My Favorite Quotes:

A person's a PERSON no matter how small... -Dr. Seuss

I am a little pencil in the hand of God who is sending a love letter to the world. - Mother Teresa

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to THINK, than WHAT to think- rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men. - James Beattie


Thursday, January 21, 2010

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!

and: abc button

15 comments:

Amanda said...

Very fun ideas! I too live at the Dollar Tree!!!

Gidget Girl Reading said...

what a great idea! love it and i bet they had so much fun!

what is next weeks theme?

Unknown said...

Very cute ideas! The straw addition was so cute!

Unknown said...

Good job Super Mom! (I bet YOU slept well that night!)

Brimful Curiosities said...

Now I'm thirsty for some snowman soup! Great activities.

Natalie PlanetSmarty said...

I am very impressed with your little preschool and the amount of work and preparation that you put into it. It sounds like everyone had a blast.

Sherry said...

Looks like the kiddos had fun and what great ideas!

Mama to 5 said...

Nice job - looks like lors of fun! :)

Ticia said...

What a very busy morning. We're big fans of Dollar Tree and Oriental Trading here too.

Lynn said...

What a great playdate!! I wish we could have come. It looks like all the kiddos had a blast!! Maybe I can pull something like this together for a valentines theme. Thanks for the inspiration!!

Kristin said...

That looks like a great success! how fun!

Shelby said...

What fun!! It looks like you did a fan.tas.tic job organizing that 'learning' play group!! I enjoyed looking at each activity!

Michelle said...

Wow you did so many great activities. I love the play dough snowmen! I was so excited about the printable snowman activities that Erica had on her website, I printed and laminated the pre-writing skills practice and it has been Emily's favorite activity this week.

Thank you for sharing your great ideas and linking up to stART! I think it is so much fun that you were able to do it as a project with all the kids at your play date!

Jen said...

Wow! What a wonderful preschool playdate filled with lots of snowman fun. I'm glad that you shared the link. Thanks for stopping by Creative and Curious Kids today!

Jen

htebazile said...

Looks like a fun week, I love the playdough snowmen very cute!