Plenty of fun with hearts...even after Valentine's Day!

   Ok so I am a little bummed that my plans for the classroom Valentine's Day party were ruined by yet ANOTHER Snow/Cold Day last Friday!
   I was all geared up for some fun...Check out how cute our bulletin board was!

   But my preschoolers did get a very small taste of some Valentine fun with heart themed activities, earlier in the week.
   I added hearts and gems into our rice sensory bin for the munchkins to work on their fine motor skills, as well as counting skills:

   They also worked on measurement & size in our Playdoh Center, with pretty pink playdoh and different sized heart cutters:

    I had quite a few Valentine activities prepped and ready to use but with the snow day, we never got a chance. So I tweaked one activity for my munchkin to have some learning fun at home too!
   She has been working hard on CVC words and she played a fun word building game:

 I found this great FREE resource on Vowel Sorting from Make, Take, Teach.

And I found these fun mailboxes from Target.

    We also hit up the after Valentine's Day sales for some candy to have some Math fun, which I will share next time!

'Race to the Basket' game and other counting fun!

   So, last Friday's Freebie was a fun Easter themed gameboard that can be used in different ways. Today, I want to share how the litttle munchkin used the gameboard today to practice counting and one to one correspondence.

I found the cute animal shaped eggs at Target (but anything can be used, really) as markers. We each took a board and an animal marker, rolled the die and moved that number of spaces.

The first to the basket was the winner.

(As you can see here, she only needed to roll a one and she would win!)

    This is a fun, quick game to practice taking turns, work on counting and one to one correspondence (by moving the marker the correct number of spaces)... and of course, encouraging good sportmanship since she did not win each time!

    We played it at least 7 times and then older brother played with her a few times.

Here is the link to the gameboard in case you missed it (click on the picture):

Here is another quick learning activity that she worked on to practice counting and worked on some fine motor skills by peeling off the stickers and putting it on the egg.

 She had eggs numbered all  the way to twenty five.

    We will be working on some more math skills later this week, so if you are looking for fun math activities to keep little ones busy and learning, stay tuned!

The Gumball Craze continues... and it's Freebie Friday!

   The Gumball Craze is still on!
    I took the Gumball Mat that we used to practice counting earlier this week, turned it into a spelling mat and the little munchkin was able to get some sight work spelling practice.

   And because my mind is constantly in teaching & learning mode, I am thinking of tweaking this even further to make a Letter/Sound Match Game. Oh, the possibilities!

Gumball Addition/Number Sentence:

Here is an addition activity she did. She chose two colors of pom poms, added them up, and then created a number sentence to match her picture.

   And then I asked myself: "What fun is a gumball theme if we can't work with REAL gumballs?!"

   So, I caved in and went to Party City to buy single gumballs (because there was no way I was buying a whole bag)  for another math game! I added in a candy scooper, an ice tray and a die.

Gumball Roll & Scoop Addition Game:

    She rolled the die once and then scooped and counted out the gumballs and placed them in the tray. She repeated that once more and then she added the total amount of gumballs she scooped.

    And the BEST part was that I let her try and eat one gumball after her addition practice! I say "try" because these gumballs were far bigger and harder to chew down on!!

    Now for the BEST part of Friday... 

FREEBIE Friday!!

    And because I failed to post a Freebie last Friday, I have TWO FREEBIES for you today!

    The first is the versatile Gumball Mat. In my past two posts, I have featured two different ways to use these mats and I am sure you can think of several more!

   The file also contains a blank sheet of gumballs so you can customize it to meet your learner's needs. 

    Click on the picture below to download your own free copy in my TPT store today!

And the other Freebie for you today is a Math Number Matching Card game... also Gumball themed! 

Click on the first picture to get your free copy!

Enjoy the FREEBIES!!

Gumball Craze!

   So, after my oh-so-cute Gumball Machine craft on Tuesday, I was inspired to make and create some fun learning activities with a gumball theme.  Because, well...Gumballs are so much fun!
   Ever notice how you can never say "no" to a gumball? Even though you know that 5 seconds after you feel that sugary ooze in your mouth, the gum will lose its flavor? And then you will be reaching for another one? OR is that just me? --- Umm, ok...maybe it's just me!  I can't ever seem to resist popping a gumball in my mouth!
   Anyhow, I pinned and brainstormed tons of learning activities that would be great with a gumball theme. But of course, I can't do it all, right? So, here are a few things we have worked on so far this week.
   First, we worked with some simple math skills.
   Counting:
    She worked on her counting skills with these Gumball Counting Mats that I created with this cute clip art from Ashley Hughes.

After watching her work with the mats, I realized how versatile I can make them. I thought of ways to use this same mat for literacy activities as well, which I will share soon.

( These mats will also be one of the two freebies I will have for you tomorrow for Freebie Friday!)

Patterns:

    She also worked on patterning with pink and purple pom poms and an ice cube tray. She is awesome at AB patterns but still needs a little more work with AAB patterns, but she will get there!

She has a few other fun math activities that she has yet to explore.

Sight Words:

    We squeezed in some Sight Word work, with her latest set of sight words from school. (Check out her super outrageously long last name!)   Hahaha!!

    Anyhow, I am making this post short and sweet today... 

    I need to get out of the Blogging Mode for the night and jump into Birthday Party Planning Mode.... the little munchkin's 5th  birthday is right around the corner and I have lots to do!

Virtual Book Club Summer Camp Fun!

   The 1^st week of my summer vacation has been sweet!! I have already read THREE novels and I added at least 8 more to my Summer Reading List! 

What can I say?

   When I am not cuddled up with my Nook, I am playing and learning with my little munchkin. Along with our Sweet Snack unit, the little munchkin and I joined the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp for some fun themed activities.

   This week was week #1 and it was Bug Week!

   All week long, I was able to squeeze in some activities revolving about Bugs.  This was quite easy, since we have been learning about the letter Ii. Instead of using the word “bug”, we used the word “insect” and talked a little bit about what makes a bug an insect.

   We began our mini unit of Insects by reading the book, “In the Tall, Tall Grass” by Denise Fleming. She learned the names of different insects and what they do.

   I wanted to give her some fine motor practice, so I had her cut slits on a folded green paper so that when she was done, it looked like grass. Then I gave her insect stickers that were left over from my classroom unit on Insects.  She took off each sticker and placed the insect stickers all over the grass paper; some were flying on top of the grass and some were hidden in the grass.

   In total, she counted 20 insects in the tall, tall grass!

   To encourage more counting practice, I created this Insect Counting activity. Click here or on the picture to pick up your own copy!

   One of the recommended activities for the week was an Alphabet Bug Spray activity!

   I simply drew some bugs (yes, my drawing are horrible) with chalk and using some water sprayers I found at the Dollar Tree, she squirted the bugs away! 

 After we got rid of all the bugs, she got a little carried away and decided that mommy’s car needed a car wash! And then came after me as I ran inside!!

   We did another outdoor activity this week… Fly Swatter painting.

    I glued some pictures of insects onto a large sheet of paper and had her use black paint and a fly swatter to SWAT away all the insects!

   Now, let it be noted, she is NOT a fan of anything creepy and crawly, so I think these two activities could have been therapeutic for her! Hahaha!!  Look at that smile of victory!

   I think every day this week, she engaged in Insect Play. Unfortunately, it has been so rainy for the last part of the week,  and she hasn’t had much play time outdoors since Tuesday…so there was no fun insect playing in the sand table this week. But that didn’t matter to her! Today I believe she engaged in insect play for almost 40 minutes…until she got hungry for a snack! Here she is showing off her insect collection (fake of course)

  And one other activity we did was about sight words. I created 2 mini sight word books in an Insect Theme for her to work on the sight words: “The, I, See”.  I showed her the sight word "see" and after reading the book, I had her go back and circle the word "see" on every page.

(I will be putting these mini books in my TPT store this weekend—they need a few tweaks.)

   Anyway, as you can see, we had lots of learning fun going on this week as we joined in on the Virtual Book Club Summer Camp.

  Next week’s theme is a Gardening Theme. The little munchkin and I have exhausted this theme already! So I probably won’t do too much with this theme in the coming week. PLUS my aunt, uncle and cousins will be arriving here on Sunday, with my mom to follow on Wednesday, so I know I will be too busy to squeeze in more than I already have planned for my little munchkin!

Sweet on Math!

I promised some fun,  SWEET stuff, so here we go!

   It is SUMMER and we want to SNACK on SWEETS all day long!!  Well, we do…don’t you?

   The little one practiced counting and writing numbers with these SWEET Math activities.

   First I looked through her play food and put a bunch of different foods in a basket and asked her to sort them into 2 categories: Snack & Not a Snack...this was much too easy for her as she has become a big snacker!

   Then she made a Sweet Candy Machine and glued on as many different sweets onto a circle shape that she cut out. 

   She added the base of the machine and used a sheet I created to count out how many of each sweet candy she had in her machine. And she did a great jo in attempting to write the numbers.

    Here it is: Naomi’s Sweet Candy Machine!

    And then she practiced counting and matching number to set with these sweet math printables that I created. 

   She isn’t too thrilled with the Count & Clip concept, even though it is a great fine motor skill. She prefers to color in the circles… whatever works, right?

Click on the picture to get this in my TPT store!

   Well, I need to get back to working on the little munchkin’s reading nook that I am creating in her bedroom. There are so many great ideas out there (again, thanks to Pinterest) for little reading nooks, I needed to make one for her! Today I found a very cute silver ottoman/storage thingee at a garage sale for $5 that is perfect for her reading nook!

   I will post pics tomorrow after it is all done… It is gonna look super cute!