activities
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Preschool Volcano Theme
I’m a huge proponent of exploring themes that are relevant to the children you teach, but I also strongly believe that doesn’t always mean that they HAVE to be themes that children interact with in their everyday life in order to be relevant. If children are especially fascinated with a topic, to the point that it has become a regular topic of conversation in their classroom, then it is relevant in my eyes. This is where topics like dinosaurs, space, make-believe, wild animals, far away landscapes, etc. begin to become appropriate classroom themes. This week we’re tackling one of those topics; volcanos! There are so many ways to explore volcanos…
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Airplane Activities for Preschool
Mondays have been tough around here – these summer weekends are busy and we’re feeling it by Monday! I hope that you’ll forgive me for not always getting a Monday post up throughout the summer, I’m really leaning into Mom life and sometimes that just doesn’t leave the time. That doesn’t mean that I’m totally leaving you hanging though! I’ve got so much to share. We’re prepping for a vacation, and it’s a big one because it’ll be my daughter’s first airplane experience. This felt like the perfect time to dig in and explore airplanes. It’s relevant for my family at the moment, but it can be an excellent theme…
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Birthday Activities for Preschool
It’s a big week for us, my daughter’s birthday is this week! We decided to make this the theme for this week because you only get a birthday once a year, we might as well make the most of it. Here are some of the activities that we’ve leaning into in order to explore birthdays and build an understanding of all the different ways that these can be celebrated. Looking at photos from previous birthdays – This would be an excellent activity to do with the whole class. Encouraging children to bring in photos from last year’s celebration, or going back even farther to see images of them as babies…
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Frog Activities for Preschool
This is our first official week of summer! This year we’re exploring a different topic every week, inspired by our love of animals and science, and guided by our favorite National Geographic Kids books – You can read more about our summer plans in this post. Keeping with these weekly themes, I thought it would be fun to share some of the activities and learning experiences that we’re using to understand each topic better. Here are our plans for frog week: Exploring a local pond – whether you take your group to a pond or bring elements of the pond to the classroom, this is a hands-on opportunity to really…
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Preschool Lesson Plans and Activities for June
We’re halfway through the month of May already – I can’t even believe it! Many of you are almost done with school for the year, but I also know that a large group of you will continue working with all of your littles through the summer. It was really important for me to continue these Month of PreK sets for every month of the year so that you would be supported no matter what your school calendar looks like. Here is the great big list of everything included in the June Month of Preschool set. This set has 5 exclusive activities that are only available in the June Month of…
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Summer with a First Grader
Yesterday I shared how I planned for our summer learning last year. Go check out that post! Last summer my girl had just finished kindergarten and my goal was to make sure that she didn’t lose any of the skills that she had learned during her first year of school. This year my goals are a little different. I want to really dig into the things that she finds fascinating and show her that she can take on her own learning. I also want to build a true love of reading for both fun and out of curiosity. Last year we kept one theme for a whole month, but this…
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Planning for Summer with Elementary School Kids
I’ve been hard at work at planning for our summer fun (and learning), but before I share what this year’s plans look like, I wanted to share how I put everything together last year. Here’s the post on how I organized all of it! If someone asked me to choose ONE word to describe myself it would definitely be the word “planner.” I truly love to organize my thoughts, lay them out on paper and fill in any missing pieces. It helps me feel in control and gives me the structure that I need. When it came to figuring out what our summer will look like, I started with daily…
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April Preschool Activities
April is getting close, and with the Easter holiday at the end of the month, it’ll sneak right up on you! I wanted to share all of the great materials that are included in the April Month of Preschool set because there are a ton of Easter activities that you can use right now, along with other spring themes for the next month. Here is everything that you’ll get in this one amazing download: This April set is 242 pages of amazing resources! you can download a preview HERE for even more information.
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Making Leprechaun Traps
Designing and building leprechaun traps has become one of our favorite traditions. I think the planning and creating is just as much fun as the anticipation of seeing if they’ll actually catch anything! This is one of those projects that really evokes my favorite memories of the kinds of activities that I loved as a child – the opportunity to use any and all materials to create something that I can see in my mind. That’s definitely a major reason that this stays on my plans year after year. Here are some of the supplies that I make sure to have available when it’s time to build our leprechaun traps:…
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Preschool St. Patrick’s Day Centers
St. Patrick’s Day is such a fun holiday for little ones because it’s all about magic and mischief. This is the perfect day to get right into the fun with the children! Let’s take a look at some of the materials that I use for our St. Patrick’s day centers. Shamrock Observations – This set is designed to help children focus on small details, which is perfect when it comes to shamrocks and finding that elusive 4-leaf clover. There are images of a variety of different shamrocks, and then zoomed in images of the same shamrocks so that children can see if they can match these. There are also two paint-chip…
