Holidays
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Last Minute Easter Basket Ideas for Preschoolers
If you’re anything like me, you haven’t bought anything to put in those Easter baskets yet. No problem, I’ve got you covered with a huge list of ideas to make your life a little easier. Crayons Markers Colored Pencils Fun Erasers Coloring books Stickers Shape Punches Hair ribbons Sunglasses Sidewalk chalk Bubbles Jump rope Frisbee Slingshot Bouncy balls Toy cars Modeling clay Watercolors Figurines Notebooks Play dough Card games Travel games Flip flops Books A kite Stuffed animals Reusable water bottles Glow necklaces Water balloons Chap-stick Silly putty Pool or bath toys A new beach towel A tote bag Temporary tattoos Legos New Pajamas Nail polish A toothbrush Special snacks…
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DIY Easter Baskets for Preschool
Whether you need containers for an egg hunt, or are just looking for a great fine-motor/art activity to do the week before Easter, DIY Easter baskets are always a great activity for preschoolers. Here are a few ideas from around the web to help you plan! A newspaper basket, instructions at Captain Crafty Paper mache baskets from Vicki Odell Weave fabric strips in plastic baskets. (Idea from Attic Lace) Paper bag baskets, easy instructions at Teaching 2 & 3 Year Olds Paper Plate Baskets from eHow These are all easy, economical ideas that can be finished fairly quickly. I hope that your students love them!
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Preschool Printables for Easter
Can you believe that it’s almost Easter? I know it’s early this year, but it makes it feel like spring is flying by! I have a ton of great Easter activities to share with you. These would be perfect for the last couple of days before Easter at school, or for the kiddos at your family celebration to do. One of my all-time favorite printables is Fill the Easter Basket. It includes 4 Easter basket mats, each of which has it’s own list of items for children to put in the basket. Children have to look at the pictures in the list, find the objects in a group of Easter-related…
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Preschool Leprechaun Traps
St. Patrick’s day is pretty special in my classroom, every year we try to catch a Leprechaun! This has become a favorite activity, and while the children think it’s hilarious, I’ve been able to sneak some learning into the process too. I start with a cute little note “from the Leprechaun” and a basket of green St. Patrick’s day goodies that we can use in the classroom. This note encourages the students to help me decorate the classroom, which helps get all of my kiddos excited about St. Patrick’s day, and engaged in the project. I usually try to plan a St. Patrick’s day craft to go along with this.…
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Friday Freebie: St. Patrick’s Day
Happy Friday! have you ever had one of those weeks where it feels like it takes way longer than it should to get anything accomplished? This week has been like that for me, I just feel like I’m moving really really slowly. Maybe that means it’s time for me to take some time to re-energize, which is exactly what the weekend is for! This freebie might be the cutest St. Patrick’s Day activity I’ve seen, which makes sense because this St. Patrick’s Day Feelings set is from Jenna Rayburn. The set includes cards with shamrocks making emotion-related faces, along with prompts that ask children to talk about a time when…
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Preschool Printables for St. Patrick’s Day
I’ve shared my picks for favorite holidays to celebrate with my students (valentine’s day!), but if it was up to my students to choose a favorite, it would definitely be St. Patrick’s day. This always surprises me because St. Patrick’s day wasn’t really a big deal when I was younger, but they start asking about it as soon as we get back from Christmas break. I think it has something to do with the magic and mischief that surrounds leprechauns. All of the other fictional characters that are associated with holidays are really nice and bring children things. Leprechauns are different, they’re sneaky, they steal things, make messes, and play…
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Celebrating Mardi Gras in Preschool
Tomorrow is Fat Tuesday, and every year I celebrate with my students. Exploring Mardi Gras gives my students the opportunity to participate in a holiday that many of them do not celebrate at home, but they can definitely appreciate the basic components of this holiday – sweet treats, parades, masks, and music. I show my students some photos of Mardi Gras celebrations during circle time. You can find a lot of pictures on Google Images, just be sure to preview them first! It helps to search for children’s parades, and my students also love to see pictures from the dog parades, and of the big parade floats. We always start…
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Friday Freebie – President’s Day
Happy Friday! Today is one of my favorite days, I know a lot of teachers don’t like party days, but I love them and Valentine’s Day is my favorite of the entire year. I think it’s because the celebration with my kiddos has always taken the pressure off my husband 🙂 I get all my mushy love from the little ones and all I expect from him is a card. I also have some serious girl time planned for this weekend, an Ikea trip with my best friends from high school, which is definitely a reason to look forward to the weekend! Then, Monday is President’s day. We always have…
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Friday Freebie – Valentine’s Day Writing Paper
Happy Friday! This was a surprise short week for me with my snow day on Monday, so it flew by! Since Valentine’s Day is next weekend I’m saying that this is the official start of Valentine’s week (yes, Valentine’s week) who doesn’t love taking time to share their love with people who are important?! I’ve got some tricks up my sleeve for my favorite people, and since I’ll see them at different times throughout the week, I’ve made it Valentine’s week 🙂 Today’s freebie is one of the first things that I created for my Teacher’s Pay Teachers store, it’s a great little freebie that you can use a few…
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Valentine’s Day Bags and Boxes
If you’ve ever hosted any kind of Valentine’s Day Party in the classroom, you understand the need for some sort of container to corral all of those cards and treats. I generally like to create ours in the classroom – it makes my life easier because I know that everyone will have one and they will all be the same size. I think that spending the week prior to the big day doing little activities to get ready helps my students understand what the day is all about, and it ensures that they will know what to expect, because they’ve been a part of the planning. In the past my…
