C is for...

Crafts!  With our daughter off from school this week I have had the pleasure and challenge of keeping her entertained while trying to keep things educational.  I am so proud of all the things she is learning in school and beginning sounds are really starting to click for her.  I have been focusing on the letters that have a capital letter and lower case letter that are nearly identical.  This week we have been working on Cc.  We started out with some jewel counting use this great FREEBIE from Edlah Preschool Resources.  We talked about how the word CROWN starts with the /c/ sound as does the word COUNT.  Then she picked out the number of jewels needed for each crown and glued them on.

Next, we went on a letter C scavenger hunt in her playroom!  She came up with some great ones.

We have carrot, cake, cupcake, crayon, cup, camel, cow, caterpillar, car, cucumber (Larry!), cookie, croissant, cat, camera, and Cookie Monster ~ of course!

Tomorrow we are going to SHOP for the C items using alphabet money that I purchased from The Moffatt Girls.  This will be great because I can incorporate literacy AND math.  I will put price stickers on each item and she will have to pay for her items using her letter C money.  

Please share if you have some favorite initial sound activities!

Tower of Babel Brownies

I do my best to read the Bible with our daughter daily.  Sometimes I fall short of what I desire and we only get to read 3-4 nights a week.  Every morning we read our devotions and this is becoming a habit and a beautiful part of our morning routine as we snuggle in bed together.  I often wonder, however, if she is really understanding the stories we read.  So many of the words are beyond her.  I try to use language that is easier for her to understand, but I still feel I fall short in getting the message across.  My hope is that these readings will at least familiarize her with the people in the Bible, but most important, to Jesus.  I also fear that she gets the wrong message when she hears how often God punished people who disobeyed ~ specifically in the Old Testament stories.  I do not want her foundational understanding of God to be: Obey=Good and God accepts you; Disobey=Bad and God is mad at you. 

I am using the best children's Bible's available (and we probably own seven children's Bibles!) and I cross-reference them and chose the one that explains the story in the most appropriate manner for her age: BTW ~ she is three and a half.  I also love printable mini-books from Christian Preschool Printables. 

Ironically, at this point in this blog entry, I went to put our daughter to bed.  My husband and I read with her and then I reread the Bible story of Abraham with her.  She remembered Abraham and Sarah's son's name!  I guess she is listening! :)

Today, we talked about the Tower of Babel.  This is a hard concept to grasp for a preschooler.  While they can understand "a tall building" it is much harder to explain people feeling proud of themselves.  Language is also a hard concept if they only know English.  I printed the minibook from Christian Preschool Printables and after we read the story in her Bible we read the minibook.  Then we baked some brownies!  I told her that the brownies were like the bricks that the people made.  Once the brownies were cooked I cut them into "bricks" and we built a brownie tower.  Then we had fun knocking it down and eating them! 

 

I would love to hear about any Christian resources for Preschoolers that you have found to be of value!



Organizing PreSchool Packs to Save Time & Money!

One of the best things in world is the ability for us to share our awesome materials with the world!  I admit, however, that I am a Pin-aholic, blog-aholic, TpT-aholic and a Teachers Notebook-aholic.  What does this mean?  Well, it means that I see so many incredible resources that I spend a lot of time and money printing , laminating, and organizing these materials.  I prefer to store them in a manner that affords me the luxury of using them multiple times.  The best method I have found is utilzing paper protectors and laminating things that are more suitable for lamination.  For example, I store all of the songs, visual discrimation, and magnet pages, grid pages, and coutning pages in page protectors.  When our daughter uses them I let her use a dry erase marker, dry erase crayons, or we place them on a cookie tray and she uses her magnets. 

Magnet pages are stored in sheet protectors and then used in a cookie sheet with magets.

Grid Games and Counting Mats are also stored in sheet protectors so they can be reused.

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Prewriting practice pages and Same or Different pages are also stored in sheet protectors.  She uses a dry erase crayon to "write" or circle the same/different picture.

Other items, such as games and puzzles, get laminated and I store all the small pieces in a CLOSEABLE self-adhesive CD sleeve. 



Couting Mats that call for the child to place a certain number of items depending on the numeral shown are laminated. The counters are stored in a self-adhesive CD holder and the numerals all have velcro.



Why do I use CLOSEABLE CD sleeves?  Because I place everything for a month or theme in a HANGING binder :)  All of these binders are then placed in order by month in a file drawer! 

 

I also use the self-adhesive CD holders to store miscellaneous items like vocabulary cards and small puzzle cards.

Lastly, I use resealable 6x9 envelopes to store larger puzzle pieces and larger cards that won't fit in the CD holder. 

I hope some of these ideas help you!  I would love to hear about some of the ways you store your Tot Packs and PreK Packs :)