Preschool - Letter E

E is for Elephant

E is for Elephant. We started with this really great shape elephant craft which inspired not only elephant themed activities but also shape review.



I printed out these wonderful shape matching cards from one of my favorite bloggers and had the girls match them. We also played memory with them several times. We have really been working on playing memory and Emma is getting better.


I made some counting cards. I love stamping and putting some of my supplies to use so I used an elephant stamp and stamped them on cardstock. Emma used a manipulative to place on each elephant to count them and then chose which number matched the number of elephants. She know how to count well and how to identify her numbers. Yay!

Next I introduced the girls to a salt box. They LOVED it! The girls played with them several times the first weekend and never complain when I give them an opportunity to use them. Lydia (5yrs.) has no problem keeping the salt in the box but Emma (3yrs.) needs to be reminded more firmly. I've definitely had to vacuum each time but they have loved it and if I can get them to practice writing it is worth it. I found the idea and info. on how to make it here.


We also played "Feed the Elephant" which is a game I made up. They had a really good time and we will visit it again in future weeks. Great week and lots of fun learning. I also set up stations for some fun self guided learning. I didn't get pictures but will be setting something like this up again soon.

Thanks for visiting!

Also, I plan on introducing a new feature here soon called Musical Monday's in which I will post a simple song and activity so those who may be musically challenged can introduce their children to music at home. I will keep you posted.



Books:
But No Elephants by Jerry Smath
The Silly Swamp of Shapes
Curious George Feeds the Animals
The Saggy Baggy Elephant
And of course, Horton Hears a Who (we ended the week with family movie night watching this movie)

To see more preschool ideas visit HomeSchool Creations Preschool Corner.

Family Night - Joseph

I have to admit, Joseph is one of my absolute favorite characters in the Bible. I love his story and just how God uses him. Our family is working on and talking about the attitude of respect and our over all attitude and I thought studying Joseph is a good case study on the subject.

We started the evening with craft so it could dry. We just glued squares of different color tissue paper to a plain white sheet of paper. Simple yet easy. This represented the cloak Joseph's father gave him.

Then we danced as this is always a family night tradition.

After we danced we read the first part of Joseph's life from the girls Bible. We talked about how to have a good attitude. We looked at each character's attitude in the story and talked about whether or not they were pleasing to God or not then we did some role play with our words and intonations. Overall, very simple but still a good night.


I am looking forward to adding to the story in this weeks family time. Thanks for reading!



Posted to Raising Rock Stars.

Feed the Elephant (game)

So, last week we focused on the letter E for preschool and I made up a game for the girls to play. Here is how it works and how you can make the same game to play with your kids.



Supplies needed:
1. Oatmeal canister (empty of course)
2. Gray paint
3. Ears for the side (I printed and used these but you could easily make your own)
4. Toilet paper roll
5. Peanuts (I used real but you could use packing peanuts or paper peanuts)
6. Cards numbered 1-6
7. Dice




First we painted the canister and toilet paper roll. As we let it dry we colored the ears. When the paint was dry I cut slits in the side to insert the ears and I cut a hole to put in the elephant trunk.

To play the game:

1. Have a card with the numbers 1-6 written on it.
2. Each person rolls the die and counts the number rolled.
3. They put the same number of peanuts in the trunk of the elephant that the die says.
4. Place a peanut as a marker to mark which number you rolled.
4. The winner is the first person to roll each number on the die (1-6).



Fun for all of us. This will definitely come out of the closet again for fun game that includes math and identification of numbers.

A Very Fairy Weekend

We don't watch too many movies with the girls but the Tinkerbell movies have always been a hit with them. We recently bought the newest Tinkerbell movie and as we were watching it yesterday. When we watched the extra features we saw some kids designing their own fairy houses. Not one to get an idea and drop it Lydia asked if we could make our own fairy houses and I said yes.



Here is Emma hard at work coloring and putting stickers on her fairy's home. She made a house for Tinkerbell.


