Age 3-5 years
When you are on on the go, sometimes your children are not so cooperative. Whether you are on a road trip or just running errands around town your children probably are not too happy about it and let you know. Allie did a great post about learning on the go in which her son checked off letters as he found them. But giving my three small children each a pencil and pad isn’t something that would make a trip easier on me. At home sure, but not out by myself.
This fun activity keeps hands and minds busy. Plus it helps keeps Mommy sane, always a plus. 
The simpleness of this activity makes it easily adjustable for all ages and levels.
All you will need for this is a paper plate, marker, and scissors.
Write letters around the edge of the plate.
Then cut in between each letter.
You can make one for upper case letters, lower case letters, shapes, sight words, and colors. The possibilities are endless. You could also turn it into a fun math activity by doing numbers or equations.
Give your child a plate and when you are out on the town or at a park (pretty much wherever) they simply fold down the letter as they spot it in their surroundings.
We had a five year old boy with us learning his phonics, so when he saw something I would ask the sound of it. We would match the sound the letter makes to the letter, then he would fold it over. He was so excited.
This is definitely one of those activities that children can do on their own or you can do with them. Like I said the possibilities are endless, so have fun!
What will you put on your plate?
Kim is a contributing writer for No Time For Flash Cards, a mom to a toddler, a preschooler, and a foster parent, too. She juggles her day by trying out fun activities and crafts with the kids. After all, she is just a big kid herself. See what she has been up to over at Mom Tried It.
Pretend play is such an important part of preschool learning and while we do our fair share of just crawling around like cats and putting on bad English accents and pretending to be Harry Potter and friends we also love pretend play set ups like this one. Setting the scene can boost endless play possibilities especially with kids that aren’t self starters for pretend play. Don’t tell them how to play, just set the scene and play along or let them fly solo. Store play is great for incorporating learning about money, talking about manners, reading and even sorting things. Don’t worry about fitting in a lesson though – play is the lesson, let it happen.
- Gather your materials. The best part of this activity is that you use what you have and one thing most families have a lot of are toys. My son loves to keep his toy packages and I finally found a good use for them! You may also want to grab some paper, markers, and painter’s tape. For some store props try a name badge, phone and cash register. If you don’t have a play cash register ( we don’t ) I find an old lap top works perfectly.
- Start by making signs for the sections of the store. This is the bulk of the prep for this scenario. This is great for reading especially for emergent readers who with the aid of the context can successfully read many of the signs. A Price chart offers the chance to read numbers as well.
- Next organize the room or part of the room as a store with some simple displays. I loved doing this and as you will see my son shares that love.
- As soon as I was done arranging it was time to pick up my son from school and play. I usually set these up as surprises … he loved it .
- My daughter claimed the cashier job .
- My son read the prices.
- My son immediately ran to his room to get more Lego to step up.
- My daughter helped me find a baby doll. Then refused to sell it to me. She’s still learning the concept that customers are always right.
- As everyone knows when you work in a toy store the best part is you can test the merchandise – which is what we did the rest of the afternoon after nap and a new pair of PJs.
I really encourage you to pretend with your kids whether it’s a big event pretend play like this or the random and magical ones when they walk up to you and announce that they are no longer your child they are in fact a wizard… oh and you are too. It’s so important for them to imagine , to practice life skills and try on different roles in a safe place . So imagine with them and play.
Make your own touch and feel letters for your littlest learner easily and without breaking the bank. These frugal and educational letters let beginners explore letters through their senses. Alphabet For Starters is our series of simple activities for children just beginning to explore and learn letters. A great rule of thumb for when to start is when your child starts pointing out letters on shirts, in books or boxes. If they haven’t yet but this they might enjoy it, try these activities and see if they are interested. If they are engaged jump in and explore some more, if they aren’t don’t push. We want letters to be fun, playful and interesting and if we push them on kids that aren’t ready we set up everyone for frustrating experience.
- Gather your materials. You will need some construction paper , double stick tape ( or glue if you have time to let it dry), scissors, a marker, some materials that have various textures. We used felt, some sticky back sparkly foam and regular sticky back foam. I also used some emery boards but they didn’t stick to the double stick tape, and I was going to use some contact paper for sticky but forgot…. The main thing to remember is to have a handful of different textures.
- Start by choosing a few letters . I limit the letters only because I want my daughter who is almost 2 to explore them without being overwhelmed. There is no way she’d go through and explore each at this stage so I only made a handful. If you want to make all 26 letters go for it just follow your child as they explore .
