preschool Archives - Page 3 of 20

There Was an Old Lady Who Printable Mask Template

June 27, 2020 By Deirdre

There Was An Old Lady Who is such a fun book series. I originally made a paper plate There Was an Old Lady mask as part of a Back to School series of crafts. The mask had several different sections that needed to be cut out and painted. This There Was An Old Lady Who mask is one single piece of cardstock. It will be easier for your children to decorate.

Decorating Your There Was An Old Lady Mask

There are so many ways that your children can decorate their masks. Below you will find a list of ways to add color to your mask.

First, you can have your children use crayons to color the mask.
Second, markers will add deeper color to the mask. You will notice that I used markers for part of the mask. Then I finished the mask with crayons.
Third, watercolor paints would be fun to use to decorate the mask.
Fourth, small pieces of construction paper in a variety of colors can be glued to the mask.

Reading One of the Books Before or AfterDecorating

This is such a fun series of books. Below you will see a list of the books I have read. There are so many more. You can click on any of the pictures below to find more There Was An Old Lady books. If you choose to read one after making the mask, you could read the book wearing the mask.

Links below are affiliate links.

Getting the Printable Mask

You will need to have access to a PDF reader to open this template. Acrobat Reader is the one that I use. Once you download the There Was An Old Lady Mask Template, you can print it out onto heavy copy paper or cardstock.

Wearing the Mask

There are a number of ways you can wear the mask.

- First, you can punch holes on either side of the mask. Then you can attach yarn to both of the holes. You can tie the two pieces of yarn in the back.
- Second, you can attach a strip of cardstock to both sides of the mask. Your children can then slip the mask over their heads.
- Third, you may have children that don’t want to wear the mask on their face. You can attach a wooden craft stick to the mask. Children can hold the mask over their faces.

If you like this book-based activity, here are some more you will love:

Truck Stuck in the Muck Fine Motor Activity

Three Pigs Building Activity

Harry the Dirty Dog Thaumatrope Activity

Flying Snowman Pulley Activity

Cute Shark Mask Template

June 27, 2020 By Deirdre

This cute shark mask template will be fun to decorate with your kids. The mask would be fun to work on during Shark Week or while studying the ocean. It is based on a paper plate shark mask I created several years ago. While many of you have made that mask, I thought more of you would like a mask that is easy to cut out and decorate.

Shark Themed Books

If you are having your children craft this mask while celebrating or studying ocean life, you may want to read them a book about sharks. Below you will find several wonderful shark books.

The links below are affiliate links.

Getting the Cute Shark Mask

The cute shark mask is a PDF. You will need to open the Cute Shark Mask Template with Acrobat Reader or another PDF reader. Once you have the template open, you will want to print it out on cardstock. Traditional printer paper will be way too flimsy. If you have heavy copy paper, it would work too.

Decorating the Shark Mask

There are so many ways you can decorate the shark mask. We used teal acrylic paint and painted it on with a fork. Fork painting gives some texture to the mask. Here some other ways you could decorate the mask.

First, you could color the mask with crayons or markers.
Second, you could glue small squares of blue tissue paper to the mask. It will look a little like a mosaic.
Third, the mask could be painted with cotton balls or a paintbrush.

Wearing the Mask

There are a number of ways you can wear the mask.

First, you can punch holes on either side of the mask. Then you can attach yarn to both of the holes. You can tie the two pieces of yarn in the back.
Second, you can attach a strip of cardstock to both sides of the mask. Your children can then slip the mask over their heads.
Third, you may have children that don’t want to wear the mask on their face. You can attach a wooden craft stick to the mask. Children can hold the mask over their faces.

If you are looking for some other shark-themed activities, you will find some really cool ones below.

Newspaper Shark

Shark Cootie Catcher

Shark Pool Noodle Launcher

Exploring Colors and Shapes Mini Penguin Books

January 22, 2020 By Deirdre

Children seem to love oversized and tiny books. You will find that this set of penguin books focuses on tiny. The penguin books in this collection focus on colors and shapes. The color set includes penguins in a variety of colors. The second of the color book displays penguins that your children can color. Your children will have fun identifying each of the colors and shapes. The pages of all of the books display color or shape words along with a picture.

Before Exploring the Book Read About the Concepts

The links below are affiliate links.

Shape Books

Color Books

Getting Your Penguin Books

You can download the Penguin Books – Exploring Shapes Mini Book or the Penguin Books -Exploring Color Printable Mini Book. The only mini book that needs to be printed in color is the Exploring Color Mini Book with colored penguins. It features penguins in a variety of colors.

