A is for Ants

• Read “Thinking About Ants” by Barbara Brenner

• Preschool Journal A page … more on this soon.
  1. Practice writing letter A and “Ants”
  2. Draw a picture of ants
  3. Put ant stickers all over!

• Playdoh Ants
  1. Set out black playdoh, toothpicks, small black pipe cleaners & googly eyes.
  2. Have the kids roll three balls of playdoh
  3. Poke three balls onto a toothpick
  4. Add toothpick legs (6 of them!), googly eyes and pipe cleaner antennae (we didn’t have pipe cleaner, so we used toothpicks).

• Ant Math … may work better for older preschoolers.
  1. Print the Ant Math page above and slip into a page protector.
  2. Roll a dice and place that many plastic ants on the head.
  3. Roll again and place that many plastic ants on the thorax. 
  4. Add those two together and write the number on the abdomen.
  5. Erase and start again.
  6. NOTE: this was a little much for my kids. They did it twice, then thought it would be more fun to hide their ant picture and dice and find them. So we did that over and over instead. Oh well!
  7. Other Activities:
     • Draw dots all over the ant page and have the kids place one plastic ant on each dot.
     • Write the ABCs or 123s on the ant, call out a number or letter and have the kids cover it up with a plastic ant.

• Find ants with magnifying glass
  1. Give the kids a magnifying glass and go on an ant hunt.
  2. It’s amazing how many little creatures you discover when you look closely.
  3. My 4-year-old actually found a little ant hill in our garden! We watched tons of little ants carrying eggs and little bits of food. Pretty fascinating!

• Make an ant restaurant … this is a favorite activity for my kids.
  1. Write “ANT Restaurant” on a paper plate.
  2. Place a small sample of several kinds of food on the plate.
     • My kids chose crackers, honey, a blueberry, a piece of peach, chocolate chips, a crouton and chocolate syrup. Yum. 
  3. Place in a shady location and wait!
  4. Come back and see how many ants have visited your restaurant!
  5. *The ants loved the chocolate syrup

A is for Animals

    

• Silly Old McDonald … sing a silly version of a familiar song.
  1. Look through a variety of animal books to introduce the Animal theme for the day.
  2. Sing “Old McDonald Had a Farm” using any animal, not just farm animals. Use your imagination:

     Old McDonald had a farm E I E I O And on his farm he had an ELEPHANT! …or a polar bear. Or a monkey…

• Read “A Number of Animals” by Christopher Wormell

  Counting Fun: This is a cute, simple counting book with bold pictures about one little chick who is looking for his mother among all of the other animals. We enjoyed following the chick through the pictures and counting the animals along the way.

  1. Have the kids point out letter A on the cover.
  2. Count the letter As.

• Animal Number Match
  1. The last two pages of the book were inspiration for this simple activity.
  2. Print out numbers 1-10 and cut apart.
  3. Use clipart to make the same number of animals in the book. Print them out in groups:
     • 1 chick
     • 2 horses
     • 3 cows
     • 4 turkeys
     • 5 goats
     • 6 geese
     • 7 sheep
     • 8 ducks
     • 9 pigs
     • 10 chicks
  4. As you read through the story again, have the kids find the number and matching group of animals to go with each page. Great counting and number recognition!

 

• Animal Alphabet Train Puzzle … available here
  1. With two preschoolers, we usually just spread this out on the floor and take turns finding the next letter puzzle piece.
  2. This is a LONG puzzle, so afterwards have them do a little movement activity.
  3. I ask them to hop to letter H, or walk to letter W, or tiptoe to the elephant, or jump to the letter their name starts with.

• Animal Clothespin Game … original how-to post here.
  1. Draw and cut out animal bodies (without the legs) of each of the animals in the book:

     chick      horse     cow      turkey     goat goose     sheep     duck     pig

  2. Paint 2 clothespins to match each body (ex: 2 brown clothespins as legs for the brown horse body.)
     • NOTE: We will paint these first before the other activities so they will dry. Or just use crayons to color them.
  3. Let the kids snap the matching clothespin legs on the bodies & stand them up. Lots of fun!

