preschool Archives - Page 18 of 20

Fire Truck Activity for Kids

October 6, 2014 By Deirdre

Whether you are celebrating Fire Safety Month in October or putting together a community helper unit for your children this fire truck activity would fun to do. It is super easy to put together and super fun for kids to do.

The goal of the activity is to blow into a straw and get all the flames off the bottom a plastic bag decorated with a fire truck. If you can get the flames above the fire truck, that is even better. It takes a lot of breath control to get the flames ( tiny pieces of colored tissue) to rise off the bottom of the bag before you fill the bag with air.

We had to release the air collected in the bag a few times before my son was able to get almost all of the tissue pieces flying. The great thing about this fire truck activity is that you can repeat it over and over again.

How Did I Put This Fire Truck Activity Together?

Step One: Gather the Materials

Large plastic bag
An average sized straw ( A wide straw will allow tissue to fly into it and into your kids’ mouths. A narrow straw won’t generate enough air to get the tissue paper moving.)
Orange, red, and yellow tissue paper in small pieces
Red and black permanent markers
Fire truck coloring page

Step Two: Decorate the Fire Truck Bag

You will need to search your children’s coloring books or the internet for a coloring page picture of a fire truck. Then you will place the coloring page into the plastic bag. Next, you will use the permanent markers to trace the picture of the fire truck.

If you prefer to draw the truck for this fire truck activity freehand, you can. I am just not that talented when it comes to drawing fire trucks.

Step Three: Assembling the Activity

You will need to place a bunch of the colored tissue pieces in the fire truck bag. Next, you will place the straw in the bag. You will need to seal the top of the bag to the right and left of the straw by pressing down on the seal or zipping it shut.

Getting the Fire Truck Activity Going

Now it is time to start blowing the flames. We tried laying the fire truck bag on the table and blowing. It was much easier to hold the bag at the top or on its sides as air is being blown into it.

After posting this activity, I decided to see what it would look like with the fire truck colored in. I went back colored in the fire truck and retook some of the pictures.

Here is what it looks like colored in:

I even made a new opening picture for the colored in a truck.

Which do you like best?

Before or after doing this fire truck activity, you may want to sit down with your children and read a fire truck related children’s book. Here are a few of our favorite fire truck books.

The links below are affiliate links.

Curious George and the Firefighters – Curious George goes on a field trip to a firehouse and ends up helping the firefighters put out a fire.

The Fire Cat– This book is an easy reader. It tells the tale of a cat named Pickles who is adopted by a fire department. Pickles learns during this book to help the firefighters do their jobs.
Meeow and the Big Box>The librarian created an interactive box that illustrated how Meeow created her box step by step. It was such fun.

Do you have favorite fire truck themed children’s book?

Educational Games- Color Sorting Turtles

July 29, 2014 By Deirdre

Taking characters like the Teenage Ninja Turtles that kids are excited about and using them in educational games peaks children’s interest in the skills covered in the game. This educational game invites children to sort through a bowl of treasures and match them to each turtle’s mask. Each of the treasures in this game are intentionally small. Children will have use their pincher grip to pick them up. This will allow this educational game to work on more than one skill. Fine motor skills and color matching united to create a fun color sorting turtle game.

Educational Games Supplies

To make the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles you will need:

Purple construction paper

Orange construction paper

Red construction paper

Blue construction paper

Black construction paper

White construction paper

Dark green construction paper

How to create the turtles:

I created each aspect of the turtles by layering construction paper so, I could cut four turtle parts out at a time. The turtle’s heads were all cut out at the same time by layering four pieces of dark green construction paper. The top of the head is a smaller semicircle than the bottom section of the head. The white and black sections of the eyes were created by folding two narrow strips of white paper and two narrow pieces of black paper into fourths before cutting out small circles. The black pupils were cut out first and the white sections were cut out second. The second set of black narrow strips were folded in half and cut into smiles.

For the masks a piece of blue, red, purple, and orange paper were stacked to together. The turtle’s head was traced onto the top piece of construction paper. A mask was drawn onto the face outline and then all the layers were cut out.

When all the pieces had been cut out for the turtle’s heads, they were glued onto the head. I decided that the masks needed to have little end pieces on the left hand side. Those pieces were cut out of some of the scraps leftover from cutting out the masks.

