Pipe Cleaners in a Jar

Stuffing Pipe Cleaners

Materials:
empty (clean) Parmesan cheese jar
pipe cleaners (cut into small pieces)
straws (cut into small pieces)

Push the small pipe cleaners or straws through the holes.
Dump or shake them out and do it again!

Kansas Early Learning Standards

PHD.t.4:

Coordinates the use of arms, hands and fingers to accomplish more complex tasks 

PHD.p3.2:

Uses classroom and household tools independently and with eye-hand coordination to carry out more complex activities.

K using the straws.

Excellent fine motor skills being worked!

K stopping for a "cheese".

Great eye hand coordination!

Allow your child to lead the activity for as long as she/he wants to explore.  Then try some extended activities.

Extended Activities:
> count the straws/pipe cleaners as your child puts them in
> name colors to be put in (put the yellow straw in, put the green pipe cleaner in, etc.)
> ask your child to put in a certain number of straws/cleaners (Can you put in 3 straws?)

Letter A Activities

Letter A Activities

N completed a variety of activities to establish knowledge of the letter A.  Repetition is very important for memorization.  N repeated the name of the letter A and the short sound of the letter A several times during each activity.  It is also important to include upper and lower case letters together when working with individual letters. 

Standards

Common Core Standard:  
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.L.K.1a Print many upper- and lowercase letters.

 

Kansas Early Learning Standard:  

CL Standard 4:  Demonstrates emergent writing skills

Resource:  ABC printables @ www.3dinosaurs.com

A is for Apple

N is practicing proper position of the crayon and staying in the lines.

Using the letter A stamp to fill up the apple.

Proud of her work

Outlining the letter A with Apple Jacks

We went on a letter hunt in our neighborhood.  N found letter A's on trash cans, for sale signs, street signs, and company names stamped in the sidewalk.

Writing the letter A with chalk.

Apple Painting

Cutting Paint Chips

Cutting Paint Chips

Using scissors correctly is one of the skills most preschoolers have not developed before going to school.  Don't be afraid to put a pair of scissors in your child's hands- with supervision, of course!

Teach them how to:
1) hold the scissors with correct placement of thumb and fingers
2) open and close (cutting straws is great practice for this)
...and when they are ready...
3) cut along a straight line

Paint chips are excellent (FREE) resources for this kind of activity.  They provide a thick, solid, straight line AND they are sturdy enough for little hands to hold without too much bending.  Some paint chips are tall and slender so it wouldn't take too much effort to succeed at the task.  As your child masters the opening and closing of the scissors you can give them the longer lines.  Success is very important to your child-especially at this age.  The littlest thing- like cutting a small straight line, can give them such a sense of independence.   

Do A Dot Name Painting

Dot Paint Name

N loves to use the dot paints! Such a simple activity that keeps her attention.  Simply write your child's name in large letters (upper or lower case-they need to learn to recognize both) and let him/her start dabbing away!  N likes to drag the dot painters so I had to show her again how to dab them. 

Other ideas for this activity:
~ large shapes
~ individual letters
~ curvy or zigzag lines
~ print off alphabet pages from
http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/12/a-z-do-a-dot-worksheets.html
~ search for other great do a dot pages

Pre-K Practice Sheets

L is now attending preschool 4 half days a week.  I have decided to make some practice sheets for him to do at home when he wants to do schoolwork.

Materials:

1) card stock
2) contact paper
3) wet or dry erase marker

Numbers and Number Words

Color Words

Lowercase Letters (o-z on back)

Uppercase Letters (O-Z on back)

First and Last name

Side note on the first and last name-I taught L how to write his name with all capital letters.  Which is fine, they are usually the easiest to form.  But the second he stepped into his new classroom his name was written with the capital "L" and the lowercase "andon".  I'm thinking I should have done this to begin with.  Also, his school has adopted the Handwriting Without Tears curriculum, which is okay because I taught him using Zaner Bloser handwriting, not D'Nealian.  I would suggest finding out which handwriting curriculum your student's future school uses and try to teach that.

Create your pages, print on card stock, cover with contact paper (or laminate them) and use a wet or dry erase marker to practice forming the letters, words, and name.

This activity reinforces letter and number formation, number word recognition, color word recognition, fine motor skills, and writing skills.  This is such an easy and cheap activity to make! My next thought is to punch holes in them and store in a 3-ring binder.  Then L will have a binder full of dry erase practice pages!

Other variations could be:

~ a page with shapes to trace (with the names)
~ a page with random dotted lines to trace
~ print any tracing page off your favorite website 

Once your student is reading:

~ sight words
~ family names
~ days of the week
~ months of the year
~ print any practice page off the internet (laminating reduces the wasted paper-although we have wasted our fair share of paper)

The possibilities are endless!  See my favorite websites for more ideas of pages to print and laminate!

By the way, all of my kiddos LOVE having their own activities and places to keep their activities.   When I make a new activity and we find a place for it I make sure to reinforce ownership of it (meaning they are to take care of it, use it correctly, and put it away correctly).

Do-a-Dot Color Recognition

N is working on recognizing her colors by:

1) picking the color I tell her to choose
2) picking a color and telling me which color it is

Such a cute student to have! :D

Picking her colors.

