Preschool- Transportation Week 2

This transportation unit has been really fun! This is our second week of our three week unit. Some activities are repeated from last week, and some are new. Little Guy is 39 months old.

One part of our preschool time has been reading. I will share some of the books next week. One thing we did (and plan to do every unit) was visit the library and check out several non-fiction books. These are books we go to and really enjoy! It has been great to expose him to different genres of books.

Puzzles were, of course, part of our work time. This week we had a number train puzzle that he could complete, again left over from my days as a classroom teacher. Little Guy enjoyed completing this number train puzzle from Melissa and Doug.

We also used the small wooden puzzles again. He spent time working on this set of Melissa and Doug transportation puzzles.

We practiced counting with Count and Clip cards from Homeschool Creations

There are lots of free pattern block available on the web.  I found some at Prekinders and at NW Florida Money Saving Mom.  This week, he chose to work on an airplane.

This next activity was really fun. I traced an airplane on big paper. Then Little Guy took alphabet stickers and put them on the airplane. As he stuck them on the airplane, he had to name the letter. We have lots of different types of alphabet stickers, so it was also fun for Little Guy to choose what type of stickers he wanted to use.  He chose foam letters the first day.

The second day, Little Guy chose to use his letter stamps to put letters on the airplane.  Although he did not use all the letters, it was still a good review of letters.

The next part was great, and was initiated by Little Guy. He saw that the stamps were pretty dirty, and he wanted to wash them.  He carried them all into the sink and began to wash them.  He was really proud of himself for washing the stamps and getting them clean.  We laid them outside to dry and later Liitle Guy worked to put them back into their case.

This week we got out our button snake.  We first used this about a year ago (you can see that post here).  This idea was originally from Happy Hooligans.  Buttoning is still a skill he has not mastered, but is definitely getting easier for him.

We used the shape trucks idea again from The Measured Mom. 

This was a fun graphing, counting, and fine motor game. I had a spinner that had four colors on it, and got out the corresponding colors of small blocks.  We took turns spinning the spinner, then used the tweezers to pick up the blocks and dropped them into some mini ice cube trays.  We made a graph, putting all the blue blocks in a row, the red blocks in a row, etc.  When one color reached the top (six cubes high), we stopped spinning and counted how many blocks there were of each color. We also talked about which color had the most blocks and which color had the least.  After playing this together a few times,  Little Guy played by himself, by spinning and then putting that color cube anywhere into the tray. Once he had filled his tray, we counted how many blocks there were of each color and again talked about most and least.  This was one of Little Guy's favorite activities of the week.

Another new activity was a texture grab bag.  We had some sand paper and two different sizes of mesh screens.  I put them in a bag and Little Guy reached in and grabbed one, without looking. Then he reached in a second time and tried to grab the same texture.  This was good sensory practice for him.

A fun activity that we worked on (and I don't have pictures of) was making clothespin airplanes.  Using a clothespin and two tongue depressors, we put together a little airplane.  (You can see one in the picture below.) During the week, we played with these numerous times.  Here, Little Guy is playing with it on the runway we drew on the driveway.

We made a yummy snack this week.  I saw this idea on Playful Learners, although I did not make the crackers. We used graham crackers, peanut butter, and M&M's to make traffic lights. Little Guy worked hard to spread the peanut butter on his graham crackers. It was a really fun snack, and quite tasty, too!

Join us next week for our last week of the unit!