Preschool Palace September Printables

Preschool Palace is one of my favorite websites for printable activities.  They have changed their site recently and only allow you to print the current months printables.  This month they are covering A-C, 1-3, 5 senses, apples, and circle.  Even if you aren't currently working on those topics, I would suggest you printing them when they are available and saving them for when you might need them.  Here is a link to their September Curriculum .  For the main monthly links that are available on the 15th of each month, click here then the month that you are interested in.   They also have TONS of other printables so take some time to explore this website!!

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Art Activity- Paint with water and chalk

Materials needed: 


Black construction paper, Chalk, water in a jar lid or small cup or bowl, sponge or paint brushes 

Directions- 

1. Have child "paint" the black paper with water (mine thought that pouring the water on the paper was the way to go)

2. After the paper is wet, have the child draw with the colored chalk.  This makes wonderful and bright colored markings!  

Note- Don't stress to much about this activity if the child is more interested in the painting than the drawing portion.  My son was more into dropping the chalk into the cup of water and my daughter just wanted to soak herself with the water.  Remember- they are still learning and exploring even if they don't do it exactly as you'd planned :)  Also, I choose to do this outside so I wouldn't go nutso when someone spilled water or started coloring the walls but you could also do this as an indoor activity on a cookie sheet with less water.

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A year at a glance- Monthly curriculum

School will start for us after labor day.  This year, I will be working with my oldest (almost 4) three days a week since he will be attending preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I will also be working with my youngest (19 months) three days a week as well.

I am such a planner and need to have everything scheduled out and planned or let's just face it, it doesn't get done.  This summer, after moving into a new home, our schedule got turned upside down and if I'm being honest,  my intention was to have "school" 4 days a week and we just barely had a "throw something random together and the last minute" activity maybe once or twice a week at most!  I am vowing to really make "school" a priority this year in our home.  Every month that goes by, these kids are soaking up new information.  My goal is to help make their learning as rich and full as possible.

Currently, I am in the middle of planning out our year at a glance.  Basically, just a list of very basic goals/themes that I want to cover each month.

For example: September will look something like this...

3 year old- 
Letters- (I-Q) covering 2 letter sounds a week.  (We will also being reading a few small words)
Math- Recognizing #'s 1-12 when written, review all shapes and focus on octagon, learn time to the hour, learn to count to 20 (he has been stuck at 14 for over a year now!)
Colors- review all and practice mixing to create new colors
Theme- Friends, All about Me, Five Senses, Apples
Bible- We usually go along with the stories/verses his church class does


1 year old- 
Letters- learn ABC song and start introducing Letters threw books and magnet letters
Math- Learn to count to 10 (she can do 2-7 currently)
Colors- Red and Green
Theme- Body Parts, Five Senses, Apples 
Bible- We usually go along with the stories/verses his church class does

Here are some other great sites and examples that can help you create monthly goals for your child(ren)

Mother Goose Time 

Preschool Palace 

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Planning ahead

Okay, yes I do know that it is still July but I will be posting some preschool and toddler activities hopefully a couple times a week to gear up for the school year.  My big man will be heading off to preschool in September... only twice a week... but I have SO much that I want to do with him before that day comes.  My 18 month old is really into learning new things these days so I am also going to try and start posting activities that I find and great for toddlers.  As always, please comment with your ideas or links :)  Hopefully I will be seeing a lot of you in the next few months!

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Preschool Science- Online learning

I am always looking for great, kid friendly websites that my son can do on his own.  Here is a wonderful science site that kids can choose a habitat, click to learn about the animals, then click the ? button at the bottom right to choose the animals that live in that habitat.



Do you know of any other great science sites or activities??  If so, link up under the comments section.

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Week 3- Letter C

This week was full of Cotton Balls, Cats, Caterpillar, Colors, and Counting!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD LESSON PLAN

(When downloading, click the box on the left that says free download.  When the time says 00sec, click the words FREE DOWNLOAD and the link should pop up at the bottom left for you to click and open. Feel free to save this on your computer!)

(Sorry, this lesson plan was linked before I had a chance to tweak it for you guys so ignore my page numbers ect..) 

Classifying- LOVE these classifying puzzles!  

Making the letter C with cotton balls

We read SO many cat books this week.  "Have You Seen My Cat?" is one of my favs.  After reading that story, we made a cat from this link here (click which template you want to use on the right)

Make a C out of playdough

Caterpillar sorting size

Caterpillar puzzle 

Caterpillar counting 

Painting with a Cotton Ball- This was such a fun activity.  Take 2 colors watered down and paint onto a coffee filter with a cotton ball. (I recommend watercolors if you have them, we used watered down finger paint and it didn't work that well)

results!! 

Color Mixing!!
(Red +Yellow= Orange and Yellow+ Blue= Green)

Categories (Sorting Cars and Trains) Click here for my link 
(When downloading, click the box on the left that says free download.  When the time says 00sec, click the words FREE DOWNLOAD and the link should pop up at the bottom left for you to click and open. Feel free to save this on your computer!)

C is for Cookies! 

Curly Cues!!

Counting Coins 

These next few activities are what I call workboxes... aka independent work stations.  I usually set up a couple on the kitchen table if my 1 year old is awake or on the floor if she is confined somewhere and won't charge through her brother's stuff.   Here is what we did the week of C.... 

Colored playdough, Counting coins, and Coloring 

For those of you with boys, or other kiddos that don't enjoy coloring, a helpful trick that I use is I lay out only a few colors for him that are appropriate for the page.  I then "coach" him on what color he wants to use on the wheels, what color on the headlights, ect... This usually gets him sitting for more than a milisecond and usually prevents him from crazy random scribble all over the page and table then I am done mom!  

Here are the floor work activities, puzzles that and activities that he can do completely independently.

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Where have we been??

So since my last post... like a year ago!!... we have moved our family to an apartment while we are waiting for our house to be built.  Also, my blogger account has maxed out the amount of pictures I can post so I am working on getting a different account for this blog.  I have SO many preschool and organizing things to post so hopefully this will be the week that I get my stuff together.  Blogging always gets put last on the list :(  Stay tuned....

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