• Pretend to be an animal
  1. Put several toy animals (the plastic ones above are perfect or small stuffed animals or whatever you have!) into a bag. You could also just use pictures of animals.
  2. Have the kids pull out one of the animals.
  3. Let them tell you anything they know about that animal. Teach them a few fun facts if you want.
  4. Have the kids pretend to be that animal. They love it when you act it out as well.

   

• Baby Animals Printable Pack … this FREE printable pack from 1+1+1=1 is simply amazing. Thank you so much for offering it for free. I know my kids are going to enjoy it. Click here to download this pack! What I loved:
  1. Number puzzles
  2. Tracing practice pages
  3. Simple graphing game (with animal dice included) … both my 3 and 4-year-old loved this game.
  4. Easy reader printable
  5. Coloring page with questions game

     

• Baby Animals Match … 1+1+1=1 also has a FREE set of matching cards. What a great resource and all with real photos of animals. I love it. Download here.
• Snack: Animal Crackers
  1. Count them.
  2. Sort them.
  3. Eat them

A is for Airplane

• Read “My First Airplane Ride” by Patricia Hubbell

 

• Make a Simple Airplane … a cute and simple craft from Parents.com. My kids LOVED these. They played with them all morning. And with the hot glue, they were almost indestructible!
  1. For each airplane, paint one clothespin, 2 popsicle sticks and 1 mini popsicle stick.
  2. Let dry. (We just colored the pieces with crayons so we didn’t have to wait for them to dry!)
  3. Glue one wing to the top and one to the bottom of the clothespin.
     • NOTE: I like to use hot glue because it dries quickly and is strong. If you want the kids to use regular glue, it may have to dry overnight.
  4. Glue the mini craft stick to the back of the clothespin.
  5. Cut a small tail wing from foam craft paper and glue on.
• Airplane Game
  1. Give each of the kids a small airplane (or use the one you made above.)
  2. Give them spatial commands to follow:
  • Stand beside your airplane
  • Jump over your airplane
  • Fly your airplane over the chair
  • Stand under the airplane
  • Sit near your airplane
  • Do a rocket blast in front of your airplane
  • Stand behind your airplane

• Airplane Banner
  1. I love printing out this airplane alphabet banner from www.funlessonplans.com
  2. Let the kids color it and trace the dot letters.
  3. Great tracing, letter writing and cutting practice.

• Airplane Music Game
  1. Let the kid use their little airplanes for this game (or just put your arms out like wings)
  2. Play flying music (any music you like or use this Airplane Song by Barney) and have the kids fly around the room.
  3. Stop the music and have them “land”
     1. OPTIONAL: place large letters around the room (A, B and C). When the music stops, ask them to land at “Airport A” or “Airport B”
  4. Start the music and take off again.
• ‘A’ Paper Airplanes
  1. Have the kids write the letter A all over a piece of paper.
  2. Help them fold the paper into a paper airplane and fly their letter A airplanes!

• Fly Foam Airplanes … I found these great foam airplanes at Dollar Tree last week! My boys played with them all afternoon trying the wings and tail wing in different positions. They have held up to pretty intense boy play I’m pretty impressed for $1.00.
• Visit the Airport
  1. We just have a small local airport, but the kids love visiting to see the little airplanes.
  2. Bring a picnic lunch & enjoy watching the planes fly in and out!

 

• Airplane Snack Ideas
  1. Candy Airplanes … these are fun to put together and yummy to eat. Click the picture for a link to this version from familyfun.com
  2. I let the kids pick out a candy, so we went with Rolos. Maybe a little overkill I’d stick with smarties next time!

  

  1. Edible Airplanes … a healthier version of the candy airplanes
     • Use a piece of celery generously filled with peanut butter for the airplane fuselage (body).
     • Skewer a toothpick through the celery and poke a sliced carrot or grape on each side for wheels.
     • Place a rectangle graham cracker on top (the peanut butter should hold it in place) to make the wings!