Playing This Educational Game

A bunch of treasures were searched for and found in our craft closet. I found buttons, stickers, and pom poms. I sorted through the treasures and took out all the red, blue, orange and purple colored ones. These treasures were placed into a black snack bowl.

With all the game elements in place I asked my son to sort the treasures out by color and put them on the turtle what was wearing that color. If you have young child, that may take some time. Some older children may easily be able to see how the treasures should be sorted, but may have trouble using their fingers to pick up the objects.

To add a reading element to the game I wrote out the color words on white paper. I made it a easy by writing each color word out with a magic marker of that color. To make it a little more challenging I could have written the color words out with a black marker. I asked my son to place the correct color word under the turtle wearing that color of a mask.

More Educational Game Ideas

If you are looking for more educational games and activities that work on learning colors, you may want to check out my Learning About Colors board on Pinterest.

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Learning about Colors on Pinterest.

Kids Fun- Fine Motor Weaving

June 12, 2014 By Deirdre

There are so many skills and concepts that kids work on while fine motor weaving. Kids don’t necessarily realize that when they are weaving. Kids fun activities don’t have to feel like work. They can just feel like creating.

Open Ended Kids Fun

A simple dish drainer and some colored ribbon were all that we used for this kids fun fine motor weaving activity. I left this activity open ended. There wasn’t a set of directions put out with it. It was more of an invitation to learn and create.

A yard of each of the colors ribbon was placed in a plastic bowl along with the dish draining mat on the kitchen table. ( I found the mat at Dollar Tree!)

I sat at the table doing something else and JDaniel wandered in and started weaving. Due to the fact that this kids fun activity was open ended we were able to chat as the ribbon went up and down through the slats of the dish drainer. When one ribbon ran out, a new length of ribbon was used. I think it ended up looking great.

Younger children may need quiet as the weave. Chatting would distract them and may even frustrate them. Putting the material out of a workspace and letting them find them would be fine.

Skill Focused Fine Motor Weaving

You could easily give oral or visual directions to children as to what you want them to create.

Here are some ideas I came up with:

They could weave every other row on the dish draining mat.
You could have them weave three rows in each color of ribbon with an empty row in between each color.
You could cut the ribbons into one-foot lengths. The kids fun might we creating an ABC, AABC, or an ABBC pattern with the shorter lengths of ribbon.
Kids could create vertical patterns with the ribbon.
The ribbon could be woven vertically and horizontally.
Kids could have fun replicating designs that you have taken photos and put out for them to look at.

As you can see the possibilities are endless. I bet you can come up with your own ideas of how kids can use these materials for fine motor work.

Other Kids Fun Weaving Materials:

We used ribbon to weave through the dish draining mat. I like how easily ribbon slips in and out of the slats.

Here are some other materials you could use to weave with:

Tall weeds from the yard
Pipe cleaners
Yarn
Strips of construction paper
Strips from a paper bag
Rick rack

The thinner the material you use to weave with the harder it will be to weave. Kids will really have to work on their pincher grip to weave with yarn or weeds. I selected a wide ribbon because it would be easier to hold. A thin ribbon would be challenging to weave with too. Patriotic colors were chose for this kids fun activity, but you could select any colors or pattern you like. You could put out different themed patterns during different times of the year.

If you don’t have a Dollar Tree near you or drying mat you can use, you could use a cookie cooling rack. We used a cookie cooling rack and pipe cleaners for a similar activity.

Both activities work on fine motor skills, focus, patterning, planning, and visual discrimination.

If you like this fine motor activity, here are some more you will want to try with your children.

Paper Plate Octopus

Magnetic Astronaut and Tape Rocket

Homemade Drop Box

Letter and Number Literacy Webs

Spider Web Fine Motor Activity

I have a number of fine motor and other early learning activities pinned to my Early Learning Pinterest board. Feel free to check them out!

Follow JDaniel4’s Mom’s board Early Learning on Pinterest.

Math Games for Kids- LEGO Count and Move

June 2, 2014 By Deirdre

LEGO Duplos are easy for children young and old to pick up. Picking up a LEGO Duplo brick and an action card along with moving are all you really have to do during this game.( Well, for the basic version of this series of math games for kids.) The basic version can be changed and added on to for older children or for children that like games with more than one way to play them.

Supplies Needed for These Math Games for Kids

12 to 20 LEGO Duplo bricks
Basket or bag
Action cards (available to download)
Chopsticks (used in one of the versions for older children)

Basic Version of LEGO Count and Move

Before you start the game you will need to place the LEGO Duplo bricks into a basket or a bag.

