Razzle Dazzle Your Kids

COVID19 Crystals

2020-03-16T19:52:00.001-07:00

I jest.

But I am trying to find things to keep our younger kids invested in learning. We’ve come up with a schedule to try to keep to, with family walk time, quiet time, chore time, school assigned learning, and such. We also put an hour space for creativity. This is the time I am hoping I can attempt a few of the hundreds of things I’ve pinned.

So today we made crystals, or rather we started making crystals.

I figured we have lots of time to experiment, so why not?

Supplies needed are listed in each link, with more instructions. But...the main things you’ll need are:
Clear jars or glasses, boiling water, pipe cleaners, string or yarn, and skewers or popsicle sticks, clothes pins, sugar, table salt, epsom salt, borax, and alum.

We made Borax Crystals

Epsom Salt Crystals

Alum and Table Salt Crystals

And Sugar Crystals, also known as Rock Candy

I’ll update this post as we have more crystals forming. But most of these can be made with items you might have around the house. Please don’t feel you need to do all of the above. Just choose one. My kids got a little bored half way through. But I was too far in to turn back. 😉

Halloween and Autumn

2018-11-27T15:27:00.000-08:00

We played a leaf toss game. The kids LOVED this. I had to edit out some faces, but tried to leave a few smiles, because you can see the joy on their faces.

We gathered up silk leaves and placed them on a sheet. Then had the kids all grab and edge and ripple the sheet like when we played with parachuts in gym class. As the leaves flew off the kids giggled and squealed. Then we would gather them up and do it again. They were good at clean up because they wanted to do it again and again.

We sang this little song while we made the leaves fall.

The Leaves are falling down

Sung to: "Farmer in the Dell"
The leaves are falling down
The leaves are falling down
Red, yellow, green, and brown
The leaves are falling down

(I found it at http://www.preschooleducation.com/sfall.shtml)

We made simple paper plate pumpkins and learned about color mixing at the same time. I added a little red, and a little yellow to each plate and had them use their fingers to mix it all up. Some kids enjoy this less than others. But I find by the end of the year, I have most of them used to getting their hands a little more messy.

We had a simple Halloween party with costumes and a few games. Look at all these cute costumes and kids!

We played a "Trick or Treat" game. I had slips of papers with "tricks" on them and each child took a turn drawing one out and earning a treat for performing their trick. The tricks were things like "Hop on one foot" or "Close your eyes and touch your nose". (I found this cute game and more at ChildFun).

Letter A

2018-11-26T10:39:00.003-08:00

My twins 2nd year of preschool

One of the comforts of preschool in your own home is not having to wear shoes! I never wear mine if I don't have to, and my boys don't either. :)

This first week of preschool happened a little over a week after we had our baby, so honestly, I did a little less than I might have. Recovery wise I actually felt amazing, I was able to have VBA2C (vaginal birth after two cesareans) delivery, and loved it. But caring for a newborn is time consuming, so we did some easy stuff, and I did not get a lot of photos taken.

We made ants out of egg cartons. I cut them into a row with 3 bumps and provided red or black paint to paint their ants. We then added googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennas.

For snack we had animal crackers, apples, applesauce, and apple juice. The next day we had Ants on a Raft. The same idea as ants on a log (peanut butter on celery with raisin ants stuck in the peanut butter). Ants on a Raft is peanut butter (always remember to check for allergies) spead on a graham cracker, and instead of raisins we did chocolate sprinkles, as they are tiny like an ant. The kids loved it. :)

We sang Alligators and Monkeys.

5 little monkeys
Sitting in a tree
Teasing the alligator
"Can't catch me!"
Along came the alligator
Quiet as can be (whisper this part loudly)
SNAP!!! No more monkeys sitting in the tree! (snap your hands together and tickle the kids)

I do mine as more of a chant, and less of a song, but regardless, kids LOVE this song. ;)

We also sang The Ants Go Marching and made A's with our bodies. Use three children to make uppercase A's.

Organizing a Preschool Group: Three Year Olds

2016-09-11T16:15:00.002-07:00

Be sure to check out my other post with tips and info found here

Three year olds are fun, but can also be a challenge. This is many children's first experience in a school setting. It often feels like much of your time is corralling kids back to the table. They are in a new house with new toys and many distractions. Over my seven years of home preschool groups I learned a thing or two to help. Hopefully someone will find them useful also. :)

Group Size

Over a few years of teaching three year old kids, I learned that smaller groups are better at this age. I found 4-5 kids is the perfect number. Because it is their first year of preschool, they need lots of reminders, instructions, and help. A larger class makes it harder to give them each the attention they need. I know actual preschool classes are often much larger, but in an informal setting, my friends and I found that 4-5 works best. Less than four gets harder, because you will be teaching more often. The year my twins were three we had 4 in our group, but because I had two kids in the class, I taught every other week. It was a little exhausting, but we made it through. I felt like I had barely finished one lesson plan when I needed to start the next one.

Limit Distractions

I learned to remove all toys from my living room, because it doesn't take much to lose a child's interest. I also locked my children;s door shut. Many of the kids that came to our group had played at our house before, so they knew where things were, and wanted to play. I often told them if we finished early they could play. Typically we did not finish early, but there were a handful of times I let them play for a bit before pick-ups. I also let them know we would have them over another day to play, that today was a preschool day. There were a few years that we had a train table up stairs, there was not another place to put it, so during preschool I would drape a blanket across it, it usually worked.

Time Schedule

This is the time schedule that I used, you can modify it to fit your group, but having a routine helped with consistency between the houses.

10:00-10:15 Arrival and Play Time

10:15-10:30 Circle Time (Welcome Song, Calendar, Weather, Traveling Teddy)

10:30-10:50 Letter

10:50-11:00 Snack and Manners

11:00-11:20 Story Time

11:20-11:45 Theme

11:45-12:00 Songs, Movement, Clean-Up

I set up this schedule through trial and error. I learned that if you can have have transitions between table time, the kids are more ready to learn. If you are sitting at the tablet for 30-40 minutes straight, boredom typically sets in.

Arrival and play time: Every body runs late sometimes, some people run late almost all the time. Having some activities or play time in the plan makes it so no one misses anything when you do start. I found that if I just let the kids loose to play, fifteen minutes was not long enough and I was giving up preschool time for play time. Play dates are fun, but I wanted this time to be preschool time. So I found things that were new or easy to clean up, like puzzles, file folder games, lacing cards, etc.

Easter Egg pattern matching file folder game

Circle Time: This time was used for calendar and weather times. We started every preschool day with our welcome song. It is an LDS children's song that we modified, You can listen here. We only changed one word, Primary (the name of our children's church group) to preschool. The kids learn it quickly and it gets everyone's attention when we sing it. We had a traveling calendar, and would try to bring it out every time we met, I would ask the kids if they knew what month it is, and then we would count each day up to the day we were on the calendar and let them help put the new numbers on the calendar. I bought a calendar set on Amazon, it had days of the week, calendar, and weather. So we tried to do all three. This usually gave each child a chance to stick something onto something else. :) We tried a few different things with a show and tell type activity. I think for 3 year olds that a Traveling Teddy activity works best. Traveling Teddy was a teddy bear that each child got to take home for a week and have adventures with. So when we met the next week the child could tell about where they took Teddy and what they did with him. Some years this worked better than others. Often we would forget about Teddy and he would stay in a back-pack and have no adventures. Because we had a small class, it was not usually a big deal. Everyone got at least a few turns with Teddy.

Letter: This is the time we would obviously focus on our letter of the week. I know there is research that you should teach kids the letters in a specific order and its not alphabetical. I've heard it is the letters that are easiest to recognize first, or easier to write, or both. But as a group we decided to just follow through in alphabetical order. It also helped parents to keep track and know which letter their children were learning.

Shaving Cream Letter C's

To introduce the letter I liked having a letter box with things in the box that started with our featured letter. I would let each child have a turn picking something out of the box and talk about what it was. We would emphasize the starting letter, buh buh butterfly, etc.

For three year olds I really tried to avoid a lot of worksheets. If we did worksheets it was usually simple ones from First School: Alphabet. They had a large letter and five squares you could cut out and glue onto the letter or elsewhere on the paper. Three year olds are so excited to use scissors, but often need help still. It was often me holding the paper while they cut. But I also tried to have some kind of an art project for each letter, either something that started with our featured letter or gluing buttons on B type of thing.

