Category Archives: Activites

Preschool Playdate: Flowers

Playdate: March 24, 2016
Theme: Spring Flowers

— 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: passed around seeds and plants for children to observe
— Storytime: Book from Enchanted Learning.com
— Unsquiggle activity: growing plants

Unsquiggle: after the children got to see the seed, roots growing, first leaves, and flowers, we invite them to act out the growth cycle. They ball themselves up into little seeds, start shooting roots, then stem, leaves and flowers. A parent or another child can be the sun shining and the water falling from the sky or a watering can. Whoever is the water can visit each child individually and water them to grow. (Idea from Mailbox Superbook)

STORY TIME
We used a book we made when Puma was a preschooler. It shows all the stages of growing from seed to plant, and you can print your own copy HERE at Enchanted Learning.com.

We passed around these samples for the children to look at and get to experience the live version of what they were seeing on the page.

LITERACY CENTER
This was a fun activity to put together. I was trying to incorporate uppercase and lowercase letters, and then it occurred to me that each letter could also be a color of the rainbow. I decided to add a little Spanish into the color identification games.

Level 1: Match the colors

Level 2: Match the letters in the same case (Uppercase to uppercase)

Level 3: Match the letters to the opposite case (Uppercase to lowercase)

MATH CENTER
This was a number correspondence game. The children would place the correct number of buttons in the corresponding basket. The game could be played with random placement, or with instructions like, “same color”, “same size”, or, “make a pattern”.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This is a felt activity where children could play with the arrangement of the flower parts and also identify the print words. A parent can ask a younger preschool to turn the letters the correct way. If the child is already sounding out, they could start to read the words.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take

This is a print activity. You could use paint or ink – we opted for paint this time. I didn’t lay out any “sample” with this activity…simply put out the sponge shapes and plates of color and waited to see what would happen. As you can see, there were lots of ideas on how to make flowers.

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.

Stop in next week to see all the fun we have exploring caterpillars and butterflies today.

Preschool Playdate: Make A Friend

Theme: Make A Friend Day
Date: February 11, 2016

— 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: Friendship and Making Friends
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity: Modeling Puppet Center

STORY TIME
AH – thank you Frozen fever…and zulilly!! We got a few of the books on super-secret sale, and this one was perfect for today’s theme. In the book, it shows several of the different friendships that happen in the movie, and there is even a page where two of the characters get along sometimes, and other times they do not. It was a great point to emphasize in another activity we enjoyed for this theme.

LITERACY CENTER
We continue with our “sound box” theme. Here are all the different things the children found that started with the letter “F”:
fabric, fan, fire truck, fish, flower, french fires, fried egg, fur

MATH CENTER
This was a counting and/or matching game. I made a concerted effort to represent children of all colors in these cards. An article I read recently has made me more mindful about the images I am presenting to the children. So I prepared these cards showing children participating in all different kinds of play, making friends and being friends.

The children could count and match to the corresponding numbered card, and also with the foam number. The cards can also be used as a “memory” game, matching the correct number of children together.

Foam numbers by ALEX
Activity inspired by Preschool Plan-It

DISCOVERY TABLE
This was a fun one!! I covered our Discovery Table in butcher paper and laid out a grid, some ink, and a magnifying glass. Each Sweet Pea that wanted to could leave their fingerprint. Then the other Sweet Peas could take turns looking at each other’s fingerprints under the magnifying glass. I had to move this table into more sunlight so that the kiddos could see some detail.

Activity inspired by Preschool Plan-It

Here is another activity we did: Puppet Show!! I printed up little cards of different scenarios that might come up, when it would be good to try to use words to work things out. The Sweet Peas each got to pick a puppet and a scenario card with them to help model respectful behavior.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was a little crazy to execute, and absolutely worth it when everyone got to take one home!! I tried to keep it simply by only putting out two colors of ink that were pretty similar. This “circle of friends” will be a keepsake to treasure when we pull out old artwork and reflect on how much our Sweet Peas have grown.

