Free Alphabet Letters

I got this idea from my sister-in-law who teaches first grade in Kansas.  Cut letters out of cereal (and other heavy) boxes.  A fabulous idea!  There are so many things that can be done with these letters and if any get mangled or lost, no worries.  There are plenty more where they came from!

Today we used these letters on our tp tube coconut trees for "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".  We used letter stickers earlier in the week.

Coconut Tasting

To close out our week on "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" I found a few items for the kiddos to taste...

Sweetened coconut flakes and coconut M&Ms.  Each of the kiddos tried them, but only one kiddo liked anything, and that was the M&Ms.  Ha ha.  I was proud of the kiddos for each trying a taste.

Sensory Box - Pinto Beans and Letters

Today I put dry pinto beans and the fridge alphabet letters in our sensory box.  My three year olds had a blast scooping and dumping, and occasionally pulling out letters.  I grabbed a couple of ice cream buckets for them to scoop into, they liked that.

My four year olds loved the sensory box too.  I found some empty large spice containers (the ones from Sam's Club) and put them in the box.  The kiddos loved filling the containers and then raining the beans back into the box.  They also worked on forming a bean volcano and later on collecting the "seeds" for spring time.  Great imaginary play.

Coconuts!

In conjunction with "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" week, we decided to do some science with coconuts today.  We started with the coconuts covered under a towel.  The kiddos stuck their hands under and just used the sense of touch to discover the coconuts.  Then we looked at them and shook them to hear the milk inside.

Next we hammered a nail into the coconut so we could drain the milk out and taste it.  None of us were fond of the tasted at all.  Yuckers!  And we were surprised to find the milk was clear!

Then we took our coconut outside and hammered and hammered on it until finally we got it cracked open!  We tasted the coconut flesh inside and were disappointed to find that it tasted like the milk.  Bleck!

I think when I teach this again I'll have some commercial coconut out for the kiddos to taste too.  But it was fun to explore it together and to taste the parts and to hear the milk inside!  That was intriguing.

Legos!

There is so much fun and learning to be had with Legos, I just love them!

Today we created a nice long train filled with passengers.  There is great problem solving and hand eye coordination in this play.  You can also work with colors and shapes, not to mention good 'ole fashioned imaginary play!

ABC Parking Lot

As we continue our week on "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" we practiced our letters today by parking cars:

I drew out a parking lot with the alphabet letters randomized.  The kiddos pulled a letter out of a sack, told me what it was and a word that began with that letter.  Then they could drive their car into the lot and park it on the correct letter.  Quite fun!

Block garage

I love wooden blocks.  I think they are one of the greatest toys and should be a basic unit in every preschool or home of a preschooler.  Today we were building block towers to knock over with the canon from the pirate ship.  Next the 3 year old kiddo I was playing with decided to create this garage for the cars.

Button Color Sort

Learning center idea:

I punched circles out of cardstock and then glued a magnet to the back and popped them in this muffin tin.  The magnets I used were those free ones on the front of the phone books.  I just love those.  Well, I pulled out my jar of buttons and began searching for colors matching my tins.  I was amazed to find that the majority of my button stash is white and brown.  How boring is that!  I'm going to have to hunt out some more color diversity.  But here is how the learning center stands:

Here's an action shot:

Counting sticks

Another learning center I have out this week is counting sticks.  There are 10 cups, a bowl of beads, and counting sticks (craft sticks with dots on them).  The kiddos find the stick that matches the number on the cup, then they count the correct number of beads into the cup.  They can self correct by matching the beads to the number of dots on the sticks.  My 4 year olds enjoyed this.  My 3 year olds didn't care for using the sticks.  They just wanted to "count" the beads in.

Spooning Marbles

This week one of our learning centers is spooning marbles into a water bottle.  This has been a huge hit.  Even my most wiggly kiddos have stuck with it until they got the bottle completely full.  Then comes their favorite part:  shaking them back out.  Fortunately, because of the narrow neck of the water bottle, they have to work a bit at this!  (It's fortunate because then we don't have marbles all over the school!  Well, not as many.)

