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

Hearts Misc.

Well, after our family coming down with the flu (nasty virus that was!) and I miscarrying the same week, which ended up being an incomplete miscarriage and took until the next week to complete and now I'm down and out with back trouble.  That's three things...now things need to start looking up again.  :-)  So, by afternoon today I ended up calling my chiro to ask when I should begin worry about the needle pricking sensation going down my leg.  So he changed his instructions from minimal walking and staying off my feet and no soft surfaces to laying down.  Don't sit much.  Well, that's almost impossible with kiddos around this house.  So, once again I'm having to cancel.  Sure has been an interesting few weeks.  K. has been with me since an infant thought and today she proved to be very flexible and helpful.  So, instead of Ms. Amber working directly with her and up and down on the floor with her I asked my husband to bring in my hearts tub and I quickly created about 10 independent work trays on my cart.  She enjoyed this change of pace, really.  But we surely didn't get done what was on my lesson plans as I was not able to stand long enough to gather my materials or finish prepping the materials.  So glad for flexible children and for my cart that I purchased this past summer! 

This cart is ideal for organizing and I would recommend it to various people...especially homeschoolers.  Though I will not be offering a formal preschool/child care program next school year...I do plan to use my cart for my youngest's preschool years.  I didn't get pictures of everything she did today and she didn't use all the trays either...we'll save them for another day...might as well turn this into a H is for Hearts week.  :-)

Heart door hangers and heart animal foam stickers.

  Simple independent craft that encouraged fine motor.  Peeling backings of of foam stickers is great for little fingers.  Great conversation between the two also.  And K. was such the helper!

Heart Design Do a Dot Page

Again, was neat to observe and listen to them working together.  T. is really maturing.  They had a thing going here where K. would stamp (T. didn't want to...surprise, surprise) and T. would twist the cap back on.  :-)

OTC Heart Linkies

Little plastic hearts that linked together.  This was our transition into Ms. Amber needing to go lay down and get relief from the "electrical currents" flying through me leg.  So we moved to the bedroom with her next to me so that I could continue to interact with her.  She created a chain as long as I was.  :-)

OTC Heart Scratch Board

Scratch boards are great prewriting experiences!

Heart Match It!

A very simple game I had created.  We each took turns rolling the dice and covering the number if we had one left on the board.  Was neat to see that she is starting not to automatically count the spots on the dice but knows what they are without counting.  Yeah!

 Heart Scissors Activity

Just simply had her cut out a heart from cardstock and then showed her how to use the stencils and then let her go.

So an "easy" day in some regards.  Not so easy in others.  No posting tomorrow as I had to take the day off since I don't know what tomorrow will bring after the ibuprofen wears off.

H is for Hearts!

I could do days and days with the theme of hearts...I have a separate bin just for that shape. And activity after activity in my heart file on the computer.  And books and magazines and... :-)  Hmmm...just got my invitation for Pininterest...bet I could find all sorts of activities for hearts I actually haven't even done before.  LOL But since I've had about 10-15 years of coming up with activities and "hearts" is a common theme...one could say that I've done plenty with hearts.  Usually I do it around Valentine's day, Mother's Day, Father's, Grandparent's Day and so on but these past couple years I've kind of steered away from the holidays and this year I'm doing more of a focus on our focus letter. Here are some of what we did today:

Scissors: Paper Hearts

Our scrap paper drawer was overflowing so today I reminded the children how to make a whole heart by folding the paper in half and cutting a half of heart.   Good use for that scrap paper!  These hearts were actually cut from previously painted/printed paper.  You know those projects that they make many many many prints/paintings because the process is so fun?  Yes, those papers.  :-)  We just hot glued onto their choice of ribbon.  They definitely like these!

Who says we can't have fun while "working"?!  :-)  These two were going to town with their jokes, laughs, and silliness today.  Love to see that!

Melted Crayon Cakes

"The Process" pictures really didn't turn out and this one isn't so grand either.  Just google recycled crayons or melted crayons and you'll find plenty of pics!

I don't know about you...but I always have a surplus of crayons around here.  Usually because the children and I both like to use the nice sharp crayons and instead of taking time to sharpen them...well, they are pretty cheap at the beginning of the school year so I always purchase a bunch.  So what do you do with broken crayons?  Yes, broken crayons are perfect for beginner writers.  Actually, I know many an occupational therapist who will break their crayons to make them stubs for those having some writing difficulties. It forces them to use the correct grasp (they can't fist them) and they can keep more control.  But as I'm winding up our preschool, I really have a lot of crayons so decided that I might as well start "using up" materials.  I found that there were quite a few school agers that enjoyed the no brainer task of tearing the paper off of broken crayons and breaking them into smaller pieces and then we created crayon cakes.  This was actually very calming for many of those children.  For preschoolers, this is a great fine motor activity as well.  Tearing the paper isn't as easy for the preschoolers but they definitely enjoyed breaking them!  Decided maybe we'd try making heart crayons this time around.  They didn't turn out all that well...really do need a mold just for hearts to make heart crayons but the only molds I had were heart ice cube trays and those aren't oven safe.  :-)  I usually don't use liners when doing this.  Back in the day I did this more often I had an old muffin tin that was used specifically for this activity.  Don't here though, so went ahead and used the liners.  They would be smoother without the liners but the process was enjoyed.  So tear the paper off the crayons, break the crayons into small pieces, place in muffin tin, place in preheated oven (250 degrees) for about 15 minutes.  The kids like to "check on the progress" so every five minutes or so we stopped what we were doing to see what it looked like.  :-)

For those of you that read M is for Melt...we did a few more melted crayons explorations with my own boys on Monday (snow day).  We found out that you can hold the blow dryer on it long enough to actually make a crayon fall out of it's paper.  :-)  They thought it was so cool since the wrapper was rock solid because of the melted wax.  We also found out that we liked the effect of melting the unwrapped crayons.

Heart Prints

 Prints can be made in so many different ways but I love to use heart paper doilies to make prints.  It's not the easiest for the kiddos but it does help them understand about the "helping hand"...their support hand since they must hold the doily in place while they are sponge around it.

Heart Candy Probability

http://thefirstgradeparade.blogspot.com/2011/02/candy-heart-math-making-words-activity.html

This particular printable had white hearts but our box had blue so I just whited out the words and changed it to fit our heart colors.   In Kindergarten, they do a bunch with "tally marks" so this is good practice for my kiddos going into K. next year. 

Will let this be all for now...will share more heart themed activities at a later date.  :-)