Preschool Fun - The Letter A

I love going to the Dollar Tree for craft supplies. The one near me is a little ghetto, but that's ok :)

We got some great stuff for crafts this past week

 This paper is way thicker than the Crayola pads I've been buying and done great with paints

 Adorable stickers!

 Totally cheesy paints

 There were more fruit shapes in the package, Lenny loves these.

These huge stamps with a handle are perfect for toddlers...I think they are intended for teachers...but whatever.

We did some work on the letter A this week and covered our letter A's with apples

 

I try to incorporate their snack or lunch into our little "lesson". The obvious choice for snack was apple slices and "A"nts on a log.

 We had such lovely weather here in Florida last week. We couldn't resist being outside, so we brought our lunch outside :)

Hope your week is off to a good start! 

DIY Memory Game - Tutorial

All of the work I've been doing putting educational things for my son and daughter to do gave me a little idea.

I had the idea to make my own little memory game for Leonard (since according to the boxes at the store, he is old enough). This actually turned out to be a lot of fun and I am looking forward to having Leonard try it out.

This is super easy and probably requires no explanation, but here goes. BTW - this is for a set of 8 pairs, so 16 cards :) I made two sets.

 Materials:

Cardstock - you will need a patterned sheet for the back and a solid (preferably white) for the front

Stickers - not teeny tiny ones, look for a pack with good graphics

Glue gun (or adhesive product of choice)

Corner rounder - optional, but it will make your cards last longer

Paper cutter

 

If you are using a corner rounder, go ahead and round them corners :)

 

 Put your cards together and voila!

  

 Now where to store my little cards????

 Just make your own cutesy little boxes using this EXCELLENT tute!

 Let's play!

Preschool Fun - Exploring Color

I dug out a few more fun little activities from one of my books and we focused on our colors the other day. 

 This is a fun little game that is super simple to make.

1. Cut two business size envelopes in half and glue onto some cardstock or construction paper.

2. Color with four colors (primary)

3. Cut out shapes or other things in those colors (see below).

4. Have child place them in the correct (hopefully) pocket.

 I used a Cricut to make mine, but if you aren't good at cutting freehand, search for some fun shapes and designs online.

My son is not getting the concept of putting the things in the envelope despite knowing all of his basic colors. This is going to be great to work on, don't worry if they don't get it at first :)

 We worked on making some rainbows. Not quite getting the whole idea of making the rainbows but the cotton ball clouds were a hit and we are definitely getting better at using glue!

Thanks to Pinterest, I came across this totally adorable preschool blog Preschool Alphabet So many great alphabet activties! I can't wait to get started, this is something we really need to work on.

Hopefully I'll have some fun new ideas next week :) 

Please feel free to share your own!

Preschool Fun

I know I have mentioned on here before that I am an Early Childhood Education major in college right now (just determined to finish my Bachelors before I am THIRTY!).

I have a 3 yr old and nearly 2 year old.

Perfect guinea pigs for ideas right? 

Wrong.

I have been lacking in motivation, even checked out two books with all kinds of preschool lesson plans.

Not even cracked open.

Till last week, when I decided to get with the program!

This kind of stuff does actually take some planning and I am NOT good at kid's crafts for some reason so some ideas were really helpful.

 So we made flying birds and nests to put them in. We went outside to gather leaves and grass for our bird's nest.

 Attach some yarn to those little paper plate birdies to make them fly!

Another lesson we worked on was using our art supplies properly (this is actually important)

Simple shapes glued to paper reminding them to use small fingernail size dots. This actually worked for some reason...

I am ending my craft/lesson times with a snack and you can incorporate all kinds of learning with making snacks.

Applesauce, graham crackers and a block with a plastic zippy bag.

Lots of fun crushing graham crackers (major motor skills)

Using a spoon to scoop onto applesauce and stir (fine motor skills)

They LOVED this activity!

This is good practice for me so I am really going to try to keep up with this and hopefully we can all share some good ideas :)