Letter B hunt

This week we are learning letter B with the little preschoolers. Among some of the activities we tried the letter hunt.
It was a success!

Print out a sheet of bunch of letters
and include the letter B in each row.
(download a free copy here)
I repeated it a few times in some of the rows.
Give kids small pebbles, bingo chips, or jelly beans 

to cover all the letter B's. 

You can repeat this activity with any letter you are learning!

What the wind blows

My preschoolers loved this science experiment! It was a time when we learned about wind in our weather unit and I wanted to show them what wind can and cannot blow (well of course I am aware of tornadoes, but I wasn't going to go that far just yet). 

I chose few lite ( feathers, yarn pieces, and paper to name few) and heavy objects (sea sells, rocks and box of crayons) and gave the kids a hair dryer!

The feather were gone with the wind...

He just couldn't resist :-)

The sea shells wouldn't move (I chose bigger one).

Nope, box of crayons wouldn't let the wind win either.

Paper heart was moving (it was around Valentine's Day so this object was perfect for demonstration)

After each object, the boys wrote down the data they collected (I really just had them underline the objects with either of two colors - blue for moved, red for didn't move). 

And look what we made during this class!!! Recycled wind chimes! I will post tutorial next!

Jelly Bean Math

With the Easter Holidays just around the corner, I wanted to put a little sweet twist to our usual number grid exercise! We like to visit the dollar store for some inexpensive teaching props. And that is where we got these cute little spring paper baskets. I filled them up with some jelly beans and made a new looking math grid. 

I wrote numbers 1-10 on top of the paper (1-5 for the little ones) and drew some circles under it (10 circle under each number).

The kids then had to fill the empty circles with the right number of jelly beans!

They had lots of fun completing this exercise and what a motivation when they knew they can have a treat after they finish!!!

Montessori practical life activity

I have been lately looking into doing more practical life activities with my preschoolers. The reason why practical life activities are important is that they help children develop better focus, coordination, independence, and order. It helps them in the future to better concentrate on their school work and it creates calmer work environment. 

Here I had B pour small rocks from one container to another. I had these rocks in my house forever, waiting to be put to a good use! She loves playing with them. She transferred them really quickly but she asked to do it over and over again!

What you will need:

rocks (rice will work too)

spoon (we used ladle from the kids' kitchen)

2 containers (I like to use something the kids will find attractive)

B at work!

Math number grids - free download

Math grids are another fun way to learn number recognition as well as number order while having fun! 

I created two different math grids

First one shows numbers from 1 to 10.  
Click here for a free download of the worksheet 
This one is meant for the older preschoolers. 

The older kids used a "dot a dot" paint to fill in the empty spaces.

The second one is numbers 1 to 5.
Click here for a free download of the worksheet
This one is for the younger preschoolers 

(we have 2 year old and 3 year old working on those), 

whose attention spam doesn't last too long.

Since this was completed during our St. Patrick's Day party, 

we had the little kids use shamrock stamp to fill on the empty spaces. Feel free to use any stamps, or just simply have the kids color them in. 

Painting with Marbles

Painting with marbles is such a fun way to experiment with art! Every school day I try to incorporate an interesting art project. The kids have no idea what I have up my sleeve and at the beginning of our school they beg to draw a paper out of our art jar. I have several ideas written on colorful note cards and they take turn to pick one at the beginning of our day. That gives me enough time to prepare the supplies during our activities that come prior to art. So...

Here is what you need:

paint

marbles

card stock paper

trays 

(big enough to fit the paper... I used cookie sheets)

Have the kids choose 3 colors. If they choose more, the painting might look a bit dark, almost brown. Three colors give it the right twist! Squeeze some of each on the paper.

Here is our second choice.

Place marble on top of the paper and have the kids roll them around the tray. 

The boys were pretending the marbles were race cars. 

Here is a picture during the process.

And here is the final outcome from the first one!

And let's take a look at our other artist's work.

And the outcome...

HAVE FUN!!!

Snowball math

Here, in Chicago, we have hardly had any winter days in the past couple weeks, but technically, the season just turned  into Spring yesterday. So here is a last of our preschool math activity for a winter theme projects!  

You will need:

cotton balls

bowl

index cards

marker

I drew dots on the index cards - First card had 1 dot, second card had 2 dots, etc., until I reached the desired amount I want the kids to count to (5 in this case).

Kids had to put the cards in the right order and then cover the dots with the cotton balls.

Work in progress:

This is fun and easy enough to put together in 5 minutes!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Maybe you are looking for some last minute St. Patrick's Day activities to do with your kids today. I have just the right solution for you! Below, I will post two easy activities, with supplies that you will be able to find around your house in just few minutes, and that your kids will love!

COLOR A RAINBOW

In this activity kids will color rice using food coloring and ziplock bags!

Pour some rice into ziplock bags (the more the better, so later you have enough for the kids to dig in for treasure). Have them pick their food coloring colors. 

Then have them add some drops to the rice in the ziplock bag. It depends how much rice you have - if you have lots of it, put more food coloring and the other way around. Also, you can make purple and orange by putting in two colors together. 

Close the ziplock bag and have the kids spread the food coloring all over by gently playing with the bag.

And here is the result. Isn't it just beautiful? We used brown rice and it still colored nicely! 

...and more RAINBOW

You will need pipe cleaners in the rainbow colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple; and a piece of styrofoam.

Have the kids put one end of the pipe cleaner into the styrofoam, bend it, and put the other end in. Follow the rainbow color pattern.

Here is the final product!

Have a fun St. Patrick's Day celebration!

St. Patrick's Day Basket

For St. Patrick's Day fun project, I put together "a green basket" full of green art supplies. here is a look inside the basket:

We have: markers, pencils, crayons, scissors, ribbon, glue stick, foam shamrocks, feathers, buttons, lace, popsicle sticks, tissue paper.

I drew Leprechaun head on a card stock paper and let them decorate it with our basket supplies. This is B at work.

And here are our two Leprechauns for St. Patrick's Day decoration.

Shamrock door hanger

The kids were begging for a St. Patrick's Day art project today. I realized we don't have any door decoration for this holiday and so an idea came to me. Just like for our Valentine's Day door decor, I cut out a shape of a shamrock from a cereal box (great recycling) and the kids decorated it with pom-poms. 

Here is what you need:

cardboard or cereal box for the shape

green and white pom-poms

tacky glue

pipe cleaner

tape

ribbon

stapler

Kids had a blast gluing the pom-poms onto the shamrock.

Here is the almost final product!

I stapled the ribbon to the back of the shamrock and taped the pipe cleaner.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!!!