Probability in Preschool

This was "on a whim" activity I put out for T. today, using our new 2 sided chips.  I had the chips out for the 1st grade math lesson but he's been ill so I put it on T.'s tray and tweaked the activity.  He absolutely loved it!  No, I didn't state anything about probability but doing this type of an activity multiple times would start to set the foundation. 

 

My goals for him were

* count 10 chips to place in cup

* organize chips on mat 

(I think learning how to organize materials to count is so important!)

* count one specific color 

* number recognition

 

He did awesome!  We'll be doing it again!

This was very unorganized, since it wasn't really planned.  Changes I would make...

Contrasting colored mat, bowls/containers for chips and numbers, mat separated into sections for him.  Wikki Stix would be perfect for this but of course, I couldn't find them right off so masking tape does the trick also.

 

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One of the other tasks I set out for Mr. T. today was a set of cards he hadn't seen before.  They are part of the DUO card game, which we never play.  Various colors, numbers, and shapes.  I typically give him a sorting rule when I provide cards for him but this time I gave him the stack and asked him to make his own rule.  :-)  He did well!  We'll do it again asking him to make a different rule.

 

 

R is for...

R is for rockets!

But before I get into that maybe I'll mention we had so many bouts of laughter today.  Such a joy!  We kind of switched things up and went with the the flow.  I feel there needs to be a pretty good routine in place but I also believe that, especially at the preschool level, we need to just let some things go in order to enjoy the process of things a little more.  It also teaches them to be flexible.  But I only suggest doing this after you have a good routine in place so that you can get right back into the routine because really, without the routine, we wouldn't get half as much done!  And the children's behavior wouldn't be all that becoming.  :-)   But anyway...had two great trainings last week.  One was an online training regarding children's imagination and the other was about laughter being the greatest medicine.  I find that most trainings that are offered, ones that I can afford and are nearby anyway, are usually just reviews and it use to "get to me".  I'm taking time out of my busy schedule to do training only to really not learn anything.  But...on the plus side...they are usually are great reviews.  I think we need that too.  And, though I really didn't learn anything new at the last two trainings, they did make me do some self-evaluation and realized that I'm getting too stuffy in my old age.  :-)  Letting personal stuff get in the way of my teaching and my ability to laugh.  So...excellent trainings!  When we can smile/laugh...it's such a stress reliever, child and adult alike!  We were in the middle of one of our biggest laughs today and we pretty much had tears coming to our eyes and one say, "Ms. Amber...I so love you."   Then the other pipes up..."I DO TOO!"  Aw, made my heart melt.  Almost brought real tears!  LOL  But the point is...we must laugh!  One thought passed on at the training was that laughter is JUST as important as fresh air and good food.  Wow!  There some food for thought!

Anyway....

R is for Rockets!

Our book for the day. 

Art:  Rocket In Universe

We definitely enjoyed the process of this project.  Often we are doing our activities separately.  The main reasons are because then I can provide more individualization and do more activities in a smaller space.  But working together has such benefits and so I try to slip that in as often as possible.  Conversations are great when they are sitting next to each other doing something similar.  Actually, today, I set up the kitchen like I normally do and as we got close to that time I decided...hmmm, let's do this all together today.  And we did most of our work on the floor!  A lot more space there. 

You can see the corner of the computer in the picture.  CMU Child Development Lab have computers available for their preschoolers but...they are used for research vs. any games the children might play.  I use mine for both.  I actually have a "children's" computer for games.  Can't get the Internet to work on that one so end up using the lap top for research.  Screen time is kept to a minimum here though.  I figure they get more than enough at home and even at school.  So today, we used our computer as a research tool.  Google images (be careful what you google and I strongly suggest that you google it first so you know what's going to pop up-even with "kid" things and if you are doing an impromptu search with them, if possible keep the screen toward you and only show it to the children when you have previewed it.   Can you tell I'm talking from experience?!)  Anyway, we searched "planets and kids".  I had already searched "universe" and wasn't pleased with the outcome so switched to something more specific.  One child pointed to Earth right away to say, "Hey, that's where we live...it looks like our globe."  We have a globe on the end table that we refer to quite a bit.  So, yeah!  That was exciting.  We talked about how they all looked like circles/spheres but were different in color and size.  Talked about stars, meteor showers and other simple thoughts about the universe.  Then I gave them oil pastels to create their planets (and Diego, for one child LOL).  They then painted over with watered down black paint.  Added their rocket.  Interesting that they put the rocket in practically the same place.  That happens more often when doing art side by side then when they are doing art on their own.  Then added stars if they wanted.  They were "gummed" stars but it didn't work well.  So we ended up gluing and in my opinion, that didn't work well either since the edges curled up for whatever the reason but they didn't mind so I kept my mouth shut.  :-D  

 

We are doing a similar project this afternoon with the school-agers.  Will try it on cardboard since the paper seems so thin.  We'll be making our rockets out of cardstock shapes also.  I'll share them when we complete the projects.  It'll be at least a 2 day project, I imagine.