Ice Painting letter I's

Snack and Manners: I told the moms that they could choose anything for a snack (and of course be sure to discuss allergies ahead of time). Personally, I liked trying to match our snack to the letter of the week or our other theme. I may have spent a little more on snacks, but since I was not paying for preschool, I figured if I spent $10-20 a month on snacks once a month, it was still much cheaper than sending my kids to preschool. There were some weeks that things were tighter and I had to use my imagination to make what we already had work, or just have a generic snack, and the kids never seemed to mind. We tried to emphasize manners at the same time. No special emphasis, just talked about washing our hands before we ate, closing our mouths, not yelling at the table, and a few reminders to be a little less silly (only when they were starting to get pretty wild).

Transportation Theme: Bus Snack

Story Time: Read with your kids! Read, Read, Read! Some kids are less interested than others. I had some kids that would just wander while I read, just read a little louder so they can still hear you. Some years I was more ambitious and would make sure I had new library books checked out that matched our letter or theme. But most years that did not happen. I am somewhat of a book hoarder, so I still had a lot to choose from. But you can make almost anything match your lesson. I think we read, "The Happy Little Dump Truck" for transportation week, emotions, and the letter T.

Theme: This was our largest block of time. I tried to have various activities, art, movement, games, etc. My theme and movement time often blended together. Our traveling preschool box had old tshirts to wear so that no one ruined their clothing, even though I did use washable tempera paints.

Taste Lesson: Flavored Painting (pudding with coloring) while wearing paint shirts

I love art with kids. I did learn a few things to make art time more successful. Don't worry if their project looks nothing like it should. Most kids will follow your example, but some are just not into art, some kids hate getting their fingers messy (but after a few months at my house, most kids acclimated to messy hands projects), and some kids just want to use their own creativity. Cutting for three year olds is iffy, so I pre-cut lots of things and let them work on gluing. We did work on scissors with lots of things, but some projects were just easier pre-cut. They will also need lots of help and reminders as to what comes next. Try to try all different mediums, finger or tempera paints, water color (I only used the cheap ones), paper cutting, chalk, etc.

Circle Paintings

Be creative, and with the internet it is easy to do so. Three year olds do not want to just sit and listen, they want to move and be involved. Use felt boards, books, games, stories, etc. I am still working on uploading my other six years or preschool (the ones I have currently posted are from my 6th year of preschool, when I started taking more photos with the intent of blogging at some point), but hopefully you can find a few things you can use here, but if not, pinterest and google are your friends!

Felt Ice Cream Shop

Songs, Movement, and Clean-Up: This is your wind down time. It can be tempting to just let the kids play while you clean up art projects, snack messes and the like, but don't do it. Involve the kids in cleaning up, but especially sing and move! The kids need it, and they LOVE it! Finger Plays are lots of fun, and are great for small motor development. Movement games are lots of fun. I tried to always make our letter of the week out of painters tape on the floor and we would do all kinds of movement on the letter, move like ants on the A, or climb like monkeys on the M. My kids loved pretending and imagining on those letters. You can even buy painters tape at the dollar store. You can also use masking tape, I just like painters tape better.

Lower case t movement

Schedule

If you copy and paste this link, you can download a copy of the schedule I made for our three year old group. Before making this schedule I scoured and searched the internet for a schedule I could use to help base our's on. I found very very little. Apparently this is not something people want to share. But I hope that someone can find this helpful. You can switch things around as much as you need. Please use for your personal use only.

I made a list of possible themes, you can also download it here. I'm sure there are many more themes, but I did compile this list from many many preschool idea websites and blogs. (Again, for personal use only)

I'll add more tips as I am reminded of them, and if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!

Organizing a Preschool Group: General Tips

2016-09-09T07:55:00.001-07:00

As of the writing of this post, I have been involved in 7 different preschool groups over seven years. I organized 6 of them. Over those years I learned a few things to help things flow more smoothly, and would love to pass those things on to you.

It's Easy

First, this is much easier than you think it will be, whether you are organizing the group, or just participating in one. I know many moms have told me they are not interested in a group, because they are looking forward to that time away from their children. A co-op group is not for everyone, some people feel their child will do better without their parent as a teacher, etc. But I did still get breaks while my children attended preschool at someone else's house, and sometimes having mom as their teacher caused problems, but overall I loved it, and so did my children.

How Many?

I think a group runs the smoothest with 4-6 children. Any more than that and it gets difficult for one teacher to handle all the children. I know some groups have a teacher and a parent helper assigned each week, but that seemed like too much extra to coordinate and be involved in, so I kept our numbers smaller.

What ages to include?

Try to have children that are all going to be in the same school year. Emotionally, socially, and academically kids mature differently, so this rule will not always hold true. But there were times that I could tell that some kids were not as ready as others. But this was true for kids the same age, as well as kids that were younger. It's just a general observation I have made.

Ask around

Find some moms that you know have children of preschool age and ask them. You will hear no. Put some feelers out on facebook or other social media. Ask at church, play groups, etc. Some years I have really struggled to find a large enough group to make it work, and other times we had an abundance of interest.

Short Parent Meeting

Once you have your group, have a short parents meeting, emphasize to those involved that it will be short. I have found 30 minutes to be enough, if you are organized ahead of time. This does not need to be hosted at your home, you can ask someone else to host. Ask them to bring their children, it makes it easier for parents to come, as well as allows the kids to get acquainted if they are not already. I include a list of possible preschool themes that each parent can view, and ask if they have any specific themes that they want to teach, and write those down. I let them know of any group supplies that need to be contributed, and let them know what I have contributed. We discuss routines, and trying to keep the same routines, to help the kids transition between homes. Discuss start dates, days of the week you want to meet, and the time you want preschool to run. Discuss class parties and field trips that you would like to take. Find out who has memberships to places when planning field trips to keep cost down, ask around about potential free field trips to take. Almost every year we have done this we only did free field trips. Field trips and class parties make it feel more like a "real" preschool experience.

Make Schedules

Then you get to plug things in. This is the table I made when my twins did preschool in 2013/14. I only changed the names. This is a preschool group for kids that are 3. I will have other posts with more detail about each year.

For the 3 year olds, we met twice a week. We had a letter theme each week, we did the uppercase letter the first day, and the lowercase letter the second day. We met on Tues and Thursdays. Along with the letter theme we had a subject type theme. Most of our kids knew their colors, so rather than devoting time to that, we had a general color theme for each month, and let each parent decide how much to emphasize each color. As I plugged in the mom's names, they did not always go in order. I made sure that each parent got to host at least one class/holiday party, and also had each parent in charge of a field trip. Sometimes I specified where we should go, like the fire station when we learned about occupations, and other times I left it open and let them choose. (You should be able to copy and paste the link to download this schedule. You can then edit names and dates to fit your needs

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B41ZjJZLS-xeY1h0aTBhQzl0THM/view?usp=sharing)

Effort

Some parents will put more into it than others, and that is okay. My kids never complained that it was less fun at so and so's house than at whathisnames house. One reason I like to be the first teacher of the year is to show other parents what effort I will be putting in to it, I did not want it to be a play group. But even on days when it was more of just a play group, socialization is a huge part of learning. Of the seven years I have done this, I have had a few moms have things come up that didn't allow them to keep doing the group. But only one year did the group fall through entirely, and that was a group of just me and one other mom, and we just were not seeing eye to eye, so I quit more than she did. I was still able to find another mom to do a group with. We obviously had more turns than in a larger group, but we kept it low key and had lots of fun too!

Time Schedule

I'll be honest with you, switching houses every week can be hard for some kids, but most do okay. It is made easier for students and teachers alike if the kids know the expected routine. I let the parents know this was not a strict schedule, if the letter project took 30 minutes and the snack only 10, that is okay. Just try to let things go in the same order every time. I also tried to set it up so there was variation so that the kids were not just sitting at a table for an hour straight. We gave 15 minutes in the beginning for just play time, or free time, I often tried to have some type of loosely structured activity, like puzzles or file folder games. I learned that it does need to be something that cleans up quickly, or it is difficult to get the attention back when you are ready to start. The reason we had play time is because people run late, and this gives time for everyone to arrive before you start. You decide if you need to include that. The second year of preschool we still met only twice a week, and still for two hours, but we also added math time in, so the other subjects had less time.