This is N painting "quietly".  She would dab the paint softly.

Dabbing her dot paint.  I had to show her how to hold the bottle correctly.  It takes talent to be able to take the lid off and turn the bottle upside down.

The finished product-not too bad for a 2 year old! And she stayed on the paper, too!

This activity reinforces fine motor skills, color recognition, and self-control!!  Keeping a 2 year old in one place to do an activity for at least 5 minutes can be challenging!  But I believe it is very important to have them practice at home before they enter the school setting (whether at home or in school).  Once they get into the classroom they will already have an understanding that they are there to learn/work and not just play.  Just my own opinion! :D

Cutting Straws

N (2yrs)  is concentrating on using her scissors and holding the straw in between the blades-2 very tedious tasks. 

The hardest thing for her was letting the blades open back up.  We have a pair of right-handed spring scissors.

I may have to invest in a pair of left-handed spring scissors because she kept switching hands and they won't cut that way.  

This is one of the easiest and simplest activities that really does help kiddos develop their fine motor skills! With the added bonus of seeing how far they can make the straw pieces fly!

Sorting and Counting

 This activity has several steps.  But it keeps L busy!

Materials:  Pom poms, dice, sorting cups, pickle tongs or tweezers of some kind.

I made this activity sheet and then made copies of it.  You can make one that fits your child's skill level. (I used my do-a-dot paints, a sharpie, and a straight edge to make this sheet.  You could probably make something on your computer, too.) 

L rolled the two dice and then put that number of pom poms into each cup.  He did this only once but you could have your child roll the dice more than that to get a larger number. 

Next he started filling out his chart.  Sort the colors in each cup.  Write the number in the correct box. 

Counting

I then had him add the two columns together.  Cup 1 + Cup 2 for each color.  Then I had him add all the  pom poms together 

There may be lots of steps to this activity, but they all keep L's mind busy.  I like to have some activities that are more involved.

You could also use beads instead of pom poms.

This activity reinforces counting, sorting, one-to-one correspondence, number formation, addition, and fine motor skills.

Popsicle Stick Shapes

 I've seen this activity floating around the internet in several forms.  Here is my take on the activity. 

Materials:  Velcro tabs and colored Popsicle sticks

Press the Velcro tabs onto the Popsicle sticks.  I made each shape a different color.  Write the name of the shape on each Popsicle stick.  Have your child put the Popsicle sticks together to make the shapes.

I only made three basic shapes.  A rectangle is doable, but might be difficult.  You could cut one Popsicle stick in half to make the shorter ends. 

You could also put Velcro tabs on several Popsicle sticks and just let your child build whatever he/she wants! 

This activity reinforces shape recognition and fine motor skills.

Magnetic Letters

We have a TON of magnetic letters!  Grab a cookie sheet and you are ready to begin!

L picked out the letters and put them in order.  Since we have so many, next time I will sort out one set of letters-it took him a while to dig through our stash.

 

Magnetic Letter Preschool Activities:  Spell your first name, or other simple words like mom, dad, dog, cat, or non-sense words CVC words (consonant vowel consonant).  If you have a ton of magnetic letters like we do, have your child do a letter match on the cookie sheet. 

Magnetic Letter Kindergarten Activities:  Spell your first and last name, spell your siblings' names, spell your parents' names, or sight words (do an internet search for kindergarten sight words).  Take it a step further and after your child has spelled words with the magnetic letters have him or her write them on a sheet of paper.  Make a word, write a word. 

Magnetic Letter Toddler Activities:  Putting the letters on the cookie sheet works their fine motor skills.  As your child puts the letter on the sheet you (the parent) say the name of the letter and have them repeat it.  If he/she doesn't repeat it right away, that's okay!  The more your child hears the name of the letter, the more he or she will remember it!  Keep it fun!

Letter Matching

L is working on matching lower and upper case letters.

Materials:
1) 52 circle magnets
2) garage sale stickers
3) sharpie
4) cookie sheet


To Make:
1) write the upper case letters on one color of sticker and the lower case letters on another color of sticker
2) attach stickers to magnets
3) place magnets on tray

Match away!


L has learned most of the pairs but it helps him to sing the alphabet song as he does it.
This activity reinforces letter recognition and fine motor skills.

(Side note: After making this activity we learned the circle magnets were too strong and would either stick to each other or would flip over. If I were to change this activity I would attach the magnets to a different material-a clothespin or a wooden tile with the letters written on them. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but L got frustrated very easily with the magnets.)

Letter Matching

L matched letters on clothespins to letters on a card.

To make:
1) write letters on clothespins
2) write letters on an index card
3) match away!

This activity reinforces letter recognition, name recognition, and fine motor skills.

Counting and Colors

L is counting out beads to match the number on each pipe cleaner flagpole.

To make:
1) cut pipe cleaners in half
2) wrap masking tape around the top
3) write each number on both sides of the tape
4) provide beads for each flagpole (bead color doesn't have to match the color of the pipe cleaner-we did for color recognition)

Have your child string the correct number of beads onto each flagpole.

This activity reinforces counting and fine motor skills.  If you coordinate the colors then it also reinforces color recognition.