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.