Preschool- Pirates Week 2

The pirate fun continued for a second week in our homeschool preschool!  Little Guy had a lot of fun with many of the activities from last week.  He completed many of them again this week, so most of those activities are not in today's post.  Here are some new activities for this week.  Little Guy is 42 months old.

This first activity was syllable clapping and sorting from Homeschool Creations.  We have not really worked on syllables before (although he has been exposed to this concept at story time at the library).  We had a stack of one- and two-syllable pictures and a card with a 1 and a card with a 2.  Little Guy would name the picture, we would clap the syllable together, then he would put it with the correct number.  He did great!  It was a fun way to practice syllabication with easy words!

This roll and graph activity came from 123 Homeschool4Me.  We used some glass beads to show which object we had rolled.  This is great because Little Guy can play on his own or we can take turns.

To practice some fine motor skills, Little Guy did some lacing.  I pulled out a fish and a parrot for him to lace.  Every time he does this, it gets a little easier for him, although he still likes mommy to hold it for him (as you can see).

This puzzle came from The Relaxed Homeschool.  It was originally a four piece puzzle, but I cut each piece in half to make it an eight piece puzzle.  Little Guy got frustrated doing this puzzle, since the pieces can slide around.

I put a few worksheets into a binder for him to practice.  We used sheets from Homeschool Creations and 123 Homeschool4Me.  I put them in sheet protectors and then he used a dry erase crayon to complete the work.

Since we had this treasure chest, we used it to help practice spooning.  Little Guy had a dozen doubloons in a bowl, which he had to scoop out with a spoon and put in his treasure chest.

Little Guy really seemed to enjoy our pirate themed preschool!  In addition to these activities, we checked out several pirate story books from the library to read as part of our preschool time.  Some of his favorites were Riff Raff the Mouse Pirate by Susan Schade, Pirate Pete by Kim Kennedy, and How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long.

More pirate activities can be found on my Pinterest board!

Follow Stacy's board Jake the pirate activities on Pinterest.

Preschool- Pirates Week 1

Hello!  Do you have a little pirate in your house, too?  Little Guy received some Jake and the Neverland Pirates toys for Christmas, and has been loving playing pirates, watching pirates, and learning about pirates ever since.  In trying to keep preschool in line with Little Guy's interests, we did a pirate theme!  Little Guy is 42 months old.

I found a lot of great printables with pirates.  This first one came from 123 Homeschool4Me.  This activity was a great listening exercise for Little Guy, as he had to follow the directions to place the objects in the correct spot.  It also reinforced positional words, like over and under.

This number count and clip also came from 123 Homeschool4Me.  It was great counting practice to 10 for Little Guy.  He needed some support to count past 7, but he is getting better and better at his one-to-one correspondence.

I found some great beginning sound sheets at The Relaxed Homeschool and Homeschool Creations.  Little Guy really enjoyed these sheets and listening to the sounds at the start of the words.  He also really enjoyed using a pencil to circle or cross out the pictures!

This was a fun counting and number recognition activity from Homeschool Creations.  Little Guy pulled a number from a small bowl and then had to put that many parrots flying over the pirate!  As you can see, he was quite proud of himself!

This next activity was a real world activity- sorting silverware.  Grandma A had found this silverware tray at a garage sale this summer, so it was the perfect item to use for this activity.  Little Guy sorted the silverware a couple of times, including separating tablespoons/teaspoons and small forks/big forks.

The next part of the activity was completely him!  He wanted to count all the pieces of silverware.  He laid them out on the floor and counted them!  It was so neat to see him take ownership over this activity and turn it into something he wanted to figure out.

We needed to do some alphabet practice, so I put the magnetic alphabet into our sensory bin, currently filled with peas and beans.  I also put in a dozen gold doubloons- I had to stick with the pirate theme a little!  As Little Guy found the letters, he would name them and then stick them to the cookie sheet that had the alphabet written on it.  I think this was his favorite activity of the week, as he came back to it several times!

We had some gold doubloons, so we also needed a treasure chest to put them in.  I saw this pin on Pinterest and had to try making our own treasure chest!  I only had egg cartons with a dozen spots in it, so we used that and painted it brown.  I added yellow stripes later.   This was the perfect treasure chest to use as he pulled the doubloons out of the sensory bin, especially since it had the correct number of spots!

We'll have more pirate activities next week!  For additional ideas, check out my Pinterest board!

Follow Stacy's board Jake the pirate activities on Pinterest.

What have you been up to in preschool recently?

Preschool- Pumpkins Week 2

More pumpkins in January!  This was our second week of our pumpkin unit.  Be sure to check out week one, too!

For this activity, I wrote out the word pumpkin really big on piece of construction paper.  First, Little Guy had to identify all the letters.  Then, using tweezers, Little Guy had to move the candy pumpkins to the letters, covering the letters up.  This activity took a bit of time, but he really enjoyed doing it, and especially enjoyed getting to eat one pumpkin when he was done!

Another fine motor activity he did was spooning.  I place some orange glass beads in a bowl and he had to use his spoon to transfer them to the pumpkin tray.

An art project we made was a pumpkin pocket. This idea came from Fantastic Fun and Learning.   Little Guy painted one and a half paper plates orange.  Then he laced them together to make a little pocket.  We added a green pipe cleaner to the top as the stem.  I'm sorry I don't have a picture of his completed pocket.

Our next activity was counting and number recognition.  I had some foam pumpkins, on which I wrote one number, from one to six.  Little Guy had to put that many little pumpkin erasers on the foam pumpkin.

