My version is very similar, except I added a different feature on the back. I listed the numbers one to five on the back for counting activities and number recognition.
If I can get more than one use from a manipulative, I'm all for it- saves time and money!
Little man is loving his new desk! Isn't it adorable?
A special gift from his Aunt.
Be sure to stop by Princess and the Tot to see other great hands-on activities for little learners!
Using recycled materials, Peanut created a shape creature. She had to use both plain shapes and 3D shapes in her design.
She used the following shapes:
circle
sphere
cylinder
cube
rectangle
Can you find the different shapes? She used a cool glue gun to attach her shapes. Not the best pic (she took it with a webcam)- but it still gives you the idea.
Shape books we enjoy....
For more shape fun for little ones, visit my Rr is for robot post.
What a creative and fun way to learn about shapes!
The Activity Mom is a wonderful site filled with many hands-on ideas and activities! Nicole, the founder, is a former Elementary Educator and a mom to a 5 year old son and 2 year old daughter. She enjoys sharing fun activities with her kids and sharing her activity ideas with other moms.
I've been reading The Activity Mom for years and have been inspired by Nicole. Therefore, I am so honored to be a part of her site. Recently, I started contributing weekly and am very excited about this endeavor.
Here are a couple of my most recent posts that you might enjoy...
I'd also like to introduce to you, Jill, another featured writer for The Activity Mom! Jill also has experience in the area of Elementary Eduction. She is a mom to a 5 year old daughter and a 9 month old son. Reading, writing and early learning are her passions. You can find Jill over at The Shafer Family.
Be sure to stop by and explore The Activity Mom and all this site has to offer to moms and educators!
Leaping Lizards! (or Frogs, I should say)Leap Day is just around the corner. Why do we have a leap year? Send your kids on a scavenger hunt to answer this question and to learn more about this year's leap day!
Leap Year Scavenger Hunt Using the websites below, have your child research the following questions...
3. Who were the first to add a leap day to the calendar?
4. Some say a tradition started in the 5th century relating to women?
5. We add an extra day to the calendar this year, so how many days will be in our year?
6. What is a person born on leap day sometimes called?
7. How many people are born on leap day?
8. When was the last leap year?
9. How is Julius Caesar related to Leap Year?
10. Would you have liked to be born on a leap day- why or why not?
Answer Key 1. Every 4 years. 2 We match the calendar with the solar year, because it takes the Earth 365 days, 5 hrs, 48 minutes, and 46 seconds to complete it's orbit. These extra minutes add up! 3. Some say the Egyptians were the first to add an extra day. 4. A woman is allowed to propose to men only once every 4 years on leap day. 5. 366 6. a leapling 7. 1 in 1,461 8. 2008 9. He worked on reforming the Roman Calendar. 10. No right or wrong answer.
Other Leap Day fun...
1. How about rope "leaping" with a fun poem?
THE JUMP ROPE RHYME
Leap Year, Leap Year When will you be? Every four years Then you'll see.
You want more? We do too! How many more
can you Leap to?
by Raenell Dawn
2. Leap Frog is always fun for all ages! With little ones who may not be able to hop over each other, make Lily pads and have your little one jump from pad to pad.
3. Learn about other animals that leap with these fun activities. Many more links on this website as well with ideas for Leap Day. Teach With Me
My children don't know a lot about Leap Year, so I'm excited to do some of these activities with them this Wednesday. Do you have any leap year activities planned? If so, please comment- I love hearing and learning from you!
Patterns can be found everywhere in our world including music, math, and art! There are so many fun ways to share patterns with kids. We discovered this wonderful book- Pattern Fish by Trudy Harris. It was enjoyed by both my toddler and 2nd grader. Fun and interactive! Bubble-bubble-pop...
1. Create colorful pattern fish using stickers, markers, or crayons. Great creative thinking activity.
2. Using colored fish manipulatives or goldfish crackers, have your child create patterns. AB pattern- yellow, red, yellow, red... or ABBA green, yellow, yellow, green. Our crafts N things used dappers to create fish patterns- awesome idea!
3. At education.com, I found the article Preschool Math: Exploring Patterns. Many wonderful ideas! One of my favorite is Movement Patterns- jump, skip, jump, skip..... What a fun way to get moving and teach patterns at the same time!
4. Make a colored pasta or cereal(fruit loops) pattern necklace.
Gems, gems, gems.... Little man has had his eyes on these gems for quite some time now! I actually use them for my positive behavior jars for the girls. Something that you'd hear around our house....
"Thank you for putting your dish in the sink- put a gem in the gem jar."
Anyways, little man finally got his hands on them, so I let him play a sorting activity with his older sister. He loved it! Great for sensory development and fun with different colors.
Afterwards, Sissy decided to make a one-hundredth day poster for school. She counted out 100 gems for her poster.
Do you have any more ideas for these sparkly gems? Please share your ideas!!!
After reading a post from Activity Mom on number spinners, I got the inspiration to play a spinner game with little man. I found a clear spinner in my teacher materials and added different color dino stickers to match colored dinos from his toy bin. We took turns spinning the spinner and collected dinos to match the color on the spinner. When we were finished, we counted each color of dinos that we collected. For example, little man had 3 orange dinos when we were finished, so we counted them together.
