Color Sorting

 

I already had these muffin tins. Tongs and pompoms are from..where else but Dollar Tree!

They had to use the tongs to pick up the pompoms and put them in the correct row to categorize. This works on motor skills as well as color sorting!

    

After a little bit, we decided the tong look like alligators, so we(..well I!) hot glued some eyes onto them, and they went around chomping everyone!:) They had fun with it!

This is another motor skill / color sorting activity. I picked up a few paint swatches.. 2 of each color, and some clothes pins (~dollar store) I cut one paint swatch to fit on the clothes pin, and the other I left.. I cut them down a bit though.. they were about 7 shades long. The kids have to match the green to the green..but then have to decide between shades too..it is a wonderful activity!:)

    

Gel Bag Writing Practice

This is a ziploc bag with Hair Gel in it..f/Dollar Tree of course! I squirt one whole bottle/bag.. added some food coloring, and some glitter to each. The kids can write letter/numbers/whatever they are working on..then erase it and do it again! LOTS of fun!:)

         

    

I know.. a LOT of my ideas lately have been coming from Pinterest! It’s just that GREAT!!

If you haven’t heard of Pinterest check it out! You don’t know what you are missing!

“A”

Last week I had the kids for preschool. We are worked on “A” this week, and for the month we are working on RED and HEART! I also realized that this Monday would be President’s Day, so I tried to work that in a little too.

Here are some tips on how I cam up with the week!

So first, I just made a list of a bunch of "A" words to start..

Apple, Animal, Alligator, Ape, Airplane, Astronaut, Arrow, Awesome, Ant, Arachnid, Ambulance, Aquarium, America

From that I wrote what we'll be doing that day..and paired it up with an "A" word if I could!

Snacks:

day 1: Applesauce & Animal Crackers in an ark (bowl)
day 2: Apple juice & ants on a log & arrows

Art:

day 1: Rock Ants, Airplanes
day 2: Apple Tree finger paints (talk about George Washington’s Apple Tree)

 

Songs:

5 little Apes, swinging in the trees..teasing mister Alligator…

The itsy bitsy Arachnid goes up the water spout ;)

day 2: Song about presidents: With picture of coins (sung to Mary had a little lamb) ~”Do you know who’s on the Penny, On the Penny, On the Penny. Do you know who’s on the Penny, Abraham Lincoln”, “Do you know who’s on the quarter, on the quarter, on the quarter, do you know who’s on the quarter, George Washington” and so on.

Games:

Pass the Apple (pass an apple around in a circle till the music stops. the one left with the apple goes into the middle..the apple patch)

How many apples am I? (cut out apples and lay them straight and see how tall the kids are)

Reading:

Dr. Seuss’ “ABC’s”

Day 2: Read a book on America, work on The Pledge of Allegiance

The kids have all been begging for more school, and are all so excited to begin their second week tomorrow! If you are interested in more outlines for letters let me know! I only do it every 5th week, but can come up with outlines each week!

I ordered my parachute from Oriental Trading!

Munchkin Monday ~3

I made this weather chart a couple weeks ago. I used Pelon for the fabric, then I just used colored, fine tip sharpies to draw with. A button in the middle holds the arrow on so they can rotate!

We had a few BIG snowstorms. When it finally stopped snowing, we played in it!

Building snow castles, and Snow heads!

Then we enjoyed some Hot Chocolate to warm up!

Preschool

A few friends and I started an At Home Preschool this week. Here is how we have it organized!

Each Month we are working on a Color and a Shape. We just incorporate those into the lessons each week.

Each Week we are working on a Letter. Different Letter each week. This week was “A”, next week is “B”, and so on.

We meet twice a week for two hours each day and each mom takes a week in rotation. So this week, I had the group both days. Then I won’t have them again for another 5 weeks. Next week, another mom has them both days, and so on.

Each Day we have it broken down into a pretty set schedule. It’s nice because you can be flexible with it, but the kids always will know what is coming next. With five ~3 year olds, their attention span isn’t very long, so we have to keep them moving! It has worked out great!

Our daily schedule is like this:

9:00 - 9:20 Focused Free Play time (while everyone is arriving) then clean up

9:20 - 9:30 Pick helpers for the day, Weather and Day charts

9:30 –9:40 Song w/ finger plays time – Itsy Bitsy Spider, 5 little Monkeys, etc.

9:40 - 9:55 Writing/Worksheet Time

9:55 – 10:10 Snack and then clean up (put their bowls in the sink)

10:10 – 10:20 Story/Quiet Time. Quietly read books, then I read them a story or two.

10:20 – 10:35 Craft Time

10:35 – 10:45 Large Motor Skill Activity

10:45 - 10:55 Free Play with Toys time

10:55 Clean Up

11:00 Home

It has been GREAT! And I don’t feel rushed. I can adjust it as I need each week. That is how we are running the daily schedule!

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Focused Free Play is that we are all working on one activity together. Play Dough, Sensory Box of Beans, Building Blocks, Puzzles, ..that kind of thing!

Helpers we use: Weather Helper, Snack Helper, Craft Helper, Writing Helper, and Special Helper

Large Motor Skill Activity can be anything to help build muscles. I have a 6’ parachute they LOVE!, play twister (learning right and left) running games, etc..

Writing time: Here are a few websites we use:

www.first-school.ws

www.everythingpreschool.com

http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com

but really, we use anything we can find that we want to use for the week that relates to the letter, color, or shape. Please share with us any other great websites you know of, we would greatly appreciate it!

The kids are soooo EXCITED, and so are the mom’s! We just finished our first week, and my son has asked me 3 times already today when the next preschool day is!