Ten Apples Up On Top

Today was my turn for our combined preschool! Let me just tell you, it is so much fun. I actually stress out a little getting it ready … but just having friends over and other little kids who are excited about what we’re doing. It’s fun!

I focused on apples and counting 1-10

• Apple Pom Pom Necklace … I did this just as a quick activity while all the kids were showing up. (I made the apples ahead of time)
  1. Need red pom poms, brown pony beads and a tiny bit of green felt.
  2. Cut a small leaf from the green felt.
  3. Glue it to the top of the pom pom “apple” with craft glue.
  4. Glue a brown “stem” bead on top of the leaf.
  5. Cut a length of plastic lacing or string.
  6. Let the kids thread the lacing through the bead stem.
  7. Tie a knot and wear your apple necklace!
     • NOTE: you could let them lace more beads on, but I wanted to keep this S.I.M.P.L.E.
• Apple Name Game
  1. Use a bean bag (see the apple bean bag tutorial below!)
  2. Say the rhyme below then toss the bean bag to the person named.
  3. Repeat until everyone has a turn!

I like apples

Yes, I do!

I like apples

(…name…) do you?!

• Apple Touch & Feel
  1. Give each of the kids an apple (I got a variety of colors)
  2. Ask them what they know about apples. We got some cute answers…
     • “we can eat them!”
     • “peel!” (we peel them!)
     • “they have stickers on them”
     • “there are seeds inside … we don’t eat the seeds”
  3. I think it’s fun to let the kids hold the real thing in their hands and let them see, feel, smell and yes, some tried to taste their apple!
• Apple Basket Mix & Match
  1. Have a basket full of different varieties of apples (I had a few each of red, green, yellow and speckled)
  2. Tell the kids you have a problem. You have a basket full of apples, but they’re all mixed up. You need their help to sort them!
  3. Show them the different colors, have them help you name the colors and start a “pile” of each color. You could even have red, green, and yellow bowls to sort them.
  4. Take turns picking an apple from the basket, naming the color and sorting it into the right pile. The kids did great!

 

• Apple Tree Fingerplay
  1. Make a simple tree (see one example above). You could even just cut out a large green circle and glue a brown rectangle to the back … instant tree!
  2. Print 5 apple shapes (or use 5 red circles … easy!) Try these:    
  3. I put sticky-back magnet on the back of my tree and the back of each apple, so they would “hang” in the tree, but still be easy to remove. Worked great!
  4. Say the rhyme below and let the kids take turns removing an apple from the tree. Encourage them to say the rhyme with you.
  5. Count the apples each time before you begin a new verse! Have them hold up that many fingers.

(Five) red apples hanging in a tree.

The juiciest apples that you ever did see!

The wind came by and gave an angry frown

And one little apple came tumbling down!

Repeat again with 4, 3, 2 and 1 apples

• Read Ten Apples Up On Top! by Dr. Suess. Available here!

• 10 Apples on Top of Us
  1. Glue a picture of your preschooler’s head to the bottom of a long paper.
  2. Give the kids 10 apple stickers (or red dot stickers or cut out red paper circles). I used these apple stickers.
  3. When finished, count the 10 apples up on top of their head!

  

• Apple Bean Bags … like the book, let the kids put these on their heads and try to walk, run and hop! Or play a simple toss-in-the-basket game!
  1. From felt, cut 2 red circles (trace around a cup), 1 brown stem, 1 green leaf.
  2. Sandwich the stem & leaf between the two apple circles, so they stick out the top.
  3. Sew (I zig-zagged) around the outside of the circles, leaving a small opening.
  4. Fill with rice or beans … not too full.
  5. Finish zig-zagging to close the opening. Done!

Snack Idea: Apple Slices & Dip

Yummiest Fruit Dip

1. Combine 1 8oz package cream cheese + 1 jar marshmallow cream.
2. Mix well! Store in fridge.

Peanut Butter Apple Dip

1. Combine 1 8oz package cream cheese, 1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup milk.
2. Mix well! Store in fridge.

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Click here for another Apple post!