Organize a Preschool Box

This is a traveling box with supplies the teacher may need. I chose a flat-ish bin with a lid. Included in our box were our calendar, weather chart, old tshirts for messy projects, and our music book and CD. We did not always do a music book, but it was lots of fun when we did. The first few years I did not organize this, but the last few I did. I chose a song or poem for each month, and during music time we were supposed to work on the song or poem for that month, in the hopes that we could choose the best few for the kids to sing at our end of year program. I also included a cd with each song (whenever available, there was only one song I was unable to find) I needed a CD, because I am not musically inclined, and needed the help of that CD to carry the tune. The music book also had lyrics, and sometimes sheet music.

Supplies for Each Child

I let each parent know that they needed to have a pencil box for their child, in the box they should have a box of crayons, a pencil, glue stick (much less messy than elmer's glue), and scissors. This way everyone only keeps track of their child's supplies. There were often times that things got left at my house or someone else's, so label things, but they are pretty easy to return when you see each other weekly. Also, let them know their child should have a backpack, it makes it much easier when finished with projects to have them place them in their backpack.

Lesson Plans are Everywhere!

Let parents know places that they can find info on lesson plans. Pinterest has so many. I started making preschool lesson plans long before Pinterest was around, so I found a few favorite websites. I still refer to them because they are organized well and contain multiple themes, and are usually divided by themes, and subdivided by arts & crafts, music, snacks, books, etc.

These are my faves!

and my fave place for letter printables and coloring pages is:

First School

This is fun!

Why have I done seven years of preschool groups, with hopefully 2 more in the future? Because it is fun. I love being such an integral part of my child's education. As a child I always wanted to be a teacher or a mom, and this way, I get to be both. Of course we are always teaching our children, but this gave me a unique opportunity to teach my children the basics. My children loved it too. They were almost always excited for preschool.

If you have any questions, I would love to help.

Teaching Numbers

2016-09-09T07:39:00.001-07:00

As part of our preschool curriculum we taught numbers. Most kids know how to count before starting preschool, but do not always recognize numbers or know how to count objects. Our first year of preschool we were just familiarizing the kids with the look of the numbers. We did simple projects like the ones below. I have an old Sizzix machine, and die cut objects for them to glue on, and had them count as they glued them onto a large number. Some children struggled more than others. Usually, regardless of understanding, kids are just proud of their artwork.

The second year of preschool we did similar projects, but sometimes added worksheets as well. Finding new or different activities to do with numbers was not always easy, but honestly, the kids don't mind doing the same thing over and over again. :)

What ways do you use to teach children numbers?

Senses: Touch

2016-09-08T17:50:00.001-07:00

We were learning about letter M this week, so some of these activities doubled for both themes.

For our starter activity we had a mitten match. The boys were able to feel the soft mittens (just cut outs from felt), and also the hard clothespins. I had them all tossed into a basket, and they had to find the matches and hang them on the line together. This is a great small motor activity.

To introduce the theme I had a box with various hard and soft objects, like a block, cotton ball, marble, sock, etc.I let each child have a turn to reach into the box (without looking) and choose an object, and then tell us how it felt, hard, soft, etc.

I found this fun idea at Perpetual Preschool. We painted a giant mitten while wearing mittens. I cut out mittens as wide as my butcher paper roll. Then I went through our mitten and glove bin and found the ones with no matches. If your's are all matched, no worries, all paint washed out anyhow. The kids loved this activity. To contrast the difference in touch, you could have them paint something else with just their fingers.

I'm not sure why I don't have a picture of this, but its one of my favorite preschool activities (if I keep saying that, you won't believe me, maybe I just love it all!). We did 5 senses Gingerbread men. I found this idea years ago at Everything Preschool. I planned for the 5 senses themes to end in December, so that I could do this activity. I cut gingerbread men out of sand paper (touch). We glued jingle bells onto them(sound), rubbed cinnamon sticks onto them (smell), and you can hear the sound of coloring or rubbing the cinnamon stick on them, and then you can see the finished product. These turn out darling, and crayon shows up well on them for extra details.

The second day we made texture books, I found this cute idea and other senses themed activities at Perpetual Preschool. I had a variety of different things cut out, and made a small book with blank pages. The children got to choose which things they wanted in their books. Then I labeled their pages, ______ feels _______. I gave some adjective suggestions, like rough, soft, smooth, bumpy, etc. I included squares of fabric, foil, sand paper, feathers, etc. Anything goes.

Because it was winter I also let the children play with snow, one hand had a mitten on, and one hand was naked, so that they could feel the difference.

Senses: Sight

2016-09-08T14:13:00.002-07:00

Teaching preschoolers about their senses is amazing. They just eat it up, and love it all. This year I got to teach 3 of the five senses, and wish I could have done all five!

Unfortunately being the teacher, I cannot always stop to take photos of everything, but once I get them going on an activity I can sneak in a few photos.

For a starter activity we had an eye doctor station set up. A simple eye chart, lab coat, glasses without lenses (cheap sunglasses with the lenses popped out work well), mirrors, and a wooden spoon to cover one eye. If they have never been to an eye doctor, they may need a little instruction.

To introduce the theme I had a basket full of things that affect our vision, such as glasses, sunglasses, contact case, magnifying glasses, binoculars, etc. I let each child have a turn to choose one item to take out and tell what it did, etc. This was a great opportunity to educate children about glasses, since Mr. W. had been in glasses for not quite a year. We talked about how glasses help him to see things clearly, and discussed other people they know that wear glasses. I am thankful that children in glasses are much more common than when I was growing up. I think educating children about them makes them much less likely to tease someone who wears them. We also talked about eyes, eye color, shape, etc, and how most everyone's eyes have the same function.

Then we practiced how well their sight works. I had a cookie sheet with items on it, and had them close their eyes while I took one thing off, and when they opened their eyes they had to identify what was missing. We had a letter I theme that day, so I included our letter I from our LeapFrog Word Whammer, and then just added other random objects. Since these were young 3 year olds, I didn't put very many. I let each child have a turn figuring out which item was missing, otherwise you typically have one child yelling out the answer, and the other kids feeling sad. :)

I found this great activity (and other senses activities) at Preschool Rainbow: Senses. I had a basket full of mirrors (obviously use supervision as mirrors can break easily), pocket mirrors, etc. I bought whatever mirrors I could find at the $ store. It was a small investment for a few mirrors. We examined ourselves in the mirrors, and also walked around the house examining our reflections in other items, such as spoons, foil, windows, etc. Then we did a mirror walk (this was one of my favorite things to do as a kid). Hold a mirror under your nose and look into the mirror, it looks like you are walking on the ceiling. My kids loved it as much as I always did!

(please excuse the mess, we were learning)

the pocket mirrors quickly became "phones"

The second day we had other things to explore with our eyes, a microscope, prism, colored cellophane, binoculars (again), etc. The children just loved checking out each thing. It was very low key, but great learning was had!

For music we sang, "Popcorn Popping" this is an LDS children's song. It is not religious, just a fun spring song, but also talks about what we see. You can see the lyrics and actually hear the song through the link.

We also sang "That's What My Eyes Can Do" which I found at Nuttin' But Preschool. Its cute and easy, and to the tune of The Hokey Pokey.

Your eyes can look up.

Your eyes can look down.

Your eyes can squeeze tightly shut.

Or you can circle them round and round.

You do the blinky, blinky

And shuffle them from left to right.

That's what my eyes can do. Yeah!

Grandmother's and Grandfather's glasses are also fun finger plays.

Grandmother's Glasses

These are grandmother's glasses
(make glasses over eyes)
This is grandmother's cap
(peak hands on head)
This is the way she folds her hands
(fold hands)
And puts them in her lap.
(place in lap)

Grandfather's Glasses These are grandfather's glasses
(make glasses over eyes)
This is grandfather's cap
(flat hand on head)
This is the way he folds his arms
(cross arms on chest)
And sits there just like that.
(look straight ahead)

and of course we played I Spy!!

