Tag Archives: playdate

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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Preschool Playdate: Black History Month

This unit was a fun one to put together.  It came together with inspiration from Nick, Jr of all places.  They have a section on Black History Month with **lots** of printables.  Check out the links under each activity.

We started the same way:
— 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

Book for Black History theme: Our Children Can Soar by Michelle Cook
Collaborative illustration – each historical figure is presented by a different artist.
Beautiful illustrations and simple prose highlighted some standouts in US history – it is perfect for this age group.  It was literally the last book I picked up after almost an hour at the book store. I am so glad I am persistent!!  I hope there is a follow-up version in the works.  While there are many acheivers mentioned in this volume,  there are other African-American luminaries I would have like to have seen included.  Overall it is a beautiful book and served its purpose to raise awareness that people of color have contributed to US history, and have their own rich cultural heritage alongside the predominantly Anglo-European historical perspective.

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Poem for Black History theme from The Best of Mailbox Songs & Fingerplays Book

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LITERACY CENTER
I incorporated cards from the Nick, Jr. printable sets (Artists, Athletes, Inventors) and had the Sweet Peas match the magnet letters to the first letters in the people’s names.  Parents could read the card to the Sweet Pea – if a little one had a longer attention span, they would listen to the all the text on all the cards.  If they had a shorter attention span, parents could give them the highlights.
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MATH CENTER
We brought the clothesline and clothespins back since we had a different set of Sweet Peas joining us, and this activity is usually a favorite when we finish up and share about our morning.
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ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
One of the featured inventors in the Nick, Jr. printable coloring pages invented the ice cream scoop! I printed out the coloring page, and then we punched out circles and cut out triangles so kiddos could create and paste their own ice cream creations on their coloring page.
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DISCOVERY TABLE
We incorporated Alfred Cralle and his invention of the ice cream scoop in our discovery activity.  We pulled out all our ice cream play sets and let the Sweet Peas explore textures; and also do some imaginative play as they made ice cream for the parents and for each other.

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Ice cream sets: Learning Resources Rainbow Color Cones, ice cream portion of IKEA DUKTIG 18-piece felt dessert set, Lego Duplo Ice Cream Playset

 

 

Other printable coloring pages we didn’t use – they will come in handy to inspire other activites as we do this theme again next year:
PEOPLE
WOMEN

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what they 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 the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives.

I hope you enjoyed the tour through our Black History Month theme.  This was a very emotional day for me.  Even though we are not African-American, my mom’s family has immigrant/Texan migrant worker roots, and stories of how people of color overcome adversity to succeed against all odds is near and dear to my heart.

Preschool Playdate: Chinese New Year

We used to host a great group called “Peas & Pods” that met every other week.  It was for parents (mostly moms) and Sweet Peas to get together, meet other families, and support each other on the parenting journey.  Then one of our alums started hosting a breastfeeding group at her home, and another alum started offering parenting classes…so our group seemed redundant.

After seeing Dr. Harvey Karp speak about the importance of toddlers being socially stimulated on a regular basis, I decided to offer an opportunity for our alums with toddlers to get together.  This was a need that wasn’t being met by the other groups, and after teaching childbirth classes for almost four years, there were toddlers amongst us (including our own!).

Thus, the weekly Preschool Play-date was born!  We started doing these in September 2014, but I didn’t think to start documenting with pictures until February 2015.  I am looking forward to sharing some of the themes we did last Spring with you.  My hope is that they will inspire you to get creative with your own Sweet Peas.

We started with Circle Time:
— Welcome Song where every child found their name and placed it on the Name Table
— Spanish Welcome Song that reinforced each child’s name so that the Sweet Peas could get to know each other.
— Story Time
— Squiggle Activity – something to get the wiggles out!

Every week, I planned at least four different centers:
— Letter/Writing/Literacy
— Math
— Arts & Crafts
— Discovery

Some weeks, we would have other activities as well – it would depend on how much I could find around the house to fit the theme.  I purchased very little outside of craft supplies and paper.  You can definitely do these themes on a shoe-string budget!

Story: “The Ivory Wand” from Stories From Around the World – Usborne Children’s Books

Circle Time: Talked about the Chinese Zodiac and shared that 2015 was the Year of the Sheep according to the Chinese calendar

Now for the center activities:

LETTER/LITERACY/WRITING ~ Make+Take:
One thing I remember from living in Taiwan is that people exchanged red envelopes on Chinese New Year.  I wanted to incoporate that idea with an activity that would allow children to recognize their name letters and organize them in order, because when you get an envelope, it ususally has your name on it!

So I used red card stock, and printed a good wish that I found HERE.  Then I programmed an index card with each child’s name, used punch out letters I picked up from the Tuesday Morning craft section, and put them in an envelope with the name clipped to the outside.

When the Sweet Pea participated in the center, first they had to find the right card with their name.  Then they pulled the letters out of the envelope, organized them in order, and glued them to their sentiment card.
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MATH CENTER:
This math center is one of my favorites.  The Sweet Peas get to use their motor skills as well as their ordering.  Each tee-shirt was programmed with a number and correspodinging dots.  The child could either hang them on a “laundry line” that we tied up between two chairs, or simply clip the clothepins to match the number on the shirt.

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ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make+Take:
This craft idea came from Enchanted Learning.  I used the red paper I had on hand, plus craft sticks and a print out of a dragon’s head and tail on card stock.  I took a line drawing found in the Internet, cut off the tail and head that I wanted, and then enlarged it so it would look somewhat balanced.

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DISCOVERY TABLE: Sounds
We filled old prescription bottles with five different fillers that made distinct sounds: dry rice, dry beans, seeds, bells, and beads  We covered them with contact paper, and also made them self-correcting so that a Mother-Toddler pair could move ahead without waiting for me to check their matching.

150219 PP04 150219 PP05Thanks for taking a peek into our “Chinese New Uear” theme! Until next week when we share what we did to celebrate Black History Month.