$Math Games for Kids- LEGO Count and Move$

Go over each of the movements displayed on the action cards so your children will know what to do.

Place the action cards in a stack beside the basket. They will probably become unstacked as the the game goes on, but it is nice to have them start of neatly stacked.

Have one child at a time reach into the basket or bag holding the LEGO Duplo bricks and select one.

Have them count the number of bumps on the top of the Duplo bricks. (Bumps is not the technical name.)

$Math Games for Kids- LEGO Count and Move$

Take the action card from the top of the pile.

Have that child perform the action on their card the number bumps that is on their Duplo brick.

Then it is the next person’s turn to repeat the same game steps.

More Math Games for Kids

Two Duplo Bricks Count and Move

When it is their turn children, select two bricks out of basket or bag. They will need to add the number of bumps on the two bricks to know how many times to do the action on the card the select.

Two Actions, One Brick

Select two action cards when it is your turn. Children can do each action the number of times that there are bumps on their chosen Duplo brick one at a time or every other action. Example: Jump, flap, jump,flap.

Mirroring the Action

One person can select the action card and one can select the brick. After counting the number for bumps on the selected brick, two people can stand facing each other. Then they can do the selected action together.

I bet you can come up with other math game for kids using Duplo bricks and my action cards. If you do, please tell me about it by leaving a comment below.

More LEGO Math Games for Kids and More

The link below is an affiliate link.

A number of bloggers are sharing LEGO themed learning posts featuring LEGO DUPLO Classic Bricks . LEGO Week is being hosted by Toddler Approved.

I started LEGO week early last week by sharing the following posts:

Preschool Science- How Long will a LEGO Boat Float?

Preschool Activities- LEGO Duplo Creations and Books

If you are looking for other LEGO math games for kids or LEGO learning activities, you may want to check out my LEGO board on Pinterest.

$Math Games for Kids- LEGO Count and Move$

Do you have LEGO math games for kids that you like to play?

Fire Truck Craft

October 6, 2013 By Deirdre

One of the fun things I have been doing to help JDaniel’s class this year has been to help with the SEEDS program. It is right up my alley. The program is like Read.Explore.Learn. and you know how much I love to explore books.

I decided to share a fire truck theme book with them called Meeow and the Big Box is about a kitten who uses a big box to create a fire truck for pretend play. We first heard this book shared at a library storytime focused on fire safety. The librarian created a visual using a box that walked us through each of Meeow’s steps. The children just loved this book.

Creating the Fire Truck Craft

I only get about half an hour to read the book and do the craft. To save time I try to have everything cut out and ready to glue down. I even do a trial run on my own or with JDaniel to time it. He loves getting to be a guinea pig for his class.

Here is how the trial for this craft turned out:

First, we put the body of the fire truck on black paper. Then JDaniel added the windows and white bumper area. I think I could have cut a long strip for the bumper. It didn’t stick out very far in the front or back of the fire truck. I may need to make these a little longer for the class.

The windows for the fire truck were moved around a lot. JDaniel had ideas about where they needed to go and not go a couple of times. They really could go anywhere on the front of a fire truck and could be turned vertically or horizontally. I think not having a specific place for the windows gives the children can invite to make their trucks unique.

After working on the windows, JDaniel worked on adding the yellow accessories to the truck. The ladder could have gone anywhere on the truck or even on the roof of the truck. Both of the lights could have gone on the top or on the front. The trial run ended up with one of the top and one on the bottom.

The last thing to go on the fire truck craft was the wheels. I am not sure that fire trucks have brown wheels, but black wheels would have blended into the black background so, I went with brown.

I think it will be fun to do this craft with JDaniel’s class. We had fun working on it together. It would also be great to create with your children during National Fire Safety Month in October. They would probably like to read Meeow and the Big Box and make a fire truck too.

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves- Read.Explore.Learn.

October 5, 2012 By Deirdre

This week we looked at the wonderful book Fletcher and the Falling LeavesFletcher the fox finds that his favorite tree has started to lose its leaves. Fetcher panics. He does everything in his power to help the tree keep its leaves, but it seems futile. The leaves keep falling off and other animals keep carting them off.By the end of the book, Fletcher understands more about the life cycle of a tree and how the tree can be given a new look for the winter.