Another counting activity we did involved a die.  Little Guy would roll the die, count the dots to see what number he rolled, then put that many pumpkin erasers into the mini ice cube tray.  This was fun, as we could take turns rolling or Little Guy could play all by himself.

Since Little Guy enjoyed this activity so much from last week, we had to bring it out again this week!  We had a fun time singing "Five Little Pumpkins Sitting on a Gate" and taking the pumpkins off and on!

This next activity was a great patterning activity.  Using the orange and green wooden beads that I painted for last week, Little Guy had to put them on a pipe cleaner.  But instead of simply stringing them, he made an AB pattern.  I helped him to get started with the pattern, but by the end he was putting them on in the correct order by himself.  He was very proud of himself when we has done!

Our last activity was a ring toss from Inner Child Fun.  We picked out some pumpkins that had some tall, straight stems specifically so we could do this.  I took some rings off of canning jars and Little Guy had to toss the rings onto the pumpkin stems.  This actually was a lot harder than I thought it would be!  Little Guy did manage to get a few rings on, but the ring tossing action is much different than the throwing action we usually use, so we gave up after a little while.

So that wraps up our Pumpkin theme!

Check out my Pinterest board for more ideas!

Follow Stacy's board Pumpkins and Halloween on Pinterest.

Preschool- Pumpkins Week 1

Pumpkins in January?  Yes, that's right! Well, kind of.  This was for the pumpkin unit we did way back in October, but I never shared with you!  So, here it is now!  Little Guy is 39 months old.

Little Guy loves puzzles.  This was a 24 piece puzzle, so he had a little trouble working on it.  I helped to guide him by helping him to see the different vegetables in the pictures.

This was the first time we used count and clip cards.  It is great for one to one correspondence and number recognition.  Theses are from the Gift of Curiosity.

This may have been the favorite activity of the unit.  Using a hammer and some pin nails, Little Guy hammered some buttons onto a foam pumpkin.  This was great fine motor practice and took a lot of concentration on Little Guy's part.  I found these foam pumpkins last year at the dollar store.

What pumpkin unit would be complete without some Halloween printables?  We used do-a-dot printable, some cutting practice, and a pumpkin/ jack-o-lantern sort.  The cutting practice and sorting is from the pumpkin pack at 1+1+1=1.

We've been continuing to practice our knife skills by cutting grapes.  Little Guy really enjoys "preparing" his own snack.

We continue to practice spooning.  Little Guy had to spoon pumpkins (orange and green wooden beads) from one bowl to another. He's getting pretty good at this!

I made this clothespin pumpkin activity to go with the song "5 Little Pumpkins sitting on a gate." This idea came from Still Playing School.  In addition to moving the pumpkins and singing the song, I also found a short animated version of the song on YouTube that Little Guy enjoyed watching and acting out.  This was probably his other favorite activity of the week.

Need more pumpkin ideas?  Don't worry, more are coming soon!

In the meantime, visit my Pinterest board.

Follow Stacy's board Pumpkins and Halloween on Pinterest.

Preschool- Transportation Week 3

Welcome to our third week of our transportation unit!  This last week was done a bit more here and there, as we were preparing for a trip and dealing with a cold for Little Guy.  You can see the activities we did in week 1 and week 2.  Little Guy is 39 months old.

Reading has been a fun part of this unit.  We gathered many non-fiction books from the library to help us learn about the different types of transportation.  We also read many fiction books.  Here are some of our favorites!

Everything Goes: In the Air by Brian Biggs (This cartoon style book showed what you do at the airport, from parking to going through security to getting on the plane.  It also shows different types of airplanes, all in an entertaining way.  Little Guy went to this book over and over...and over!)
 

First Flight by David McPhail (A sweet story of a little boy's first airplane flight on his own.  We own this one and it is a favorite.)
 

Angela's Airplane by Robert Munsch  (A funny story of how a 5 year old accidentally flies plane!  Entertaining for Little Guy and for me.)
 

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle (A great story of how good things can happen when we work together.)
 

Trains, Planes, and Airport by Byron Barton (Airport is another great book that shows what happens at the airport.  I love the simple illustrations and text.)
 

The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper (What transportation unit would be complete without this classic book?)
 

Freight Train by Donald Crews (Simple illustrations show the different types of cars on a freight train.)

This week we spent some time using the Count and Clip cards from Homeschool Creations.

We also got out some playdough and some cookies cutters in the shapes of a train, plane, and racecar.  We had not played with playdough for a while, so it was fun to get it out again.

We also worked on our alphabet train puzzle again.  This time, Little Guy wore a train conductor hat while he worked on the puzzle.  Makes it much more authentic, don't you think!

This last activity was my favorite!  We made a book about the experiences he had at the airshow and Touch a Truck event.  It took us two days to complete, but was well worth it.  I printed out pictures from the airshow that we attended, as well as the Touch a Truck event.  I made a label with a sentence for each picture.  I tried to use the same pattern, which mostly was "Little Guy saw a ...".  We started with the pictures from the Touch a Truck.   Little Guy chose a picture and we would slide it into a little photo album.  Then I would get the corresponding label and put it on an index card.  Then, using alphabet stickers, Little Guy would put the name of the vehicle on the top of the index card.  The book turned out great!  Little Guy could "read" many of the pages.  He really took ownership over the book.

Finally, we had to make some traffic light crackers to finish out the week!

This was a fun unit for both Little Guy and I!  What have you been up to in preschool?

Need more ideas?  Check out my letter T and letter A Pinterest boards!

Follow Stacy's board Alphabet- T on Pinterest.

 Follow Stacy's board Alphabet- A on Pinterest.

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!