Farm Animals

2016-09-08T13:30:00.002-07:00

A long time ago, well before my twins were born, I was a consultant for an amazing company, StoryTime Felts. I came upon them when a friend of mine had a party. I fell in love with their stuff. The felt art work was beautiful and fun, and many of their products came with paperwork, like coloring and activity pages, and stories to use with them. I had never intended to be a consultant for anything, but this one, I could not resist. The start up package was small, and at that time, there was no sales minimum, ever, You had only to pay your annual "membership" which was also fairly low. I'm not sure how it works now, because once I went on bed rest with my twins, and then had infant and then toddler twins, I was unable to keep doing it.

But, I still LOVE LOVE LOVE their products. I have so much of it, that I decided I really should utilize it more, so I found what I could for the farm theme. I think all of the papers I used here, are from different sets that they have, and they all have felt sets to go along with them. Amazing stuff. Seriously, go check them out. The company was started by a mom who wanted to get some felt, and found a way to earn it at a homeschooling convention, and then ended up making her own company. Even though I have three large bins full, sometimes I feel find myself looking at what they have and wanting to buy more! ha ha!

Anyhow, that is my shameless plug, I no longer sell for them, but their products sell themselves. I receive nothing if you buy from them.

We played with these cards, they go along with the poem 1, 2, Buckle my shoe. We went over the poem a few times, letting each child act out the things (we set up right by the front door), and then I let each child see if they could do it in order.

For snack we did animal crackers, making sure to identify the farm animals, and apples and apple juice, since you would probably find those things on a farm.

We also had pigs in the mud. Pink marshmallows in chocolate pudding. not the healthiest snack, but yummy to most. I did add a banana so they had some fresh fruit in there.

The next two things are from the Farm Fun Collection. It comes with much more than these. But this little section teaches positional words, around, through, over, under, etc. It has a cute little felt story about a mouse and his adventures to get to the watermelon on the farm. The kids cut out the watermelon, and put it together, it folds, and they had a red part to put inside. I premade magnet felt mice, to put inside the watermelon, and make it easier to hang on the fridge. You could make the mouse out of paper as well.

Then we did this worksheet, practicing tracing skills and reinforcing those positional words.

Sadly, I think that we must have had sick kids, and missed one of our preschool days, because I only have photos for one day.

There are so many fun farm things you could do, But this is all I have photos of for that day. The kids loved their little Freddie the Farm Mouse stories though. And the worksheet made it easy to retell the story to family once they got home.

Plants and Flowers

2016-09-07T21:45:00.002-07:00

Spring is a perfect time to learn about plants and flowers!

We made these cute flower prints on paper. You use the bottom of any soda bottle. They all look about the same. They turned out even cuter than I thought they would. The kids drew the stems themselves. We tried a few other things as well, but the soda bottles were the easiest and worked the best.

I made this little felt play and the kids loved playing it. I found the idea and others at this cute blog, (I had a hard time finding plants and flowers themes that weren't just farming), Child's Play Family Daycare: Flowers and Gardening Theme

Four Little Flowers Cut 4 flower shapes out of felt and place them on a flannel board. Let the children take turns removing the flowers as you recite the following poem:
4 little flowers I did see. I picked one, then there were three.
Three little flowers, pretty and new. I picked another, then there were two.
Two little flowers out in the sun. I picked one more, then there was one.
One little flower left in the sun. I picked it too, then there were none.

Unfortunately I did not take great pictures for this theme.

I also found this idea there, and was able to make it pretty easy. The kids LOVED it, they each wanted a turn to make the flower pop, and my boys continued to play with for weeks after.

Take yellow felt (seed) and glue to center of cuff. 3. Let dry. If glue does not hold sew seed to cuff (I did so it would stay permanently) 4. Then placing hand into sock so tips of fingers touch the end, snip a TINY hole. 5. Now take flower and stem and place through hole, push down flower into the sock so sock, which now has become the soil, is completely covering the flower. While hand is placed in its hidden soil sing this song: (tune Pop Goes the Weasel). Up Pops the Flower We plant a seed in the ground, (point to seed) The rain falls in a shower, (Do falling rain with opposite hand) The sun comes up and what do you know (look up toward sky and point) UP POPS A FLOWER!!!!!!! ( pop out the flower with your hand).

For movement we did flower relays. I used silk flowers (I always have those because I buy them with the intentions of making hair clips, and well....). They had to race to the bucket, pick a flower, bring it back, and tag the next person. They each had multiple turns, because it was fun. :)

Here are a few of the cute finger plays that I found at Preschool Education: Flowers, Spring.

FINGERPLAYS: MY GARDEN This is my garden (extend one hand forward, palm up)

I'll rake it with care (raking motion with fingers)

And then some flower seeds (planting motion)

I'll plant in right there. The sun will shine (make circle with hands)

And the rain will fall (let fingers flutter down to lap)

And my garden will blossom (cup hands together, extend upwards slowly) And grow straight and tall

I'll Plant a Little Seed (Im a Little Teapot")
I'll plant a little seed in the dark, dark, ground,
Out comes the yellow sun, big and round,
Down comes the rain, soft and slow,
Up comes the little seed, grow, grow, grow!

and

Relaxing Flowers
Five litttle flowers standing in the sun (hold up five fingers)
See their heads nodding, bowing one by one? (bend fingers several times)
Down, down, down comes the gentle rain (raise hands, wiggle fingers and lower arms to simulate falling rain)
  And the five little flowers lift their heads up again! (hold up five fingers)
Little seed in the ground below (form your bodies into balls)
Felt the heat of the warm sun's glow (rub hands over arms)
Heard the raindrops pitter patter (place hand behind ear)
Wondered why the birds did chatter              (place hand on head as if pondering)
So the seed began to grow (begin to rise)
And poked it's head up very slow (lift head) What it saw was such a sight (rub eyes)
The plant was in a garden bright! (throw arms apart)

For our snack I tried to have things you could grow, so popped corn, apples, melon, and we added some grain crackers. For the second day I made a Sunflower cake with twinkies. Super easy and adorable, and I cannot believe that I don't have a photo of it. It must have gotten deleted. :/

My favorite thing that we did was making our own greenhouses. We talked about what greenhouses are, and then I made a simple house shape and had the kids write their name on the line. I cannot find where I found this idea, but it is in many many places. Basically, I taped the greenhouse paper over a ziploc bag, and inside the bag we placed seeds (I let them choose between a few) and a damp paper towel. Once it is taped in the window the sun can shine through, and the children have the chance to see the roots and plant grow.

This was a fun activity that both parents and children liked. I received a few compliments on how fun it was. :) (I only had two students besides my own ha ha!)

Cowboys

2016-09-07T21:17:00.003-07:00

To introduce our Cowboy theme we talked about the clothing and things that cowboys wear, and why. I found this great explanation at The Virtual Vine: Cowboys.

Discuss with your students that a cowboy’s dress is determined by need and not by looks.

Hat -shields eyes from the sun; used to drink water from a creek or river; used as a pillow

Bandana - keeps dust out of his eyes; used to blindfold a horse so it does not get "spooked"

Boots - the high heels keep feet in the stirrups; the high sides keep dirt off of feet and helps protect legs against snakebites

Spurs - used to urge a horse forward

Chaps - protect legs

Of course we needed some Cowboy clothes. I had bought the Toy Story cowboy hats at the dollar store for a birthday party of my twins. There were only four, so I ended up using something else, so these came out for cowboy week. (Dollar Tree typically has thin foam cowboy hats)

We made "leather" vests out of grocery store paper bags. I had them do a scissor activity by cutting fringe along the bottom.

And then we decorated bandannas. I just used fabric remnants that I had bought previously, cut them into squares, and gave the kids fabric markers to decorate them.

Then they donned their cowboy attire.

Of course every cow boy needs a horse. I have been making these horses with preschool kids for years now, they've been for letter H, or for letter Z as a zebra and we added stripes, and this time, they were for cowboy week. They always come back because they are easy, and kids love them.

Find a horse coloring page, I printed at about a 4x6 size, if I remember correctly, so four to a page, and when cutting them out for the kids, cut off their legs. Then just instruct the kids to color them, and that you will add legs after. After coloring, supply two clothes pins. Some kids color the clothes pins, some don't, but they look so cute. The kids are always proud of their standing horses. And who says there aren't purple horses? :) I found this cute idea years ago at Virtual Vine:Cowboys, there are many other cute ideas there as well.

For our snack they made trail mix. I supplied small containers with different snacks: cheerios, marshmallows, goldfish crackers, pretzel sticks, etc. Please be aware of any food allergies your students may have. Then let the kids decide what to add to their bag. Then close the bag and shake to mix it up. My kids still ask if they can make a trail mix snack.

