Marshmallow Sorting

Here’s an activity I had thought of for Valentines Day, but instead of using only hearts, I decided to make it a shape sorting activity instead. I used an egg carton and silicone ice cube tray with hearts. I had the regular round marshmallows and the strawberry heart shaped marshmallows. This is a really simple activity for preschoolers, but toddlers could do this as well. You could add more challenge for preschoolers by having them count the marshmallows or by adding other foods of different shapes to sort. I had counted out the exact amount, but for a little snack, you could add some extra for them to eat. This activity is good for fine motor skills, classifying and learning about shapes.

Counting With M&M's

For this counting M&M’s activity, I put dots on each cupcake wrapper. The kids are supposed to match the correct number of M&M’s to the same number of dots. Some of the dots are a little more like squiggly lines because of the marker I had, but I tried to make the dots as clear as possible. To start off with, they are in order from 1 to 12 and could be rearranged later for something more challenging. I counted out the exact number of M&M’s in the bowl so they know if they get it wrong, they can check their work. It’s a simple and inexpensive math activity. To make it apart of a Valentines theme, you can use conversation hearts or multiple kinds of red colored candies.

Transferring Snowballs Tray Activity

I saw a similar activity on this post by Tot Play and I wanted to set up a similar activity of my own. I’ve seen similar ideas on other blogs too, but I first saw it on Tot Play so that’s the post I’m referencing.

I decided to set it up as a tray activity. I put the tongs and shovel at the top, the snowman tin on the left and on the right; I arranged the three bowls from largest at the top to smallest on the bottom. I took a course on tray activities once and it said to set up the tray as you would when you are reading. What they mean is have the very first thing the child will pick up at the top and then have the rest of the activity move from left to right as they work their way from top to bottom. They explained it better than I can, but I hope that makes sense. Since this was the largest tray I had and it still wasn’t big enough, I set it up as close as I could to that format. The snowman tin was a little too big for the tray, but I thought it was cute for the theme.

This is a great activity for fine motor skills. I started with the snowman tin closed.



Next the tin was opened and there were the assortment of snowballs. I used cotton balls, pompoms, marshmallows, beads and paper balls. The three bowls were supposed to correspond to the size of the snowball. The cotton and paper balls were for the large bowl, the marshmallows and medium sized pompoms were for the medium bowl and the beads and tiny pompoms were for the small measuring cup. The kids might decide though that some of the pompoms would work better in the larger bowl and that’s okay. They might also decide to sort them in a different way and do what makes sense to them. I included the tongs and shovel in case one or the other would be too challenging for some reason or just so they can have a choice of which object to use.





Finally, some extensions of this activity would be to make patterns with the snowballs. How many different patterns can you make? They can be sorted in a line from largest to smallest or smallest to largest. Each type of snowball can be counted and sorted. How many beads, cotton balls etc? For children who are a little bit older, you can use the snowballs to work on simple addition or subtraction problems. They can also transfer the snowballs back and forth between the bowls or pour a full bowl of snowballs into an empty bowl. How many snowballs does it take to fill up the large bowl? How many snowballs does it take to fill up the small measuring cup? How many more snowballs do you have to use to fill up the bowl if they are smaller? What other objects around the house can we use for snowballs? If you have snow outside, you can spend some time outside making different sized snowballs and doing some sorting, patterning and counting and making different sized snowmen or snow structures. Either way, playing with snow and snowballs is always fun!

3D Shapes Matching Cards

These are 3D shape cards for matching and learning about shapes. I made them this afternoon. I used pieces of straws, pipe cleaners and uncooked spaghetti. The round shapes are made from the pipe cleaners, the triangles and rectangles are made from straws and the squares are made of spaghetti. When I have more patience and materials, I’ll add trapezoids, hexagons, half circles and different types of triangles. I thought of using tin foil, yarn and other materials to make the shapes too, but I didn’t have any of those things on hand. I’d like to make different colored shapes, but I used what I had and I can always add more later.

To make the shapes, I either bent or cut the straws and pipe cleaners. I broke the spaghetti into four equal parts to make the squares. They are crooked on the card because they slid when I stuck the tape to them. I covered all the shapes with tape so they wouldn’t fall off the card or come apart. Another thing I’d suggest is to tape the shapes to cardboard or thick poster board because as you can see, the index cards are bent from the taped shapes. If they were on cardboard, they’d last longer. You can even have your kids help you make the shapes.

Numbered Pie Matching

Here’s another matching activity for fall. What you do is cut the pies out and then cut them in half so there are two halves to match up. If you are using a file folder, right the numbers 1 through 10 next to one set of pie halves and then you can write the same corresponding numbers on the back of the other pie halves. If you are using match cards, you can either hand write the number right on the picture or copy and paste using the computer as I did with the blackberry pie. There will be a part two of this which I will post next week. I hope you enjoy this.

All pictures were found using Google Images.

