Idea of the Day: Practicing numbers

All you need is a dry erase marker, a whiteboard - or even pencil and paper - and you can draw places to stick pom poms, buttons, or other objects. This seemed to help my daughter start to associate counting with actual objects.

 

Resource: Preschool Mom

My daughter has gone through the alphabet and numbers quilts and attempted writing each a few times!

https://preschoolmom.com/preschool-resources/classroom-quilt-coloring-pages/

Idea of the Day: Popsicle people

I made this up looking at a similar craft on the popsicle stick box!

Washi tape, googly eyes, and glue were all on hand already. I held two sticks together and she unwound and wrapped the tape. I helped with the glue and she pressed on the eyes.

If you don't have tape, ribbons, or fabric strips can work, too. Or you could buy some online -

Idea of the Day: Pom pom counting

I made a different color for each number and we used pom poms to represent the numbers then. She also used the tongs to get them out of the colander.

Idea of the day: Watercolor

I showed her how to get a drop of water, put it on the color, paint with it, get more when needed or dip I the water to change colors. 

I apparently didn't have the smock yet in this picture - we got a long sleeved smock at Ikea!

She's had very few spills / messes with watercolors. She's also been incredibly obsessed with them, painting full pages, page after page, for up to an hour at a time. I bought 3 books with 64 pages after she finished her first 64 page book within a month!

This is the type she's been working through:

Resource: Totschooling

So far one of my favorite resources is Totschooling!
Free printables galore -
http://www.totschooling.net/

Idea of the Day: Pattern Blocks

Who didn't use pattern blocks as a kid?
Now you can actually print them mats / design sheets to use with them! We bought a set of cards, but, when she has tired of these we have lots of printable options.



The blocks themselves come in both plastic or wood, and different amounts, depending on your price range.

Sort popsicle sticks into jars

The goal was put one stick in the jar with number one, two in jar with the number two on it. She had a pretty hard time stopping the right number as we went, but we will do it again soon!

Idea of the Day: Marshmallow Painting

Leftover marshmallows from S'mores?
I saw something about Marshmallow Painting on Pinterest. It was actually great for my slightly stale marshmallows. We used finger paint again. She enjoyed swirling the paint and making dots and swirling again. We did it on her picnic bench outside this time.

By the way, that's a tray from bell peppers that I washed off and use for a paint tray! We let leftover paint dry up and peel it off prior to our next use.

Idea of the Day: Doodle Board Letters

Thanks to my friend Hannah for this! Her son would trace over the letters she and her husband drew with the pen for him with one one the thicker shapes to practice.

When my daughter got the hang of some of these, we made a new game with my letter first, then she'd draw one next to it. This was her favorite for days!

Tips: Start with simpler ones to build confidence. Maybe an O is easier, maybe just do a line for an I.

I bought our doodle board for cross country move and have never regretted it! She's used it so much and now the baby boy is starting to, as well.

Idea of the Day: Cheerios along a line

Wavy, zig zag, loops - we haven't quite mastered the scissors in order to cut along the lines, but one "fine motor skills" activity that only took me seconds to set up was lining up Cheerios on such lines!

And the clean up is usually effortless on my part... snack time anyone? 

 

Resource of the Day: Dollar Tree Bible series

If you are interested in helping your child learn about the Christian faith, Dollar Tree has a Bible series that I've been reading books from, and now I spotted these lesson plans. They may be more for the older age - I know I'm not quite there yet for giving them to my daughter because she doesn't have the skills to do all the activities yet - but we will save them and keep reading the books for now!

Once in a while there's a theology issue / change of story that I tend to either stop and explain my view from reading the actual Scripture, or I skip it (Jonah for example, I believe the book said "And then Jonah always obeyed God from then on" and I'm like no, he was human, and he was alive more than one more day so I know he disobeyed God again... and there's a story right after Ninevah about him being angry at God and the whole vine example...)

Idea of the Day: Beads

A classic but great fine motor skill and busy activity for kids is stringing beads! You can also do cereal with holes, but, we got good old fashioned pony beads and Dollar Tree lanyard.

Pony Beads: Lanyard

Idea of the day: Obstacle Course

A chair or two, a table, a rope set on the floor - an obstacle course is actually not that hard to set up on the fly!

