Tag Archives: playdate

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:

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 stay and play until lunchtime.

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!

Preschool Playdate: Pumpkins

We enjoyed all these activities on October 15, 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: Showed the word “pumpkin” written on the word card, and also passed around the basket of pumpkins for the children to explore

— Storytime

— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: “5 Little Pumpkins” fingerplay

STORY TIME
Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington

Sweet little story of growing a pumpkin from seed to sprout to flower, and then watching it grow into a large pumpkin.

LITERACY CENTER
Letter Guessing Game inspired by a The Mailbox Superbook activity – I spelled out the word “pumpkin” in uppercase and lowercase letters, and then also selected uppercase and lowercase magnets to match.

Level 1/2: Parents pull out the letters, name them for the children and tell the phonic sound (child repeats), and then either place them in order under the tag, or have the children place them in the right spot.

Level 2: Child reaches into the bag, feels the letter, and then guesses what they think it is. Then they pull it out to check their guess, and place it in the correct order to spell out, “pumpkin”.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Literacy Center

MATH CENTER
This idea is from Preschool Plan It – see the original instructions HERE

You can download the printable I made for your own personal use – it’s not pretty or professional, just an easy file you can print on your own to make your own manipulatives: PPD Pumpkins Math Center. I left the front blank with only the letter on the leaf; the back had the letter leaf and pumpkin seed stencils on the back.

The instructions were to put the pumpkins and some pumpkin seeds on the table and see what the children would do. Here are some ideas for ways to lead the children:

Level 1: Have the children identify the numbers and put them in order

Level 2: Practice one-to-one correspondence by having the children place pumpkin seeds on the stenciled shapes

Level 3: Start introducing the concept of even and odd numbers. I purposely stenciled the pumpkin seeds in columns so that the children could get a visual understanding of what makes a number “even”, and what makes it “odd”.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Math Center

DISCOVERY TABLE
I picked up some gourds and mini-pumpkins from Trader Joe’s. We picked them to represent some of the different colors aside from orange, and also with texture in mind. The children could look at them and/or feel them to decide if they were “smooth” or “bumpy”. You might make this extra-sensory by blindfolding the children and then having them sort.

The other part of today’s discovery was for the children to taste pumpkin-flavored foods. I found a gluten-free pancake mix at Trader Joe’s, picked up a box of their pumpkin snack bars, and I also added some sprouted pumpkin seeds that we buy at Costco. I also offered some of the shelled seeds that were from the bag that we used for math – they were toasted with oil and salt; also from Trader Joe’s.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Discovery Center

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This idea is inspired by Preschool Plan It – see the original instructions HERE

The idea from Preschool Plan It was to do the handprint pumpkin, and the stem with a finger. I didn’t want two different colors of paint to wash off, so I pulled out our green and brown ink pads. I started by printing a heart shaped leaf using the thumb pad and green ink. Next, I dipped the whole thumb in the brown ink. Lastly, I brushed orange paint on the child’s knuckles of a clenched hand, and then printed those onto the paper.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Arts & Crafts

Plus, one more activity with play dough…making pumpkins with faces (suggested by Preschool Plan It and executed with THIS play dough recipe)

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate

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 goodbye 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 for a little while so we can catch up and talk attachment parenting.

Preschool Playdate: Fire Safety

Playdate: Fire Safety
October 8, 2015

I chose this theme in honor of Fire Safety Week last week. I learned something new while prepping, which is always an added bonus. Scroll down to the end of the post for my “aha” moment.

— 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: Started out by creating a chart of the things they children already knew about fire. We also talked about the different places we see fire, and what to do when we see matches or lighters: don’t touch, and alert your parents or another adult
— Storytime: Golden Book
— Unsquiggle activity: We did some exercises to be in shape like fire fighters
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: 9-1-1 song

From The Mailbox Songs & Fingerplays book

Help Is On The Way!
“Three Blind Mice”

9-1-1, 9-1-1 –
Help’s on the way, help’s on the way
When I need help, I know what to do.
I dial this number for me and for you.
It calls the police and the firehouse too.
It’s 9-1-1.