Fall Colors Lesson Plan

Art:
Fall Color collage
Use construction paper or card stock as the background where the kids can glue different colored materials. For fall colors, use orange, green, red and yellow. The materials can be anything you can find around the house.
Paper,
Felt,
Other fabric,
Pictures of things like pumpkins, apples, leaves etc,
Pompoms,
Leaves
And whatever else you can think of for fall.

Coloring Pages:
Here are some fall theme coloring pages that I found.
Basket of apples,

fall leaves,
or
acorns.


Literacy:
Make a fall colors book.
Fall Colors Book

Sensory Play:
Fill a tub with fall colored pompoms, plastic apples, plastic pumpkins, acorns, leaves etc along with some cups and scoops.
There are a lot of good ideas for sensory tubs out there.
Autumn Sensory Tub
from School Time Adventures.
Autumn Sensory Bin
from 1Plus1Plus1.

Play-dough:
Pumpkin Pie Recipe
Play-dough Recipe
Add apple spices and food coloring.

Movement:
Take a nature walk.
Talk about the colors you see.
The leaves changing,
Fallen leaves and acorns,
Dark clouds,
Talk about other things you see, smell, hear and feel.

Math:
Take a platter or tray with dividers.
Cut pieces of red, green, yellow and brown construction paper and tape them inside the tray.
Have the children sort objects by color such as leaves, acorns, pumpkins, apples, etc. Basically, you can use any objects that are the colors you want them to recognize.

Matching:
Fall Colors Matching

Fall Colored Snacks or additions to Meals:
Red: Apple, strawberries or anything with tomato sauce.
Orange: orange slices, pumpkin, carrots.
Yellow: Corn, pineapple, bananas, cheese.
Green: Grapes, apple, Broccoli, celery.
Blue: Blueberries.
Brown: Wheat bread, whole wheat oat meal, brown rice, chocolate.
Idea inspired by the following post from: Counting Coconuts.

Reading, Math and Science Activities for an About Me Theme

Here are some more ideas for an about me theme.

For infants, have plenty of mirrors around so the children can study their faces and facial expressions. Infants and toddlers can try mimicking facial expressions while looking in the mirror. Mirrors are good for older children too. For preschoolers, they can try to draw what they see in the mirror.

For infants and toddlers, look at photos of the child and family members. See if they can pick out who’s who and talk about what they see in the picture. It can be a good labeling activity for infants and toddlers.
Preschoolers enjoy looking at photos too. You can take photos of them throughout the day doing normal things like playing, eating, getting ready to go outside etc. Make a picture schedule that you can add to and change. This can also be good for toddlers or any child getting used to a new routine.


For preschoolers, make a photo matching game.
Have two photos of each child in the class and have the kids try to match them up. To make it more challenging, you can do a memory game with it were all the photos are face down on the table and the kids have to remember where the photos are in order to match them up.

Look at fingerprints.
Fingerprint each child. Have the children look through magnifying glasses so that they can see the differences between fingerprints. You can talk about how everyone’s fingerprint is unique.

You can do a measuring activity. Have the children measure how tall they are against a piece of string. Cut the string to their height and then tape them to a large piece of paper. The children can see how tall they are and will be able to compare it to their friends.

For literacy, you can find or make picture books that have different people and faces for infants to look at. You can read books that go along with the theme to children of any age. There are a lot of books to choose from. I like It's Not Easy Being a Bunny. It’s a cute book and it’s about how Bunny tries being something he’s not, but in the end, he finds out that he likes being himself after all.

For preschoolers, you can have them draw pictures and decorate pages with things about themselves. They can use handprints, family photos, pictures of their favorite foods and things to do, pieces of paper or stickers that show their favorite colors etc. If they can write, they can write a sentence or two about each page or they can tell you what to write for them. You can keep these books on hand so the children can look at them later to learn about each other and enjoy their creations.

Play-dough Guessing Game

Today, a few of the kids and I were playing with play-dough. We had out cookie cutters, rolling pins, a fake plastic knife and little plates. We started out making cupcakes. Once we got bored with that, I started making stars which kept getting smashed and ripped apart by a little girl I’ll call Kay. Every time I’d make a star, she’d ask if she could have it but then would destroy it. This quickly became a game and it was fun!
She’s one of the youngest in my group so I decided to test her on her shapes. First, I made a triangle which she guessed correctly. Then I made an oval which she thought was a circle. I told her it was close, but told her that it was an oval. It was a new word for her so she repeated it a couple of times. Then I made a square, but didn’t have a cookie cutter for that shape so it kept coming out crooked. I asked her if she knew what it was, but she wasn’t sure. I didn’t blame her for that one, but I told her I was trying to make a square and she repeated the word, “square?” I said, “Yes, it’s a square, but it was a little messed up.” After making some more stars and attempting to make a door out of a cookie cutter that she had picked out, we got back to shapes. I tested her on the oval again, but this time she had decided that it was a cake. I didn’t correct her this time because it could’ve been a cake or anything she wanted. Kay is one of those little girls who has a mind of her own and I like to encourage that.

