Free preschool lesson unit: Five senses of Christmas part 3

This is part 3 of 3 for a free preschool lesson unit on the five senses of of Christmas.

Part 1 can be found here and here is a link to Part 2.

So far we learned about sight, taste, and hear. Part 3 is about touch and smell.

I CAN TOUCH PRESENTS AND BOWS

 I begin with reading One Snowy Night by M. Christina Butler

This story is about a cute little hedgehog who wake up on a snowy Christmas to find a present front Father Christmas. But Hedgehog prickles get in the way and it won't fit. Then he had a wonderful idea and it return got the greatest present of all. This book is also a touch and feel book so it fits perfectly with out lesson unit.

Other books

Snow Bunny's Christmas Wish by Rebecca Harry

 Ten little Christmas presents by Jean Marzollo

Pip and Squeak by Ian Schoenherr

Activities

P is for Presents
Cover the letter P with Christmas bows

DOWNLOAD the letter P template HERE

Bow color sort 

Bow parachute

From Teach preschool. 

Writing letters to Santa

From A Very Curious Class

Present Etiquette

Free PRINTABLE HERE

I CAN SMELL GINGERBREAD COOKIES

Gingerbread Man Poem
and Gingerbread Man story props from Kiz Club


Activities

Gingerbread Cookie Bakery Chant

This cute chant was adapted from Little Hands, Big Work

There are a 11 colors in this PRINTABLE. 

Have your kids sit in a circle with the gingerbread cookies in the middle. Choose one child to go first and repeat the bakery chant, help identify the color if needed and repeat as many times as you would like, giving each child a turn,

Simple paper gingerbread houses

DOWNLOAD this  gingerbread house TEMPLATE

Have several different paper stripes for the the kids to choose from for the trim and then I used a once inch circle paper punch for the circles. 

Glue the shapes on the gingerbread man

From Mom Have Questions Too

Make gingerbread cookies

From Babes in Disneyland

That completes the five senses of Christmas preschool unit. 

Have a Merry Christmas!

Free preschool lesson unit: Five senses of Christmas part 2

This is part 2 of 3 for a free preschool lesson unit on the fives senses of Christmas. 

Part 1 can be found here. Here is the link to Part 3

I CAN TASTE CANDY CANES

To begin our day for I can taste candy canes,  we read the book Katie the Candy Cane Fairy by Make Believe Ideas.

This is story is about Katie a fairy who performs a Christmas show with her fairy sisters each year. They depend on candy canes to make their show magical but then one day their candy canes disappear. They decide to go on a search to find new ones and figure out a way if they can still perform a magical show without depending on their candy canes.

Activities that go with the book

Disappearing candy candy stripes science experiment from Play dough to Plato

Go on a Candy cane hunt and then danced and sing with your candy canes to any Christmas song. 

Other activities

Paper clip candy canes

There are 4 sets with 12 total patterns. 

You can DOWNLOAD the candy cane patterns HERE.

Edible Peppermint ornaments from Hello Homebody

Candy cane play dough from Growing a Jeweled Rose

I CAN HEAR CHRISTMAS BELLS

We begin with reading  the book Christmas Parade by Sandra Boynton 

This book is about the pigs, chickens, cows, rhinos, and other animals who come to celebrate Christmas in a loudly way. 

Activities
Jingle bell toss: Grab your jingle bells, stand behind a line, and starting tossing the bells into a bucket, bowl, or whatever container you would like.

Counting Jingle bells 1-12

Click HERE to download this free bell printable with numbers 1-12.

Jingle Jingle Little Bell Lyrics and Action
Free printable can be DOWNLOAD HERE

Christmas bell countdown

Christmas bell template with poem can be DOWNLOADED HERE

Musical bell or pip chime music

My son was having a hard time with remembering numbers so I added a piece of paper with a color to the each chime. It is much easier for him to play.

I then took two Christmas songs and created pipe chime music sheet with colors rather than numbers. The two songs I choose were Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer and Away in a Manger.  Musical Pipes is a website I like to use get free pipe chime music.


This pipe chime music is 3 pages.

This pipe chime music is 1 page.

FREE DOWNLOAD
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer pipe chime music
Away in a Manger pipe chime music

The next post will be part 3 and the last of this lesson unit. It will be I CAN TOUCH PRESENTS AND BOWS AND I CAN SMELL GINGERBREAD COOKIES.

Free preschool lesson unit: Five senses of Christmas part 1

Preschool time is so much fun around Christmas because there are so many different ideas and activities to do. My son is part of a co-op preschool group and it is finally my turn to teach. Seriously I am really excited!

Last year I created the fives senses of Christmas lesson unit for my son and I loved it so much, we are doing it again this year with our co-op preschool and it even better this year than last. Over the next couple weeks, I will be sharing lesson ideas and activities for each sense. There will be 3 parts to this lesson unit!

*UPDATE: Here is the links to Part 2 and Part 3 of the five senses of Christmas

To start this unit, I like to read Mouse's First Christmas by Lauren Thompson

This cute story is about a little mouse who discovers new sights, smells, and taste but quite doesn't understand what it all is until he meets a jolly man with a special Christmas message. It is a good introduction for the five senses. 

After we read this story, I introduced our Christmas mouse

and I did a quick introduction about the five senses.

FREE download of the Christmas mouse HERE

Over the next several weeks, we took different days to talk about each sense and had so much fun with different games, learning activities, and books. 

I also made this cute booklet with our Christmas mouse and pictures that can be colored that went with each sense. 

