Piggies! (plus make a touch & feel book)

Great for F week = fingers, feel. Or H week = Hands

I love the illustrations in children’s books. This one has amazing pictures. I used “Piggies” as our book for preschool when we learned about our fingers, hands, touch and feel.

As you do these activities, emphasis using our fingers to feel things. How do the pages in the book feel? How does the squishy, wet paint feel? How does the warm water and soapy bubbles feel? The soft towel? The sticky stickers?

• Read “Piggies” by Audrey & Don Wood. Available here. Cute book and beautiful illustrations about piggies & fingers in all kinds of weather, dirty, clean, mischievous and not. I love this book.

 

• Piggie Handprint
  1. Cover your palm and fingers with (piggie pink) paint. Or if you’re short on time or don’t want a mess, just trace your hand with a pink crayon!
  2. Carefully press your hand on a blank paper.
  3. When your handprint dries, add piggie stickers to the tops of each finger just like the book illustrations. I found some great piggie stickers…
     • here (a little spendy, but cute!),
     • here
     • and here (soft felt stickers).
  4. If the kids are enjoying the feel of the paint, let them finger paint on another paper!
• Clean Fingers
  1. Let the kids enjoy the feel of bubbles.
  2. Fill a sink or large tub with soapy, bubbly water.
  3. Have them wash their hands and play with the bubbles.
• Play “What is it?” … quite the original name, I know This is another game my kids will play over and over again.
  1. Place several small items in a large bowl. Try to get a variety of shapes & textures. Ex: spoon, soft ball, toy car, block, a sock, mini pumpkin, bean bag, small toy animal…
  2. Cover the bowl with a piece of cloth.
  3. Let the kids reach in and grab one item.
  4. Have them keep their hand in the bowl, feel the item and try to guess what it might be. You can ask questions like:
     • Is it hard or soft?
     • Is it long or short?
     • Does it have wheels?
  5. Pull it out and see if they’re right.
  6. Sort the items into “soft” vs. “hard” piles.

• Make your own “Touch & Feel” book! … These were fun!
  1. Purchase several sheets of textured scrapbook paper (I got 7-8 different textures from the scrapbook paper aisle at Jo-Ann)
  2. Cut the textured paper into squares (mine were almost 3”x3”)
  3. Print out a simple cover. Make your own or click the image above to print.
  4. Staple the cover together with 7-8 more blank squares (depending on how many textures you have)
  5. Have the kids choose a texture, feel it and glue it (we used gluesticks) to the right side of a page.
  6. Have them feel the texture and ask “What does it feel like?” Write their response on the left side of the page.
  7. Repeat for each texture!
  8. Here are the textures we did. Some of their responses were funny. It’s not easy to describe some of them!

(Next time I would use the little blank board books here to make these touch & feel books. They’d be perfect!)

• Hands-On Snack
  1. We made instant pudding in ziploc bags for our treat.
  2. Measure 1/2 cup dry instant pudding mix into a plastic ziploc bag.
  3. Add 3/4 cup cold milk.
  4. Zip & let the kids squish it with their fingers until it’s all mixed.
  5. Cut the bottom corner off and squeeze into a bowl.
  6. We ate ours with pretzels.