Fine motor and Phonological Awareness Activities

http://homeschoolcreations.com/astronautpreschoolpack.html

Cute little packet.  The next few activities are from HomeSchool Creations.  Quite a few things in it that we didn't use...so check it out. Might be perfect for your kiddos or might be able to be used as a jumping board.

They put the "starburst" on the correct beginning sound of the vocabulary cards.  And I had laminated the writing cards...Rocket to the moon!...so dry erase marker works great for that.  Great prewriting skill activities!  I'm glad to see more and more of these available.  At one time I created them myself but now its a more commonplace to see/find. I wish that they used hollow lines though instead of dotted lines to trace, but that's a personal opinion!  Beggars can't be choosers and their printables make my busy life easier.  :-)

10, 9, 8, 7 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BLAST OFF!

  

The number and rocket cards were from the Astronaut Preschool Pack, mentioned above.  Her suggestion was to punch a hole at the bottom of the number cards and add links.  That's an idea.  :-)  I didn't know where my links were and really wanted to do the rocket below it (Mailbox) for a scissors skill activity.  So I used the cards this way.  First, we put them in order from 10-1.  That's hard for a lot of preschool children.  It also gave me a good idea of where they were at with number recognition.  No, this isn't the font I use but I strongly believe in using multiple fonts for various activities so that the children can recognize them interchangeably.  So after we put them in order, I had the children start cutting out their rocket and adding their astronaut.  One child drew a picture of the other child and said she was mad because "it ran out of gas".  Oooh!  That WOULD be a problem!  LOL  Then he added himself in there later.  Anyway, since they are at different skill levels for scissors, this worked out perfectly.  I put one square of paper under each number (actually wrote our number 10 and 9 on the cards so they could see how we write them) and encouraged them to write each number on their square.  This was to help me see where they were regarding numeral formation, so no help from me-unless they specifically asked for it.  Great little scissors and math activity combined!  If it looks familiar, I believe I did this during our summer program.  I had put their actual picture in the window then.

 

Math: Rocket to the Moon

Seriation/Ordering by size.  This was also in that Astronaut Preschool Pack.

This was not a scissors activity so I cut them out ahead of time.  See their moons?  We had talked about them having craters so that is why both of them chose to have spots in their circles.  :-)  One chose to do theirs from smallest to biggest and the other from biggest to smallest.  This is a skill that requires practice.   Typical preschool standards expect ordering a set of three-big, medium, small.   With practice they can't get way beyond a set of three.  Just a little FYI there.  :-P  It just requires practice.  To save paper and such you could just laminate one set and use them over and over.  But since I have a small group, I like to do it this way so the parents know what we are doing.  We counted them, talked about the biggest/smallest, first/last, even/odd and so on.

Just for Fun!

Okay, well, this was an adult made rocket.  We do very few of these.  But I just knew that they would be a hit and I was right!  They flew all over creation!  I gave them the choice of colors and they decorated it but that was about it.  But dramatic play was at a high point when they were done with them! 

Instructions were from Enchanted Learning.  Not my favorite site (and no, I will never purchase a membership there) but this one was worthwhile.  :-)   It was raining and I knew we wouldn't get outside and they were flying their rockets through the universe so I opened up the doors to the "rest" of the house and they "flew" around (which they love to do...I don't do that often so it's always "special".)  Anyway...one child has had an issue with a lingering cold and after so much physical activity she was really starting to cough and getting red in the face so I encouraged her to find something calm to do for a little while and this is what happened....

Isn't that sweet?!  She has really taken to "reading to Trent".  I love it, he loves it, she loves it! 

Lovely day!  Hope yours was too!

Bugs: Butterflies II

So, finishing up our caterpillar/butterfly week.  Here are some of the things we did today.

Marbleized Butterflies

1.  Child cut out the butterfly.  Reinforcing the term symmetrical.

2.  Child spread shaving cream onto tray.  I chose to review basic shapes, letters, and numbers as I was put the shaving cream on the tray.