Activity inspired by Preschool Plan-It

Preschool Playdate: Hungry Caterpillar

Theme: The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Play date: February 4, 2016

— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: intro to 5 signs the sweet peas could use during storytime
— Storytime: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
— Unsquiggle activity: butterfly life cycle

STORY TIME
One of our students knows ASL and she and her daughter were kind enough to lead story time. Before we started, they taught the group 5 signs that we used throughout the story. We’ll check in to see if they remember what they learned when we start this week’s story time.

Our “unsquiggle” activity today had the children act out the life cycle of the butterfly. I used three different instruments to represent different segments:

Knocked on a rhythm stick: caterpillar breaking out of it’s egg
Scraped the rhythm stick: caterpillar crawling around looking for food and making it’s pupa
Silence: caterpillar undergoing metamorphosis to transform and change shapes.
Tambourine: Butterfly breaking out of the pupa and flying out in the garden

To add to the activity, we asked the parents to bring a pillowcase and a scarf. The Sweet Peas climbed into their pillowcases (scarf tucked in at the bottom) and were very still inside their “pupa”. As they came out, they used their scarves as their wings, and then fluttered around the room.

This unsquiggle activity was a combination of an activity suggested in The Mailbox
Superbook, and one from THIS blog that offered Hungry Caterpillar lesson ideas.

LITERACY CENTER
Sound Box: We used the letter “C” this week. It’s a tough letter since it doesn’t always have the soft sound. In the future, we will use the letter “K” next to it reinforce the sound we are looking for. Most of the things on the tray had the hard “c” sound, the others were placed on there to be the “no” items.

Our “C” items: Can, Card, Cat, Car, Clip,Clothespin, Comb, Cow, Crown

MATH CENTER
Level 1: Taking inspiration from all the food mentioned in the story, we had the children roll the dice and then “feed” the caterpillar with the number of items that matched the number they rolled.

Level 2: Have the children sort the food into groups. We did fruits, vegetables, breads, desserts, and dairy.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This week we had an activity that provided an opportunity to work on motor skills.
Gross motor skills: hole punching
Fine motor skills: stringing the leaves they punched on a string.

Once the sweet peas were done with their leaves, they could glue them on the “tree’.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was a craft idea I picked up at a story time at the mall. Other ways to celebrate this story are to make thumbprint caterpillars with red and green ink. We also printed out an activity sheet from The Mailbox Superbook for the Sweet Peas to add to the story. The page asks them to draw other food the caterpillar tried to eat into the caterpillar’s tummy.

PPD: Arctic Animals

Play date: December 10, 2015
Theme: Arctic Animals

This was our last playdate for 2015, and it

STORY TIME
Charger’s MAPS book by came in handy again!! It had a beautiful illustration of the Arctic Circle that we were able to use during our opening discussion of the theme.

For story time, I chose a tale told in rhyme that also introduces the tundra, the animals, and counting concepts. Luckily, several of the figures I purchased to go along with the discovery center matched the animals in the book.

We lined up all the animals for storytime, and the Sweet Peas got to identify the animal that matched the page, and then pass the figure around for observation. It took a little longer to tell the story, however, it was great to keep their attention for the longer time!

LITERACY CENTER
Today I played the “easy” card and simply photocopied pages out of The Mailbox Superbook for both literacy and math. This was a good opportunity to point out that the penguins pictured at the top of the page are actually *Antarctic* animals – in real life, a penguin and a polar bear would probably not meet, even though they live together in our imaginations.

MATH CENTER
This print-out is another simple activity to incorporate the concepts of shapes, as well as fine (coloring, cutting) and gross motor skills

DISCOVERY TABLE
I think this was the big hit of the day. All of the children enjoyed sifting through the rice+glitter to find hidden animals, playing out scenes with the figures once they were found.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Also a The Mailbox Superbook idea modified to fit our school: Otter and I cut-out the center circles of a paper plate. Then we spray painted them silver the night before playdate so that they would have time to dry. The Sweet Peas all had different arrangements and placements for the stickers on their “wreath”.

