• Friday Freebie – Leaf Matching

    Happy Friday! Today’s freebie is a fun way to practice colors while celebrating autumn.  This leaf scavenger hunt asks children to find leaves that match the leaf on the card, what a fun game for outdoor time! Download your copy from Edventures with Kids and have a great weekend!

  • Autumn activities for preschool

    Autumn is a great season to explore in the classroom because there are so many natural materials the you can bring into your environment.  This also means that it is really important to have other materials in your centers that are related to those natural materials.  Here are some of my favorite autumn centers; Autumn vocabulary cards– These are great for reinforcing the new vocabulary words that students are learning.  This set includes the words acorn, apple, leaf, corn, leaves, pumpkin, tree, orchard, squirrel, and turkey and are wonderful for a writing center. Acorn matching set – This set includes letter matching, number matching, and color matching, making it easy for children…

  • Autumn Dramatic Play Themes

    I love autumn – pumpkins, sweaters, apple cider – it is my favorite season.  There are so many fun things to do in the fall, and those activities translate to wonderful dramatic play themes.  Here are some fun ideas to invigorate your dramatic play center. Leaf clean up: Inspire children to help rake the yard with this fun dramatic play center. Consider adding some of the following materials to inspire play: Rakes Gardening gloves Play leaves Leaf bags Apple orchard: Nothing says autumn quite like a trip to the orchard, it’s easy to create your very own orchard with some of these materials: Play apples (or real ones!) Bushel baskets…

  • Acorn Science

    Acorns are great for autumn inquiries because they naturally lead to a variety of questions, such as; Why do the acorns fall off the tree? If we plant an acorn, will it grow? What would it grow into? What is inside of an acorn? Do any animals eat acorns besides squirrels? These questions can lead to wonderful investigations about autumn, hibernation, and plant life. If you’re looking for some additional science activities to do with acorns you can easily adapt year-round favorites to help your students understand acorns better.  You could: See if acorns sink or float, and then explore the same question with other types of nuts Talk about…

  • 15 Things preschoolers can observe in the fall

    Autumn gives us plenty of examples to explore changes in our world. Here are 15 different things that you can use to practice observation skills with preschoolers: Leaves changing colors Leaves falling off trees Leaves on other plants (Are they falling off too? Is it just trees that lose their leaves?) Trees that are not changing colors (Why do some trees change colors while others do not?) Bugs (What are they doing? Is this different from what they do at other times of the year?) Squirrels Other animals (What animals do you see? What are they doing?) The temperature Weather patterns The clothing you are all wearing (Is it different…

  • Friday Freebie – Yarn Keepsake

    Happy Friday! I swear that the farther away from summer we get, the longer the weeks feel.  Thankfully, it’s Friday! Today’s freebie is the perfect ending to all of the yarn activities that I shared this week.  This cute keepsake poem is meant to be shared with a string that is as tall as the child at the beginning of the year, and another piece of string that is as tall as the child at the end of the year. Families will love this little momento and it’s a great way to practice measurement. Download your copy from Kidpeople Classroom and have a wonderful weekend!

  • Activities to do with Yarn – Art

    If there is one thing that is universal for every single preschool program it’s that you never seem to have enough materials for all of the activities that you want to do with the children. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at creating fun experiences with very few supplies.  I thought it would be fun to focus on one simple supply and share a ton of easy activities that you can do to meet different learning domains. This week is going to be all about things you can do with yarn. Yarn is a creative material – while it is generally intended to be used for knitting, crocheting, and…

  • Activities to do with yarn – Fine Motor

    If there is one thing that is universal for every single preschool program it’s that you never seem to have enough materials for all of the activities that you want to do with the children. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at creating fun experiences with very few supplies.  I thought it would be fun to focus on one simple supply and share a ton of easy activities that you can do to meet different learning domains. This week is going to be all about things you can do with yarn. Yarn is the perfect material for practicing fine motor skills because you can use it to string a…

  • Activities to do with yarn – math

    If there is one thing that is universal for every single preschool program it’s that you never seem to have enough materials for all of the activities that you want to do with the children. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at creating fun experiences with very few supplies.  I thought it would be fun to focus on one simple supply and share a ton of easy activities that you can do to meet different learning domains. This week is going to be all about things you can do with yarn. When it comes to math, the simplest activities often make the biggest impact. There are so many ways…

  • Activities to do with yarn – gross motor

    If there is one thing that is universal for every single preschool program it’s that you never seem to have enough materials for all of the activities that you want to do with the children. Over the years I’ve gotten pretty good at creating fun experiences with very few supplies.  I thought it would be fun to focus on one simple supply and share a ton of easy activities that you can do to meet different learning domains. This week is going to be all about things you can do with yarn. When it comes to gross motor activities, yearn is the perfect tool for practicing a variety of skills.…