Jessica Matthews
Footprints, Vernon, NJ

The ideas for all of today’s activities came from Preschool Plan It

PPD Fire Safety Circle Time, PPD Fire Safety Literacy, and PPD Fire Safety Math are the printables I created for today’s playdate. You are welcome to download and print for your non-commercial home use. They are not professional by any stretch of the imagination 🙂

STORY TIME: Golden Book

LITERACY CENTER

Level 1: Phonics of the word “FIRE” along with the introduction of the “Magic E” that makes the “I” say it’s name.

Level 2: Children fill in the coloring page

Level 3: Children trace the letters and numbers to create their own “Fire 911” sign.

MATH CENTER

Hat and Boot Match

Level 1: Parent orders the numbers and the dots and shows the child the one-to-one correspondence.

Level 2: Parent orders the numbers or the dots, and the child matches the other.

Level 3: Child orders and matches the sets of cards on their own.

DISCOVERY TABLE

Activity 1: We put out some helmets, a costume jacket, and some other red clothes to let the children dress up as firefighters.

Activity 2: Mixing colors – red and yellow make orange, and all three are the color of flames. Children could simply mix the colors, or they could write letters or numbers in the paint without getting dirty!! This was a wonderful activity for the children that like paint and do not like to get their hands dirty.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take

We precut red squares and rectangles, used the scraps of white card stock, and punched out circles in black and white. We placed everything on the ground with glue and a toy fire truck to let the Sweet Peas decide how they wanted to make their fire truck craft.

CLOSING ACTIVITY:

Children mentioned one thing they learned about fire safety. I also pulled out our parachute to teach the children that they need to crawl out a burning house to stay below the rising smoke.

Tune in next week to see all the fun at our Pumpkin Playdate!

P.S. My “aha” moment: When I was reading the Preschool Plan It page on fire safety activities, the teacher talked about how it is even more important to acclimate an anxious child to the sound of the fire alarm in your home or school. The best way to figure out who can handle the noise and who is going to freak out: let them experience the fire alarm when it’s not an emergency. She said that an anxious child is more likely to be the one to hide in the event of a fire drill, or even worse, during a real fire. By talking them through it and literally holding their hand during a drill, you start to build their confidence and courage in the event that the fire alarm signals for the “real deal”. Today’s playdate was also a great reminder for our own family to review and practice our fire safety plan – I hope it will be a good reminder for you, too.

Preschool Playdate: Fall Leaves

This theme was inspired by the First Day of Fall on 9/23/15…playdate held on 9/24/15

— 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 – Colorful Leaves
— Unsquiggle activity: Vowel Song
— Storytime: A Leaf Blew In
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Otter made up a little song about falling leaves to the tune of “London Bridge” – awesome!!

The leaf and the acorn patterns seen in the centers are from The MailBox Superbook.

STORY TIME
We started the morning by reading the highlights out of the book, Colorful Leaves, by Maria Fleming. It introduced basic biology concepts and vocabulary: photosynthesis, cholorphyll, buds, veins, roots.

We used castanets to make the sound of leaves blowing slowly, and then increased speed as the wind blew harder, and then back down to slow again as the wind passed.

After that, we read When the Leaf Blew In, by Steve Metzger. I invited the children to make the animal sounds as we read through the barnyard adventure.

LITERACY CENTER
Two activities here~
Pre-writing: offered a pile of construction paper leaves and acorns for the Sweet Peas to write or draw on.
Phonics: Vowel identification and matching, along with sounding out the letters.

MATH CENTER
Reprising an activity from our Johnny Appleseed Day, I pulled out the apple number cards I had made. 1: they have leaves on them, 2: apples are harvested in the fall 🙂

Level 1: Count the apples

Level 2: Order the numbers on the back of the cards

Level 3: Play a “memory” match game with two sets of cards, and then order the numbers.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Activity 1: Acorn hunt!! The leaves were purchased at our local Tuesday Morning store. We filled our tub with the leaves and the acorn cut-outs. The children had to rake through the leaves to find 10 happy acorns.