As noted above, this was another opportunity to remind the children that while reindeer and penguins are often used to illustrate the season, they live on opposite ends of the earth.

This concludes our playdate series for the first half of this school year. I know we will be revisiting the Arctic animal theme since I have another book I want to share with the children that names several Arctic animals. Additionally, I want to redeem myself and offer the children more interactive literacy and math activities…I already have something at the edge of my mind to incorporate polar bears!

Be sure to check the “homeschool” or “toddler” links on the blog to find the other playdates we have enjoyed this season. Tune in starting in January to see our playdates for the second semester of the 2015-16 school year.

Preschool Playdate: Winter

Theme: Winter
Playdate: December 3, 2015

— 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: I had a bucket full of winter clothes that we pulled out for the children to explore, and we talked about the characteristics of the winter season.
— Storytime: Secrets of Winter
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Snowman song

Today’s songs and center ideas were from The Mailbox Superbook

STORY TIME
You can see my review for today’s book HERE. All the kiddos enjoyed this creative look through the forest during wintertime.

If you would like to order your own copy of this fantastic book, you can order one HERE. Orders placed by December 10, 2015 will arrive for holiday gifting at the end of the month.

LITERACY CENTER
This was a print center today. It also offered a fun opportunity for the children to explore negative space. We put out different circle shapes for the children to create a snowy winter scene complete with a snowman. Along with the white chalk for the snow, I also put out wax crayons that show up well on the dark paper.

Level 1: Free expression with the chalk

Level 2: Parents hold the circle and the child traces

Level 3: The child holds the shape and traces the figure onto the paper

MATH CENTER
This is a favorite from when our children were learning numbers. This printable is also from The Mailbox Superbook. We added the numbers for more reinforcement of the written number and 1-to-1 correspondence.

DISCOVERY CENTER
We have accumulated various winter outerwear through the years. We put all of it out for the children to try on. The first part of the center was a gross motor skill: shoveling the “snow” (cotton balls) into the bucket while they were dressed in the winter clothing.

After all the children finished the centers, we had an indoor snowball fight. I had bought the larger snowballs from Hallmark a couple of years ago, and we added all the cotton balls to the center of the floor. The kids were split into two groups and they had fun tossing the “snow” back and forth.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
We kept this one simple since our group has so many different ages. We used the doily, glue, and silver glitter. The original idea called for gluing different craft items onto a doily, spraying the whole creation with glue, and then covering the whole craft with glitter.

Today’s favorite activity was definitely the indoor snowball fight!!

Book Review: Secrets of Winter

Secrets of Winter
Written by Carron Brown
Illustrated by Bee Johnson
by Kane Miller EDC Publishing

We didn’t have a playdate to post yesterday since we took the week off for Thanksgiving last Thursday. So today, I’m sharing a sneak-peek into yesterday’s WINTER playdate.

My inspiration for this playdate was the changing of season this month. I had the perfect book to share, Secrets of Winter by Carron Brown & Georgina Tee. This book was new in our library this school year – I purchased it from my friend Tina, who is a rep for Usborne Books.

The story introduces the idea of exploring through a winter evening. The pictures alternate between full color and black&white, which seemed to keep the children’s attention. There is the added intrigue of seeing an additional image revealed when you shine a light through the page!

There is no need to trim the story as the storyteller. The story moves along with 2-3 sentences and/or statements per page. It also shows a large variety of animals and how they manage through the winter weather, so there are fun animal facts being acquired along with the visual enjoyment of the book.

Our guests and my own Sweet Peas thoroughly enjoyed the book! Their ages ranged from 2 years to 11 years old. From the endpaper printed with delightful animal prints, to the hidden surprises revealed with a flashlight on every page, there are endless ways to enjoy this book.

In fact, the children liked it so much, I sat with my legs out in front of me in order to keep the circle wide enough for everyone to see! That is definitely a first, and always a welcome sight to see children enjoying a book so much that they are piling on top of each other to get closer.

You can purchase your own copy of Secrets of Winter, other books in the “Secrets of” series, or anything else Usborne has to offer by following THIS link to Tina’s online store. Any orders placed before 12/10/2015 will arrive in time for Christmas gifting.