Exploring the Penguin Books

Each non-colored mini-book can be explored in a number of ways:

First, you can walk your children through each page of the book. You can read the word on the page or your children can read it to you. Then they can color the picture on the page they have just read.
Second, your children can read the words in the book to you. Then they can color the pictures.
Third, you can have your children read the words on each page. Next, they can describe an object they have seen that is the color or shape displayed on each page. Finally, they can color the picture on the page.
Finally, if your children are working on the color mini-book they can color the penguin on the front of the book any color they like.

The mini-book with color pages can be explored in similar ways:

First, you can read the words on each page. Then you can have your children read them to you. You may have to help young readers sound out the words.
Second, you can have your children read through the book to you without your help.
Third, you can have your children show or tell you about objects that match the color or shape on each page. Young children might benefit from searching through a box of objects you have collected to find an object that matches the color or shape. Then they can read and color the book.

If you like this penguin activity, here are some more you will love:

How to Build an Igloo for a Penguin STEM Activity

Penguin Number Activities

Waddling Penguin Song and Action Song

Fireworks Display in a Sensory Bag Activity

June 26, 2019 By Deirdre

Sensory bags are a great way for children to work on their fine motor skills. This cool sensory bag features a fireworks display theme. Your children will have fun moving the red, clear and blue stars along the tracing lines on the bag. Once they have moved one star along a line and onto a star, they can work on adding stars to the other lines. The hair gel in the bag makes it easy to move the stars.

Building an Understanding of What Fireworks Displays Are

I like to share a book that relates to an activity before we start it. Below you will find some wonderful books that have 4th of July or fireworks theme.
Links below are affiliate links.

Putting the Sensory Bags Together

These sensory bags are so easy to make. You really only need seven supplies to put them together.

Supplies

Print Out of Fireworks Outline for the Sensory Bag Activity Bag Page
Clear Hair Gel
Permanent Marker
QuartSize Zipper Bags
Star-Shaped Patriotic Pony Beads

Directions

You will need to download a copy of the Fireworks Outline for the Sensory Bag Activity page. Then you will trace the robot onto the bag with a permanent marker.

Next, you will fill the bag with the contents of a bottle of hair gel. The hair gel should be about 1/4 of an inch thick in the bag.

Finally, you will place the star beads into the bag. (It is okay to keep them at the top to start with.) Then seal the bag.

Exploring the Sensory Bags

There are several ways your children can explore the bag. Here are a few we thought of:

Drag the stars along the lines to get to the stars at the ends of the lines.
Drag the plastic stars from the stars down the lines.
Try dragging or pushing the stars with a finger on your non-dominate hand.

If you like this 4th of July Activity, here are some more you will love:

Exploring Patriotic Words in Binary Code

Magnetic Games for Kids- Fireworks in a Jar

Online Typing Practice for Young Children

May 7, 2019 By Deirdre

While I don’t teach my kindergartners how to type with two hands when the come the computer lab, I do plan typing practice for them. You may feel that teaching them to hunt and peck makes learning to type with two hands harder. If you feel that way, you can encourage your children to complete each of the typing practice activities with two hands. You may also think that waiting until the end of first grade or the beginning of second grade is the better choice. If you do, you and I are on the same page.

Each of the games I am sharing with you focuses on finding a single alphabet letter. Each of the sites mentioned also has activities that focus on typing words.

Before you introduce your children to keyboarding, it might be fun to read books to them that feature keyboards. Your children may have never seen typewriter before. The books below each feature typewriters and characters that use keyboards.

Links below are affiliate links.

Typing Practice Websites

ABCya.com

ABCya.com has a number of typing practice activities. Here are the activities that I use with young children.

Cup Stacking

Cup Stacking is an activity that works at a much slower pace. I start my kindergarteners off with this activity. Children need to find the letters displayed on cups to stack them up and to unstack them.

Jump Key

This activity starts by having children find lowercase letters. Then it has them look for uppercase letters. The next level has children working on upper and lowercase letters. The second to the last level focuses on numbers. Finally, children work on finding letters and numbers.

Typing Rockets Junior

Children will get three minutes to try and find as many letters and they can. The rockets displaying the letters go faster and faster as time runs out.

Typing.com

Keyboard Jumper

Children will click on the letter displayed on each tree bran to move up! This activity has sections that focus on letters, number, and words.

Keyboard Climber

Keyboard Climber invites young children to find various letters in the alphabet. When they find the correct letter, they climb up ledges to collect bananas!