- To make the letters I started by cutting some construction paper in two and writing a letter on it.
- Add double stick tape or glue and stick the felt on. The foam has a self adhesive back so it’s even easier to use.
- After adding the textured material I cut the letters out .
- Added more double stick tape.
- And popped it on another sheet of construction paper so they are a little sturdier.
- Time to play! She intuitively started tracing the letters. As she did I narrated a little ” That M is sparkly!” ” Does it feel nice on your finger?”
- She loved the squishy foam.
- Use descriptive words like, soft, smooth, squishy and of course label the letters as you play.
- The sparkly foam made a really scratchy sound and she loved it!
For her 6 letters was just the perfect amount. We’ll play with these letters again soon , and slowly switch in new letters as she is ready. Follow your child’s cues if they aren’t able to verbally tell you when they are past the prime learning zone. Once they are visibly less engaged, move on to something new.
Alphabet Books For Beginners
LMNO Peas
Alphabet Under Construction
Chicka Chicka ABC
Need more alphabet books? Here are a bunch!
We have started spotting butterflies in our yard when we are outside playing and I am so happy that my son still stops what he is doing to watch them flutter by. This is a classic kids craft but by using the colored glue we made and glitter it’s a little special even for a jaded crafter like my son . I like how the colored glue can be seen through the wings and in the window it looks like a sun catcher. My kids had a ball and I think it was a great reminder that classic crafts are classic for a reason.
- Gather your materials. You will need some coffee filters, some colored glue, glitter and pipe cleaners. My kids love the sparkly ones from craftprojectideas.com . Also when we are doing glitter I like to shake it into a bow lid, or other container to keep it a little contained.
- Start by drizzling the glue all over the coffee filter. While my daughter did this my son was playing nearby.
- She loved squeezing the glue and we took the opportunity to talk about colors too.
- Add the glitter! She was tame compared to her brother …. you’ll see what I mean in a bit.
- She was happy with one so I invited my son who wasn’t ready yet. So we played for a while then started the craft. This worked well because I got my daughter engaged so she was happily playing alone when my son decided he was ready. He wanted to make a monarch butterfly because they migrate. OK. So he was trying to mix the red and yellow paint to make orange.
- And guess who decided she wanted to make another. I only had one box and my son was using it so I gave my daughter about 5 layers of coffee fliter so the colored glue didn’t seep through to the unprotected table. It worked well.
- Then he added glitter.
- And he went bananas.
He made up a silly song about glitter and had us all giggling. Yes it was a mess but it was funny and silly and happy and I am a total sucker for funny.
- We let them dry over night ( on way paper so the glue that ran through the filters wouldn’t stain anything). Did you really think I’d have a post without at least one of my kids in PJs?
- Then wound the pipe cleaners around them.
- Put them in the window .
I still have glitter to clean up – my son helped but I think he just spread it. The library may get a few books returned that shine figuratively and literally.
Song
The little caterpillar snuggled on a leaf,
Spun a little chrysalis and then fell asleep,
While she was sleeping she dreamed that she could fly,
When she woke up she was a butterfly.
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Guest Post by Deborah J. Stewart, M. Ed. of Teach Preschool
I have been following No Time for Flash Cards for a very long time now and one thing I know about Allie is that she loves a good quality children’s book. So I thought I would share a fun little book we recently explored in my preschool classroom…
The title of the book is “Not a Stick” by Antoinette Portis. The book is very simple to read and the basic idea is to get children’s imaginations going by imagining the stick in the book is anything but a stick!
As a class we have read this book at least three times and now as I read the book, the children shout out what the stick will be next! “It’s a fishing pole!”
After we read the book for the second time, I had the children go outside and gather sticks from our play yard…
As you can see, there is no shortage of sticks in our “play yard!” Once the children had selected a few sticks, we came back inside and each child taped their sticks to their own large sheet of paper…
The children then used crayons and their imaginations to turn the sticks into something that was “not a stick”…
This process was simple for the children and yet challenging too! The children tended to draw random lines around the sticks and talk about what they were making. When the children had finished their drawings, I had each child dictate to me a story about their stick. We started the story with, “It’s not a stick. It’s a….” and the children had to complete the sentence…
Our sticks turned out to be alligators, spiders, circles, swords, and more. A process like this is simple yet promotes great opportunity for story telling and imagination!
Whether you are a parent or a teacher, I would love to invite you to stop by Teach Preschool and see some of the other books and activities I share on my blog that young children will enjoy both at home or in the classroom!