Happy reading!! Stay tuned for next Thursday’s installment of “Preschool Playdate” when I share all the activites we did to celebrate winter (hint: we had a snowball fight in Arizona!!).

Preschool Playdate: Thanksgiving

Preschool Playdate: November 19, 2015
Theme to introduce the concepts of Thanksgiving + Native American Month

— 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: We used the two Native American books pictured below to show the children how the continent of North America was populated before the arrival of European settlers, and to show them visually the rich culture that already existed here.
— Storytime: The Sweet Pea Kids presented a Thanksgiving Story play

STORY TIME

Here are the books we used to introduse the topic, and I am also sharing pictures of the pages that state the concept I was trying to get across to the children: the Europeans did not “discover” the Americas. There was already a rich, vibrant, and established culture that existed here. If one child will remember that and speak up when American colonization is taught in public school, then today’s mission will be accomplished.

I read the pages shown below, and then turned through the pages of The Very First Americans so the children could compare and contrast the ways of the Native Americans to the things we do today.

LITERACY CENTER
Today’s activity reincorced fine motor skills as well as letter recognition. You can print your own copy of this activity page HERE. The only modification I am going to make is to print the letters along the bottom row upside down on the clothespin so that they are “right side up” when the page is completer.

Level 1: pull out letters from child’s name or vowels

Level 2: all the letters of the alphabet

http://www.pre-kpages.com/thanksgiving/

MATH CENTER

Using corn kernels and fall/holiday shapes – more fine motor skills on this activity!

Level 1: parent orders the numbers and helps child count out the correct number of corn kernels for each card

Level 2: child orders the cards and counts the kernels. Parent can choose how many numbers 1-3, 1-5, etc. numbers 1-10 available

DISCOVERY TABLE

My mom sent me these “popcorns” from their community garden project in Illinois called the Manhattan Friendship Garden. One of the Thanksgiving stories we have read this school year talked about the Native Americans sharing popcorn with the European settlers, so this was a perfect share for playdate!

The corn is about 6-7 inches long, and it makes about the same amount of popcorn as 1/3 cup conventional kernels that we use in our Whirly-Pop.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take

We used craft paper and stickers that I bought on sale last year for this craft. The idea is that the Sweet Peas can write one thing they are thankful for on a daily basis: one gratitude per branch until Thanksgiving. On the holiday, they can share all their thankful statements with the family.

Thankful Tree – I modified THIS line drawing

We finish this Preschool Playdate with a play prepared by all of the children. Puma and Busy Bee wrote the play; Puma did the costuming, and as time ran short, they told me what they wanted for props and I helped out. They did a great job of modifying the Thanksgiving Story Book for our guests – it ended up being an 8-minute play.

All in all, it was a fun playdate with a little more emphasis on history than we usually do. I hope that you will have time to share some of these ideas with your family either before or after your Thanksgiving feast today.

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours <3

Preschool Playdate: Ninjas

Play date: November 12, 2015
Theme: Ninjas

The inspiration for all our activities was our storytime book and these amazing little cookie cutters that were gifted to the Sweet Pea kids:

STORY TIME
We pulled from two of our favorites for today’s theme. We used the MAPS book by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski to introduce the theme, and take a look at the country of Japan. It was perfectly suited for the theme: the pictures of the samurai and the ninja were right next to each other, and it was easy to have the children compare and contrast the two different kind of warriors.

For storytime after our songs, we read Nighttime Ninja, by Barbara DaCosta and Ed Young. It is the story of a ninja creeping into and through a home…with a delightful revelation at the end. Our guests enjoyed it as much as our children do.

LITERACY CENTER
I traced the cookie cutters and added faces to one side. On the reverse side I added the vowel letters in upper case and lower case letters. Whether the family played the Level 1 or Level 2, vowel sounds can be tied to the letter identification.

Level 1: Match vowel cases

Level 2: Play a memory game with all ten cards – face side up and have the children turn over two cards at a time in search of pairs.