Room Recess Computer Lab Games

Alpha-Quick

As capital letters flash quickly on the screen, children need to click on them. The fastest times are displayed at the end of the game.

Letter Bursts

This is another fast-moving letter recognition activity. Children need to click on each of the fireworks to make them explode.

Popcorn Typer

This activity features letters on popcorn kernels. If you click on the correct letter a kernel will pop. The kernels do drop quickly. This activity may frustrate some children.

TypeTastic

Keyboard Builder

Children will click on the letters they need to build each section of the keyboard. Then they will use the arrow keys to move the letter section to its place on the keyboard.

Ducky Trouble

Children will have fun clicking on the letters needed to collect rubber ducks that have been lost in a cave. This game isn’t fast-paced.

Turtle Diary.com

Stacking Boxes Typing

This game challenges children to find the alphabet letter on each box and click on that letter so that it falls on the pallet.

Keyboard Candy

This game is a lot like the Stacking Boxes game. Children need to click on the letter above each piece of candy to get it to fall into the candy jar.

Catching Bugs

When children click on the letter below each bug, the frog’s tongue shoots out to catch it. Your kids are going to love this game.

Kidz Type

Typing Pilots

This game is a little tricky. Your children will need to decide which letter to click on to get around a space ship with their plane.

Apple Orchard

If you like these activities, here are some more technology-related activities you can explore with your kids.

Using an Algorithm to Build a Dinosaur

Magical Creature STEM Algorithm Drawing Activity

How to Make Liquid Starch Slime Algorithm

Free Earth Day Worksheets – Recycling Truck Number Puzzles

April 7, 2019 By Deirdre

This set of Earth Day worksheets features a bright green recycling truck! You will find that the set has number puzzles that explore skip counting by 2, skip counting by 5, counting from 1-10 and counting from 11-20. If you choose to laminate the puzzles in this set, you can use or recycle them over and over again. Your children have fun putting these puzzles together over and over again.

Before you put these puzzles out for your children, you may want to read them a book with a recycling or Earth Day theme. Below you will find some of my favorite Earth Day books for children.

Links below are affiliate links.

Getting a Set of Earth Day Number Puzzles Ready to Use

First, you will need to download the Recycling Truck Number Puzzles and open them with Acrobat Reader.

Second, you will need to decide which of the puzzles you want your children to work on. You can have them work on just one puzzle or have them explore the entire set.

Third, you can print them out in color. We tried printing them out in grayscale and they didn’t look great.

Fourth, you will need to decide if you want to laminate the puzzles for future reuse. It is totally okay to print puzzles out and just use them once. Since these are Earth Day worksheets, I thought you may want to recycle them year after year.

Finally, the puzzles will need to be cut out. You can cut them out for your children or have them cut them out.

Exploring the Puzzles

You can have your children work on Earth Day sequencing puzzles in a variety of ways. Here are some of the ways we came up with.

Children could glue the pieces to a piece of construction paper in order.
You can print them out on tag board and have your children work on them in a center.
You could laminate them and have your children work on them with a partner.
Children can place the pieces in order on a metal pan if you place magnets on the back of the puzzle pieces.

If you like this Earth Day activity, here are some more you will love.

$Earth Day Math Activities - Recycling Bin Counting with Printables$

Recycling Bin Counting Activity

Egg Carton Catapult

Create a Newspaper Sponge Painted Tree

Paper Plate Earth Day Craft

Number Puzzles with Dinosaurs for Kids

April 5, 2019 By Deirdre

It has been a while since I shared a new set of number puzzles with you. (The Valentine’s Day set was the last one I shared.) Kids really love dinosaurs! When I found this cool set of clip art, I just knew they would be great to use to create some puzzles that explore numbers. Your children are just going to love them!

There are five puzzles with numbers on them. They focus on the numbers 1-10, 11-20, counting by 2’s and counting by 5’s. Finally, there is a set that is editable. You can type any number sequence you want onto the final puzzle.

Before you have your children explore the puzzles, you may want to read them a book about dinosaurs. Below you will find some of my favorite books about dinosaurs.

Links below are affiliate links.

Getting Your Number Puzzles Ready

You can download your free set of Number Puzzles with Dinosaurs for Kids. Then you can open them up with Acrobat Reader. If you want to print out one of the puzzles that already has numbers on it, you can go ahead and print it out. If you want to create your own number puzzle, you can scroll to the last puzzle in the set. Then you can type in your own number sequence.

Once you have a puzzle or puzzles printed out, you can cut out each puzzles strip. If your children have strong cutting skills, they can cut the strips out themselves.

