Easiest way to teach your child left vs. right

 

My boys both learned left from right at the age of 3 and I found one of the easiest ways to teach them left vs right is by first teaching them to recognize the uppercase letter L.

If you have your child hold out both hand with their thumb extended as pictured above, you will notice that your left index finger and thumb form the letter L. 

I then teach my children that left starts with the letter L by doing this is makes a easy connection for them to remember. Whenever they ask which way is left or right, I ask them to hold up both hands and tell me which hand has the letter, and it works every time! 

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!

Free Halloween positional worksheet

I have been working with my son on positional words and wanted to share this fun haunted house themed worksheet that I put together.

DOWNLOAD HERE

This is a easy to follow worksheet and will also help your child to work on those gross motor skills with cutting and gluing.

Halloween themed letter recognition game

Here is a fun Halloween activity to do with your child. Practice letter recognition with a cauldron and "broom" aka paint brush.

Put the letters in the cauldron and have your child stir the brew 

while you say this chant. 

And then pull one letter out at a time and have your child identity.

 Repeat as many times as you want!

To DOWNLOAD the letters and chant click here.

Busy Bags: Round 2

This is round 2 of our favorite busy bags. If you missed Busy Bags: Round 1, you can find it here. 

PATTERN STICKS

These pattern sticks were made using color coding labels. I used this TEMPLATE to make the pattern cards and laminated them. Then put the color coding labels on the Popsicle sticks. You can make as many different pattern cards as you would like.

NUMBER WHEEL

Here is a free PRINTABLE for the number wheel. Once I printed it out, I glued it onto cardboard. You then write numbers 1-10 on a clothespin and have your child clip them on to the correct number of dots.  

BUTTON SNAKE

You can find free instructions on how to make this from Mama Gab. There are different versions of this activity but I liked this one because of the felt shapes. This activity was given to me and the person that gave this to me added a snake tail, eyes, and tongue. I think it is so cute.

POPSICLE STICK PUZZLES

These Popsicle stick puzzles are a popular activity but they are nice because they kids enjoy them and there are so many options on what pictures to use. These Popsicle stick puzzles represent the four seasons and are graphics of mycutegraphics.com You can print out each picture from HERE, cut on the dotted lines and then use Mod Podge to glue them onto the Popsicle stick. I store each puzzle in a snack size Ziploc bag to keep them from getting all mixed together. 

All of our busy bags activities are stored away in a Ziploc bag and then we have all the bags in a plastic bin so they can be easily stored away. Do you have any favorite busy bags? I would love to share your ideas!

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!

6 activities to help your child recognition their name

This year for preschool we are part of a co-op preschool group. I put together name recognition activities for all the kids in the preschool. Here are the activities.

Name sticks 

To make this activity. I got paint stick stirrers and used Mod Podge to glue the letters of the child's name on to the stick. Then used mounting tape to stick the letters onto the clothespins. Your child matches up the letters to spell their name. 

Name Block Matching

This can be made in any word document or you could make make it easily be hand.  

Name Puzzles

Here are free puzzles patterns for 4, 5, 6, and 7 letters names. 

 You can either hand write your child's name or 

open in a word document to add your child's name

Just right click on the each image,  save and print. 

I recommend printing on cardstock paper so it is more durable

4 letter name

5 letter name

6 letter name

7 letter name

Name Tracing

You can download free front from this website to make these tracing cards in a word document. The font is called ABC Print Dotted. This is laminated and so it can be used over and over again. 

Name Path

For this activity, you can use any word document and create a table. Then can choose what letters you want to use and what path to create to spell your child's name.  This is also laminated so it is reusable. 

Progressive Name Tracing

This idea is also part of the Preschool learning binder I put together.

I download free front from this website to make this in a word documents. The names of the fonts are ABC Print Arrow, ABC Print Arrow  Dotted, and ABC Print Dotted.

All of these activities are stored in a laminated  9 x 12 folder. I used an X-acto knife to cut a slip in the top. I like this folder idea because it keeps things together and can be passed around easily to each home when it it our turn to teach preschool.