What did we do with Fletcher and the Falling Leaves?

Foam Tree

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves- Read.Explore.Learn.

I created leaves out of foam for JDaniel to play with the fridge after dipping them in water. I also placed a paper tree trunk in a plastic magnetic sleeve that normally holds JDaniel’s preschool calendar. I love found it at The Christmas Tree Shops and it is great for school calendars and artwork.

JDaniel was able to place the leaves on the tree in the sleeve.
Oh! These leaves could also be played with on the side of a bathtub or on a shower door.Leaf Counting

JDaniel had to place the correct number of leaves on a plate to match the number on the center of the plate. We used leaves that we had gathered at a local park and from our yards.

Word Family Trees and Leaves

I created trees with word families on them and JDaniel had to match the leaves that word family. He isn’t reading yet, but he can look for a word with the same ending. We read the words on the leaves together.

Fletcher and the Falling Leaves- Read.Explore.Learn.- Word Family Trees

Here is some wonderful post that linked up last week:

Learning is Messy shared her take on Ten Red Apples. I love the flannel activity she used to retell the story.

What have you been doing to explore books this week? Disclaimer; This post contains affiliate links.

Dream Big- Read.Explore.Learn

August 3, 2012 By Deirdre

Links below are affiliate link.

This week I am going to share a wonderful children’s book called Dream Big: Michael Jordan and the Pursuit of Excellence by Deloris Jordan. This lovely picture book by Michael Jordan’s mom is about how her son dreamed of going to the Olympic to play basketball from an early age.

He loved basketball, but basketball coaches didn’t always pick him for their team. Michael was cut from his high school basketball tryouts. He never gave up on his dream and I think we all know what happened to his dream to play basketball. His mom says, ” I guess you aren’t a dreamer, but a doer.” Michael was so blessed to live out his dream.

JDaniel announced a few weeks ago that he could do almost every big boy thing he could think of except tie his shoes and read. I guess you could call them his big boy dreams.

Learning to Tie Shoes

When I mentioned to a friend that JDaniel wanted to learn to tie shoes, she said she learned to tie them by practicing on her dad’s shoes. We took out my husband’s shoes and we have been parallel practicing. One of us has it mastered and the other still needs a lot of practicing.

Learning to Tie Dad's Shoes

I hope he learns in the next few months. I just ordered his school sneakers for the fall with laces on them.

Working on Sight Words

I created little basketballs that contain the first 36 Dolch Preprimer words to help JDaniel work on his dream of reading. We have been working on four words at a time.

Every time he reads me on the words he can move an orange pom-pom to the basketball hoop on paper.

I don’t want to overdo the word practice. He gets to work on each word only a few times at each sitting.

Here are some wonderful book Read.Explore.Learn post that were linked up last week:

Crafty Moms Share linked up a great dress the mole activity to go with the book Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed.

Keitha’s Chaos linked up an amazing bento lunch to that explored the book Hour of the Olympics.

Please share your book extension and exploration post below.

Read.Explore.Learn.- That’s Not How You Play Soccer, Daddy!

June 15, 2012 By Deirdre

I love the dad in the book That’s Not How You Play Soccer Daddy by Sherry Shahan! The dad in this wonderful book realizes his son is taking his job as team captain and his playing of soccer over seriously. He wants him to enjoy the game the way the other kids do.

Actually, the other kids would gather explore an anthill rather than plays soccer. Mikey thinks every rule should be followed.

After practice, his dad takes to a different part of the park for lunch and to play. Mikey just wants to practice.

Mikey’s wise dad thinks he should play shoeless, with the family dog and with his hands. After a tickle fest with his dad, Mikey agrees with his dad.

Sometimes you just have to have fun.

What did we do with this book?

Created a Game with Tomato Cages

I planted two tomato cages across from each other in the yard imagining we would play a game that combined soccer and basketball.

JDaniel looked at the cages and decided that one cage was the starting line. You then had to run around two bushes and a tree before heading across the yard to drop the ball in the far tomato cage.

My game was a little simpler, but his game turned out to be lots of fun. Sometimes it is fun to just take out some materials and see what fun game you can create.

Made Ice Tea Playdough

Sun Hats & Wellie Boots, Nurturestore, & The Imagination Tree are asking bloggers to take the PPlaydoughPledge this week. What is the pledge? It is to try to make a new kind of play dough this week.