Hint: If you want to use the puzzles over and over again, you can laminate them before cutting them out.

Exploring the Number Puzzles

You can have your children work on number sequencing puzzles in a variety of ways. Here are some of the ways we came up with.

Children could glue the pieces to a piece of construction paper in order.
You can print them out on tag board and have your children work on them in a center.
You could laminate them and have your children work on them with a partner.
Children can place the pieces in order on a metal pan if you place magnets on the back of the puzzle pieces.

If you like these math puzzles, here are some more math activities you will love:

Match the Chicken to the Egg Printable

Very Hungry Caterpillar Number Sequencing

Building Numbers with Crayons

Awesome Gardening Projects for Kids

March 31, 2019 By Deirdre

Children will love watching seeds that they plant to grow. Some of the awesome gardening projects feature seeds that sprout quickly. Other gardening projects feature plants or seeds that will take a while to grow. If you are working on gardening at home or as a part of a long unit, you can select any of the projects below. If you plan to only explore plants for a short period of time, you will want to select the cress or grass projects.

Awesome Gardening Projects for Kids

It will be hard to decide which of these projects you can to do first. Since it can take a while for seeds to germinate, you may want to start a few of them at the same time. It will be fun to see which seeds sprout first.

Greenhouse or Container Projects

Egg carton greenhouses from Hazel and Company look like so much fun! Your children can plant a seed in each egg compartment and then cover the egg carton half with a plastic bag. Then they can wait to see which seeds sprout first.

Your children will be looking through the root observation window often if they help you create a root garden like What Do We Do All Day did. You can probably plant any type of seed or bulb in the container.

Plastic cup greenhouses like these from Mama.Papa.Bubba. are fun for children to create. Then they will be able to look into the top and watch their plants grow.

A paper plate greenhouse is fun for your children to create. Once your children have put it together, they will enjoy watching the seeds they place in it grow.

It will be fun to see what color of clear plastic egg will have its seed germinate first. We really enjoyed this STEM experiment at my house.

Gardening in Interesting Containers Projects

Growing Grass Heads like Red Ted Art would be loads of fun! Your children will have fun trimming the grass on their grass head!

Growing seeds without soil or hydroponic gardening will be fascinating for your children to see.

The STEM Laboratory sprout house project will be fun for your children to do. Once they have built their houses, they will have a great time watching sprouts grow on them.

Regrowing Fruits and Vegetable Projects

Did you know you can regrow lettuce from the core the lettuce? Educator’s Spin On It will walk you through how to do it.

A Gift of Curiosity was able to grow sprouts out of an ear of Indian corn. It will be so cool to try this with our kids.

After growing corn, celery, and lettuce, you could try growing a potato plant out of a potato as they did on the Kid’s Activities Blog.

Growing pumpkin seeds in a pumpkin is also a lot of fun. We have done this experiment several times.

Finally, your children can grow carrots from carrot tops in a plastic bottle greenhouse. When you set the greenhouse outside or by a sunny window, it will be easy to see the condensation inside the bottle.

Building Background

Before you start any of the projects, you may want to read your children some children’s books with a gardening theme. You will find some of my favorites below.

The links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

Gardening Tools You Will Love

The links below are affiliate links. As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases.

If you like these science activities, here are some more you will love.

You may notice that each of these has a spring theme. After you start a gardening project, you can explore one of these spring STEM activities.

Building a Trampoline for Peter Rabbit

Cool Science Experiments- Spider Eggs Being Looked Over

Make Spider Web Eggs

Creating Plastic Egg Parachutes

Building a Fence to Keep Peter Rabbit out of the Garden

April Fool’s Day Graphing Activity

March 29, 2019 By Deirdre

Last year I share with you a set of count, color and graph worksheets with a Christmas tree theme. You really seemed to enjoy them. I thought your children might enjoy graphing April Fool’s Day prank items on April Fool’s Day or maybe after reading a book that featured fun pranks kids can pull on each other.

Below you will find some of my favorite April Fool’s Day books for kids.

April Fool’s Day Graphing Activity

Count and Graph

This graph invites your children to count how many of each type of April Fool’s Day prank item is displayed at the top of the page. Once your children have counted the items, they can start their bar graph. Children will need to color one bar above each prank item to represent how many of each item they found on the top of the page.

It might be fun to compare each of your children’s graphs to see if one type of prank item came up most often on each of their graphs.

Getting the April Fool’s Day Graph

You can download your April Fool’s Day Graphing Activity and open them up with Acrobat Reader. Then you can print out one or both of the graphs for your children to explore.