Activity 2: Play dough in red, orange, and yellow today! Pounding or rolling the dough in order to use the cookie cutters, or they could press the leaves and acorns into the dough to make impressions.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
One of the topics in the Colorful Leaves book pointed out how leaves come in many different shapes. These are some of the different shapes that I collected outside our home. The children got to arrange them as they wanted to and then make a leaf rubbing to take home.

I saved all the leaves and pressed them between two boards and under a pile of cookbooks after the playdate. The plan is to let them dry out and have the children observe the changes at the next session.

Preschool Playdate: Wildflowers

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

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.

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 🙂

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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:

Preschool Playdate: Science Day

Held on April 23, 2015

The inspiration for this day was the fact that World Laboratory Day was observed on April 23, 2015. I thought it would be fun to have the kids attend their own Science Lab and get a chance to be immersed in exploration and discovery for an hour. I planned out this day by focusing an experiement on different aspects of science: measuring, magnets, animal kingdom, and weather.

As you will notice, most of our Sweet Peas made or contributed to the sign for their station. Puma was at the Water Cycle, Night Owl was at the magnets (I made this one before the kiddos all piped up that they wanted to make their own!), Charger did the Wind Power, and Otter contributed to the Mass sign. It was cool to see how her lines were denser in some areas than others….she got the concept in her own toddler way!! Even our nanny got involved and ran an activity since I got carried away with the planning…once I got started, I was on a roll!

STORY TIME
I found THIS slide show online that I printed to share with the children. Big pictures, simple explanations, and lots of vocabulary!! Perfect for preschool!!

What is-a-scientist from Sam Pelham

LITERACY CENTER
Here we explored the concept of feathers, fur, and scales. It is an activity out of the Mailbox Superbook. The Sweet Peas identified the animal, and then sorted them into the correct category according to the type of skin covering the animal has. We added a sensory component by having examples of the different kinds of skin coverings for the children to investigate and discuss.

MATH CENTER
This center explored the mass of different items. They measured different quantities into the scale basket, noticed whether or not the same amount of different items weighed the same,We also had them make a prediction about how much the half-full bean container and the full container of feathers would weigh, and which was greater. This led to a conversation about how much air vs. mass were in the different things we weighed.

DISCOVERY TABLE

TABLE 1: Magnets
Sweet Peas got to play with magnetic fishing poles to see what was and wasn’t magnetic. Once they items were worted into two piles, we talked about the qualities of both sets.

TABLE 2: The Water Cycle
This simple experiment using water and cotton balls allowed the Sweet Peas to physically experience how water droplets collect together to form clouds until they are too full to hold any more condensation, and then see how precipitation happens when the cloud is beyond capacity. We introduced the words “evaporation”, “condensation”, and “precipitation”. It was neat to see everyone at this station have lightbulb moments.

TABLE 3: Wind Power
The Sweet Peas got to experiement with the power of air at this station. First they blew through the straws onto their palms to feel what they could do with their own lungs. Then they got to experiment with blowing “wind” across our little “pond” to see how the boats moved. They could blow along the bottom, the top, turn the sails and blow into the sails…another favorite since water and straws were involved.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
First the Sweet Peas colored a coffee filter with water-soluble markers. Then we attached the filter accordian style to a prepared-ahead popsicle stick on which Puma had a hot-glued a pipe cleaner. We twisted it at the top and formed antennae. Once the “butterfly” was assembled, we used water that we trapped in the straws with our fingers to stain the wings. The Sweet Peas got to experiement with how much water they could trap, how fast the flow was, and see how the colors blended and make predictions about the new colors that might result from the color blending. Once the “wings” dried out, they had a take-home butterfly puppet.

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. There were lots of different favorites on this day…even some of the moms mentioned stations where they learned something new – that was pretty cool!

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

I hpe you enjoyed our tour through Science Experiement day!! My intention was to show our friends that science doesn’t have to be this daunting thing – every day things around the house can easily turn into an opportunity for discovery, and to awaken curiosity and exploration.

Preschool Playdate: Johnny Appleseed

We hosted a playdate in honor of Johnny Appleseed (née John Chapman) close to one of two “Johnny Appleseed Days” recognized in the calendar year. One day is observed on his birthday (September 26, 1774), the other on the anniverary of his death (March 18, 1845).

