activities
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New resources for summer!
I’ve been busy adding so many new summer resources to the Preschool Ponderings store! If you’re looking for preschool summer activities I’ve got you covered. Here’s what’s new: Ice Cream Clipart – These are perfect for any of your summer creations! I use them for planner stickers, prize stickers, and summer activities. They’re classic shapes and colors that instantly set the mood for summer fun. Bee Unit – Bees are fascinating and so important to our ecosystem, but they can also be very scary for young children. Taking time to understand them a little better and explore them in the safety of the classroom can help remove some of that…
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Summer Fun
A couple of years ago (June of 2014 to be exact) I shared a series of posts about fun activities to break up summer boredom with your own children and your students. You can find those posts HERE and HERE. I thought it was time to refresh those lists and share some of my favorite easy summer activities. I am constantly reminding the teachers that I work with that children will always love the most simple ideas – we (the adults) are the ones who get bored with the same things over and over again, but children haven’t been doing these things for nearly as long as we have, so…
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Favorite Easter Traditions
I can’t let Easter sneak by without sharing my favorite Easter traditions! Check out these posts for some super fun ideas for your upcoming celebration: Egg Decorating Without the Mess My Favorite Easter Books Easter Bunny Trail Mix Easter Traditions for Preschool Easter Writing Centers Easter Math Activities Last Minute Easter Basket Ideas Easter Printables for Preschool Maybe you’ll find your new favorite Easter tradition in this collection of fun activities!
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Community Helpers Preschool Activities
I promised yesterday that I would share my favorite activity centers for exploring community helpers, here they are: Community Helper Handprint Wreath – A great visual for all of the places in your community that you would find helpers. Community Helper Occupation Booklet – Explore the tasks of each job and the tools and materials that are associated with it. Community Helper Hats and Badges Freebie – Perfect for your dramatic play area! Community Helper Matching – Great for a language center, encourages children to practice letter and word recognition to match the helper to their title. Community Helper Dances – A little music and movement is always appreciated, and…
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Easter Traditions for Preschool
There are certain activities that I always looked forward to doing with my students when certain holidays rolled around. Easter is no exception, and there are three activities that I made sure to include on my lesson plans every single year: Dying Easter Eggs – even when I taught toddlers I loved to share this with my students. I know that it can be a colossal mess, but my classroom has always been the safe place to make messes. At home it’s hard to fully experience this messy activity so I love to give my students this opportunity. Dying eggs the traditional way – vinegar and little dye tablets –…
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Easter Writing Centers
There are so many Easter-themed activities out there, I’m sure that just a quick Pinterest search would fill your lesson plan for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, to find the great ideas you generally have to sift through all of the duds, and the ads. So this week I’m going to do the work for you, I’ll be rounding up all of the best Easter activities so that you’ve got them all in one place! It is so much easier to put together writing center activities when you have a theme that children really want to write about. Holidays are the perfect themes because little ones are already excited about…
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Easter Math Activities
There are so many Easter-themed activities out there, I’m sure that just a quick Pinterest search would fill your lesson plan for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, to find the great ideas you generally have to sift through all of the duds, and the ads. So this week I’m going to do the work for you, I’ll be rounding up all of the best Easter activities so that you’ve got them all in one place! Math was not my strong suit as a child, so as a teacher I made an extra effort to find fun math activities for my students. There are a ton of math activities that you…
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Easter Fine Motor Activities
There are so many Easter-themed activities out there, I’m sure that just a quick Pinterest search would fill your lesson plan for the next two weeks. Unfortunately, to find the great ideas you generally have to sift through all of the duds, and the ads. So this week I’m going to do the work for you, I’ll be rounding up all of the best Easter activities so that you’ve got them all in one place! Today is all about fine motor activities, and Easter lends itself perfectly to fine motor practice, especially when you think about working with tiny little jelly beans and manipulating those wire egg-dippers! Here are some…
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Dollar Tree Math With Clear Glass Stones
This week I’m on a mission to share some fun math activities that your kiddos will love – the best part is that all of the materials you will to put them together are from the Dollar Tree. I went to my local Dollar Tree store and I spent $11. That $11 bought materials for 15 different math activities that are perfect for preschoolers. I’ll share one set of materials each day, and show you different games that you can use them for. Here are the items that I purchased: Today I want to share what I made with the larger flat glass stones. I focused on three different math…
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DIY Geoboards
Geoboards are one of those amazingly simple things that can keep children occupied for an extraordinary amount of time. They inspire exploration of geometric shapes, as well as persistence and fine motor practice. Geoboards are also easy to make yourself, so with a few simple supplies you can add a couple of these to your classroom. Here are a few DIY geoboards that I rounded up, choose whichever works best for your budget and your students! A board and nails (and a tutorial) from Little Bins for Little Hands Cork board and push pins – from An Every Day Story A CD case and clear screw fasteners – from Left…