If you like this Christmas printable, here are some more you will love:

Polar Express Coloring Page

Stickman Algorithm Activity

Christmas Coding Coloring Pages

St Patrick’s Day STEM Challenges for Kids

March 12, 2019 By Deirdre

There are some many symbols of St Patrick’s Day and Irish legends. that lend themselves to St Patrick’s Day STEM challenges for kids. Below you will find some of my favorites. Some of the STEM challenges come from right here on JDaniel4’s Mom. Some challenges come from other incredible blogs.

Before you check out the St Patrick’s Day STEM challenges with your kids, you may want to read a book with an Irish-theme. It will help your children build background information on Ireland and Irish legends.

Links below are affiliate links.

St Patrick’s Day STE Challenges

Rainbow STEM Challenges

Your children will have such fun creating a rainbow with celery stalks. Coffee Cups and Crayons

used this experiment to explore how plants “drink” water from the ground.

Buggy and Buddy has a rainbow reflection activity using a CD that your children will enjoy.

Creating a Skittles Rainbow as Raising Life Long Learners did will be fun. Your kids will probably want to taste test some of the Skittles before you start the experiment.

Little Bin for Little Hands sure had fun creating LEGO rainbow challenges. Completing the challenges will be fun for your kids too.

Building a rainbow with craft sticks and play dough as Preschool Powol Packets did could be tricky. Children will have to do some planning to get the sticks to lean at the correct angles to create a rainbow.

Leprechaun STEM Challenges

Your children will have fun creating magic rocks filled with gold coins. Leprechauns may decide they want to hide their coins the way that Gift of Curiosity did.

Children will have fun creating leprechaun traps like the one JDaniel and I did.

It is so much fun to make straw rockets. Leaping leprechaun straw rockets are great to make for St. Patrick’s Day.

Housing a Forest held leprechaun balloon rocket races. Your children will love creating rockets and racing them.

Fizzing leprechaun pots like the ones create by Little Bins for Little Hands are sure to be a hit with your kids.

Shamrock STEM Challenges

Your kids will love making fizzing shamrocks like Gift of Curiosity did.

A squishy circuit shamrock challenge will brighten your kids day. They will love building a circuit in their homemade shamrock just like Schooling a Monkey did.

Your kids are going to love growing crystals in a shamrock shape like Housing Forest did.

STEM Challenges Based on the Irish Culture

In Dublin, Ireland there is a bridge called the Ha’penny Bridge. What fun it would be to build a bridge for pennies like the ones on Kids Activities Blog.

This pot of gold themed sink or float activity from Little Bins for Little Hands uses pennies too.

Your children will have to weave paper arcs above and below each other to form a Celtic knot when the explore this activity.

Decorating Your There Was An Old Lady Mask

Reading One of the Books Before or AfterDecorating

Getting the Printable Mask

Wearing the Mask

If you like this book-based activity, here are some more you will love:

Shark Themed Books

Getting the Cute Shark Mask

Decorating the Shark Mask

Wearing the Mask

If you are looking for some other shark-themed activities, you will find some really cool ones below.

Before Exploring the Book Read About the Concepts

Shape Books

Color Books

Getting Your Penguin Books

Exploring the Penguin Books

Each non-colored mini-book can be explored in a number of ways:

The mini-book with color pages can be explored in similar ways:

If you like this penguin activity, here are some more you will love:

Building an Understanding of What Fireworks Displays Are

Putting the Sensory Bags Together

Supplies

Directions

Exploring the Sensory Bags

Typing Practice Websites

ABCya.com

ABCya.com has a number of typing practice activities. Here are the activities that I use with young children.

Typing.com

Room Recess Computer Lab Games

TypeTastic

Turtle Diary.com

Kidz Type

Getting a Set of Earth Day Number Puzzles Ready to Use

Exploring the Puzzles

If you like this Earth Day activity, here are some more you will love.

Getting Your Number Puzzles Ready

Exploring the Number Puzzles

If you like these math puzzles, here are some more math activities you will love:

Awesome Gardening Projects for Kids

Greenhouse or Container Projects

Gardening in Interesting Containers Projects

Regrowing Fruits and Vegetable Projects

Building Background

Gardening Tools You Will Love

If you like these science activities, here are some more you will love.

April Fool’s Day Graphing Activity

Count and Graph

Getting the April Fool’s Day Graph

If you like this Christmas printable, here are some more you will love:

St Patrick’s Day STE Challenges

Rainbow STEM Challenges

Leprechaun STEM Challenges

Shamrock STEM Challenges

STEM Challenges Based on the Irish Culture

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