(You can see my big preggo belly in the corner there, aww!)

We made this darling armadillo craft as well. I thought I had a better photo of it, but the basic idea is that you use corrugated cardboard cut into oval shapes and then teach a little about armadillos and let the kids make some armadillo art. They really liked it. This idea was found at Preschool Education: Western

We played a fun cow herding game. I printed and cut out cows, and then had the cows "in the field", There were fences they needed to corral the cows in to. Each fenced area was a piece of paper with a number, and I would call out a number and they had to put that number of cows onto that paper, or in that fence. They loved it. You can see some of the action shots of them trying to round the cows up. This game could easily played with just one child, or a group. I found this and other fabulous ideas at Preschool Express: Out West Theme.

Some fun cowboy songs that we did for music and movement were these:

10 Little Cowboys

Ten little cowboys ( hold up 10 fingers)

Standing in a row-

When they see the foreman

They bow just so- ( bend fingers down)

They ride to the left (hands move left)

And they ride to the right (move hands to right)

And then they shut their eyes

And sleep all night. (put cheek on hands)

Cowboys All Dressed

Five little cowboys get up to dress.

The first one buttons up his vest.

The second one wears tall boots with taps.

The third one laces up his chaps.

The fourth one ties a big bow tie.

The fifth one tips his hat. Good-bye!

and

I Hop on my Horse

I hop on my horse and go to town (Pretend to hop on horse)

I ride up high and I don't fall down. (Pretend to ride horse)

I wear a hat so my hair won't blow (Put hand on head.)

and when I want to stop, I just say Ho! (Pretend to pull back on reins)

Check out the links within the post, as they have the ideas featured here and more.

Nursery Rhymes

2016-05-09T17:28:00.002-07:00

Nursery Rhymes are one of my all time favorite things to teach preschoolers about. There are just so many fun activities and art projects to do. Also, kids love nursery rhymes because they are short and easy to learn repeat. I have assigned myself this theme every year that I can.

For our starter activity we looked for Miss Muffet's spiders. I found this super cute idea at Preschool Education:Nursery Rhyme Activities. Basically, have two large, one filled with oatmeal. Then you hide a few small spiders in the dry oatmeal. I used Halloween ring spiders that I had on hand. Have the children spoon through the oatmeal and find the spiders. As they find them they transfer them to the empty bowl. I've done this for multiple years and all of the preschool kids have loved it. We let them each take turns. This is a great activity for hand to eye coordination.

We made Hickory Dickory Dock clocks. I have done this before. You can see here: Nursery Rhymes

I have the shapes precut, and then give the kids a bowl full of foam sticker numbers. I put the clock on the table for reference, Their clocks are not usually symmetrical, and often have some upside down numbers, but that's okay. They are just learning concepts of telling time, just recognizing numbers is a great start for 3s.

For movement time we played Jack Be Nimble

We made simple "candles" with empty toilet paper tubes, a precut flame, and a rectangle in the color of their choice. Wrap the colored rectangle around the tube and tape or glue. Then glue or tape the flame inside the tube, Then we would say the rhyme, but insert the child's name,

"Mr. A. be nimble

Mr. A. be quick

Mr. A jumped over the candlestick.

The kids love jumping over in different ways, and showing off their skills. This is a great coordination activity. My boys played with their candles for days after.

For snack of course we made muffins. I usually prefer not to use box mixes of anything, but box mixes are much quicker, and I wanted to utilize my time so we had time for all the activities planned. I had all ingredients ready to pour in, and let each child add one thing. While mixing we sang,

"Oh do you know the Muffin Man

the muffin man

Oh do you know the Muffin Man who lives on Drury Lane?"

While the muffins cooked we did another activity and had fresh muffins when they came out.

(I absolutely love my silicone muffin liners. The muffins almost always come out cleanly and they are reusable as well.)

For music time we made Little Boy Blue horns. These required some help, but are super simple. Give each child an empty toilet paper tube to decorate however they would like, crayons, markers, stickers, etc. Then have a square of wax paper slightly larger than the toilet paper tube end. Secure the wax paper with a rubber band. Use the horns like a kazoo, and of course make sure to call the cows and sheep back home.

We did some Humpty Dumpty art and then a fun Humpty Dumpty activity. We talked about why Humpty Dumpty could not be put back together. Some of the kids guessed that they could put him back together. So I had each child sit on a stool with an egg. As we sang Humpty Dumpty the child waited for the cue of "fall" and dropped their egg into the pan. Then I had them look at the shell and see if they could put it back together. Some tried, but then realized that it was not possible. But how they loved this. Don't all kids love making messes, and getting to do so with mom/teacher permission is even better. There was very little mess on the sheet, it almost all made it into the pan.

We also made some Humpty Dumpty art. We just used plain white paper plates and construction paper strips for arms and legs. They attempted to accordian fold the limbs, but that is tricky for 3-4 year olds. We attached the legs with brads, so that they had some movement. I let them draw on a face. They were super proud of their work.

I had many more activities planned for this lesson, but the other girls in our class were sick and ended up not coming. Miss A. (my cousin's daughter) was being babysat at my house that week, so we added her in. But I prepared less and kept it light and easy. But please check out my other lesson on Nursery Rhymes for more ideas and better photos. :)

Transportation: Land

2016-03-19T08:45:00.001-07:00

My boys absolutely LOVE trains. So of course I assigned myself Land Transportation. I gave the other moms air and water transportation. I would have loved to do those too, but one must share. :)

We started with a scissor practice skill worksheet. I made it on my outdated print shop program. I just had different vehicles one side, and a destination on the other. They had to cut on the lines connecting them, zig zags, wavy, etc.

My cute Mr. W. decided to connect them all in one line back and forth. He ended up with one very long piece of paper.

We had some cute snacks. One day we made these cute buses. I covered the graham cracker in frosting for them, and let the kids add oreo wheels, golden graham cereal windows, skittles or M&M lights, and a teddy graham driver or passenger. Some of the kids wanted to make a car instead. They all turned out darling.

Idea found here

The second day I made snack trains. I stapled paper cups together. On the front train I glued a photo of a steam engine that I found online. Then I let each child choose what they wanted to fill their "tenders" with. Some of the choices were teddy grahams, goldfish crackers, grapes, raisins, marshmallows, oyster crackers, crispy chow mein noodles, etc.

I found this adorable idea at Preschool Express. Jean Warren has lots of fabulous ideas there.

We played a fun car graphing game also. I made a worksheet with a table on it. I put various car colors on each row, and we watched out the windows for the colors of cars they saw. Then we colored in a square each time we saw a car drive by. I live on a busier street, so even in the middle of the day we were able to see a handful of cars drive by. My boys liked this a lot, and worked on it through out the next few days.

For story time we read The Little Engine That Could, among others. I love the old classic by Watty Piper. Some of them have newer illustrations, but much of the same words, but I really love the old one, as do my kids.

After for an art project we made shape trains. I had the shapes precut, rectangles, triangles, squares, and a circle. I also precut a cloud/thinking shape. I had a demo already made to show the kids how to make their shapes into a train. They then added wheels, we did this by dipping an empty thread spool into paint. We talked all about how the Little Engine was brave and thought that he could do hard things. We talked about hard things that they have already learned to do. And then, we talked about things that are hard for them now, but that they thought they could do, and that is what we wrote on our cloud/thought shapes.

I found the idea of the shape train at Preschool Education, and added the think bubble myself.

"I think I can go downstairs by myself"

"I think I can pick apples"

"I think I can clean up by myself"

"I think I can change my clothes by myself"

I loved this little art project. The trains turned out very cute, and I loved seeing their little brains at work, and what they thought they could do and overcome.

Of course we also had to play a classic train game. We lined up the little chairs that I have and I gave them tickets in every color of the rainbow. (or rather in the construction paper that I have). I found the idea at The Activity Idea Place. To ride the train, I would say, "All aboard the red train" and they would have to find and show their red ticket. We repeated with all the colors they had. They loved this, and we decided to skip a few other planned activities and continue playing this.

and we absolutely had to play Red Light, Green Light!

Some of the fun songs we sang were:

Down By The Station

Down by the station

Early in the morning,

See the little pufferbillies

All in a row.

See the station master

Pull a little handle.

