word lion.  :-)  Love those little moments.  When I asked him to spell it he told me "lion, /l/, L".  Today I overheard him talking to someone about how to spell his name.  Then he said, dad, a in the middle and 2 D's.  Fun!

 

Child Care Land idea called "scrunch and glue".  All it is a page with random dots.  He uses liquid glue (perfect for glue control!) on the dots and then scrunches a piece of tissue paper and sticks it on top of the glue dot.  GREAT fine motor!  Good for reinforcing colors as well.  He enjoyed this very simple activity.  Side note, this is the first year I actually purchased precut tissue paper squares....in like 15 years.  I always was that penny pincher and just cut my own tissue paper.  How silly.  I recommend you just spend the few extra pennies and buy the precut ones.  LOL

 

There's that 3rd grader with T. again.  :-)  She has such mothering tendencies.  A sweetheart.  They organized the pool for water play.  :-)

 

 

This is always a favorite!  A bit messy, but so fun for the kids.  Practice blowing in the straw first!  Soapy water is a little gross!  :-)  I used liquid watercolors and dish soap.  And of course the other kids in the kitchen didn't get anything else done during that time.  :-P  We ended up doing it as a whole group activity during our Free Friday activities.  They had such fun!

 

And, a weekend activity.  T. LOVES to help in the kitchen.  He does quite a bit with me.  Please allow your preschoolers to help as much as possible...great for learning responsibility, helping with their self-confidence, and is awesome for fine motor development!  Here he is making us some sugar cookies.  :-)  He felt very important using the hand mixer!

Rebus Recipes

Rebus Recipes:  I mentioned I'd visit this topic so maybe today is a good day!  Why do we "cook" with children. 

*  If a child makes it...they'll taste it.  So a good way to introduce new foods.

*  Fine motor.  Maybe you aren't doing an actual recipe but children can scrub carrots and potatoes with a brush, they can slice cantaloupe, watermelon, cucumbers and so on with a plastic or table knife.  They can slice strawberries in an egg slicer.  They can grate cheese and carrots.  Etc.  There is almost something in every meal that a child can help with...even if it's just rinsing the food.  These types of activities are priceless.  Not only do they help you (after some practice on their part :-P) but you are teaching them practical life skills, helping them have an interest in healthy eating and also working those small muscles in their hands.

*  Recipes.  You can create a very simple recipe on your own but there are resources out there for you if you wish to use them.  Rebus recipes teaches children about print concepts.  They teach them about following directions.  About safety....measurement/counting and other math skills.  You can even slip in some cultural studies if you want!

Resources: 

My favorite is The Mailbox Preschool magazines.  They have a rebus recipe in every magazine.  Which is where we got the recipes pictures for the Sunshine Salad they made in the picture above.  The Mailbox also has a book called Kids in the Kitchen.  It's a compilation of many of these Rebus Recipes that are found in the magazines.

http://www.theeducationcenter.com/tec/afc/books/TEC61214/detail.do?productId=TEC61214&OID=71307&contentTypeId=0

You can see a sample of their recipes and the table of contents in this book.  Check it out!

http://brighteyeslearning2.tripod.com/id53.html 
Not my favorite site but will give you an idea how to use images you can find on the Internet to make your own.  This is a great use for a digital camera also.  It took me a moment but I figured out that the top images in these recipes are "what we need".  Then the picture directions are below.

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/recipes.html
Hubbard's Cupboard has a selection of simple recipes that you could easily make into rebus recipes. Most have a "final outcome" image.

http://www.kids-cooking-activities.com/non-reader-recipes.html
Again, not as organized and clear as The Mailbox rebus recipes but they work.

http://www.nutritionexplorations.org/educators/lessons/chef-combo/chef-combo.asp?tab=1
Here is one that is a bit more organized and clear.  Rebus cards are black and white and each one a half of page.  You could use the "2 pages on 1" print option on your printer to get them to be about 1/4 of a piece of paper.  That works nicely for small groups.  May wish to add some color.  This site also has additional learning ideas that can help you "extend" or "lead into" your recipe activity.  Also gives good reminders like "work from right to left" (print concept). 

Extension:  The children love it when I take these recipe cards and laminate them, attach a ring and put them with the "kitchen stuff" for further dramatic play.

Weather Theme-Misc

Pretty emotional day for me today so we'll keep this short because my brain is a bit "mush".  I see I have a few pics from the day before the snow days I'll share . We didn't get to the rest of our activities- rainbow- due to the snow so perhaps when we get back from Spring Break it'll be a little more appropriate!  Though, we do talk about how Spring brings MANY types of weather.

Here are the children doing the actual sunshine seriation and sort.  

It went over very well.  Even Trent (not quite two) sorted a few rays between the 2 smallest suns and got 90% of them correct!  Goes with his sense of order I'm sure.

Our sunshine salad.

Well, this is lemon jello in whipped topping for the "sunshine" and pineapple tidbits for the rays.  We strive for a corn syrup free menu. Unfortunately, the day we planned to do our sunshine my whipping cream was spoiled.  So we did it the next day with whipped topping.  Tasted good but had cs.  :-9  They all enjoyed this.  In another blog, I'll talk about recipes.  :-)

Windsock

Lot different than the typical way we do windsocks.  Here, it's a storage bag that they cut from the bottom in strips and put stickers on both sides of the top half.  (I had precut a sliver off the bottom already for them.)  Hole punch the top and tie yarn at each hole to make a loop (keeps the bag open to catch the breeze).  They seemed to enjoy these.  I thought the bag would be hard for them to cut but it was really easy-almost too easy!  Stickers add a nice fine motor component.

Well, I thought we'd make a rainbow windchime but it changed a bit.  :-)

We're not done with these yet but this is the process.  The child and I talked about the weather cards and about the weather they like or dislike and why.  Then they chose one to draw and dictate about.  Here K. chose lightening and her sentences were "I was scared of the lightening.  I wanted to be with Mom and Dad."  The other two children wrote about weather they liked.

Then the child went to the next center where I had yarn and beads waiting for them.

This is the part they need to finish.  It's very time consuming for them and better for them to work on it little by little.  They chose what color yarn, how long it was going to be, the color of beads and how many they were going to put on them.  One child even created an ABBABB pattern!

And Mr. Trent didn't want to take a morning nap this particular morning so here was his "task".  :-)

Pipecleaners work best with little ones with minimal lacing experience or control.

That Incredible Foam I was looking for for St. Patty's Day?  Well, I found it!

These turned out nicely. 

We were running out of morning time so I didn't get a dictation sentence on them but they did think they were cool!  Notice the obvious differences in them.  Can you tell that in picture one, the child wasn't here when we focused on clouds?  There is also an interest factor playing in here also.  Picture two, there's a little sun up there in the left hand corner.  He does great for his age with representational drawing.  I don't normally see it at a young 3.  And his clouds are very typical for preschool aged children.  Picture 3...YEAH!  I don't expect them to remember all the cloud names and such but this picture shows me she grasped something.  Typically she'd do clouds like the second picture.  Also a bit more detail in her picture with a couple flowers with her sun.  I heard her tell her daddy one afternoon "I learned about clouds today!"  Not very often can we get preschool OR school-age children to tell us something they learned that day.  :-P