Thursday Preschool Playdate (Snowmen!)--- and ...Tot School Week 8

Today, I hosted my very first Thursday Preschool Playdate- this is my "unoriginal" name for it at the moment!
We invited a few of Scarlett's 3 year old and 4 year old friends to come over and join in .
There were just 4 kids in all- a nice, manageable group!
We did a st"ART" for the first time as well!--- Story + Art   ( THE THEME TODAY WAS SNOWMEN!)

I had 4 really cute little colored baskets that each child received.  Inside the basket was EVERYTHING they would need for the 2 hours of preschool play, learning, and fun!  I got everything from Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading--- my two favorite places!!

Here are the activities that we did today--  When the kids arrived - we played with homeade "Snowman" playdough- with glitter in it.  I had pipe cleaners (or the fancy name- chenille sticks) googly eyes, and little pom pom balls for them to use to make their snowmen!

 

 The long armed Snowman!

Some pretty cute snowmen were created!

While 2 of them were playing with their snowmen, I had the other 2 start on some other individual activities.

I got this from Confessions of a Homeschooler- she has an AWESOME assortment of printables for themes and especially for LETTERS- which I love, love, love.  This one was letter matching Capital S and lowercase S.

This was another from Confessions of a Homeschooler- Matching the big colorful snowman to the small snowman (we called them the mommy snowman and the baby snowman)- they loved this!!

Confessions of a Homeschooler printable-  matching the colored hat with the correct colored snowman- because you HAVE to be matching, yes?   (By the way- I laminated all of these because they are keepers!)

And the last Confessions of a Homeschooler Snowman printable- Snowman sizes matching!

Thank you Erica for such beautiful printables- you are an inspiration to me- and you save me soooo much time too!! LOL

After all of that hard work it was time for Snowman Soup!

Found this idea from Ramblings of a Crazy Woman- it was hot chocolate... and cute little marshmallows(or snowmen as WE called them!)  Everyone had a snowman mug or a snowman straw! YUMMY!

Then, we made cute little snowman/snowflake picture frames- I got these from Oriental Trading- they were pretty cute- I wish they were stickers instead of having to glue them on but the kids did much better with them than I thought!

Then it was time for my favorite type of activity- Montessori "sorting".  We used these cute little marble-like snowman beads.  They had to pick them up with tongs and place them in the little star ice cube molds. They did a really nice job with this!

I LOVE how serious they get when doing this!!

While 2 of them were working on sorting, the other 2 were making snowmen with blue paper, glue, and cotton balls.  This was a good opportunity for them to work on making circles.  They made 3 circles on the paper- 1 for the head, middle, and bottom.  Then they dipped cotton balls in glue and stuck them on!

They were still hanging in their for this activity but I could tell they needed to get up and get moving-- soo....

Off we ran to play PARACHUTE!!  Everyone grabbed hold of the parachute and we sang songs and had a blast!  I also threw in some cotton balls after awhile and they were shaking the parachute and bouncing them everyone- I was calling them snowballs but they all said they were making "snowmen"!  LOL

I don't have pic of the parachute because I was joining in the fun!

Finally, we cleaned up- read the book Frosty the Snowman, and then while I packed up all the goodies ( in cute Snowman bags)  for them to take home (some extra marshmallows, homemade playdough, some extra writing activities for pencil practice, and their frames) I turned on the movie/cartoon Frosty the Snowman.

I also used my cute little photo printer and quickly printed out a picture of each of them for their parents and placed it in the snowman frame.  They really turned out cute!

It was a fun day with lots of smiles and laughter-- and that's all I really wanted out of it!  Success!

For more st"ART" activities- Check out A Mommy's Adventures.

For more Pre-K Activities check out- Homeschool Creations: Preschool Corner 

For more fun check out 1+1+1=1-TOT SCHOOL TOO!

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