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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Favorite Educational Sites

So my son learned how to use a mouse on the computer a couple of months ago and he LOVES to play computer games now.  He would play for HOURS if we let him!!  (He has 30 minutes of computer time twice a week as part of his preschool time.)

Here is my featured site this week...

STARFALL- The website that he learned computer skills on first was Starfall .  It goes through each letter sound and uses minimal mouse directions.  (Click the blinking arrow to go to the next page).  I really like this site and actually used it with my 1st graders when I taught way back when.  Another thing that is great about this site is that it is great for all ages and abilities.   I can sit my almost 1 year old on my lap and do all the clicking for her or it has a more advanced section for early independent readers.

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Letter B- Week 2

So I stuck with just one theme when we covered the letter a... Apples.  After completing that week, I didn't really feel like my son got that other things besides apples started with the /a/.  So for the B week, I wanted to have a variety of things that began with the /b/.  The first one being band-aids... 

B is for Band-aid

For this activity, I had my son take his favorite band-aids and place them in between the lines of the B.  (This was great practice for him since he can't really color between the lines yet.)  

B is for Balloon

This was a great review of shape and color activity that my son had to match the shapes inside the balloon and them glue them in the correct place.  I then cut it out for him and he glued it to a blue sheet of construction paper and then used cotton balls as clouds.  

 We also made our own hot air balloon by getting a free balloon from Harris Teeter and then taping string to to it on two sides and then punching holes into a cup and tying the string into the holes.  This was less complicated than it sounds :)  

B is for Butterfly

Click here to print this puzzle 

Butterfly coloring page 

 Butterfly Color Matching

We made leafy butterflies

Capital and Lower case sorting activity

B is for Books!

Each week, I go online and reserve books that focus on the letter of the week at our local library.  That way, they pull all the books for me and I only have to go once a week straight to the reserve section and grab my books.  Searching for books with two little ones isn't very fun for me! I usually try and read at least two or three books a day that coordinate with the activities we are working on.  For example, I checked out three books about buses this week.  I read Jason's Bus ride, then completed the bus activity below, then read the Wheels on the Bus.  Books are also a great way to break up lessons and transition into the next activity. 

Here are a few of my favorites for our B week..

The Baby Goes Beep

Jason's Bus Ride

Bossy Bear

The Seals on the Bus 

The Wheels on the Bus 

I am a Backhoe

My "b" sound book (LOVE THIS ONE!)

The Barefooted Bad tempered Baby Brigade 

Bedtime Bunnies

B is for Building and blocks 

B is for Bus

Go here for directions for this activity

B is for Barn 

Barn

B is for Bee

tracing page

 Letter lacing practice

And we finished off our week eating a BoBerry Biscuit from Bojangles watching a Word World about the letter B!  (When I don't want my son to make a huge mess in the living room while watching tv and eating, I will wheel in my daughters high chair for him!) 

Here are some other things we did during our B week that I didn't capture pictures of... 

Blow Bubbles

Make a boat craft 

Ride a bike

Played with our many Bus toys

Please comment with your link to any other B activities that you can find!

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