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Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Preschool Ideas







D'Nealian ABC cards, I printed these out from ABCTeach.com yesterday and laminated them.

See what I didn't have to buy? We've saved a lot of money by downloading online printables.
http://www.kizclub.com/
http://abcteach.com/
and google anything else you may want.

With the above ABC cards, they can be writing practice with a dry erase marker, we can use them in games, make play-doh letters on them and many more ideas. The games would consist of find objects that start with the letter, put the ABCs in order, etc. A little imagination is all that is required.

Other ideas for creating our own preschool activities:

1. Small-medium-large/short and tall objects
Cut from magazine or clip-art and arranged by child

2. Shapes
these can be used in so many ways
Identification, create a new picture, find like objects, etc.

3. Numbers √
(we have but they are not pictured b/c we need to laminate them)
Sort, put in order, etc.

4. Patterns
(using Legos, wooden blocks and other things we already have)
Match, different/same, size, etc.

5. Paste/Cut here
draw lines on construction paper to cut or use magazine cut-outs to paste on construction paper

6. Games based on the books we read

7. Match written words with magnetic letters

8. Follow the trail
Pre-writing exercise with laminated trails, laminated will be reusable!

9. Animal match-up with their young or with their habitats
Cut from magazine or clip-art, download printables

10. Word numbers, cardinal numbers and objects match-up
Three elements to combine, ToysRUs has these.

11. What's missing? or What doesn't belong?
Pictures with an element missing, for example someone's arm or shoe.

12. Five Senses
Talk about and experience things you would touch, smell, taste, hear or see.

13. Body parts
Put a person together: arms, legs, hands, etc. as a puzzle.

14. Laminated Tic-tac-toe board

15. Seasons
Pictures of different seasons, clip-art and arrange by seasons.

16. Directions and Opposites
Left, Right, In, Out, Below, Above, etc.

17. Recreate famous paintings with preselected elements
Starry Night could be done with star stickers, for older children.


Things we have bought: Preschool Wedgits, Melissa & Doug's Mosaic Shape Board, a few flashcards on sale at ToysR'Us, Little People Farm (big hit!), Leap Pad DVDs, Shape & Color Beanbags, View Master with slides
, bubbles and more play-doh.

These are just some of the ideas that I have decided would be easily created for preschool and kindergarten activities. Considering the cost of purchasing a bunch of preschool items is just not feasible but creating 1 or 2 activities a week is not such a big deal as long as you have magazines to cut up, the internet, a printer and a laminator. Laminating could get expensive if you don't choose the right size sheets, 8.5 x 11 is a great size to fit a bunch on a page.

Just sharing the epiphany I had in the last few days. The catalog Constructive Playthings really helped! Camille is very excited about all of this, she gets to be a "teacher" with Danny.

 

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

These are great! Ben is 4 and although I have had some stuff I've printed off for him he's not always interested. I love the laminated letters and the dry erase marker idea!! Happy mid-week to you!

cindy said...

Jessica, You amaze me with your ideas!!!! Here's a few I found online. String some craft beads, gluing the first and last one, have him duplicate the string. Using small cups, have him sort beans (or something similar) with tweezers! Glue one object on a clothespin and clip it to the cup. print out black & white pictures of things that are certain colors (ie banana--yellow) leave the pictures uncolored, have him sort them by color. I found some great deals on sorting beads/shapes/letters at oriental trading company (and have PLENTY to share with some of my MOPS friends!). I can't wait to try some of your ideas!!!!!

Kerri said...

Great ideas Jessica. I know that my 4yr old would enjoy some of these.

Thanks,
Kerri

my5wolfcubs said...

Fantastic ideas! I have a young K'er learning to read & a 2yo -- what one does the other wants to do too. :)
We're working on letter/word recognition, too. I plan to write family members names on 3x5 cards and let the boys match photos to the names. I was thinking about making a family tree on the wall with the names and letting them stick the pictures up.

Lee (from the WTM board)

PS Have you been to
http://fanningflame.wordpress.com/ -- anything French makes me think of you!

Anna said...

Did you laminate those items yourself? I've wanted to get a home laminator, but do not know what kind to get. Any advice?