MATH CENTER
“Count the katanas” was the first activity I came up with for today’s theme. Charger helped me find the right katana shape on the internet, and then he helped me decorate them once they were all cut out. I had 6 ninjas left over from the letter activity, so he added to the theme by numbering the ninjas on the back so that they could match the number on the katanas.

Level 1: Count the katanas

Level 2: Match the numbers on the katanas to the numbers on the ninjas.

Level 3: Order the numbers

DISCOVERY TABLE
Our discovery table was more of an activity for this theme. I set up an obstacle course, and the sweet peas had to do the course as quickly and as *quietly* as possible. It was so fun to see the kiddos try to sneak around the room, and have so much fun at the same time 🙂

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This theme’s project was inspired by Nighttime Ninja’s illustrator, Ed Young. The story is delightfully brought to life with his 3-D paper art. I wanted to have the art activity reflect that all art is not necessarily drawn or painted.

We provided glue, black ninja cut outs, yellow and white circles, brown “katanas”, and “cloud” shapes (although there are no clouds in the book – what’s a moonlit night without a little cloud cover?). We also provided some kite string for the children to embelish with if they wanted. The cookie cutters were available for the children that wanted to trace and cut their own ninja shapes from black paper. I set out the colored construction paper so the kiddos could pick their own background, then waited to see what would be created.

Here are examples from my four sweet peas. You can see that our older children also added some drawing elements into their pictures:

Preschool Playdate: Cookies

Playdate: October 29, 2015
Theme: In honor of National Cookie Month

— 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: we pulled out a book from our library, “Things People Do”, that showed all the different working parts of a bakery and ingredients used in baking.

— Storytime: “The Clever Baker”, a story from Scotland from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book.

— Unsquiggle activity: went along with our story this time! Four groups acted out different parts of the story

— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Patty Cake, Patty Cake Baker’s Man was planned – so excited to get into centers we skipped this!!

STORY TIME
Discussion time: The book on the left is Thing People Do by Anne Civardi and Stphen Cartwright. We opened up to the bakery page and talked about the things the children saw in the pictures. Night Owl also thought to bring in one of his castle books from Usborne Publishing to show what a bakery looked like in medival times. It was neat to show the kids that the ingredients are pretty much the same, as is the process of baking.

Story time: We read “The Clever Baker – A Story from Scotland” from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book by Bob Hartma and Krisztina Kállai Nagy. In the back of the book are suggestions for group storytelling, so I applied them to our group. We divided the group into four parts: noisy bakers, dogs, cats, and babies. As their parts were read out in the story, the group made their sound – it was such a fun storytime this week!!

LITERACY CENTER
The cookie letters are from Kidsparkz.com. I looked up 3-letter words and picked a couple of pairs that started and ended with the same letters and changed vowels.

Note: I am really trying to emphasize those vowel sounds this season for our pre-readers!! You can check back to see how our last few themes have incorporated the vowel concept.

Level 1: Match the letter pictures and identify sounds: A, C, P, T, U

Level 2: Match the letter pictures to the word cards

Level 3: Match letters to words and then have the child sound out the word.

MATH CENTER
This was a perfect opportunity to pull out one of our Lakeshore Learning games that our Sweet Peas have enjoyed for years!

Level 1: Roll and match the cookies to the number on the die

Level 2: Keep score! And add up the cookies on the plate until you get up to or past number 10.

DISCOVERY TABLE
We did the first activity before we started storytime. Each of the children received a card as they arrived (activity cards from Kidsparkz.com). As we talked about the ingredients or the equipment used to make bread, the child would come pick the item that matched their card.

We filled three old medicine jars with spices for the children to smell: cinnamon, clover, and nutmeg. I had thought of letting the children mix them into the playdough as they played…and then got busy with the Sweet Peas doing centers and forgot about pulling them out of the tray and moving them to the play center.

During playtime the children played with the equipment and play dough to “bake” their own cookies. Our “oven” is a banker’s box with the lid adjusted to be an opening door. It served as our supply holder for the first activity, and then as the “oven” during play time.