JDaniel and I started with the basic no-cook play dough found on Sun Hat & Wellie Boots using flour, salt, oil, and boiling water. We added to it a packet of ice tea powder. JDaniel’s dad loves sweet tea and since we had read a book about a dad, I thought it would be fun.

The play dough we made turned a tan color, but really didn’t smell like sweet tea. I didn’t dump in a full packet of Lipton’s Tea and Honey and that may have kept the full scent of the tea from coming to the surface of the playdough.

We had fun playing with it anyway.

What adventures have you had with books this week?

Read.Explore.Learn.- That’s Not Fair, Hare!

May 25, 2012 By Deirdre

Welcome to Read.Explore.Learn.! This meme was designed to be a place for you to share the learning opportunities, crafts, field trips, and other activities you have done this week that tie-in to children’s books. I look forward to seeing ways you have learned with and explored books.

Steps:

Link your activity below.

Please place the Read.Explore.Learn. badgeon your post or create a link back to this meme.

Please try to visit at least three of the other people that have placed links below and leave a comment. I will visit each of you and leave a kind comment.

If you are not linking up an activity and are just visiting, please try to stop by a few of the links below.

My Book Tie-Ins of the Week:

This super clever tale of the turtle and the hare by Julie Sykes and Tim Warnes is really fun. In this versions, the hare thinks he has totally outsmarted the turtle only to find the turtle has put one over on him.

The turtle wants to share the cabbages in the farmer’s field and the hare does not. He challenges the turtle to a race. A race he thinks he can win.

Along the way, the turtle’s friends try to cheer him on and they need rescuing. The turtle is sure she will lose when she has to stop and help them.

In the end, the turtle tricks the hare into to giving them all to her. You will have to read to see how.

What did we do with the book?

Ribbon Spool Race

We placed pictures of a hare on one ribbon spool and a turtle on another spool and raced them.

Animal Name Letter Search

JDaniel had to search in magazines for the letters needed to spell out the words turtle and hare. When we had found all of the letters we glued them over the letters on this page.

I created this activity by pasting clip art of a turtle and a hare into a Word document and then typing the type of animals under each picture.

If you like these That’s Not Fair, Hare! activities, here are some more book-themed activities:

Coding Activity- Going on a Bear Hunt

Hungry Caterpillar Money Activity

Knuffle Bunny Color Activity and Cardboard Washing Machine

Pinterest- Leaping into Groundhog’s Day

February 2, 2012 By Deirdre

Happy Groundhog’s Day! Whether the ground sees his shadow or not, I think spring has arrived in South Carolina. The temperatures have been in the 50’s or 60’s all week. I thought it would be fun to celebrate Groundhog’s Day with JDaniel anyway. I made a leaping groundhogs game due to the fact that it is a leap year too and searched Pinterest for Groundhog’s Day crafts and snacks. The leaping groundhogs game is the only thing I really made myself. You will find links to the other ideas I found under each picture.

Leaping Groundhogs GameSupplies: Sections of a white milk jugBrown feltGreen felt Wiggly eyesBlack construction paperMargarine tubDirections:1. Cut three-inch-long sections out of a white plastic milk jug for as many groundhogs as you will need2. Fold each strip into thirds.3. Cut out a groundhog-shaped head out of brown felt4. Glue the head onto the front third of the strip with his nose facing away for the bend.

5. Cut a black circle out of construction paper.6. Glue two wiggly eyes and a black nose onto the groundhog head.7. Cut a green rectangular piece of felt that will fit around your margarine tub and is a little taller than the tub.8. Snip off some of the green felt that reaches above the tub to make it look like grass.How to play:1. Bend the groundhog into thirds. 2. Place your thumb on the groundhog’s nose.3. Watch him fly into the margarine tub or back into his hole.Here are some wonderful ideas I found on Pinterest:

This is a really cute craft from Playschool Playbook. Here is its link on Pinterest.

Kitchen Fun with My 3 Sons came up with this really cute snack. Here is its link on Pinterest.

Two Bears Farm made this really cute Groundhog’s Day lunch. Here is its link on Pinterest.

Gourmet Mom on- the Go made this wonderful drink! Here is its link on Pinterest. Click on the word Pinterest if you would like to follow me. I will follow you back. This post is linked to several places including Mama Kat’s Writing Workshop and Link and Learn.