Here one of my three year olds has resorted to using her hand instead of the spoon to put the marbles in, but that is just fine, it's still hand eye coordination at work.

Google!

We've gone google!  I'm so excited!  Give it a try!  Google: "preschool 84124" and there we are!  Would you please help by:

1. Taking a look at it and let me know how I can make it better.
2. Post a google review for me.  Simply click on the "google+ page" and then on "write a review".
3. Post a pic if you'd like too!

 Thanks so much!

Dominoes

Today at the end of preschool we played dominoes.  I found this little set at Goodwill for $1!  This gave us a chance to work on matching, counting and colors.  For instance, when it was my turn, I would say something like this, "Hmm.  I need to match 3 red dots."  The kiddos would of course help and then mimic my sentence as they looked for their match.  We didn't have separate hands, we instead left all the tiles out to be seen and used.

Banana Grams

This week we are doing "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom".

To help with our letters and sight words, the four year olds got name and word cards and then matched banana gram letter tiles to the word/name on their card.

My nearly 5 year old really got into this and had no trouble matching the upper case tiles to the lower case letters on the cards.  My younger 4 year old had a bit more trouble.  So I flipped the card over and rewrote it using all capitol letters.  Then matching was a breeze.

My 3 year olds had a bit more trouble with this activity.  They were much more interested in stacking the tiles then finding the letters in their names.  But with a few re-directions we found all their letters.  Shwoo, then they were free to stack!  Ha ha!

Hi Ho! Cherry-O

The kiddos in my four year old class LOVE this game.

Spin and see if you get to gather cherries or have to give some back because the bird or dog ate them or because your bucket spilled out.  The object is to get all your cherries off your tree and into your bucket.

 

Paper Pirate Boats

Avast!  Here it is the last day of our week on pirates.  I figured we needed to create a pirate boat.  The kiddos cut their hull, then enjoyed stapling their ships.  We made a mast from a craft stick and a sail from a bit of scrap fabric.  Our pirates on board are craft stick spoons.

Alphabet Stamps

I found these alphabet stamps at Walmart in their scrapbook section.  There were only $1!  I put them in our writing center with a stamp pad.  The kiddos enjoyed stamping them.  I think I should make name and word cards for next time and then challenge the kiddos to find those letters and stamp them.

Letter Lids

Here's a fun way to practice your ABCs. 

I have one of those safety can openers that takes the top off a can without sharp edges.
 

Well, those can lids are magnetic.  So I punched letters on my Stampin' Up big shot and stuck them to the lids with some double stick tape and contact paper over top.

I call out a letter and the kiddos "grab" the lid with a magnetic wand (I got mine from Lakeshore).  Some times I'll give them a word and ask them to find the letter that starts that word.  Or have them gather the letters to spell out their name (make sure you have the necessary duplicate letters for their names.)  For my three year old class we do colors in a similar manner. 

Avast! Treasure!

Pirate booty!  Arrr, right tasty stuff!

The pirates enjoyed their treasure hunt today.  I marked an X on their classroom map so they could find their treasure. 

There be GOLD fish, marshmallow mateys (pirate's preferred cereal), and of course a ring pop (jewels)!

Pardon the flowery nature of their booty bags.  The fabric I used was all sweetly donated by a grandma.  Tee hee.

Jumping Cups

Tying into our pirate theme we made these jumping cups today.  The thought was they would make great personal canons to fire at stacks of plastic cups.  But we found they had a mind of their own and we couldn't really aim them.  But they fly up wonderfully and are a blast to try and catch!

Jumping Cups
From:  Family Fun Magazine

Materials
2 plastic cups, same size
2 rubber bands
tape

Instructions
1. Make four evenly spaced, half-inch snips in the rim of one cup.
2. Cut two rubber bands, knot them, and place them in the slits so that they are just taut. Place a piece of tape over each slit on the inside of the cup to keep it from splitting.  Also place a piece of tape on the rim to keep the rubber band from slipping out.  (see picture below.)
3. To launch, press the rubber band cup down (at the edges) over the other cup.  Quickly let go and watch the cup blast off!

