Archive for September 2011
Our letter of the week themed posts have reached the letter h! I hope that these letter of the week posts help you find inspiration for your letter lessons but remember this isn’t a check list , choose a few fun things to create with the letter and stick to a variety of whole alphabet lessons for the rest of your week.
{Letter H h Crafts}
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{Crafts and Activities That Start With H }
Hammering Activity -Hat – Haunted House Craft - Heart Crafts - Hedgehog Craft - Hospital - Hot Dog Craft - House Craft
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{ Whole Alphabet Activities}
Cereal Box Laptop - Post Office Letter Sorting - Pumpkin Letter Match
Hello! I feel like it’s been ages since we chatted! I have been busy with back to school week, new exciting projects and can I tell you something? I miss you! I need a few days to just sit and read all the truly genius links that you add to this linky week after week. I love how this community of ours supports each other to create an even greater resource of children’s learning in school, at home and in bewteen!
If you are new here don’t be shy, add a link to your best activity, craft or lesson from the week and check out some of the other links you see.
Have a great week!
Inside a Zoo in the City by Alyssa Satin Capucilli is a rebus read along , so children who can’t read words yet can help read this with pictures put right into the text! The story is repetitive and builds with one animal and page at a time. Preschoolers love these books and the repetitive nature of it makes it interactive and fun!
1, 2, 3 to the Zoo
Peek-a-Zoo!
Good Night, Gorilla
The Great Escape from City Zoo
Warm weather is already tapering off , rain has been pounding down in many areas but kids still need to move, burn off energy and have fun doing it! Over the years we’ve gathered many gross motor activities for preschoolers and all of these can be done rain or shine in your home.
The Easy Balance Beam shown above is as simple as can be but offers a million possibilities . We’ve been pirates, played Simon Says on the beam, even played statue while standing on one leg.
This Musical Hearts Game is a wonderful and fun way to incorporate listening, reading and shapes into a gross motor activity. We played this often last winter and can’t wait to include my daughter in on the fun now that she is running and jumping too.
What could be more fun than knocking down your brother or sister and not getting in trouble? This Family Bowling Game lets your kids have fun knocking down custom made bowling pins while they work on gross motor skills and coordination .
Combine color matching with a classic bean bag toss with our Color Toss activity. Encourage your kids to toss the bags from further and further away as they master it.
Like the musical hearts game this simple activity turns physical tasks like jumping jacks , crab walk and high kicks into a game. The Batman get up is purely optional.
Block Basket Ball has been revived at our house with my toddler. My son loved popping these blocks into the garbage bin and now my daughter likes to play it with bean bags and a basket. Seriously simple, but they gobble it up!
Our playroom is my favorite room in the house. It’s more than a playroom though, it’s also a learning room and my husband affectionately calls it my classroom. I wanted to share it with you today to help explain a little about how we use it to promote learning through play at our house. We have lots of free time in this room as well as outside, or wherever else in our house they want to play but this room offers the most fun for obvious and not so obvious reasons.
First of all this is how the room looked when I went to take pictures.
It’s lived in, it invites play, this is not a space that needs to be clean and tidy all the time. There is a place for everything that enters the room so that we can find things easily but it’s not the living room ( although that probably has some books and toys in it too), it’s the playroom a place to explore not continually clean!
The elements I really urge you to have in your playroom or homeschool classroom for preschool – kindergarten include :
1. Blocks area . We are using Fisher-Price Little People Builders Builders
2. LOTS of books. Most of my books came from Scholastic Book Orders when I was a teacher. I spent way too much of my already small pay check on books. Many of the others are from Goodwill – I love used books! Also make sure that the books are in an accessible spot. Our board books are right where my 14 month old can grab them.
3. A table and chairs that are their size. I flubbed a little on this one. I bought this Ikea Desk Table Multi-use
and I swear i measured the legs. Still they are a little tall… nothing too bad for my son and since my daughter likes to stand instead of sit it’s no biggie right now.
4. Dress Up! We love our Melissa & Doug Play Costumes
5. Practical Life. I urge parents of boys and girls to have a play kitchen
6. Puzzles! Critical thinking is critical. Puzzles
7. Music. I know it’s not always the most pleasant thing to listen to but making music even if it’s just random banging and weird screeches on a recorder is important. Exposing your child to creating music is a great way to spark their interest and studies have shown that kids who play instruments are better at math and reading. That starts here , so let them bang and tweet away!
8. A comfy place to read. This is our favorite place in the whole room! I took the doors off the closet, added a shower curtain and rod, a crib mattress on the floor , cushions and a book rack. Oh and our reading lights!
Art both fine art and fine kid made art on the walls are also a must!