3.  Child used straws (and one ended up with eyedropper) in liquid watercolor to dribble onto the shaving cream.

4.  Child swirled the paint into the shaving cream with craft sticks.

5.  We gently pressed the butterfly paper onto the top of the shaving cream.

6.  I scraped off the remaining shaving cream and then wiped clean with paper towel.

BEAUTIFUL!  They repeated to make prints on paper.  We haven't decided quite what we'll do with them yet.  They dried very quickly :-) but they'll need to be put under something heavy (ie: books) to flatten out the curled up edges before we work with them.  Next time I might try cardstock.

Side notes: 

*  This was messy!  Well, we live and learn.  We found out that really, eyedroppers/straws don't work well when your fingers are covered in shaving cream so we ended up with the instruction that they were welcome to explore the shaving cream with their fingers AFTER they were done printing.  I'll definitely do it again though!  Though messy...it cleans up relatively easy.

*  Straws work for children with great fine motor skills.  For those that do not have great fine motor skills, use eye droppers.  I couldn't find all my eye droppers, for some reason, so decided on the straws thinking they could do it but the one child could not do it without much frustration so I gave him the one eye dropper I could find and said it didn't matter if he mixed the colors.  He definitely had an interesting gray brown when he was done.  :-)

Oh, by the way, I have a bowlful of shaving cream in my fridge.  :-P  One child suggested it and went on to predict (even saying "I predict...") what he thought would happen if we left it in the fridge for a certain amount of time.  So we did, and really, there wasn't much change :-) so it's still in there.  We'll check it after nap again.  Please encourage their curiosity!

Butterfly Sewing Card

This particular pattern was from www.kidssoup.com but they can easily be made without a pattern.  Remember that old greeting cards work well for "sewing".  Use cardstock or cardboard as construction paper can rip easily.  Today I encouraged them to go from hole to hole in order.  There have been times where I'll write the numerals on the back of the pattern just to reinforce number recognition, counting, and numerical order. 

Clothespin Word Spelling

I chose only three of the bugs from the set or they'd be there all day and become uninterested.  I chose a small, medium, and large word and we sorted by size and word chunks first.  I placed all the clothespins, in random order, with letters up in a single layer on the tray.  I heard sounds and names of the letters as they were working here.  Actually it looks like I snapped this picture at the right time.  If I remember correctly she had found the letter p and was saying /p/ /p/.  The 4 year old put the letters on randomly the 5 year old went from left to right finding each letter in a row.  Shows where they are in their development.  Clothespin activities are great for fine motor!  Slip them in when you can!

Butterfly Counting Cards

www.childcareland.com

I placed the cards in our dollar store butterfly napkin holder.  They randomly chose eight cards to work with.  This is a good way to introduce something and then if possible, leave it out so they can work on the rest of them if they desire.  I believe the little butterfly erasers that they used to mark the answer were another dollar store find.  I used this more for number recognition.  Best to do that type of activity randomly as otherwise they are just orally counting and guessing what the number is.  I also included higher numbers as a bit of a challenge for the older ones.  My 3 year old student was sick today.  :-(  But I would have only put numbers 1-5 plus three larger numbers as he's still working with those particular numbers.

Skip Counting "Extra" for the 5 year old

We've been skip counting by 10s with him to help him get the counting patterns.  Really, making charts 1-10 is really just redundant for him and not interesting so I thought I'd give him a little challenge.  :-)  I had set it up for up to 20 but took it back apart as it was still a bit too much for him to get.  Sometimes we do these charts as a hands-on...like yesterday's bow tie pasta number chart.  He asked me, "I get to take this home, right?"  :-)  So I'm going to take this as a positive...that he enjoyed this little bit of a challenge.  This activity was from a Mailbox publication.

What's this have to do with caterpillars/butterflies/bugs?  Nothing.  Other then one was using the magnetic balls and said, "Look!  I made a caterpillar...no, it's a snake."  :-)  But this child asked specifically for the magnets today.  One thing that is hard for me, with being home-based, in my main living area, with mixed age groups is that I can't leave a lot of the stuff out.  My personal belief is that children should have interest centers and many types of materials should be available for them to explore on their own.  But we really can't do that here.  Maybe someday I'll have a program where I WILL be able to do it that way.  :-) So in the meantime, I encourage them to tell me what they'd like to do and when they do I try my best to allow for it, if not on that day, then as soon as possible.