Lydia chose to make one for Silvermist. Over all we had a good time doing the project and I like seeing them use their imaginations. It was nice to be a "yes" mom in this moment.

I also gave the girls their autumn sensory bin to play in and told them it was the autumn wood and their fairies could visit it. They loved it. I was glad to see Lydia enjoy it so much building Pixie Hollow tree and hiding places. Very fun.

Preschool - Letter D

Letter D activities. We started the week by making our D is for Dog craft. Though I did find some really cute Dog themed activities we did a lot of other alphabet play and review.

Here the girls are playing with alphabet peek-a-blocks. They hadn't played with these "baby" blocks in such a long time that they had forgotten how much fun they are. I would ask the girls to pick a block, tell me the letter, what it stood for and what sound it made. I was happy to just assess how well they know these things.

I printed out this dog game and made it into a file folder game. I would tell Emma the color and she would match it. I encouraged Lydia to match it on her own as we are currently working on color sight words.


Emma matching upper and lowercase alphabet letters. This really was her first "solo" experience with clothespins and I think I should have started earlier. She did ok and enjoyed it so I am sure we will see it again soon.


We had a lot of fun with the dog theme and read lots of books. We read most of the Clifford books we have and worked on this emergent reader book together. We also read some Henry and Mudge books by one of my favorite authors, Cynthia Rylant.

Lydia began working on a special new skill, tying her shoe laces. I printed out a cute dog card and put the lace through the collar for her to start working on it. She was so excited to sit and work on it with Daddy (I delegated him teaching this skill long ago, I think that goes for teaching them how to drive too!) I can't believe how much fun working with the girls one on one is and how much they enjoy it and are learning. Have a fun week.

Preschool - Letter C

I will let the picture speak for itself. Our letter of the week was C and our theme was cupcakes and candy. I know it is not a health conscious theme but it was really fun. We made the above craft by tracing a large letter C and then gluing mini cupcake liners to it. I like to rubber stamp on occasion so I used a cupcake stamp set I have and let the girls stamp and color some cupcakes.







I found these cute candy money cards and used them to set up a candy shop. The girls took turns being the buyers and sellers. We worked on a lot of manners (please, excuse me, thank you, your welcome) and also the numbers/prices that are listed on the candy they wanted to buy. I have not spent much time on money up to this point so it was really an introduction that was really fun.
I used the same stamp set to make this cupcake matching file folder game and cupcake memory cards. They had fun with both.



Books:
I didn't have a ton of choices here and didn't make it to the library. So here is a small list.

If you give a mouse a cookie
Twizzler shape book
Reese pieces counting book
Mr. Putter and Tabby Bake a cake (great book and series if you are not familiar with them. The author is Cynthia Rylant)


We did a few other various activities, worksheets, tracing, and of course we played candyland and made cupcakes to eat. Very fun week.

Thanks for reading.

Preschool - Letter B

Still working out the kinks of a new routine but this week went better than last. I had a great time working one-on-one with Emma. It is amazing just how bright she is as she has learned right alongside her older sister for a couple years now. She is loving her school time and absolutely adores being my only focus.

What we did

Letter B is for bugs.

Letter B craft.

Books included:

There was an old woman who swallowed a fly
There's a ladybug in my book
Five little lady bugs
The Grouchy Ladybug

Library books:
The very quiet Cricket
The Very Busy Spider
Diary of a Fly
Where's the fly?
The Bugliest Bug

Activities:

After reading the ladybug books we used some ladybugs I had made. (round circle with small black circles for the top.) We did several math and number activities with these.

I also did several of the activities from this website for The Very Busy Spider and The Very Quiet Cricket. I also did a musical activity for the Very Quiet Cricket where I got out all of the instruments we have and allowed the girls to play an instrument to represent the sound each of the bugs made. The girls loved this activity.

That wraps up week 2 and once again no pictures. I am already having so much fun with letter C and have already snapped a few pictures to post next week of some of our letter C fun. Thanks.