Chug, chug, Toot, toot.

Off we go!

Little Red Caboose

Little red caboose, Little red caboose,

Little red caboose behind the train, train,

Smokestack on his back, Going down the track,

Little red caboose behind the train, train.

This is a Choo Choo Train This is a choo choo train (Child becomes a train by squatting)

Puffing down the track (Child does actions that the rhyme states)

Now its going forward, (Child goes forward)

Now its going back. (Child goes back, etc.)

Now the bell is ringing (child pulls make believe bell rope)

What a lot of noise it makes (cover ears and make train noises)

Everywhere it goes. (Children move around the room at random.)

April Fools 2015

2016-03-05T16:35:00.004-08:00

I could have sworn that we made more things than this. I even have memories of making these Mushroom Cookies (scroll down a ways, it is a fun Alice in Wonderland birthday party.). But I cannot find photos of them anywhere. :/ But they did turn out to look very much like the photo she has, but they were a crumbly mess and difficult to make.

The older two were old enough last year to rehash the kitty litter cake to trick the twins. I think that they enjoyed it just a little too much!

Here they are taking out the litter box (we actually have a cat now, so this was feasible)

Just as they were about to go "dump" it outside, Miss B. took out a tootsie roll poop and ate it. The boys looked on in horror. Miss B could hardly contain herself. She thought their expressions were so funny, and that she was just too funny. It was great entertainment to watch!

Then she kindly offered the boys a tootsie roll log

The incredulous look of, "uh mom, what is going on here?"

and once they realized it was a joke, eating away at their yummy cake.

I used the recipe found at Allrecipes.

The older two also helped me make some candy broccoli.

I have a photo pinned on pinterest, but it is a dead link. The basic, very easy instructions are to use fruity tootsie rolls, and shape into a broccoli stalk. Use a little to make into a ball/head type shape. Then I got them slightly wet and dipped into green cake sprinkles and/or non-pareils. My photo is a little blurry and doesn't do them justice, they actually looked pretty realistic.

And be sure to check out my many other years of April Foolery

April Fools 2014

2016-03-05T16:12:00.003-08:00

I think this was our April Fools Breakfast. Apparently I did not make a Fools Dinner, because there are no photos to prove it, and I don't have a memory of anything specific either. :)

I started with jello orange slices. These were actually pretty easy to make. Fun to serve and fun to eat. I found the idea and great instructions at Meet the Dubiens

I also served magical pre-sliced bananas. As the kids peeled them, they found them already sliced inside. I know I got my instructions from the Family Fun Magazine, but they no longer have anything on their website. The kids were surprised and wondering how I did it. I didn't take step-by-step photos, but I did find some at this cute blog.

Word of advice, do these right before serving, as they start to brown around the needle entry and exit points.

And then I made the teeny-tiny cinnamon rolls. These are actually about the size of a mini muffin. I wanted something I knew that Miss B. would eat. The funny thing is that these were the thing she was most hesitant to try. She was sure they were not what they looked like. They were pretty tasty, and much easier than homemade cinnamon rolls for a mom in a morning rush.

I found the easy recipe using refrigerated crescent roll dough at Iowa Girl Eats.

And a few reactions. :)

And be sure to check out my many other years of April Foolery

April Fools 2013

2016-03-05T11:36:00.000-08:00

Since the twins are a little older, I rehashed some old tricks. Mr. T. and Miss B. knew them, but they were fun to play again.

Here I added just a few drops of food coloring underneath Mr. W.'s cereal, so when the milk is added, it turns a color.

I made a great "dinner".
We had fried chicken, baked beans, and cake with pink frosting.

I found the recipe for the baked beans and fried chicken at a great little blog, Kitchen Fun with My Three Sons.

I started with large pretzel rods, a little frosting on one end and dipped in melted white chocolate. Then shape a rice crispy treat around it in a drum stick shape. then after cooling cover in a candy coating and roll in slightly crushed corn or bran flakes.

I attempted to make the corn on the cobs to go with it. I should have used her method, because I what I tried failed miserably. I attempted to use candy corns stuffed into a twinkie (I saw it somewhere on pinterest). They do not stay in, and yeah, I gave up and ate a twinkie instead. Maybe I will try her method instead.

The baked beans were yummy. I think the coloring on her's turned out a little bit better than mine, but they did look like the real thing.

Our cake was meatloaf covered in dyed mashed potatoes, (you used to be able to view it online at Family Fun magazine, but since Disney bought them out, none of it is there anymore. :( ) but it may you could easily make this Spaghetti Torte Recipe if it fits your families taste better.

And here are some kid reactions to our dinner:

Skepticism

Surprise

Fear

and

Indifference.

lol

For the pranks that the kids did, they made a mock cake and the world's tiniest popsicles.

We followed instructions for the Exploding Cake here. I thought that their's looked too uncake like, so we decided to tape the balloon onto an empty cool whip container instead. I set the older two to work on this downstairs while I worked in the kitchen on our surprise dinner. Because of this, the cake did not really explode as planned. In trying to secure the cake onto the bowl, they used a whole lotta duct tape. So much so that the hubs was unable to cut through it with the knife. It deflated instead of popping. But the hubs did not know what to expect inside anyhow, so he thought the joke was just that it was impossible to cut. A lot of laughs ensued, even if it did not go as planned. It was also very very tricky to frost a balloon, just FYI. lol

The world's tiniest popsicles were found at PennyPinching.com. You have to scroll quite a ways to find them, and its just a photo. But it is basically a flat toothpick, broken or cut smaller, inserted into Mike & Ike's Candy.

And be sure to check out my many other years of April Foolery

April Fools 2012

2016-03-05T10:10:00.003-08:00

If you have perused my blog at all, then you know that I LOVE April Fool's Day. I love silly harmless pranks, and especially food trickery.

We do a have a rule, no mean tricks. Just fun. Because of my no mean tricks, I don't make food that my kids will hate. It might look like they'll hate it, but we have enough trouble with pickiness, I do not want to make them more scared to try to new foods.

This April Fools I had to travel out of state to attend my sister's baby shower, so I had to do a lot of prep work before the holiday. I was coming back the day of, but knew I would only be home in enough time to make dinner. Because of the time crunch, things did not turn out as well as I had hoped. But the kids still had fun.

I started with fake fruit cans. I found the idea at ComeTogetherKids.com. She has great instructions there, I'll just show my pics here, you can get the step by step there.

What is this tom-foolery?

Okay, this is better than fruit!

And Miss B. enjoying the candy from her can after dinner

She also had this cute idea of carrots in a candy box, so I had to do that one too. I made these ahead in the hope that the hubs would give them to the kids for some foolery before I got home, but he said he wanted to wait until I was home. But it did mean that I got some photos of their reactions. :)

Because mine were made ahead and hiding in my closet, I didn't figure baby carrots would handle well. I filled mine with goldfish crackers instead. Keep the eggs for an easter egg hunt, if its not too late. Or just keep in that secret mom stash, chocolate therapy.

For our mock dinner I served lasagna and bundt cake, or did I?

We have done this for enough years that my kids know that if it looks like dessert then it is the main course, and if it looks like the main course, it is probably dessert. They are usually just a little hesitant to try, at least now. That first year, it was like pulling teeth to get them to try it. But that did make the trick a little more fun. Ha ha!

The lasagna was actually a lasagna banana pudding cake. I found it at The Food Network. While this tasted fabulous, it did not turn out looking very much like lasagna. I was unable to get a good red color. But it really did taste great.

The bundt cake was more of a pizza biscuit bake. I found it at Taste of Home. It looked better than the dessert lasagna, but I wish the melted cheese would have looked more melty-drizzly, like a glaze.

The kids made the drink. As much as they love being tricked, they also love getting to play tricks on dad too. This looks like some green koolaid, but its actually applejuice colored green. The kids added the food coloring, and they have overdone it a bit. :)

This is the usual reaction to all our jokes and pranks.

Smiles and Laughter.

Worth every effort made.

And be sure to check out my many other years of April Foolery

Imagination and Creativity

2016-03-05T09:14:00.003-08:00

Children have amazing imaginations. My kids have all been fabulous pretenders in their day to day play. But I still think it is important to teach children imagination and creativity. Art can sometimes be a hard things for kids to use their imagination. They can easily get stuck in a rut of the teacher telling them what to make and how to make it. I try to let my children and students art reflect them, and actually love when they all turn out different. But teaching creativity can be tricky too. Luckily I did find a few great resources and ideas online.