Skills fine-motor- spinning the spinner color recognition counting language skills social- taking turns
Enjoy playing and learning with your little ones today! Jen
Do you need a fun way to teach your child how to follow directions? Well, glyphs are a perfect way to teach this important skill. A glyph is a pictoral way to show data. The snowman glyph below is a fun activity to do as a family. Collect data, create your snowman, and then compare!
Here is another glyph activity from my daughter's 2nd grade cyber-teacher... Snowman Pattern
Using the Snowman printout above-Follow these directions to make your snowman.
•If you were born in the months January, February, March or April you will color the scarf pointed to the left. •If you were born in the months, May, June, July or August, you will color the scarf pointing straight down. •If you were born in the months September, October, November or December you will color the scarf pointed to the right.
•If you are a boy, color the snowman's scarf red.
•If you are a girl, color the snowman's scarf blue.
•If your last name begins with the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G or H you will color the Top Hat. •If your last name begins with the letters I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P or Q you will color the Knitted Hat.
•If your last name begins with the letters R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y or Z you will color the Stocking Cap.
•If you are are girl, color your hat Red with Blue Stripes. •If you are a boy, color your hat Yellow with Black Stripes.
•If you like to build snowmen, color the nose Orange. •If you do not like to build snowmen, color the nose Purple.
•If you like Hot Cocoa, draw arms on your snowman. •If you don't like Hot Cocoa, draw a flower on your snowman.
Peanut's snowman....
This activity can be adapted for younger children with simple directions and less detail.
I just love the dollar store. I found these silk leaves there, as well as the fake gourds/pumpkins. It was very easy to change over my Spooky bin from October to our November fall bin. Little man loves the silk leaves and really has been enjoying the sensory bins that I've been making for him. Often, I catch the older girls playing in the bins as well- which is pretty cool.
Here are a few or more ideas for silk leaves....
*Toss them around the room for indoor fall play.
*Counting
*Sorting- green and orange.
*Create math problems. (Sally picked up 5 leaves, but 2 blew away in the wind. How many does she have now?) Use the leaves as manipulatives to solve the math problem.
*Beginning multiplication. 3 groups of 4 leaves= 4x3=12 Use the leaves as manipulatives to count groups.
*I think I've seen letters written on the leaves with permanent marker. This would be fun during the fall months for ABC practice or spelling practice. (if you have extra leaves for more letters)
*Create a thankful tree. After sharing what you are thankful for, add a leaf to the tree each day.
Okay, your turn! What are your ideas for these wonderful $ tree leaves??
And for more sensory play ideas, be sure to visit...
Oh, I could just cringe looking at the amount of candy that has entered our home this week. I know- I was a kid once who loved Halloween, but it is so hard for me not to think about the amount of sugar going in their little bodies and also their poor, poor teeth.
Anyways, I was thinking about all of this candy and how I could turn it into learning. As a kid, I loved sorting out my candy. For little ones this is a great activity for categorizing and counting. Also, they can count their Hershey bars by twos, their tootsie pops by fives, and so on. How about patterns- tootsie, lolly pop, tootsie, lolly pop. For older kids, I thought it would be fun to make a candy graph. They can make a bar graph, tally chart, and/or pictograph and compare their data.
How about creative sundaes? Crumble and freeze extra chocolate/candy and use later to make your own sundaes. Have the kids set up their own ice cream shop and serve. What a great way to tie in learning about money with something yummy!
What ideas do you have for all of that candy that will be arriving any minute now??? Please share and Happy Halloween! Time and go and light my lanterns!
Aa is for alligator, ants, apple, apricot, airplane, armadillo
Day 1:
*Starfall : letter A
*Review A on ABC poster. Sing ABCs. (daily)
*Aa discover bag.
*Color the letter Aa template- decorate. Hang on wall.
*Snack- animal crackers
*Aa segment on video: Animal Alphabet
(Aa is for armadillo)
Day 2: *Airplane- look outside for airplanes. Act like an airplane.
*Fly paper airplanes with Dad.
*Play with airplane toy.
*Music: I'm a Little Airplane Now.. from Sesame Street
The airplane has great big wings:
(arms outstretched)
Its propeller spins around and sings, "Vvvvvv!"
(make one arm go round)
The airplane goes up:
(lift arms)
The airplane goes down:
(lower arms)
The airplane flies high
(arms outstretched, turn body around)
Over the town!
Day 3: *Alligator- act like an alligator
*Alligator puppet- pretend play.
*Music/literature- The Lady With the Alligator Purse
More fun literature....
Day 4: *Ants- observe ants outside
*Create an ant- use cootie bug
*Music- The ants go marching one by one...parade with sisters
*Letter A is for ant color sheet from DLTK.
*Feed the ants from Totally Tots.
*Simple Ant craft- 3 circles, 6 rectangle, glue stick- make ant
(skill focus: counting, shapes, using a glue stick) *Literature:
Day 5: Apple activities
*Painting with apples
*Craft- apple stickers in tree
*Literature
*Count and sing- one little, two little apples...
*Color focus- red- sort red objects
*Review ABC poster- hang A on coconut tree. (plan to make large coconut tree for wall)
*Snack: apple slices (extra apple from craft)
As I organize ABC activities for little man, I'll post them above under ABC Curriculum. I wrote these as 5 day lessons, but I'm going to be flexible depending on what's going on in our lives! I may add more ideas or delete as we go along depending on his interest. :)
Please feel free to share your ABC ideas so we can learn and help our children grow together!