Digging for buried treasure

Continuing our pirate fun this week (by the way, happy "International speak like a pirate day"!  Arrr!) I set out a big bowl of potting soil and buried a few small toys from the classroom...

The kiddos enjoyed digging for the treasure.  After a few goes at it, one kiddo decided he'd rather bury the treasure and let his friend find it.  The friend agreed and they happily buried and dug up classroom treasures for quite some time.  Nice clean fun!

Jenga - 4 and 5 year olds

We had fun today playing Jenga!  They did a great job of pulling the pieces out and re-stacking them.  And when the blocks crashed we simply shouted "DRAT!" and started setting the game back up again.

Stacking cups

I was surprised how long the 4 and 5 year old kiddos stuck with this.  I set out a big stack of plastic cups and began showing them how to create a castle stack.  They LOVED it!  They had fairly steady hands and were usually able to build it to completion without a crash.  Of course, once they reached the top, crashing it on purpose was so much fun!

 

The three year old kiddos enjoyed creating a two layer stack all around the outside edge of the table.  They, interestingly, were not interested in height, but length instead.

A fabulous freebie!

At the end of last school year, the elementary school I worked at had a table full of give away items.  I found these old head phones that had a mic attached!  So cool!  I simply cut off the jack cord and tossed them in our dress up box.  They are currently a favorite, serving as pilot head phones.  "Attention, prepare for landing."

Old calculator

Our daughter was cleaning out her room and unearthed this old calculator.  We bought it for her at a thrift store several years ago and she spent many a happy hour playing with it.  Well, instead of sending it back to a thrift store I scooped it up to put in the preschool.

The kiddos had great fun with it this week.  The three year old kiddos loved typing the button and making the register tape roll.  They'd tear off bits and tuck them in their preschool bag to take home.

The four & five year old kiddos took it a bit further.  We created an airplane with the chairs from the classroom, and of course everyone needed a ticket.  So they "printed" up several tickets for each of the passengers.

Sink and Float

In conjunction with our pirate week, I decided we should try our hand at "Sink and Float".   Here are a few items I gathered from around the house.  Before an object could be placed in the water, each kiddo had to make a prediction (a smart guess) as to what would happen.  Would the object sink or float?  I love how surprised they are when the object acts differently then they predicted.

  

After we tried the objects I collected, I had them gather some objects from the classroom.  Wooden blocks float wonderfully.

 Our pirates didn't float...

 Ok, here they were REALLY getting into it!  It is hard to tell which items are floating and which items are simply resting on all the toys beneath it.  Ha ha! 

$1 Stamps!

Oh how I love the $1 bins at Michaels, Target, JoAnns....

These fabulous fall stamps I found just this week at Michaels.  We are using the skull and crossbones this week with our pirate theme.  They make a very jolly - jolly roger!

Pirate measuring

September 19 is International Speak Like a Pirate Day!  (I didn't make it up, google it.)  So we thought we'd best do some pirating this week.

Today we did some measuring.  My pirate kiddo enjoyed measuring the different parts of the pirate ship with these stack-ables.  We of course then had to measure how tall he was with them!  We should have measured the pirates too, but we didn't.  Perhaps on Wednesday.

Cutting practice

Love this center.  A simple cutting activity that a kiddo at any cutting level will enjoy.  My preschoolers enjoyed stuffing their cut bits into envelops from the mail center to take home.

Salt Letters

I poured some salt in a round cake pan so the kiddos could practice writing letters.  A gentle shake, side to side clears the salt for the next letter.

Kool-Aid play dough!

I LOVE homemade play dough!  Here is a fabulous recipe for it!

Ingredients:

2 1/2 cups flour
2 packages of Kool-Aid (choose your flavors carefully!)
1/2 cup salt
1 TBS alum
2 cups boiling water
2 TBS vegetable oil

Directions:

1. Mix all the dry ingredients together.
2. Pour the boiling water and oil into the dry ingredients.  Carefully stir, and stir.
3. Knead it.  You can add some flour if it's sticky.
4. Ta-da!  Now enjoy with your kiddo!

I love how they can be playing with the same objects, but their creations and placements are all their own: