G is for Game

G is for Game! 

Here are some of my favorite (with the rule adaptations) for preschoolers . . . 

Blockus.  

The kids try and fit ALL the pieces on the board like a giant puzzle. 

This requires team work as well as excellent fine motor skills!

 Don't Spill the Beans.  

Partnerships work together to see how many beans they can get on top before it spills.  Each time trying to beat their previous record.  

Again, this emphasizes team work and counting skills while practicing that ever tricky pincher grasp.

 UpWords.  

The kids put the letters on the board and stack similar letters on top of each other.  

More fine motor practice, letter recognition and team work!

L is for Lots of Ladybugs

After introducing letter L, his sound, and one of Ms Tamra's silly chalkboard illustrations we practiced writing our own L's and l's. 

 Here's a simple tip:  Laminate blank name cards or even make your own using cardstalk. With wet erase markers (I like these SO much better than dry erase--clean up is a cinch!) your child can practice writing their name, letters, drawing shapes, writing words, etc.  Have some diaper wipes near-by for quick and easy wipe down and they are ready to go again!

Our easy and super fun ladybug art project . . .

Open the wings to find

lots of little ladybugs!

We started out with white oval's with letter L's to trace, added red ink thumb prints, and used fine-tip sharpies to turn those into lady bugs.  We glued 3 black strips of paper to each side, a black circle head with more black paper scraps for antenna's then glued all of that on a black oval and attach wings with brad's. Black crayon spots on top completed our project.  The kids absolutely loved this one!

S is for SPIDERS!

It was a scary, spooky, spider-y world at preschool on Friday! 

We got in the mood by reading this book:

A super fun pop-up book . . . kids love it!

We learned all about spiders and watched a movie about the largest spider in the world: 

National Geographic Kids: Goliath Tarantula Spiders

(BTW . . . that is an excellent site to explore animals with kids! Lots of great stuff!)

And we made our own spiders . . . from number 8's with 8 eyes and 8 legs!

 Glueing and attaching all those eyes and accordian folding the legs was great for our fine motor skills, and as one child told me, "This is fun Ms Tamra! You always do fun stuff with us!" Ahhh. . . melt my heart :).

 YIKES! My table is covered with drying spiders! These will be hung from the ceiling in our classroom for the spooky month of October.

Finally, here's a spider song:
(sing to "The Farmer in the Dell")

The spider spins a web
The spider spins a web
Round & round, up & down,
The spider spins a web.

She spins it in and out,
She spins it in and out,
Round & round, up & down,
She spins it in and out.

She spins it back and forth,
She spins it back and forth,
Round & round, up & down,
She spins it in and out.

She spins it good and strong,
She spins it good and strong,
Round & round, up & down,
She spins it good and strong!

Game Board Centers

Games for grown-ups also make great fun for kids. I just set the games out as centers and let the kids do whatever they want with them.

Blokus turned into a team effort to try and fit all the tiles on the board

While Rummikub became a number and color matching game.

I love to see kids so hard at work developing fine motor skills, team work, and creativity! Bonus: The kids feel extra special for playing something so grown-up!

Playdough Perk-up

Need a little something to make the same 'ol playdough a little more entertaining?

Here's a simple solution . . . 

mini cup-cake pans, 

measuring spoons, 

tiny cookie cutters 

and 

rolling pins.  

It wasn't too long before I was being invited to a fancy bakery that was making wedding cakes and preparing for a big reception! 

It was pretty fun to see those tough little boys (wish I got a picture of them . . . ) making wedding preparations!

Gotta love those imaginations.   

I had no idea when I set everything out we'd end up planning and attending a wedding!

The Block Challenge. . .

Ms Tamra's Block Center Challenge:

See if you can build a tower with blocks as tall as you are.

The results . . . 

 . . . were creatively impressive! 

It was so fun to watch kids try to come up with ways to meet (and far surpass!) the challenge! 

This was a great teamwork activity! Sharing ideas and working together to bring it to pass. 

I think the kids liked it almost as much as I did watching and listening!

More Centers

Here's a peek at more center work that happened today.  These are set up when the kids arrive and they are free to move back and forth between them as they choose . . .

For dramatic play the house and kitchen were open.

(I love this picture! So sweet!)

There was lots of word building at the Literacy Center.

The reading nook is always open for relaxing with a good book. 

The Art Center had crayons and watercolors.

I also introduced a new activity . . . which the kiddos LOVED (this would a be a super simple thing to do at home on those "I'm bored" days!)

I had a bin of brightly colored pony beads and some pipe cleaners.  

The kids strung these on anyway they liked.  

Some sorted by color, some created patterns and some just had fun stringing them anyway they wanted! All great fine motor practice.  

The kids really enjoyed this--it'll be coming out again soon!

Finally, the Jungle set also became a popular space.  It is so fun to watch the kids interact together--making up animal sounds, singing, and role playing.  I love it!

How do we start our school day?

When the students arrive each day, there are a variety of learning centers set up that they are free to explore and move between as they choose.  Here is a peak of some of the work that took place today. 

The art center was creating color bug themed emergent reader books.

  I forgot to send these home--so look for them in your child's folder on Monday!  Here is the link I used for these great books-- Cover, Page 2, Page 3 

Let your child "read" and re-read these to you over and over and congratulate them each time.  Encourage them to point to each word as they "read" it.  You might need to do it with them the first time--but they'll catch on quickly!

We also had play-dough fun . . . 

Dramatic play included fierce treasure hunting pirates . . .

The math center was a bug grid game . . .

Want to print your own?  Find it here . . . I would love to have bug counters to use with it, but instead we had bears eating the leaves! At home you could use beans, buttons or other small objects. It's simple to play--roll the dice and cover up that many leaves (you could also use regular dice or number cards).  When the grid fills up, you win! I had two of these set up so two kids could play together or it also works for individual play.  

And the always popular Geoboard.

So there's a sneak peek at the work going on during our center time today!

Ready for Kindergarten?

This part two of a series.  In part one we focused on developing social skills while playing games. This time we will focus on Fine Motor Skills.

Fine motor skills are the small muscle movements of the finger that help your child do activities such as:

• Painting with a paintbrush
• Cutting with scissors
• Drawing and writing with a pencil or crayon correctly.
• Holding and manipulating small objects
• Making crafts

Here are some fun activities you can do with your child to help them develop these muscles in their hands and fingers:

• Make cookies with real or play dough, allowing your child to roll the dough into balls using the palms of his/her hands.

• Make little tiny bird eggs by rolling playdough into pea-size balls using only his or her fingertips.

• Use pegs or toothpicks to make designs in the dough.

• Scrunch up a sheet of newspaper with only one hand.  

• Use a squirt bottle to squirt plants.  

• Use large tweezers to pick up objects.

• Play games using dice.  Just shaking the dice and picking them up encourages fine motor development.

• Do some lacing and sewing activities.  These can be made easily by printing out a picture on cardstock, laminate for durability if you desire, and punch holes all around the edge.  Or you could try just gluing a picture on piece of cardboard from a cereal or cracker box and punch holes around the hedges with a single hole-punch.

• Turning over cards, coins, checkers, or buttons without sliding them to the edge of a table.  Play a game of memory on the carpet!

As you do these type of activities with your child, they will be developing important fine motor muscles in a way that can be more fun and exciting then completing a bunch of writing worksheets.  Try some of the above and make some fun memories with your child!

Kool-Aid Playdough

K is for Kitchen . . . and in the kitchen we can make Kool-aid playdough!

I have tried a lot of playdough recipes . . . and this is by far the best.  It turns out great every time, is super soft, lasts forever and smells FANTASTIC!

Here's the recipe . . . 

2 1/2 C. flour

1/2 C. salt

2 pkg unsweetend Kool-aid (I actually used the walmart version of crystal light)

3 Tbl. oil

2 C. Boiling water (make sure only an adult handles the water!)

Mix dry ingredients together (flour, salt, kool-aid).  Pour oil in the center of the dry mixture.  Rapidly, stir in the boiling water.  It will be very sticky at this stage.  Set aside until it is cool to the touch.  Knead well.  It should be soft and smooth and not sticky. 

When doing this with kids, let them help you read the numbers in the recipe, count the scoops with you and help stir.  We also used this as an opportunity to discuss the different states of water (ice, liquid, gas) and the properties it has in each. 

They class had a lot of fun helping with the kneading it out as well!

The best part of course? Enjoying the end result!

"Look teacher, it's a valentine TEXAS!"

He wanted to take it home to show his mom . . . posting a picture on the computer was the next best option :)

Have fun in the Kitchen!

F is for Fish!

This was a really fun craft that the kids really got excited about and it was a nice change from the usual color and cutting activities.

Preparation: I made a copy of a page with 4 various fish for each child. With white crayon I then wrote their name on one fish and Ff on the other fish.  

Craft: Each child painted their page of fish with water color paint.  They were so excited to see the letters and their name magically appear as they painted!  In fact, some little painters were so excited about the magic letters that after the paint dried, they painted over it again and, much to their disappointment, the magic letters disappeared.  I'll have to watch more carefully for that next time!  After the paint dried, I cut these out and put them aside for later.

Later in the day they used blue and green finger paint to make an ocean.  I encouraged them to fill the page completely. 

Then, while the paint was still wet, they placed their previously painted fish in the ocean.  The wet paint acted like glue to hold the fish on. 

Ta-Da! An ocean Full of Funny F Fish!

Name Tracers

For a great way to help children develop

fine motor skills,

name recognition,

and handwriting,

make name tracer cards . . .

Directions:

Carefully write the child's name on a piece of paper (I used name plates from a local teacher supply store), preferably with handwriting lines.

Laminate it (you could even just cover it with clear packing tape).

Children use a wet-erase marker (I have found these clean up much easier than the dry-erase ones) to trace "the train track" of their name.

They can easily wipe them off with a diaper wipe or wet cloth and repeat it.

Have several marker colors available and encourage them to let each marker have a chance to ride on their name train track.

T is for Turtle

In our Letter Bag we found lots of

interesting things that

start with the letter T . . .

Terrific Turtle Treats . . .

Directions:

Make a sugar cookie recipe and

use food coloring to color dough green.

(Hint: You'll have the most success if you color it BEFORE you add the flour!)

Have children roll dough into balls,

put on cookie sheet

and make criss-crossing patterns

by pushing down on the dough with the back of a fork.

Decorate to look like a turtle. We used a whole almond for the head

and chocolate chips or almond slices for the feet and tail.

Bake and enjoy!

We used our turtle theme day to explore the different kinds of homes animals live in. Also, turtles are reptiles and, like other reptiles, are cold-blooded so the inside of their body is the same temperature as the air around them. If they get too cold or too hot they will die. People and other mammals, like our pets, on the other hand, are warm blooded. What kinds of things do our bodies do when we get cold to help us warm up or cool down when we are too hot?

Sssss-super Sssss-silly Ssss-socks!

A huge thanks to Morgan at Brilliant Beginnings Preschool for the great super hero sock puppet idea!

Today Moko introduced us to his friend

Ssssuper Hero Ssssock

He had us help him match up his missing socks and

sssssssaid sssssilly thingssssss to usssss!

For our Snack we ate Sock Tortilla Wraps . . .

Ssssssix kidsssss ssssshow Off their Sssssilly Sssssuper Hero Sssssockssssss!