Letter B and SNOWMEN!

 Preschool Playdate this past week was FUN! :) We learned about the letter B and lots of fun cold-weather SNOWMAN activities-- perfect because it had just snowed here in Dallas a couple days before! (Generally if there is EVER snow on the ground... even a little bit... you will see lots of yards with snowman... some teeny tiny, dirt covered ones this time... but none the less!

After we talked about the letter B and glued Buttons on our B's...  

We split up and did little one-on-one activities. Lily worked on this snowman's buttons... she had to tell me the color and shape of different buttons.  I had her sister help her with this as well while I worked with others.

 

We had several snowman activities... all from Confessions of a Homeschooler or Totally Tots.  They were all sorting types of activities.  This one is sorting the capital letter S and lowercase S.  There were also putting large and small snowmen in order... and putting the correct color scarf on snowmen as well.

 

Then we sang their favorite song- I'm a little snowman.  I have found various versions of this from various places but the one that I like the best is: I'm a little snomwan (to the tune of I'm a little teapot)

I'm a little snowman short and fat,

here is my broom, here is my hat (hold broom, and touch head for hat)

when it's cold and icy I will stay (burrr... shiver)

but when it's hot (wipe forehead and say whew!!)

I melt away away... and they melt to the floor (see next pic- cute!)

 

 

Then, we ate some snowmen! (Marshmallows- big and little ones...) along with some pretzels and hot chocolate- yummy! I also read the story, Frosty the Snowman ,while they snacked.

 

Next, we painted "Circle" snowmen- I cut up some sponges into circles.  They dipped the circle sponges into white paint and made snowmen on the blue paper... also used Q-tips to make little snowflakes all around the snowman.

 

Here are our little snowmen we made (on a snowy day a couple days ago with Daddy)... 

I kidnapped the smaller one for our next activity...

 

DISSECTING A SNOWMAN!!

 

We dug into the snowman with spoons... (poor snowman)

 

We sampled the snowman... I tried to stop them but...

 

We poured hot water on the snowman to see what would happen...

 

We used various tools with warm water and squirted the snowman...

 

We used food coloring in water and colored the snow to make it pretty.

 

More hot water to really make this snowman melt..."ahhh...I'm melting!!... melting!!"

They REALLY enjoyed this... I would highly recommend this activity! :)

 

We did a snowman listening activity and a tracing snowballs activity as well... then we got on Starfall.com and did a cute snowman activity online.  The kids loved dressing up a snowman that sang a song to them at the end.

Even if you don't get any snow, kids LOVE snowmen and this is the perfect time of year to do it! :) 

Preschool Playdate- Letter J- Christmas Activities!

For our last preschool playdate before the new year, we did lots of fun Christmas Activities and focused on the Letter J.

First, we read a story about Baby Jesus- it is called Stable in Bethlehem -a Christmas counting book.

We used small blocks that I got from Dollar Tree for the kids to used to count while reading the story.

My two year old LOVED pushing the button on the plastic candles and lighting all the lights! I thought that was a great fine motor skill-- she was so serious about it!

Then she used my old cardboard advent calendar and had to pull out each box... in each box was large gold jingle bell! She was so suprised at what was in the tiny boxes- she loved it! :) The other kiddos wanted to do it as well! :)

For playdate we sorted different Christmas tree patterns from the awesome 1+1+1=1 blog/website.

Then they had to put the Nativity scene in size order. I got most of these cute printable ideas  from 1+1+1=1.  She has the cutest things for tots and preschoolers! Love this blog/website!!

We talked about the letter J and used a candy cane (upside down) to make the letter J for baby Jesus!

We also put stickers on the letter J and talked about Jesus' birthday! :)

Both of these activities are also from 1+1+1=1.

Then we made Christmas tree cones.  We took ice cream cones and colored icing green. 

 They spread the green icing on the cones and sat them upside down.

Afterwards they put sprinkles all over the icing to make the trees look decorated.  It worked best to ROLL the trees in the sprinkles.  They turned out cute- and YUMMY too!

