Category: Ages 2-6

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Chameleon Craft (Animal Habitat Unit)

LD: orange chameleon, DD: pink chameleon, Mom: green chameleon, ED: multicolored chameleon. While on the hunt for Eric Carle craft ideas, I went to visit two of my favorite art websites: Deep Space Sparkle and Art Projects for Kids. Art Projects for kids showed a very cute picture of a chameleon. We read this book by Eric Carle: The Mixed-Up Chameleon. (affiliate link) I had the kids watch the slide show at Eric Carle’s Website about...

Theme Time: Eric Carle Books 0

Theme Time: Eric Carle Books

I set out a number of Eric Carle books (and books of asimilar style). Then I rounded up puzzles and gamesthat went along with the characters in his books. I alsoset out a simple craft for the girls which was a big hit. Ihad pre-cut caterpillars, butterflies and tissue paperpieces that they could glue on. Although DD would havebeen fine to cut up the tissue paper, ED would haveinsisted on...

Theme Time: Numbers, numbers 0

Theme Time: Numbers, numbers

My, I feel like a broken record this week, but the themetime table has worked so well! I saw so much spontaneous use of our materials. I use workboxes, but again for ED and DD havingthings out really draws the girls in. So, this set up was all about numbers. I pulledout some math manipulatives for them to playwith. I pulled out all kinds of number relatedbooks. I also pulled...

Theme Time: Alphabet 0

Theme Time: Alphabet

There’s not too much to say about this themetime except, goodness, we sure have things tucked awayeverywhere! We have wonderful friends whohave passed us lots of games, puzzles and books. Ido find myself playing more games this way than whenI had the games in workboxes.  I wish I had somelovely shelves set up like some of you, but this little crafttable seems to be working wonderfully for the 2 and...

Theme Time: Fire Safety 0

Theme Time: Fire Safety

Today our theme time table included all thingsfire related: little fire trucks, a fire hat, fire typebooks and a non-working telephone. At lunch I ready a couple of books (The Fire Catand The Polka Dot Puppy about a cat/dog who getsadopted by a fire station). After lunch we allgathered together and had a serious talk aboutfire safety. It’s been quite a long time (gulp!) sincewe talked about this, but LD...

Fire Safety Activity 0

Fire Safety Activity

Before starting, we tested our smoke alarms.Be sure you do this soon too! Now on to the activity!! I set up a few obstacles and the kids had togo through the blinding smoke safely andquickly. I talked to them about how confusingand scary it might be if they couldn’t see. Andhow they should cover their mouth with acloth and try to stay as low to the ground aspossible (things like...

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Theme Time: Ocean Creatures

The theme time table is working really well and only takes 10-15 minutes to cleanup and change over. It’s been great to bring in such a variety of books into our day again. And as I said in an earlier post, having things out on display work really well to ‘lure’ the girls (ages 2 and 4) in when they are interested. Obviously the theme of this table is ocean...

Layers of the Rainforest Activity 0

Layers of the Rainforest Activity

After talking about the various layers of the rainforest and why animals would live in particular levels of the forest, the kids sorted the animal cards into the various layers. You can find lots of information online about the layers of the rainforest; I made my own cards and explanations. It’s available over in right sidebar downloads area if anyone’s interested.

Rainforest Animal Habitat (3-part card work) 0

Rainforest Animal Habitat (3-part card work)

I don’t think I ever talked about the kids’ sorting of the rainforest animals. We have two packs of 3-part cards — the Amazon and the African rainforest animals. Both sets of cards are from the Montessori Print Shop for less than $2US each. As always, we started with our continent song and the general pin map of the 7 continents (not shown in the photos here). Then we looked...

Theme Time: Farms 0

Theme Time: Farms

I needed to do something a bit different for my two and four-year olds, so I’ve decided to set up a theme collection each morning. It’ll help me rotate in some of the preschool games and toys  we have and to bring a new selection of books out. And, while the workboxes work well, by having a display out on the craft table, ED (age 2) is much more drawn...

Theme Time: Dinosaurs 0

Theme Time: Dinosaurs

It’s amazing how many books and things you findin various nooks and crannies around the house.We had quite a large selection of dinosaur books,puzzles, animals (mostly from my childhood!).I added in a puppet, board game and made amath worksheet for DD. (You can download itat the right if you’re interested.)  The wonderful thing about this was that ED andDD spent a LOT of time here today doing thingsindependently (though I...

States of Matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas 1

States of Matter: Solid, Liquid, Gas

Last week we did a sorting activity on solids, liquids and gases. This activity was actually quite challenging for them, so we’ll have to repeat it a number of times in the near future. After they sorted the cards together (with help from me), we ran around the house and collected one example of each and presented it to the others. Click on the link to see more details about...

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Toddler Pouring Activity

ED has been pouring with a pitcher since she was about 18 months old; she’s practiced with water, beans, rice, beads and so forth. In fact, she pours her own milk into her cereal every morning with the little pitcher you see in the bottom picture. One skill that is very diificult for her is to start/stop pouring. So, here are a couple of pictures of her using different types...

Princess — Sight Word Games 3

Princess — Sight Word Games

This week I have some new games ready for DD. DD is reading simple words, but doesn’t quite have the patience to read Bob Books (or the equivalent); yet, she is beyond simple letter-sound activities. I’ve been trying to find simple word games to play with her. I found some lovely cards at Kelly’s Kindergarten that appeal to DD. I printed out the “Cinderella’s Ball” cards and “Sight Word Memory”...