Get practice with communicating "over, under, around, through" and change up the order every few turns. This doesn't have to be a multiple kid activity, either! And if you have boxes - you can get pretty creative!

Ideas for objectives

So, I'm not saying that these are necessarily perfectly separate phases. These were just born out of lists I've created and kept as we have progressed. Also, I'm not saying my daughter perfectly has mattered everything in a phase, before we move forward, but rather I've introduced the concepts and determined where she is capable of applying knowledge to keep learning and where we should pause because we are going beyond her skills, or patience level. I always redirect if she's getting frustrated - "Well we can try this again sometime" works wonders with this age 😉. I also am overboard with the praise when she makes a big effort at something new, or is creative about a solution when something is too hard.

I use these objectives to search for activities on Pinterest, several websites (look for posts to come but totschooling.net is one), and Google in general. I pick 3 activities, 15 minutes or less, each day. Often one is a repeat because that's easy for me and automatically reinforces skills for her.

Objectives List 1:

Started at 18 months or less.

Identify:
Basic Shapes
Basic Colors
Letters
Numbers 1-10
Count to 10

Activities:
Play doh
Finger Paint
Chalk
Crayons
Wonder Color Markers
Basic Puzzles

Objectives List 2:

Started sometime after she turned 2.

Write Letters
Write Numbers
Numbers 11-20
Secondary Shapes (cube, octagon)
More Colors
Drawing Shapes
Opposites
Bigger than/smaller than

Activities:
Above plus
Water"paint" books
Dry Erase books (practice tracing letters, numbers, shapes, finding objects, etc.)
WaterWow Books (Melissa and Doug)
Sorting buttons

Objectives List 3:

Started around 3.

Letter sounds
Idea of addition / subtraction
Cutting paper
Folding paper
Mazes
Specific directions (under, above, beside)

Activities:
Watercolors
Puzzles (more advanced)
Beads
Lacing cards
Pattern blocks

Resource of the day: Leap Frog

I'm not a huge TV all day type of person when it comes to my kids - I know they need to build their minds, muscles, and social skills lots of different ways.  When they watch LeapFrog, some of it actually has helped my daughter with learning letters and now even phonics! If you have Netflix, several of the LeapFrog 20 minute episodes are available. There are about a dozen out there, but they aren't super expensive if you'd rather buy the DVD's for in the car, or however you like to play them.

Idea of the day: Sort Buttons

You can pick a variety pack of buttons up at Walnart for about $8, or head on over to Amazon and get them delivered for use in a few days from now!


Sort by color, size, count the holes and sort by 2's and 3's and 4's. You can use pom poms, colored caps off of the baby food pouches (we actually made a necklace with those!), or anything you're ok with your child playing with. These are a choking hazard potentially, but we put them up high when we are done (more so for brother than her).

You can improvise with dishes or even plain paper to sort onto. If you have jars from baby food you could even wrap them with colored paper, add a number for the number of holes, etc.

Idea of the day: Painting with fingerpaint

Idea of the day:

Remember that what is novel to them may seem mundane to you, because you've been around X years, but the world is new to them.

So, fingerpaint isn't for everyone and every room. But a paintbrush, having some diaper wipes handy, wearing an old shirt or smock or no shirt, and putting down a vinyl tablecloth are my paint mess reducing go to's. It doesn't have to be for hours... just 15 minutes, and then put it in your own designated drying area and say it's done!

Other ideas: handprint / thumbprint art, sponges, objects

Ideas I didn't think worked: blocks

For about $5, you can get a set of 6 paints that will last quite a while:

Introduction

My theory of teaching preschool, like almost everything in my life, is that is should be practical instead of unattainable, unmaintainable "perfect."

So, I'll show and tell, take it or leave it. Hence, I welcome comments if you have ideas to share!

I have been a Sunday School teacher, an Awana leader, a daycare "preschool" paid worker in multiple places, and I've volunteered for lots of VBS's - so I'm pulling from more than a decade and more than a dozen settings and an embarrassingly well stocked craft room.

So I promise to attempt to give credit when due, and cite my sources, and give you ideas for at home!


Note: I saved these from events, did not make them myself, just used as inspiration: