Category Archives: Toddlers

Preschool Playdate: Australian Animals

Australian Animals
Play date: January 28, 2016

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: used our MAPS book by Aleksandra and Daniel Mizielinski, plus some postcards I had picked up when I visited Australia in 1998.
— Storytime
— Unsquiggle activity
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Kookaburra Sits In The Old Gum Tree

Image source: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/319966748497620409/

STORY TIME
I could not find the kind of book I wanted for today, so I “wrote” one and presented it to the children on PowerPoint. Inspired by the MAPS drawing of Australia, I tried to imagine what we would see if traveled around the edge of the country. In order to make the book more vocabulary rich, I also incorporated different words synonymous with walking and swimming.

Here it is on YouTube :

LITERACY CENTER
With two “K” animals in the Australian Animal Toob, I naturally gravitated towards the “K” sound for today. We picked up items from around the house and put them on the tray. The Sweet Peas had to find the other items that started with the “k” sound, and put them in our “K Sound Box”. I leave it flexible, so that whether they are spelled with a K or sound like a K, they can go in the sound box. Some of the older Sweet Peas knew the difference between the “c” words and the “k” words, so they were encouraged to play however their Sweet Pea led.

MATH CENTER
For this we pulled out some older toys of Puma’s from her toddler years, plus some of the animals from The Australian Animal Toob. The numbered cards are also from Puma’s preschool days. They were a great tie-in for the Great Barrier Reef! All three levels of play allow for parents to also work on the concept of even and odd numbers

Level 1: Count the animals

Level 2: Match the amount of animals to the number on the card

Level 3: Place the cards is oder

DISCOVERY TABLE
Some animals, some sand…the Sweet Peas really enjoyed today’s center. I picked some red sand as well as some tan sand to use in the center. I had showed the children pictures of the red rock in Central Australia, so this was a fun way to incorporate it into the morning.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Inspired by the images on a scarf I bought in Australia, I thought that stipple art would be a good project for the Sweet Peas. It’s actually framed and hanging in the hallway near our art area, so Puma walked the Sweet Peas over to it to show and inspire them before they worked on the art project. We also used the four basic colors most often used in Aboriginal art: brown, yellow, white and red.

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. This morning, the discovery table and the art project got the most mentions.

Come back next week as we peek into our “Very Hungry Caterpillar” play date that we are doing today!

Preschool Playdate: A.A. Milne

Play date: January 21, 2016
Theme inspired by A.A. Milne’s birthday (January 18, 1882)

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: talked about the characters in the series
— Storytime: Tigger’s breakfast
— Unsquiggle activity: “take the ants out of your pants”
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers

Thank goodness for all our dollar store flash cards! I had purchased these when Puma was a preschooler because she adored Winnie-the-Pooh. They came in handy today, after a good dusting off!

Today’s craft and discovery table were inspired by the Sugar Aunts blog. The take-home mask craft was printed from the Surburban Mom blog.

STORY TIME
We got these little books for Puma’s first birthday party so that guests could share a little story time with their Sweet Peas. I selected a story that recounts Tigger’s search for the perfect breakfast. I emphasized that he tasted everything until he found the food that tasted just right to him. We also had our stuffed animal friends help us tell the story!

LITERACY CENTER
We had two options here – both games created out of the cards.

Activity 1: Word Match
It could be played as a memory game, or very simply as a “show and find the match” for the younger children. If they were playing the “show-match” version, I encouraged the parents to emphasize the first letter/sound as their child searched for the matching card.

The second activity was for word correlation. It was a self checking game – if they matched the words correctly, they would form a picture on the reverse side that incorporated the two words that they had matched. This is a great game to reinforce the “go-together” concept, and also to do visual recognition once the items were shown on an illustration.

MATH CENTER
We had two card games for this center as well…

Activity one: Shape or Color Match
This could be played as a “show and find” or a memory game. We added the same shapes in orange if the Sweet Peas wanted to play memory. Otherwise, we stuck to the primary colors to reinforce the colors as well as the shapes for the younger Sweet Peas.

Activity 2: Number Match
The Sweet Peas matched the number to the card with the corresponding number of pots. To further emphasize 1-to-1 correlation, they could pin the “honey bee” clothespins to the card to match the number of pots.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Another use for the “honey bee” clothespins! There are several ways to play:
Level 1: fine motor skills only – celebrate picking up a flower with the clothespin!
Level 2: Pick up flowers of a certain color
Level 3: Name a number to pick up of a certain color. This could be done progressively: take out 1 pink, 2 yellow, 3 blue, etc.,
Level 3a: Name a size of flower to take out…you could also request a certain amount here, too.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
We made a couple of adjustments to the craft as suggested by Sugar Aunts. We have lots of younger siblings that come to play date, so wiggly eyes were definitely out, and, there was absolutely no way we were going to plug in a hot glue gun for the wings…so we put out markers for the Sweet Peas to draw faces on their “bees”, and we used tacky glue for the wax paper wings. They ones we made as samples and for the centers all held up pretty well; here’s wishing that they survived once the Sweet Peas took them home!

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards.

Join us next week when we share all the fun we had today for our Australia theme!

PPD: Arctic Animals

Play date: December 10, 2015
Theme: Arctic Animals

This was our last playdate for 2015, and it

STORY TIME
Charger’s MAPS book by came in handy again!! It had a beautiful illustration of the Arctic Circle that we were able to use during our opening discussion of the theme.

For story time, I chose a tale told in rhyme that also introduces the tundra, the animals, and counting concepts. Luckily, several of the figures I purchased to go along with the discovery center matched the animals in the book.

We lined up all the animals for storytime, and the Sweet Peas got to identify the animal that matched the page, and then pass the figure around for observation. It took a little longer to tell the story, however, it was great to keep their attention for the longer time!

LITERACY CENTER
Today I played the “easy” card and simply photocopied pages out of The Mailbox Superbook for both literacy and math. This was a good opportunity to point out that the penguins pictured at the top of the page are actually *Antarctic* animals – in real life, a penguin and a polar bear would probably not meet, even though they live together in our imaginations.

MATH CENTER
This print-out is another simple activity to incorporate the concepts of shapes, as well as fine (coloring, cutting) and gross motor skills

DISCOVERY TABLE
I think this was the big hit of the day. All of the children enjoyed sifting through the rice+glitter to find hidden animals, playing out scenes with the figures once they were found.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
Also a The Mailbox Superbook idea modified to fit our school: Otter and I cut-out the center circles of a paper plate. Then we spray painted them silver the night before playdate so that they would have time to dry. The Sweet Peas all had different arrangements and placements for the stickers on their “wreath”.

As noted above, this was another opportunity to remind the children that while reindeer and penguins are often used to illustrate the season, they live on opposite ends of the earth.

This concludes our playdate series for the first half of this school year. I know we will be revisiting the Arctic animal theme since I have another book I want to share with the children that names several Arctic animals. Additionally, I want to redeem myself and offer the children more interactive literacy and math activities…I already have something at the edge of my mind to incorporate polar bears!

Be sure to check the “homeschool” or “toddler” links on the blog to find the other playdates we have enjoyed this season. Tune in starting in January to see our playdates for the second semester of the 2015-16 school year.

Preschool Playdate: Winter

Theme: Winter
Playdate: December 3, 2015

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: I had a bucket full of winter clothes that we pulled out for the children to explore, and we talked about the characteristics of the winter season.
— Storytime: Secrets of Winter
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Snowman song

Today’s songs and center ideas were from The Mailbox Superbook

STORY TIME
You can see my review for today’s book HERE. All the kiddos enjoyed this creative look through the forest during wintertime.

If you would like to order your own copy of this fantastic book, you can order one HERE. Orders placed by December 10, 2015 will arrive for holiday gifting at the end of the month.

LITERACY CENTER
This was a print center today. It also offered a fun opportunity for the children to explore negative space. We put out different circle shapes for the children to create a snowy winter scene complete with a snowman. Along with the white chalk for the snow, I also put out wax crayons that show up well on the dark paper.

Level 1: Free expression with the chalk

Level 2: Parents hold the circle and the child traces

Level 3: The child holds the shape and traces the figure onto the paper

MATH CENTER
This is a favorite from when our children were learning numbers. This printable is also from The Mailbox Superbook. We added the numbers for more reinforcement of the written number and 1-to-1 correspondence.

DISCOVERY CENTER
We have accumulated various winter outerwear through the years. We put all of it out for the children to try on. The first part of the center was a gross motor skill: shoveling the “snow” (cotton balls) into the bucket while they were dressed in the winter clothing.

After all the children finished the centers, we had an indoor snowball fight. I had bought the larger snowballs from Hallmark a couple of years ago, and we added all the cotton balls to the center of the floor. The kids were split into two groups and they had fun tossing the “snow” back and forth.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
We kept this one simple since our group has so many different ages. We used the doily, glue, and silver glitter. The original idea called for gluing different craft items onto a doily, spraying the whole creation with glue, and then covering the whole craft with glitter.

Today’s favorite activity was definitely the indoor snowball fight!!

Preschool Playdate: Thanksgiving

Preschool Playdate: November 19, 2015
Theme to introduce the concepts of Thanksgiving + Native American Month

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: We used the two Native American books pictured below to show the children how the continent of North America was populated before the arrival of European settlers, and to show them visually the rich culture that already existed here.
— Storytime: The Sweet Pea Kids presented a Thanksgiving Story play

STORY TIME

Here are the books we used to introduse the topic, and I am also sharing pictures of the pages that state the concept I was trying to get across to the children: the Europeans did not “discover” the Americas. There was already a rich, vibrant, and established culture that existed here. If one child will remember that and speak up when American colonization is taught in public school, then today’s mission will be accomplished.

I read the pages shown below, and then turned through the pages of The Very First Americans so the children could compare and contrast the ways of the Native Americans to the things we do today.

LITERACY CENTER
Today’s activity reincorced fine motor skills as well as letter recognition. You can print your own copy of this activity page HERE. The only modification I am going to make is to print the letters along the bottom row upside down on the clothespin so that they are “right side up” when the page is completer.

Level 1: pull out letters from child’s name or vowels

Level 2: all the letters of the alphabet

http://www.pre-kpages.com/thanksgiving/

MATH CENTER

Using corn kernels and fall/holiday shapes – more fine motor skills on this activity!

Level 1: parent orders the numbers and helps child count out the correct number of corn kernels for each card

Level 2: child orders the cards and counts the kernels. Parent can choose how many numbers 1-3, 1-5, etc. numbers 1-10 available

DISCOVERY TABLE

My mom sent me these “popcorns” from their community garden project in Illinois called the Manhattan Friendship Garden. One of the Thanksgiving stories we have read this school year talked about the Native Americans sharing popcorn with the European settlers, so this was a perfect share for playdate!

The corn is about 6-7 inches long, and it makes about the same amount of popcorn as 1/3 cup conventional kernels that we use in our Whirly-Pop.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take

We used craft paper and stickers that I bought on sale last year for this craft. The idea is that the Sweet Peas can write one thing they are thankful for on a daily basis: one gratitude per branch until Thanksgiving. On the holiday, they can share all their thankful statements with the family.

Thankful Tree – I modified THIS line drawing

We finish this Preschool Playdate with a play prepared by all of the children. Puma and Busy Bee wrote the play; Puma did the costuming, and as time ran short, they told me what they wanted for props and I helped out. They did a great job of modifying the Thanksgiving Story Book for our guests – it ended up being an 8-minute play.

All in all, it was a fun playdate with a little more emphasis on history than we usually do. I hope that you will have time to share some of these ideas with your family either before or after your Thanksgiving feast today.

Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours <3

Preschool Playdate: Cookies

Playdate: October 29, 2015
Theme: In honor of National Cookie Month

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)

— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)

— Discussion of theme: we pulled out a book from our library, “Things People Do”, that showed all the different working parts of a bakery and ingredients used in baking.

— Storytime: “The Clever Baker”, a story from Scotland from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book.

— Unsquiggle activity: went along with our story this time! Four groups acted out different parts of the story

— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: Patty Cake, Patty Cake Baker’s Man was planned – so excited to get into centers we skipped this!!

STORY TIME
Discussion time: The book on the left is Thing People Do by Anne Civardi and Stphen Cartwright. We opened up to the bakery page and talked about the things the children saw in the pictures. Night Owl also thought to bring in one of his castle books from Usborne Publishing to show what a bakery looked like in medival times. It was neat to show the kids that the ingredients are pretty much the same, as is the process of baking.

Story time: We read “The Clever Baker – A Story from Scotland” from The Lion Storyteller Bedtime Book by Bob Hartma and Krisztina Kállai Nagy. In the back of the book are suggestions for group storytelling, so I applied them to our group. We divided the group into four parts: noisy bakers, dogs, cats, and babies. As their parts were read out in the story, the group made their sound – it was such a fun storytime this week!!

LITERACY CENTER
The cookie letters are from Kidsparkz.com. I looked up 3-letter words and picked a couple of pairs that started and ended with the same letters and changed vowels.

Note: I am really trying to emphasize those vowel sounds this season for our pre-readers!! You can check back to see how our last few themes have incorporated the vowel concept.

Level 1: Match the letter pictures and identify sounds: A, C, P, T, U

Level 2: Match the letter pictures to the word cards

Level 3: Match letters to words and then have the child sound out the word.

MATH CENTER
This was a perfect opportunity to pull out one of our Lakeshore Learning games that our Sweet Peas have enjoyed for years!

Level 1: Roll and match the cookies to the number on the die

Level 2: Keep score! And add up the cookies on the plate until you get up to or past number 10.

DISCOVERY TABLE
We did the first activity before we started storytime. Each of the children received a card as they arrived (activity cards from Kidsparkz.com). As we talked about the ingredients or the equipment used to make bread, the child would come pick the item that matched their card.

We filled three old medicine jars with spices for the children to smell: cinnamon, clover, and nutmeg. I had thought of letting the children mix them into the playdough as they played…and then got busy with the Sweet Peas doing centers and forgot about pulling them out of the tray and moving them to the play center.

During playtime the children played with the equipment and play dough to “bake” their own cookies. Our “oven” is a banker’s box with the lid adjusted to be an opening door. It served as our supply holder for the first activity, and then as the “oven” during play time.

Our third “discovery” activity was meant to be a take-home…it kind of worked that way! Each family brought their favorite cookies to share. The children were meant to take a goody bag home for treats in the car so the sugar high would be away from playdate….little hands snuck into the “cookie jar” though, and there was snacking at playdate as well 🙂

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
I created a simple “cookie sheet” using shapes in a Word document, then printed them out to use as our art paper for today’s printing activity. Using watered down tempra paint and lids in different shapes and sizes, the Sweet Peas dipped into the paint and printed cookies on their cookie sheets. We invited to decorate them at home once the paint dried. You can see that Otter drew designs around her cookies instead of on them. It always warms my heart to see the Sweet Peas make an art project their own with their unique interpretation of the guidelines.

As I was poking around the internet to find cookie images, I also found THIS website with a fun cookie craft. If we had more time, I definitely would like to do this. I think we are going to save it for our year-end celebration when we have more time for play.

We close with a good-bye song where children are welcome to give hugs. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards. Otherwise, the kiddos and parents that don’t have to leave stay and play until the music teacher for our older Sweet Peas arrives.

I hope you and your Sweet Peas have lots of fun if you are inspired to have your own COOKIE DAY. Have a great week!

Preschool Playdate: Buttons

Preschool Playdate: October 22, 2015
Inspiration: Count Your Buttons Day

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: Shared five different articles of clothing and the different kinds of buttons they had. Talked about how once upon a time, the kind of buttons someone wore could tell you about their lifestyle or place of origin.
— Storytime: Corduroy

STORY TIME
Of course we had to share Corduroy by Don Freeman, the story of the little bear with the lost button!!

LITERACY CENTER
My intention was to reinforce vowel sounds, along with using words that start with “B” like “button”. B and G lent themselves well to this little activity, so I created little word cards with the idea that the Sweet Peas would use the buttons to cover the letters, working fine motor skills as well as reinforcing vowels and phonics.

I tried this activity on two days…I had my doubts about the image for “big”. Rightly so – many of the non-reading Sweet Peas said “dog” when they saw that card. For the littles it ended up being more of a word identification game. Only my elementary school kiddos were interested in forming the letters out of buttons on the word cards.

The most fun at this center for our preschool guests was playing with the buttons. Everyone played in the button box. Very few played with the cards as I had envisioned.

I think on it’s own this center might work. The biggest attraction was the Arts & Crafts center, so the Literacy and Math centers fell by the wayside this particular day.

MATH CENTER
This was a button sorting bonanza. I had originally designed these activities for our Sweet Peas’ “Busy Books”. One card was designed to sort by color, the other size, and the third was a “free play”. There were six different outlines so the child could follow through with their own idea of how to sort.

DISCOVERY TABLE
Buttoning buttons!
Another activity was taken directly from the Busy Books I made. In order to have enough for all the children that attend, I made enough of these for all the Sweet Peas to be able to play at once if that’s how the group moved. I sewed a big button on to one end of the ribbon; on the other side I sewed to a square piece of felt that would act as the “stopper” for the other felt squares being buttoned on to the ribbon.

Level 1: Motor skill development as children “button” the fabric and then slide it down the ribbon.

Level 2: Patterning – the children could create a pattern with the felt shapes as they buttoned the fabric onto the ribbon.

The other center was playing with the different kinds of buttons found on clothing: plastic, wood, metal, shell, and fancy 🙂 I left the clothes out that we introduced at the beginning of the playdate so that the Sweet Peas could take a closer look at the buttons and try to button and unbutton the clothing.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This was an adaptation of a “Love Bug” Valentine’s Day Craft. I called these “Cute as a Button” Bugs. This was the big hit for the day!

Preschool Playdate: Pumpkins

We enjoyed all these activities on October 15, 2015

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)

— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)

— Discussion of theme: Showed the word “pumpkin” written on the word card, and also passed around the basket of pumpkins for the children to explore

— Storytime

— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: “5 Little Pumpkins” fingerplay

STORY TIME
Pumpkin Pumpkin by Jeanne Titherington

Sweet little story of growing a pumpkin from seed to sprout to flower, and then watching it grow into a large pumpkin.

LITERACY CENTER
Letter Guessing Game inspired by a The Mailbox Superbook activity – I spelled out the word “pumpkin” in uppercase and lowercase letters, and then also selected uppercase and lowercase magnets to match.

Level 1/2: Parents pull out the letters, name them for the children and tell the phonic sound (child repeats), and then either place them in order under the tag, or have the children place them in the right spot.

Level 2: Child reaches into the bag, feels the letter, and then guesses what they think it is. Then they pull it out to check their guess, and place it in the correct order to spell out, “pumpkin”.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Literacy Center

MATH CENTER
This idea is from Preschool Plan It – see the original instructions HERE

You can download the printable I made for your own personal use – it’s not pretty or professional, just an easy file you can print on your own to make your own manipulatives: PPD Pumpkins Math Center. I left the front blank with only the letter on the leaf; the back had the letter leaf and pumpkin seed stencils on the back.

The instructions were to put the pumpkins and some pumpkin seeds on the table and see what the children would do. Here are some ideas for ways to lead the children:

Level 1: Have the children identify the numbers and put them in order

Level 2: Practice one-to-one correspondence by having the children place pumpkin seeds on the stenciled shapes

Level 3: Start introducing the concept of even and odd numbers. I purposely stenciled the pumpkin seeds in columns so that the children could get a visual understanding of what makes a number “even”, and what makes it “odd”.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Math Center

DISCOVERY TABLE
I picked up some gourds and mini-pumpkins from Trader Joe’s. We picked them to represent some of the different colors aside from orange, and also with texture in mind. The children could look at them and/or feel them to decide if they were “smooth” or “bumpy”. You might make this extra-sensory by blindfolding the children and then having them sort.

The other part of today’s discovery was for the children to taste pumpkin-flavored foods. I found a gluten-free pancake mix at Trader Joe’s, picked up a box of their pumpkin snack bars, and I also added some sprouted pumpkin seeds that we buy at Costco. I also offered some of the shelled seeds that were from the bag that we used for math – they were toasted with oil and salt; also from Trader Joe’s.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Discovery Center

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This idea is inspired by Preschool Plan It – see the original instructions HERE

The idea from Preschool Plan It was to do the handprint pumpkin, and the stem with a finger. I didn’t want two different colors of paint to wash off, so I pulled out our green and brown ink pads. I started by printing a heart shaped leaf using the thumb pad and green ink. Next, I dipped the whole thumb in the brown ink. Lastly, I brushed orange paint on the child’s knuckles of a clenched hand, and then printed those onto the paper.

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate: Arts & Crafts

Plus, one more activity with play dough…making pumpkins with faces (suggested by Preschool Plan It and executed with THIS play dough recipe)

Sweet Pea Families Pumpkin Playdate

We finish our Preschool Playdate with a sharing time: each child that wants to share gets to say what (s)he enjoyed the most about the morning. We close with a goodbye song where children are welcome to give hugs. It helps to set a formal end to the time together so that parents have a clear reason to insist that it’s time to go if they have somewhere to be afterwards. Otherwise, the kiddos and parents that don’t have to leave stay and play for a little while so we can catch up and talk attachment parenting.

Preschool Playdate: Fire Safety

Playdate: Fire Safety
October 8, 2015

I chose this theme in honor of Fire Safety Week last week. I learned something new while prepping, which is always an added bonus. Scroll down to the end of the post for my “aha” moment.

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)
— Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)
— Discussion of theme: Started out by creating a chart of the things they children already knew about fire. We also talked about the different places we see fire, and what to do when we see matches or lighters: don’t touch, and alert your parents or another adult
— Storytime: Golden Book
— Unsquiggle activity: We did some exercises to be in shape like fire fighters
— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: 9-1-1 song

From The Mailbox Songs & Fingerplays book

Help Is On The Way!
“Three Blind Mice”

9-1-1, 9-1-1 –
Help’s on the way, help’s on the way
When I need help, I know what to do.
I dial this number for me and for you.
It calls the police and the firehouse too.
It’s 9-1-1.

Jessica Matthews
Footprints, Vernon, NJ

The ideas for all of today’s activities came from Preschool Plan It

PPD Fire Safety Circle Time, PPD Fire Safety Literacy, and PPD Fire Safety Math are the printables I created for today’s playdate. You are welcome to download and print for your non-commercial home use. They are not professional by any stretch of the imagination 🙂

STORY TIME: Golden Book

LITERACY CENTER

Level 1: Phonics of the word “FIRE” along with the introduction of the “Magic E” that makes the “I” say it’s name.

Level 2: Children fill in the coloring page

Level 3: Children trace the letters and numbers to create their own “Fire 911” sign.

MATH CENTER

Hat and Boot Match

Level 1: Parent orders the numbers and the dots and shows the child the one-to-one correspondence.

Level 2: Parent orders the numbers or the dots, and the child matches the other.

Level 3: Child orders and matches the sets of cards on their own.

DISCOVERY TABLE

Activity 1: We put out some helmets, a costume jacket, and some other red clothes to let the children dress up as firefighters.

Activity 2: Mixing colors – red and yellow make orange, and all three are the color of flames. Children could simply mix the colors, or they could write letters or numbers in the paint without getting dirty!! This was a wonderful activity for the children that like paint and do not like to get their hands dirty.

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take

We precut red squares and rectangles, used the scraps of white card stock, and punched out circles in black and white. We placed everything on the ground with glue and a toy fire truck to let the Sweet Peas decide how they wanted to make their fire truck craft.

CLOSING ACTIVITY:

Children mentioned one thing they learned about fire safety. I also pulled out our parachute to teach the children that they need to crawl out a burning house to stay below the rising smoke.

Tune in next week to see all the fun at our Pumpkin Playdate!

P.S. My “aha” moment: When I was reading the Preschool Plan It page on fire safety activities, the teacher talked about how it is even more important to acclimate an anxious child to the sound of the fire alarm in your home or school. The best way to figure out who can handle the noise and who is going to freak out: let them experience the fire alarm when it’s not an emergency. She said that an anxious child is more likely to be the one to hide in the event of a fire drill, or even worse, during a real fire. By talking them through it and literally holding their hand during a drill, you start to build their confidence and courage in the event that the fire alarm signals for the “real deal”. Today’s playdate was also a great reminder for our own family to review and practice our fire safety plan – I hope it will be a good reminder for you, too.

Preschool Playdate: Oktoberfest

Play date: October 1, 2015

Fun little side-note…as I searched the internet for ideas for this playdate, I discovered that apparently some preschool teacher decided to serve apple juice in child-sized beer steins to celebrate Oktoberfest in her classroom…LOL. That is a direction we definitely did NOT go.

Anyway, my inspiration for our playdate came from a beautiful map book Charger was gifted this summer. The book is called “MAPS” by Aleksandra Mizielinska and Daniel Mizielinski. HERE is an image I found of the page online:

I went through and created categories from the images on the map to start brainstorming. I also explored Enchanted Learning to see what kind of ideas they had, and voila! Our playdate was pulled together overnight.

— Welcome song in English (emphasizes printed name recognition as Sweet Peas find their card in a line-up and place it on our Name Ledge)

— ~~Welcome song in Spanish (reinforces names as Sweet Peas sing to their peers)~~ Skipped this part last week since our group was so big and the discussion of the theme was a little longer.

— Discussion of theme: Used the MAPS book to point out different parts of Germany and German heritage/contributions to our modern culture.

Stories: Brothers Grimm, Hansel & Gretel, Snow White, Musicians of Bremen
Composers: Bach, Beethoven (I guess Handel not included since he is considered a British composer?)
Inventions: Printing Press – Johannes Gutenberg, Beach chairs, Aspirin – Felix Hoffman, Cuckoo Clock
Dogs: German Shepherd, Dachsund
Food: Gherkins, Pumpernickel, Roast pork, Dumplings, Breads (including rye, pretzels), Sauerkraut (pickled cabbage), Weisswurst (white sausage)

— Storytime – worked some unsquiggle in by handing out felt figures before story time and having the Sweet Peas listen for their piece to be named. When they heard it, they brought their piece up and put it on the felt background.

~~— Unsquiggle activity~~ Also skipped – it was time to get the Sweet Peas moving!!

— Poem/Song before we break for Centers: “Oh where, oh where has my little dog gone?” since we had talked about German Shepherds and Dachshunds during the theme discussion.

While the families arrived and during center time, I played classical music written by German composers in the background.

STORY TIME
I had the story of The Musicians of Bremen in one of our schoolbooks from last year. There are more words than pictures, so I created images and felt pieces to use as I read. I held up the cards to show the contribution of each animal to the band: “lute”, “drum”, “night music” and “music”. Before we started storytime, we handed out the felt pieces for the children to bring up and place on the felt background as they heard their piece named in the story.

Look under the “Discovery Table” for image source list.

LITERACY CENTER
This was an edible center – yum! Always fun for preschool playdates 🙂
I cut out the capital letter of all the preschool age guests and their younger siblings. The Sweet Peas would then find the letter of their first name (or a friend or sibling), and then cover the letter in pretzels. Eating happened all along the way!

Find the original idea HERE on “The Educators’ Spin On It”

MATH CENTER
Counting With The Dogs: This is a center of my own creation that incorporated German dogs, dice, and patterning.

Level 1: Place correct amount of items onto a numbered plate
Level 1a: Roll 1 die and count out the items to match the face of the die

Level 2: Create a pattern and continue the sequence. When we play this, I create the first two patterns, and then invite the Sweet Pea to make one for me to figure out.

Level 3: Roll 2 dice, count out, and add

Image sources: links to image online
Bone ~ Dachshund ~ German Shepherd

DISCOVERY TABLE
Part 1 of the Discovery Table disappeared before I got a picture of it. We cooked some Weisswurst (white sausage) and served it with sauerkraut (pickled cabbage) so that the Sweet Peas (and the mamas!) could enjoy some German food.

Part 2 of the table was having the Sweet Peas play with the felt figures and retell the story if they are advanced communicators. If they are still acquiring verbal skills, you could ask them the order that the animals were introduced in the story, and then “what happened next” to prompt them.

Image sources: links to image online
Donkey ~ Hound ~ Cat ~ Rooster ~ House ~ Robber ~ Witch Hat

ARTS & CRAFTS ~ Make & Take
This idea came from Enchanted Learning, an online teaching resource with *a ton* of ideas and activities. HERE are the instructions, and here are the samples I made for the Sweet Peas:

I prepared the eyes and cut out the ears and noses ahead of time. The Sweet Peas could place them however they wanted to on the paper bags. Ears up was a German Shepherd, ears down was a Dachshund; and the Sweet Peas pasted them every which way to come up with their own creations!

Come back next Thursday to read all about the FIRE SAFETY play date that we had today since it is Fire Prevention Week in the USA this week.

Sweet Pea Families

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