How we start our playdates:
— 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

STORY TIME
We have a wonderful book about Johnny Appleseed from our Sonlight readers. Unfortunately, the text is too advanced for our preschools. So I improvised! I pulled together some highlights about Johnny Appleseed that went along with the beautiful two-page illustrations that are in this book. A toddler version of Johnny Appleseed’s life was born! Puma helped by reading out the text while I turned to the marked pages.

Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend; Written and Illustrated by Will Moses

LITERACY CENTER
This was another week where I came up with my own idea for our letter center. Since “apple” is a common vocabulary word, I decided to work in the word and the letters that comprise the word, in addition to working in the colors of the apples the children would be tasting at the Discovery Table. This also had a tactile sensory component – the letters were different shapes, sizes and textures. I purposely made the two vowels with a red background to set them apart from the consonants. (Microsoft Word for Mac; Century Gothic Font; Outline option in the Font menu)

Level 1: Sorting and Sound Identification
If the child is still working on letter recognition, they can play at this center by sorting the letters into the correct bowl. As the letters are sorted, parents can reinforce the sound that the letter makes: “A says aah”; “E says eeh”; etc.

Level 2: Identifying Uppercase and Lowercase
The next step in this center would be to add in the concept of “uppercase” and “lowercase”, and identify them as they are sorted into the bowls.

Level 3: Spelling
For our advanced toddlers and the older siblings: the third option was to find the letters and place them in order to spell the word “apple”. The older siblings could look at the word for 30 seconds; then turn over the card; find the right letters and place them on the table; and then check their spelling by turning the card right side up for self-correction or confirmation that they spelled the word “apple” correctly.

MATH CENTER
This center reinforced counting concepts in English and in Spanish. The front of the card was printed with an apple. On the back side, I wrote out the number and the word in Spanish. I made these with an apple image I found online; fit them onto a “table” in a Word document, and printed them on cardstock. Final step was to cover them with clear contact paper so they would be more durable.

Level 1: Counting
A parent could simply take as many apples as the child could count, maybe add one more; and place the apples out on the table as they counted. Aside from teaching the order of the numbers, it reinforces 1-to-1 correspondence (more about that HERE).

Level 2: Ordering
A parent could use the reverse side, scramble the order, and have the child place them in the correct order. Younger toddlers might need the parent to call the number out for them; more advanced kiddos could order them independently.

Level 3: Memory Game
Using two sets of cards, parents could lay them out and play a memory game with their child. You could use as many cards as your child can remember placements. For a toddler just learning the concept of “Memory”, maybe you would play with six cards, finding the pairs for 1-3. With an older child, you might use the whole set of 1-6 pairs; or anything in between according the child’s interest and attention span.

DISCOVERY TABLE
This idea was pulled from The Toddler Calendar. Their activity included tasting raw apples, and apples cooked with cinnamon and sugar. Since we wanted to keep it simple and avoid any possible allergies, we stuck to raw and dehydrated apples. We offered red, yellow, and green varieties. There were not many pieces left on the plates at the end of our playdate; and I think we even refilled the yellow and the green!

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
I always enjoy using natural objects in art. For today’s craft, I cut off the end of a carrot and pared opposite ends to form the shape of an apple. Children could dip it in red paint or green ink to print apples on their paper.

The other neat thing to show the children was how the center of an apple has a star shape. Some of the apples even had a six-point shape at the core! I learned something new, too! Lastly, we pulled out the seeds, and the children had the option to glue the seeds to their art projects.

As we showd them the seeds, we talked about how those same seeds could be planted to grow into big trees, that in turn could grow more yummy apples for them to eat.

Here is the letter on cardstock; children printed and pasted on the letter “A” to reinforce the beginning letter sound.

I hope you enjoyed our tour through our Johnny Appleseed Day! I think the most fun for me was watching the kiddos explore all the tastes of the different apples, and seeing them enjoy food they had never tried before.

Sweet Pea Families

Life beyond the Birth-Day

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