My little preschooler loved hands-on activities, and it if included glue, it was even better. After reading the very silly Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler, we learned a little about the skeletal system and then did a q-tip swab skeleton craft. What a perfect learning activity for the Halloween season!
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From when my second child was a toddler till today, when she is a kindergartner and my third child is a toddler, I keep them busy by setting up busy boxes (also called busy bags or workboxes). With fall comes apple picking season for us. The activities and books below are perfect for an apple themed busy box!
I teach a class at our co-op, and my son is present for one or two other classes as well. This means that my two daughters get to “hang out” a lot each week, sometimes with a different adult to watch her.
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My most recent crafty project was a random one that I thought of as I watched my kids playing: I made some corn on the cob to go in my son’s play kitchen. I’ve mentioned it before, I don’t feel that I am a particularly crafty person. Put me in front of a computer and sure, I can make something. But give me crafting supplies, and I often feel a little lost as to what to do first. Also, one other thing you should know about me: when I was about 7, I burned off a fingernail with a super hot glue gun. So I’ve always avoided those types of crafts. But. I have decided to give craftiness a go. My no sew felt corn creation has been the perfect compliment to our play kitchen, and it is so easy that even the not crafty can do it!
My preschooler loves to play with our frog and bear counters to practice color and size sorting! Sorting and separating rainbow counters
The ones I have are also beads, so my daughter loves stringing them into a necklace. We took turns making a pond full of colorful lily pads that needed the right colored frogs on them. She asked to practice color and size sorting again and again!
Color sorting is the most obvious way to sort for a preschooler. We’ve already matched colorful shoes along with Pete the Cat! As I presented the different colored “lily pads” for my daughter to sort the frogs onto, she quickly got in to the challenge. I think I’ll include this in the Rainbow Busy Box next time I set it up for my little one.
Once I pointed out the differences in sizes, Strawberry also loved sorting them out by size. Because of her creative mind, small and medium became “babies” and “big brothers and sisters,” and the large frogs were the mamas and papas. My daughter loved to put the mamas and babies together. I had to make larger sized lily pads so the whole family could live together in our room-sized pond.
My older child wanted to play too, but he wanted to incorporate a game into our color and size sorting. My daughter insisted it be her Christmas present game: Spot It! Alphabet
As I said, I love these frogs. I believe Learning Resources stopped making the frogs, as I can only refer you to them secondhand on Amazon
However, so if you are looking for some small rainbow fun, you can also play with the Learning Resources Three Bear Family Rainbow Counters
unters
For my older child, I also made some simple pattern cards to use with the rainbow frogs. Patterning is an important skill for developing mathematical thinking skills and critical thinking in general.
Again, bears or any other rainbow counters would work well with these same cards! You can get the pattern cards in my TPT store or my shop.
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Here are other ideas for using rainbow counters with kids of all ages:
See more rainbow activities on my blog and in my shop! Then, scroll down for a round-up of other rainbow counter activities.
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I have seen the rice “I spy” packages before on Pinterest, so since my son has become interested in word searches and daughter has become interested in the “I Spy” books we have, I thought it was time to make an “I Spy” busy box. Some of these activities work for the toddler, others are more appropriate for the older child, and some are games they can both play (albeit, a bit differently with a toddler involved). The look and find busy bag lets the kids search for familiar items in the midst of a few cups of rice. The entire I Spy busy box encourages visual discrimination, an important pre-reading skill. Continue reading
With the upcoming solar eclipse, we’ve been learning about the moon and sun. For this week’s activity, we learned about the surface of the moon, especially the 1969 moon landing. Of course we had to recreate the moon landing. Strawberry (and toddler Kitty) loved to walk on the moon by making our own footprints on the moon in our fun outside sensory activity.
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In honor of the recent Pioneer Day (the Utah holiday that celebrates the arrival of the Mormon pioneers to Utah in 1847), we try to do something pioneer related each year, since my husband’s family is from Utah and it’s a part of our Mormon heritage as well. This year (to go along with Strawberry’s always kinetic learning style) we made a pool noodle covered wagon by converting our red Radio Flyer wagon!
In the past, we made a milk carton covered wagon and acted out pioneer scenes with it. Another time, I shared favorite pioneer books. We also learned about modern-day pioneers and interviewed family members, and we did a “scavenger hunt” in a non-fiction book to learn about using an index. I think making our pool noodle covered wagon was the most fun yet!
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Today the weather turned rainy and yucky. We decided it was a great day to make princess jewelry inside! We used aluminum foil to make princess jewelry, as well as stickers, tape, and colorful construction paper, making this a sensory activity that even my toddler loved to be a part of! Continue reading
On a hot summer day, what does one do for “Princess Preschool”? We play with ice! Building with ice is not easy. My daughter wanted to make an Ice Princess’ castle (as my daughter intended), but it sure is fun to try your hand in stacking the sliding blocks during an outside ice play exploration! Continue reading
Strawberry has been begging for more “Princess Preschool.” Today’s princess habitat activity was inspired by my daughters Snow Queen (aka Elsa) finger puppets. So, while we found a habitat background for the Snow Queen, her sister, snowman, reindeer, and friend, we also found habitats for our other favorite characters (both princesses and not). Our princess imagination play was actually a princess science lesson in disguise too as we talked about our favorite characters’ habitats. Continue reading
