Tag Archives: Preschool Play Date

Preschool Playdate: Wildflowers

Playdate: May 15, 2015
Theme was chosen in honor of Wildflower Week

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— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

Most of the activities this week were inspired by print-outs or songs in The Mailbox Superbook.

STORY TIME
In lieu of a book, we used a song and a discovery activity for the children to explore the growing cycle of a flower.

We talked about the vocabulary first, and then introduced the song.  The third time through, each Sweet Pea got to play a part of the song.  One was the sun, one was the gardener watering, and the remaining children got to be flowers growing in the garden.  We took turns so that each child got to play each part.

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LITERACY CENTER
This is another printout from The Mailbox Superbook – the main point was to develop some motor skills through tracing.  I added a print element to the activity by printing out word strips for the children to cut and paste on their worksheet after tracing the flower shapes.  Crayons, scissors, glue, plus some vocabulary…WIN 🙂

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MATH CENTER
Sorting and counting…always a good math center!  The children could sort by color, type of leaf, whether the edge was smooth or rippled…and probably more ways than we tried that morning!

An advanced version of this center could be done by making tally marks to track results, and/or plotting a line graph with the results.

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DISCOVERY TABLE
This activity is the only one that came from The Toddler Calendar.  Felt sticks to itself, so the only thing I had to do was go buy it.  Aside from cutting their pattern out, I also added a print element by creating labels for all the parts of the flower.

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ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This activity has been bookmarked in The Mailbox Superbook since I first started using it when Puma was 3 years old.  I finally made the time to execute it! Better late than never 🙂

I used sponges from the dollar store, and cut each color into a different part of the flower.  This was again, a reinforcement of the vocabulary words of the day that centered around the theme: flower, leaf, and stem…no “roots” this time!

 

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  This morning, the discovery table activity and the arts & crafts activity were the big winners.

We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents that have somewhere to be afterwards have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go – school is over!!  Otherwise, the kiddos and parents that don’t have to leave will stay and play until the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives at noon.

 

Preschool Playdate: Music Day

Playdate: May 7, 2015

This playdate was inspired by a book that I wanted to read to the Sweet Peas, and I ended up going a different direction when it was storytime!

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

Our unsquiggle activity this day was also part discovery/physical education/personal expression/confidence building.  I incorporated the hand-kites to help those who were a little shy to at least move something in rhythm to the music they were hearing.

First, I created a playlist of different genres of music, alternating between upbeat and more solemn.  We got to talk about the different countries the music and/or composer was from, as well as the different world cultures as we found the countries on the globe.  We invited each child to dance down the pink line – it was great to see their creativity and imagination.

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STORY TIME + MATH CENTER + MAKE&TAKE

I ended up using a book I had printed back when Puma was a preschooler as our story.  It let me demonstrate the math activity/play home craft I came up with for the day.  You can find the book from Enchanted Learning HERE; the ducks are free clip art from the internet printed on card stock; numbers are from a foam number pack (you can probably find them at your nearest craft or big-box store).

Charger, who was 5 at the time, did this all his own.  He cut out the ducks, glued a popsicle stick to the back of the duck, and affixed the foam numbers to his ducks.  I cut a slit in the paper plates for each of the ducks…this lets the children practice number recognition and ordering.

How we used it all together: Start the song/rhyme with a plate full of ducks.  As you count down the numbers, you pull out the duck from it’s slot.  This give the children a visual of what amount is left, as well as the written numbers as they are pulling them out.

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LITERACY CENTER
This was one of my favorite name activities of all time.  Again, the images are clip art that I found on the internet.  I will do a better job of keeping track of links for next year to save readers who want to repeat these activites some time.

First, I printed out all the music notes, and then I programed them with the letters of all the children’s names – I used silver marker for a little extra pop!  In a pinch, you could use any light-colored crayon or colored pencil.  Next, I cut them out, and placed the right letters in an envelope with their name on it.  The child had to pull out their letter notes, order them, and glue them to the stave paper I had printed for them.  Once they finished, I played their  “composition” for them on the piano.  Some of them actually had some catchy little tunes!!  Or if like Puma, they did everything on one note, I played it for them in the rhythm of the notes.  Either way, you can ask the child if they could copy what they heard with claps or with singing.

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DISCOVERY TABLE
This allows for the introduction of vocabulary, as well as the exploration of the different instruments, how they are played, and how they sound.  Some different words to use: percussion, loud, soft, raspy, ringing, clanging, metallic; as well as the names of all of the instruments: drum, xylophone, bells, maracas, tambourines, triangles.

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ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Along with the duck craft, we also had the Sweet Peas bring a shoe-box so that we could make a rubber-band guitar.  HERE are some instructions for a simple version of this craft.  We made it even simpler, as you can see:

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We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning.  We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs.  It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.  Otherwise, the kiddos and parents that don’t have to leave will stay and play until the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives.

Preschool Playdate: Truck Day

We have several little boys that attend our playdates.  I thought it would be fun to incorporate a theme that really spoke to them.  It was equal opportunity play: the little girls enjoyed this playdate as much as the boys!

Our day started as usual:

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

STORYTIME
TRUCKS by .The fact we have been collecting toys for ten years proved helpful in bringing this book to life.  For every vehicle pictured in the book, we had an example for the Sweet Peas to experience with their eyes and their hands.  Otter and Charger enjoyed taking turns passing them around to our guests.

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LITERACY
Inspired by an idea in The Mailbox SuperBook to use a plane and a cloud to talk about position words, I worked with an idea to make that activity fit Truck Day.  I found line drawings of a dump truck and boulders online, added eyes to the truck to animate it a little, and printed out a list of direction and position words for parents to use with their Sweet Peas as they did this activity.  You can read the instructions in the photo.  I added the section about switching roles with your Sweet Pea because I find that our own kiddos have so much fun being in the teacher role.  Added bonus: on top of their enjoyment, it reinforces the concept they just learned!

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MATH
This was an activity of my own creation.  I wanted to incorporate play with the trucks, so I came up with a shape sorting station.  I used Microsoft Word to create pages of shapes; then we laminated them and cut them out.

The Sweet Peas would take a handful of shapes out of the bucket, sort them with their parents, and then put them in the truck and deliver them to the right station.  Puma and I taped up extra shapes onto the front of our Name Ledge with the idea of making them look like buildings along a city skyline.  I don’t know if the Sweet Peas made that connection; whether they did or not, we had fun creating this math activity to fit our theme.

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DISCOVERY
A variation on the always popular Sink/Float activity.  This time, we used plastic boats and all manner of wheeled vehicles to see which ones would sink or float.

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ARTS&CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was an activity out of The Mailbox SuperBook that I have been wanting to do since Puma was a preschooler.  For whatever reason (mostly because I couldn’t justify the mess!) it took designating a Truck Day to make it happen.  The kiddos used different color paints and textures on the wheels to “drive” an artwork onto their paper.

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IMAGINATIVE PLAY
This play station incorporated lots of different ideas: literacy in sign identification, math in counting and sorting, and lots of play and imagination as the Sweet Peas laid out the road way, used the “car wash” and learned how to cooperate with their peers so that they could all play with the city scene together.  It was such a big hit that we kept bringing out the “City Box” in subsequent play dates.

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