THE FIVES SENSES OF CHRISTMAS ARE:

I CAN SEE CHRISTMAS COLORS

I CAN TASTE CANDY CANES

I CAN HEAR CHRISTMAS BELLS

I CAN TOUCH PRESENTS AND BOWS

I CAN SMELL GINGERBREAD COOKIES

 There is the option for a boy and girl gingerbread cookie coloring page. 

FREE fives senses Christmas coloring book can be DOWNLOADED HERE.

The first sense we began with was 

I CAN SEE CHRISTMAS COLORS.

Activities

L is for Christmas lights

You can DOWNLOAD the L template with the string lights HERE
and then have your child use their fingerprints to make the lights.

My name on Christmas lights

For this activity, I downloaded this free font from www.ffont.net
and then cut each light out. Using this string light TEMPLATE,
I had my child glue their name onto the paper.

Christmas light patterns

There are 4 sets of Christmas light patterns that can be DOWNLOADED HERE.

Christmas lights skittle sort

You can DOWNLOAD the Christmas light skittle mat HERE.

The next post I will be sharing is part 2 of 3 of the five senses of Christmas. They will be I CAN TASTE CANDY CANES AND I CAN HEAR CHRISTMAS BELLS. 

T is for Turkey

Since Thanksgiving is just a few weeks away, we have started to doing our Thanksgiving preschool activities. We are starting with T is for Turkey. I want to review shapes, colors, and letters with my son so I made these fun worksheets for him to do.

For this activity  cut out all the letters and put them in a bowl. Then have your child pull out a letter and identify it. Then say Turkey, Turkey, don't run away. I am going to stuff you with the letter ... and then say whatever letter was just pulled out. 

Just cut out each turkey and line them up on one row. Then cut the colored square and have your child match the colors and say what each color is. 

This activity is simple because your child does all the work. Have your child cut out each shape square and then glue on to the matching turkey shape.

DOWNLOAD HERE

Turkey Alphabet Stuff

Turkey Color Match

Turkey Shape Match

Looking for another turkey activity? Here is a link to a fun Turkey hunt!

Busy Bags: Round 1

I have participated in a few busy bags swaps and have made several of my own. I love having extra and fun activities for the kids. There are a few activities that my kids seem to never get bored of and so I wanted to share of some of our favorites. UPDATE: Round 2 of busy bags can be found here

KIDS CLOTHING LINE

My mother in law has a real clothes line that she still uses to dry her clothes so my kids love this activity because it is just like Grandma. This activity is probably there favorite! You can found a free instruction and pattern download from Money Saving Mom. 

POPSICLE STICK PATTERNS

These Popsicle stick patterns is something I made for my kids. This activity is more challenging for younger kids but my oldest boy who is 6 loves these. There are 2 sets of patterns. 

DOWNLOAD set 1

The first set are easier patterns and there are 8 cards. 

DOWNLOAD set 2

The second set are more difficult patterns and there are 6 cards. 

PAPER CLIP MATCHING

This activity is really easy to put together. All you need is colored paper clips and matching paint samples from your local paint store. My kids have fun sorting the colors and linking them together. For durability I would recommend laminating your paint samples. 

ALPHABET MATCHING

For this activity, I used 2 inch square wood disc and alphabet letter stickers. To keep the stickers from falling off, I put Mod Podge over the stickers. You can use these wood disc to play alphabet matching game, practice name spelling, and for older kids practice sight words. 

BE READY for round 2, next week I will be sharing more favorite busy bags ideas!

Printable preschool assessment form

Preschool assessments are a great way to record a child's progress throughout the school year. Last year, we had an cream party on the last day of preschool and I wanted to use an assessment that went along with our ice cream theme. Below is the assessment we used, you will also see a beginning of the year assessment with the same theme that has different wording. We had a lot of fun with this theme and will be using it about for this coming school year.

Beginning of school year preschool assessment

                     

 End of school year preschool assessment

One of our activities for the ice cream party was this coloring page and poem. 

Chicken themed color recognition poem

This week in preschool, we are learning about chicks and hens. I found this adorable hen poem that will go right along with our theme. The added bonus is the poem is also good for reviewing colors.

Click here to download

 

I also using images or props to go with each line to keep the kids engaged!

Smack the spider color recognition

My older son and I have played the game smack the spider letter recognition game where you call out a letter to your child and then let them find and smack the spider with the letter you called out. My son loves this game and it is requested to play this game throughout the whole year. It is a fun game so I though why not make my own version of smack the spider with color recognition. I know we are going to be playing this game a lot and it is a great game to go along with Halloween or really just any time of the year!

All you need is a fly swatter and the free print out below.

Click here to download

Preschool: Color Yellow

Color Focus Book

Ten Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle

Song: Happy Song

Ducks in the Pond quack a happy song

Mother Hen cackles the whole day long

Birds in their nest and wind in the treetops

All join in singing a happy song

Activity: Use blue food coloring and water to turn your bathtub into a duck pond. Let your child play with yellow rubber duck. Use the yellow rubber ducks to practice counting. 

It was a warm day at our house so we skipped the bathtub, grabbed a clear plastic bin and headed outside.  

Color Focus Book

Yellow by Sarah L Schuette

Color Focus Book

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell 

(Focusing on Yellow Lion)

Activity: Dear Zoo story props. Use the story props and help your child place the animals in their correct cage. The story props can be found here

Activity: Keep the Lion in the cage

This is from a zoo animal playdough mat set from the website Sparkle Box.
To minimize the mess, I had my child use use yellow pip cleaner. You can download the playdough mat using this link. Scroll down on the page and the download is titled Zoo animal playdough mats

 Art Activity: Post it flag lion

I found this adorable simple craft from the blog Having Fun at Home.