Our third “discovery” activity was meant to be a take-home…it kind of worked that way! Each family brought their favorite cookies to share. The children were meant to take a goody bag home for treats in the car so the sugar high would be away from playdate….little hands snuck into the “cookie jar” though, and there was snacking at playdate as well 🙂

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
I created a simple “cookie sheet” using shapes in a Word document, then printed them out to use as our art paper for today’s printing activity. Using watered down tempra paint and lids in different shapes and sizes, the Sweet Peas dipped into the paint and printed cookies on their cookie sheets. We invited to decorate them at home once the paint dried. You can see that Otter drew designs around her cookies instead of on them. It always warms my heart to see the Sweet Peas make an art project their own with their unique interpretation of the guidelines.

As I was poking around the internet to find cookie images, I also found THIS website with a fun cookie craft. If we had more time, I definitely would like to do this. I think we are going to save it for our year-end celebration when we have more time for play.

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 stay and play until the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives.

I hope you and your Sweet Peas have lots of fun if you are inspired to have your own COOKIE DAY. Have a great week!

Preschool Playdate: Buttons

Preschool Playdate: October 22, 2015
Inspiration: Count Your Buttons Day

— 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: Shared five different articles of clothing and the different kinds of buttons they had. Talked about how once upon a time, the kind of buttons someone wore could tell you about their lifestyle or place of origin.
— Storytime: Corduroy

STORY TIME
Of course we had to share Corduroy by Don Freeman, the story of the little bear with the lost button!!

LITERACY CENTER
My intention was to reinforce vowel sounds, along with using words that start with “B” like “button”. B and G lent themselves well to this little activity, so I created little word cards with the idea that the Sweet Peas would use the buttons to cover the letters, working fine motor skills as well as reinforcing vowels and phonics.

I tried this activity on two days…I had my doubts about the image for “big”. Rightly so – many of the non-reading Sweet Peas said “dog” when they saw that card. For the littles it ended up being more of a word identification game. Only my elementary school kiddos were interested in forming the letters out of buttons on the word cards.

The most fun at this center for our preschool guests was playing with the buttons. Everyone played in the button box. Very few played with the cards as I had envisioned.

I think on it’s own this center might work. The biggest attraction was the Arts & Crafts center, so the Literacy and Math centers fell by the wayside this particular day.

MATH CENTER
This was a button sorting bonanza. I had originally designed these activities for our Sweet Peas’ “Busy Books”. One card was designed to sort by color, the other size, and the third was a “free play”. There were six different outlines so the child could follow through with their own idea of how to sort.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Buttoning buttons!
Another activity was taken directly from the Busy Books I made. In order to have enough for all the children that attend, I made enough of these for all the Sweet Peas to be able to play at once if that’s how the group moved. I sewed a big button on to one end of the ribbon; on the other side I sewed to a square piece of felt that would act as the “stopper” for the other felt squares being buttoned on to the ribbon.

Level 1: Motor skill development as children “button” the fabric and then slide it down the ribbon.

Level 2: Patterning – the children could create a pattern with the felt shapes as they buttoned the fabric onto the ribbon.

The other center was playing with the different kinds of buttons found on clothing: plastic, wood, metal, shell, and fancy 🙂 I left the clothes out that we introduced at the beginning of the playdate so that the Sweet Peas could take a closer look at the buttons and try to button and unbutton the clothing.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was an adaptation of a “Love Bug” Valentine’s Day Craft. I called these “Cute as a Button” Bugs. This was the big hit for the day!

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Sweet Pea Families

Life beyond the Birth-Day

Category Archives: Activites

Preschool Playdate: Flowers

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Preschool Playdate: Make A Friend

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Preschool Playdate: Hungry Caterpillar

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PPD: Arctic Animals

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Preschool Playdate: Winter

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Book Review: Secrets of Winter

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Preschool Playdate: Thanksgiving

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Preschool Playdate: Ninjas

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Preschool Playdate: Cookies

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Preschool Playdate: Buttons

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