To introduce the theme I used a fun idea that a friend used way back when Miss B. was in preschool, a good 10 years or so ago. I had gone to pick up Miss B. and they were not quite finished and were doing this activity. It stuck with me all these years, so I implemented it into our lesson.

I had the children imagine that they were a pizza. I had them lay on the floor and close their eyes and told them to feel like they were dough being rolled out. As you can see they look very relaxed. :) They did open their eyes plenty, but did a great job being calm and quiet and imagining. I had precut the toppings and had them in separate small bowls ready to go.

Our toppings were:
yellow triangles: pineapple
red circles: pepperoni
green circles: bell peppers
yellow shredded paper: cheese

They all really enjoyed being pizzas. It also got their minds going on imagination.

For art I traced a few circles onto one paper, and a triangle on the other. I told them to imagine what the circles and triangles could be, and then draw it as best they could. It was fun watching them think and then transform the shapes into something.

Here you can see a triangle became a skirt a part of a person, maybe a skirt or dress.

and these circles became wheels on a vehicle.

The second day I glued a bean on a page, and had the kids imagine what might grow out of it, and then draw it. I told them they could imagine anything they wanted, a real plant, a pretend plant, it didn't even have to be a plant. This one was a little trickier, and since they were all 3 or barely 4, their drawings aren't super clear. But they did have fun with it.

Anything you can do to get the kids thinking on their own and expressing their creative side. I think we also just played music and let them paint whatever they thought of.

Feelings and Emotions

2016-02-29T08:58:00.003-08:00

This is one of my favorite preschool themes. I ended up with it one year, and loved it so much, that I always assign it to myself now. I've taught this theme three different years now, I think.

I found this idea at Perpetual Preschool- Feelings Art. Basically, take photos of each child giving their best happy, angry, silly, sad, scared, etc photos. I take photos on the first day of preschool and then have them printed before our second day. Then I made book pages for each photo, and a line on it that says, "I feel scared when ________________" and as we glue in the photos, I ask them when they feel scared, happy, sad, etc. The answers are adorable, (or heartbreaking, when your child says they feel sad because of something you did), Such a fun keepsake. I LOVE our emotions books, and the kids have too.

Mr. T. had the day off school when we did this, so I took updated emotions pics of him too.

Mr. A was grumpy about something, so many of his photos look similar, but still cute!

We played a Share A Smile Game (found at LDS.org (Children's Manual-I have feelings).

Share a Smile Have the children stand in a circle. Ask them to make their lips straight and not smile. Then start a smile around the circle by smiling and saying the following words: “I will give a smile to (child’s name).” The child you named should now smile and repeat the phrase, inserting the name of the next child. Continue until all the children in the circle are smiling. Remind the children that when we smile at other people, they will often smile back. It is hard to be sad, angry, or frightened when we are smiling

We also painted our feelings (also found at Perpetual Preschool).

Painting Feelings Give the kids paint, paper and a paintbrush. Have a tape recorder with different types of music (classical, rap, rock, instrumental etc) Tell them that when the music is on they paint on the paper to the speed and the mood they feel. The kids and I had fun, painting slow and relaxed to classical and going very fast for the fast songs. (We talked about feelings after: sad, happy, surprised etc.) It is very interesting to see the differences between the two. I posted both types of paintings on bulletin boards so the parents could see what a difference music makes!

I liked this cute song that I found at Hummingbird Ed.

Feelings I Have Feelings "Frere Jacques"

I have feelings; I have feelings.

Look at me, and you'll see.

Sometimes I feel [mad];

Really, really [mad].

Look at me, and you'll see.

and of course we sang, "If You're Happy and You Know It". :)

The kids loved this little game that I also found at Perpetual Preschool. I drew simple line drawings on metal concentrate orange juice lids. Well, actually, I had Miss B. do it. Then I spread them out on the floor so the children could see all of them, and then I read or told them scenarios, and asked them to find how they would feel in a situation. Some situations that they gave were: Situations: you lost your mittens, a goat is eating your shoes, you can fly, you see a beautiful butterfly, you have to do chores before playing with friends, you found a bird feather, you have a new puppy, you fell & skinned your knee, you lost your favorite toy, you can't find your shoes, etc. They just wanted to keep playing and playing.

I found some children's shows that cover different emotions. I have not prewatched all of these, they are just to give you some ideas, and keep your children learning on this theme.

Blue's Clues:

Season 2 Episode 14: Blue's Sad Day

Season 3 Episode 16: What's So Funny

Season 2 Episode 20: Shy

Season 4 Episode 28: I'm so Happy

Season 5 Episode 20: Body Language

Space and Planets

2016-02-29T08:45:00.003-08:00

We only had one preschool day of learning about space and planets, because the second day we took a field trip to the planetarium. Our planetarium has lots of free exhibits, so you only pay if you are watching one of the movies or shows. Sadly, I didn't get a lot of photos of either day.

To introduce the theme we sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and talked about stars and if we could count them, how far away they are, etc.

We made a cute craft that I found at Preschool Education-Space Theme.

Space Mobile: Need: Yarn, foil, paper, glitter, paper tube. Directions: We threaded a piece of yarn through the tube and tied it at the top to hang the mobile. We punched holes in the tube and hung three pieces of yarn from it. (this part was prepared ahead of time). On the yarn the children hung a crescent moon, a star (wrapped in foil) and a sun ( two circles with pieces of yarn sandwiched in between for the rays) that the children had decorate with glitter on both sides.

We also made our cute paper towel tube rockets. I helped them cover a paper towel tube with aluminum foil and had some precut circles to make the top cone and we added red tissue paper flames. I let them add their foam stickers and such as well. They LOVED these. My boys played with them for a few weeks until they fell apart.

You can see all the moving rockets here. Those rockets flew all over the place!

I had wanted to make this little recipe for Moon Rocks, but I ran out of time.

Moon Balls Ingredients: 2 C. Peanut butter, 1 1/3 C. Honey, 2 C. Raisins 2 C. Dry milk, 3 1/2 C. Graham cracker crumbs (keep 1/2 c. separate). Mix dry milk, raisins, and 3 c. graham cracker crumbs. Add honey and peanut butter, mix will (hands do best). Roll into small balls. Place remaining 1/2 c. of graham cracker crumbs in a large baggie Place several balls at a time into the baggie and shake, then place on a Cookie sheet. Chill then eat.

I just bought powdered sugar donut holes instead. :)

We made it more exciting by taking a train down town to the planetarium. Since my boys LOVE trains, this was very exciting!

Walking on Mars!

My boys loved this little field trip, and ask all the time when we can go back.

Senses: Taste

2016-02-20T09:40:00.004-08:00

I introduced our Taste theme at snack time. I blindfolded the kids and had them taste things to see if they could tell me what it was. I wanted them to be happy to participate and willing to try things, so I did not throw in anything gross or surprising, and with having some picky kids in our class, that was tricky. :)

I had them try two different drinks and two different foods.

I found the following idea out of an LDS (Mormon) 3 year old Sunday School Manual. The lessons are very simple and teach about simple concepts like senses, animals, etc. I love this manual as a great resource. This is my faith, but it could easily be used by an Christian faith, as they are all based on God giving us the gift of different things we have like families, animals, our bodies, etc. And if you are not Christian, you can easily leave those parts out.

Here is a link to the lesson: LDS Sunbeams: Sense of Taste

and also a link to the manual's table of contents, Primary 1: I Am a Child of God, so that you can see all the great lessons they have.

Anyhow, I tried to present a food from each taste group, sweet, salty, sour, and bitter. I did give the kids the option to taste it, and some did not want to. Then I presented things that look similar but don't taste the same like sugar and salt. Then we talked about how things look vs how they taste. I showed them how some cleaners can look like juice. So we talked about food safety, and not trying things that you find without talking to a parent, etc first.

For art we painted with edible paints. I had been struggling with an art idea for taste that would work, and one of my friend's suggested edible paint. I thought it was a great idea! So I made a large batch of instant vanilla pudding and added coloring to it. I flavored a few colors with flavors I had on hand, lemon and raspberry. And then I made a batch of chocolate too. I gave each child their own plate with all the colors and flavors. And then gave them cardstock as it is a little thicker to paint on. It wasn't the best paint medium, but they had a lot of finger licking fun. :)

I had plans to do this cute art project, but I think we ran out of time. I found it at Preschool Education.