The cookie cutter play-dough activity can also be good with letters and numbers if you have those cookie cutters. You make the letter cutout and then they can guess what it is. If they are helping you, it’s even better. If you don’t have the cookie cutters, just role the play-dough out into snake shapes and then make the letters and numbers from that. You don’t have to have an activity in mind with play-dough though. The best part of play-dough is that they can use their imagination and create anything.

Matching Fun with Egg Cartons

This is a little game I came up with around Easter, but this can be good all year round. You can use it for Easter, food, farming or any other theme you can relate to eggs. Even if you aren’t doing anything with eggs, it’s useful for color recognition for toddlers and even some preschoolers who aren’t sure of their colors. I only had one package of the plastic Easter eggs for this activity, but you can buy other packages that may have more colors. I took the eggs apart, put one set of halves in the carton and left the rest out so the kids could put the same colored halves together. This of course makes the whole dozen eggs. For a better color variety, you could buy different colored large marbles or balls and color or paint the cups of the carton. That way you wouldn’t have to use the same color twice.


For preschoolers, you can write numbers 1 through 12 on the eggs and then write the numbers 1 through 12 on the egg carton for practice with number recognition. The preschoolers I’ve worked with have had to do this several times before they could do it on their own. The first couple of times were spent just looking at the numbers and then they understood that the numbers matched on the carton. This works well with doing a variety of other sorting and matching activities so the concept of numbers and counting sink in.

Ocean Theme Lesson Plan

Ocean Theme Lesson Plan

Literacy:
A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle
or
By the Seashore : A Natural Trail Book (A Touch and Feel Adventure)
or
Islands of Ice: The Story of a Harp Seal
Ocean theme word wall with pictures of sea creatures labeled.

Music and movement: Ocean finger plays:
Five Little Sea Creatures


Five little sea creatures
On the ocean floor;
The lobster walked away
Now there are four.
Four little sea creatures
Living in the sea;
The octopus crept away
Now there are three.
Three little sea creatures
Wondering what to do;
"Good-bye," said the starfish
Now there are two.
Two little sea creatures
Not having much fun;
Off swam the sea horse
Now there is one.
One little hermit crab
Sad and all alone,
Back came the starfish,
Back came the sea horse,
Back came the octopus,
Back came the lobster,
Then all five went home.


Five Cranky Crabs

Five cranky crabs were digging on the shore.
One swam into a net and then there were four.
Four cranky crabs were floating in the sea.
One got tangled up in seaweed then there were three.
Three Cranky crabs were wondering what to do.
One dug a deep, deep hole. Then there were two.
Two cranky crabs were warming in the sun.
One got scooped up in a cup. Then there was one.
One cranky crab was smarter than his friends.
He hid between the jagged rocks.
That's how the story ends.


Math:
Shell sorting,
Pouring water or sand in the sensory table,
Seashell Match Up
Sensory:
Sensory tub with sand and water: have kids dig for shells.
Water and fish in the sensory table with nets to catch the fish.

Science:

Ocean Bottle
Materials:
Plastic bottle,
water,
blue food coloring,
glitter,
pebbles,
sand,
shells,
plastic fish
and some hot glue.


Steps:
1. Clean out an empty plastic pop bottle.
2. Add water, blue food coloring, glitter, and maybe a few pebbles. Also, you can add sand, shells, or plastic fish.
3. Seal the bottle closed using a little hot glue and allow to completely dry before the children can play with it.


Note: Have the children tip or role the bottle to see what happens.

Discussion: What happens when you role or tip the bottle?
What happens in the actual ocean?
What kind of creatures live in the ocean?
How do those creatures get their food?
What do we get from the ocean?

Extension:
Listen to sounds of different fish, sea birds and the ocean atmosphere.
Make a guessing game out of different sea sounds.
Take a trip to the beach.


Fine motor:
Make shell or starfish imprints in play dough.

Art:
Sea shell rubbings with crayons.

Sand art in beach buckets that cover like the ones below.
Take small cups of sand and add food coloring.
Mix well.
Have the kids scoop the sand from the cups to the buckets in layers so they can create a cute beach bucket while practicing their pouring and scooping skills.


They came in packs of three and they had bubblegum inside.

Pasta Shell Painting
Use large pasta shells and paint.
Let the kids paint them any way they want and you can discuss how no two shells are alike.

Dramatic play:
OCEAN PLAY AREA


Directions:
Turn the space under a card table into an ocean hideout for your child.
1. First, hang some blue crepe paper streamers or twisty ribbon all around the table so that it hangs down to the floor.
2. Next, place some pillow "rocks" inside for your sea creatures.
3. Provide your child with some plastic or stuffed sea animals to place in the den.
4. Decorate with pictures of the sea and place books about the sea inside.
You can add plush animals like the ones below to any ocean themed dramatic play area or put them on display.