We read the story of the Little Drummer boy and each child played drums on different canisters and bowls that we had.  We have one drum and so each kiddo got to be the "drummer boy" for part of the song. 

Then we worked on colors and shapes with a cute christmas tree coloring activity.

We also worked on our letters and writing skills.  Tracing on these cute forms - I laminated them and we used dry erase markers.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year 2011! 

Thursday Preschool Playdate Letter W , Oceans & Fish!

 

We learned about the letter W this week--- water, walrus, whale....

And all about Oceans and Fish!

 

As you can see we had Scarlett's pet goldfish in the middle of the table- we talked about taking care of fish as a pet and they all got to feed the goldfish a tiny bit of food.

 

We worked on our counting.  They each had two paper goldfish bowls and used goldfish crackers. I wrote a number on the dry erase board and they had to recognize the number and put that amount of "fish" in the goldfish bowl.  Some needed more help than others but they all did a really great job and seemed to enjoy it!

 

We played one of my favorite SENSORY games.  Blindfolded they put their hands in a grab bag and feel around for something.  They had to describe it without looking and then finally got to take off the blindfold- they always get sooo excited!

 

They pulled out lots of different ocean life- starfish, sea shells, sand dollars, etc.

 

Then we got on our "pretend" scuba gear and swam out to the backyard.  Then they  hunted for sea shells in the OCEAN (aka. plastic pool).

We sang a cute song about 5 little fish- each of them got to hold a paper fish and sing along.

We read 2 really cute books from the library called:

The Pout Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen (they just laughed at this!!)

and Rainbow Fish discovers the deep sea by Marcus Pfister

Pre-K Curriculum for my 3.5 yr old

I thought I would use this to jot down what we will be doing in our homeschool Preschool this year!
Of course we will still be doing our Thursday Preschool Playdates with the other Mommies (which Scarlett just LOVES) but Tuesday and Wednesdays we will also be doing preschool activities!!  There may be a few changes/additions once I attend the Catholic Homeschooling Convention in Grapevine this Friday.  I am really excited to attend this homeschooling convention and this year  with my HUSBAND!!   I was impressed last year and just want to make sure he and I are on the same track with our kids.  Looks like some great speakers this year and I have more of a plan for looking at their books too!

Here is my tentative Pre-K Curriculum list for this 2010-2011 year:
(I put links for many things if you are interested in checking them out!!)

Progressive Phonics
A Child's Garden of Verses
Reading aloud classics- starting with The Jungle Book (july '10)
Later in the year- Teaching to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Bible Stories & Children's story books of the Saints
(planning to use Faith & Life for grade school)

Kumon Books- Pre-K & K 

Kinderbach Music
"Handle on the Arts" Fine Arts Program
Maestro Classics "Stories in Music"

Little Pim Spanish DVD and Music CD for Pre-K
(note: after I bought this I found it at the library!!)

Gross Motor- lots of running and playing outside of course! :) We will also be signing up at our City Rec Center for Gymnastics and probably ballet/tap again as well!  I can't wait till Lily is old enough to join her sister... only about 6 more months ( it is just too cute!!)

*Lily will be playing along with her sister in Pre-K this year (she is almost 2 years.) Anything she is interested in doing with Scarlett I will just try to simplify for her of course!! :)


My Goal: After this year I would like to start a Kindergarten curriculum with Scarlett... she will be 4 1/2 next August and would be waiting another year to start school if we were attending somewhere.  However from what I have seen so far and watching her very close this year, I am assuming she will be MORE than ready to start at the end of next summer!

I am looking forward to learning with my little girls this year- it has been a lot of fun so far and my feelings have only gotten stronger about educating at home for the moment.  There have been LOTS of HUGE things this year society wise AND close to home that make me believe I need to do this for my girls so much! I know it is a HUGE commitment for me but I will do anything and everything possible to bring up girls who will know, love, and serve God and everyone they meet! :)
 

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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