5 spices, paper, glue. Directions: You need 5 spices. Anything that has a strong texture and smell. Draw on a sheet of paper the outline of a spice holder. Have children smell the spices taste them and sprinkle them on to glue on the paper to make a spice rack.

Our last art project I found at Everything Preschool.

Art: My favorite food collage. Supply each child with a paper plate. Allow the children to look through old magazines and cut out pictures of their favorite foods to glue on their plates. You can even laminate the plates and use them as place mats at lunch time! Have the children show their pictures and tell what their favorite foods are.

This didn't work as well as I had hoped. I think it would work better with kids that are 4-5 or older. The bored quickly and had a hard time finding foods they liked. But it was still a cute art project.

Toddler Letter A

2016-02-20T08:57:00.003-08:00

We did some simple letter fun for my little twins, A&W.

My older kids joined in too, as they had the day off from school.

I precut tree trunks and a big cloud like green part for the leaves.

Then I gave the kids red paint and various letter A stamps and apple shapes.

If you don't have letter stamps, you can glue foam letters onto a milk cap. I would recommend stacking a few on top of each other to give it a little more depth.

Weather

2016-02-18T21:17:00.001-08:00

We started with some weather art. I gave the kids some cardstock die punched clouds (I still have an ancient Sizzix machine). Then I let them add a sunshine to it.

They got to pretend to be wind. I have them each a straw and cotton ball to blow across the floor. They loved this!

We made a rain stick.

Start with a sheet of aluminum foil about 3 times the length of your cardboard tube. Crinkle it into a skinny piece and spiral it. You want the aluminum foil spiral to be the same length as your cardboard tube. Carefully insert spiral length into your tube. Place filler inside, we chose between rice, dried lentils, and popcorn. The rice was quieter. We liked the popcorn and lentil sounds the best. Cut a construction paper circle slightly larger than the top of your cardboard tube. Cut small slits around the edges of the circle. This helps you glue it around the top with less bumps and mess. Glue lid on, and let kids decorate however they choose. Enjoy the rain!

We also made these cute suns, but alas, I have no photos.

(also found at Preschool Education-Weather).

Sun Rainbow Sun Catcher Need: 2 CD's (you can get them free almost everywhere these days), yellow and orange triangles, glue, string or yarn. Directions: Have the children glue yellow and orange triangles on the colored printed side (not the shiny side) of one of the CD's in the pattern of yellow/ orange/ yellow/ orange/ yellow/ orange. The triangle should hang off the edge of the CD. Then glue the other CD, shiny side up onto the other CD. Put a sting or yarn through the middle and hang up in the room. Hopefully you have a room with windows and sun. As the sun shines on the CD's it reflects a rainbow. Or have the children take them home to hang in a sunny place. This very simple activity was done with 3 yr. olds to help teach patterning and about rainbows and sunlight. They loved the end result.

We also attempted to make rainbow density bottles. We did this as a science experiment for Miss B. that same year. Thankfully her's turned out much better. We had dawn dish soap, colored water, colored rubbing alcohol, vegetable oil, colored vinegar, and such. The kids helped me layer them in. Sadly they did not separate by density as well as I hoped. They still looked good. But I let the kids shake them up, and they did not separate again, and they looked like a brown muddy mess. But I'm sharing my failures with you too, because we all have them, and the kids usually don't mind.

We made some rain cloud art too. I found this idea and other great ones at Preschool Education). I gave the kids some free handed white clouds I made and let them paint them grey. Then we glued Christmas tinsel onto them to be the rain coming down. This photo does not do them justice. They were very cute little window decorations.

Some fun weather songs and poems we did were:

Rain, Rain Go Away

Rain, rain go away

Come again another day.

Little "name" wants to play

Rain, rain go away.

and

Beautiful Rainbow Came

One day the sun was shining bright (hold up right hand like blocking sunlight)

But some clouds came along and it became black as night (Hold up left hand for the clouds)

Then the rain began to sprinkle onto the ground (wiggle fingers for the rain coming down)

And soon it was raining all over the town.

But when the clouds had passed on by (move both hands to one side)

A big beautiful rainbow stretched across the sky (make a rainbow arc with your hands)

(found at Everything Preschool- Weather Songs)

And my other failure of weather week.... I attempted to make Rainbow Jell-o like I did for St. Patrick's Day, but apparently I did not leave enough time between layers, and ended up with more of a stained glass jell-o look. We added some marshmallow and whipped cream clouds. It looked like such a mess, but the kids really didn't mind. :)

Some Blue's Clues episodes I found that teach about weather are:

Season 2 episode 12: What does Blue want to do on a rainy day?

and Season 3 episode 27: Storms

St. Patrick's Day Fun

2016-02-18T12:54:00.000-08:00

I'm playing catch up on St. Patrick's Day Posts.....

Some fun things we have done over a few years...

We made borax crystal shamrocks.

I'm not sure if this is where I originally found the idea, but they have great instructions and photos at Housing a Forest.

We started by twisting white and green pipe cleaners into shamrock shapes. My daughter wanted them to be more swirly.

(instructions from Housing a Forest)

"You will need 3 cups of boiling water per mason jar, 1/2 cup of Borax for each jar. The more saturated your solution is, the larger your crystals will be. Stir until all the borax is dissolved and the solution is clear, add food coloring if you desire."

We added food coloring, but it barely made a difference, so in the future I would just use the colored pipe cleaners. Regardless they turned out beautifully and hung in a window long past St. Patrick's Day.

Make sure that your pipe cleaner creations don't touch the sides of the jars.

Our largest creation wouldn't fit in a jar without touching the sides, so we used a trifle bowl.

Here they are after sitting for a few days. You can see the crystals forming on the pipe cleaner and also the sides of the jar.

This is what was left behind after dumping the water. A LOT of crystals. The kids loved this little experiment.

And here are our lovely crystals.

One year we decided to make a St. Patrick's Day treat, but I didn't have a lot on hand. We decided on popcorn balls. I melted the marshmallows (recipe found at Allrecipes.com) and added some green food coloring. When forming the balls, butter your hands (the kids loved this!)

I think I buttered the pan also so they wouldn't stick after forming.

Then we simply wrapped in plastic wrap and tied with green ribbon and delivered to a few friends. They were so proud of their creation, and they tasted great too!

A few years ago I made rainbow jello in the trifle bowl.

It was hard to see the color variation between some colors, but with a light behind it, it looked awesome! This does take a lot of time. You have to wait for each layer to set up before doing the next. so start at least a few days ahead. And then add whipped cream clouds at the top.

To be silly I made a leprechaun beard. My little twins ran around wearing these for a few days. I cut it out of quilt batting and cut a small slit for a mouth, and two small slits for to hang it on their ears. Because it is quilt batting it has a lot of stretch and you can easily make it fit most any face. But because its quilt batting it has a lot of stretch and will get stretched out too much to be useable. But good cheap fun!

And lastly we made this super easy shamrock craft. Just cut clear contract paper into a shamrock shape (I printed one and traced it). You will want to cut two at the same time, and give the child varying shades of tissue paper squares to put on the sticky side. Then place the second one on top of it to seal it in.

St. Patrick's Day Hair

2016-02-18T12:07:00.001-08:00

Here are two cute hair do's that we did for St. Patrick's Day for my daughter some years back.

The first was her idea, she wanted a rainbow with a pot of gold, and we had a rainbow ribbon, so I made a cloud hair clip and a pot of gold hair clip. The pot of gold hair clip was kind of lame, but she was happy anyhow. :)

The second we got our inspiration from one of our favorite hair blogs, PrincessHairstyles.com.

We made a rainbow starting at the top. Miss B. wanted all the rainbow colors, so we did skinny rows, and had it end with a pot of gold. This was a VERY time consuming hair do. I knew that it would be, so we did about three rows the night before. If you do them nice and tight, it will still look great in the morning. And then I started on it as soon as she woke up, and it was a rush to get it done. But it was worth all the time. She was thrilled to death with it and got lots of compliments from teachers (even teachers above her grade that didn't know her) and students, and parents. I wish Miss B. would let me do this cutesy stuff with her hair still. :)