activities
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Friday Freebie – Art Activities
Yay for Friday! Thank goodness, I am so ready for the weekend! I have the best freebie for you today, This Art Lesson Plan book from Pink and Green Mama includes 20 different art activities for little ones. The ages range from preschool to second grade, so you may have to make some adaptations to make sure that the activities are completely appropriate for you preschoolers, but they look like tons of fun. Hopefully this will help you in the lesson planning departments and spark some creativity in the classroom!
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Talking about hygiene
I am a huge fan of any opportunity to have conversations with my kiddos. These conversations help me learn so much – they give me a better understanding of what the children know, and which areas I need to explain better. They also give me one on one time with my kiddos, and a chance to learn a little about their lives. I created these little tags to help get my kiddos talking about hygiene habits, and to see what’s going on in their lives. I’m going to use them for a bulletin board, after I sit down with each child I’ll write their answers on the tag, then their…
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Melted Crayon Activities
Melting crayons is pretty trendy right now, and while it can be a little messy for the classroom, there are still some really amazing activities that you can do with melted crayons. PLUS, these activities are a great way to explore liquids, solids, color mixing, and temperature concepts. Here are some perfect ideas for melted crayon activities; Ice Cube Tray Crayons Make your own crayons! Children are always more likely to use something that they made themselves, and it’s a well known fact that no child wants to use a broken crayon. Melting all of your broken crayons into new crayons is the perfect way to get rid of those…
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Crayon Art for Preschool
I think that crayons are one of those art supplies that we take for granted. They are always available, so we don’t necessarily use them to their fullest. There are SO MANY different things that you can do with crayons, so here are some great drawing activities for little ones to explore: Crayon resist with watercolors Draw on sandpaper Use hot glue to make rubbing plates Use multiple crayons at one time Give them plenty of space to draw Try a batik-type resist Make your own scratch art Tomorrow I’m sharing activities to try with melted crayons, so be sure to check back for more ideas!
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Preschool activities for Christmas
I am all for helping out other teachers, we need to stick together, especially at this point in the year. Right now, it’s extra difficult to keep the kiddos’ attention, and I fully believe that the best way to handle the holiday season is to embrace it fully. Christmas is all they want to talk about, so why not use that theme to sneak in some learning. I thought I’d share all of my holiday freebies, along with the other great holiday resources from my store to give you all kinds of holiday activities to choose from right in one place. There are a lot, so be sure to scroll…
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20 Uses for seasonal ice cube molds
I bought these molds last year on after-Christmas clearance and forgot all about them until I pulled out my Christmas decorations, so now I’m brainstorming a list of different activities that I can do with them. I’m hoping to do a week with the gingerbread molds and a week with the Christmas tree molds. Here are the lists I’ve come up with so far (Amazon links are affiliates): Sort colored buttons into the spaces Use them with Gingerbread Cloud Dough Sort Gingerbread Marshmallows Use them to make cinnamon dough ornamentsPlay with Gingerbread play doughMake Cream Cheese Mints for the holidaysUse letter beads to spell 3-letter words in each spacePractice using eye droppersDo…
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Spice Air Freshener Craft
This activity is a great way to explore spices and a cute keepsake for families to use throughout the holiday season (plus, it’s REALLY easy to make). You’ll need canning jar lids (not the rings, just the lids), some ribbon, white glue, and spices (Invest in a bulk jar, any pie-related scent will work – cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin or apple pie spice), paintbrushes, and something to catch the spices as the children sprinkle them on their lids (I used paper towels, but you could use waxed paper, printer paper, or activity trays). The first step is one that you’ll want to do outside of the classroom – attach a small…
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Great autumn activities for centers
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…
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Water play with infants and toddlers
As the temperature heats up water play becomes more and more tempting. There are definitely safe ways to introduce water play for infants and toddlers that are tons of fun. As long as children are supervised when playing with water these activities are a great way to cool off and have a lot of fun! One great way to introduce water play is with sponges and small bowls of water. These are great for outdoor play because little ones can soak their sponges and then squeeze them right onto themselves. This is a great way to explore cause and effect. Here are some other great ideas for using sponges; Sponge…
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Book Talk Tuesday – 101 Kids Activities
Since it’s Book Talk Tuesday I have to take this opportunity to share a book that I just got, that would be an AMAZING gift for any kid (or teacher) in your life. If you have a child, teacher, parent of young children, early childhood education student, or teen who loves to babysit on your holiday shopping list, you need to check out 101 Kids Activities That Are the Bestest, Funnest Ever! This book is by Holly Homer and Rachel Miller, you might know these two ladies as the team from Kids Activities Blog, which means that when it comes to writing a book about activities for kids, they are,…
