E is for Eyes

• Eye color sorting
• The dollar store has plastic eye balls, usually during Halloween time. Stock up! Try to get different colored eyes if possible!
• Using paper craft rolls (or TP rolls) paint or color them colors to match the eyeball colors. AKA ‘sorting tubes’.
• Tape them to a container, or wall, or other place that your preschooler can drop the eyes in and have them fall through. *we used a big plastic tub.
• Make sorting a fun moving game. 
• Put all the unsorted eyes in a bag, bowl or lay them on the floor on one side of the room and the sorting tubes on the other side. Have your preschooler/s run back and forth sorting.
• Put the different sorting tubes in different places in the room, and the eyes in the middle. Have them pick one eyeball, run to that colored sorting tub and drop the eye in. Run back and get another.
• Lay out the different colored eyeballs and tell your preschooler a color. They will find one eyeball that color and put it in the matching sorting tube. Come back and do it again.

• Play I Spy
• Using our eyes, we played a game of I spy!
• 1 round – only spy a color
• 2 round – only spy shapes
• 3 round – only spy high or low
• etc.

• Circles & Eyeball drawing
• With my Silhouette machine, I cut out TONS of different sized circles on different colored paper.
• I laid them out on the table with some markers and let the kids get creative drawing eyeballs.
• show them different kinds of eyes. Ie: cat eyes, human eyes, scary eyes, sad eyes, sleepy eyes, spider eyes, etc.
• If your “E is for Eyes” preschool is during Halloween season, tape them all over as a decoration (we put ours on the garage door!)

**For more Eye preschool activities, click HERE**

H is for Humpty Dumpty

• Read “Little Lumpty” by Miko Imai 

  This is a great book that my kids and I really enjoyed. Little Lumpty lives in the town of Dumpty, the same town and the same wall that Humpty Dumpty fell from years ago. Little Lumpty is curious and climbs the wall, but how he gets down is another story.

 

• Humpty Dumpty eggs
  1. Use a sharpie marker to draw a simple face on a raw egg.
  2. There’s something about holding a real egg that my kids are fascinated about. We had to learn to be very gentle with the eggs because they can break very easily!
  3. Talk about the oval shape, the smooth, cool texture or anything the kids notice.

• Build Humpty Dumpty’s wall
1. Use duplos or other blocks to build a tall wall.
2. While you’re working, see what other words you can rhyme with TALL and WALL.
3. Place the tall wall inside a glass dish (to catch poor Humpty).
4. Place your Humpty Dumpty egg on top of the wall and sing the Humpty Dumpty rhyme. Let the kids roll Humpty off the wall!! Their reactions are awesome
5. We noticed that just like the rhyme, we “couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

• Scrambled Dumpty
1. My kids enjoyed letting their Humpty Dumpty eggs fall off the wall so much, we ended up with six eggs to scramble for lunch.
2. Let the kids help cut up some ham or turkey deli meat (it will cut with a butter knife).
3. They can help scramble the eggs with a wire whisk.
4. Cook the eggs and serve for lunch!
• Humpty Dumpty Coloring Page
1. While the scrambled eggs are cooking, the kids can color this fun rhyming coloring page.
2. Print here from Carl’s Corner.

• Humpty Puzzle Fixed with Bandaids … how’s that for a title?! My kids actually loved this and couldn’t figure out how it happened
1. Cut out a large oval from white cardstock.
2. Draw a Humpty Dumpty face on the oval.
3. Let the kids help color Humpty. My kids added legs and a tongue.
4. Set Humpty up on a high shelf, ledge or mantel. Make a big deal about “Oh, I hope Humpty doesn’t fall!”
5. Finish the rest of your preschool activities.
6. Sometime during the day (I did this when we left to pick up the boys from school…) be sneaky and cut Humpty into puzzle pieces. Scatter the pieces on the floor.
7. Let the kids discover poor Humpty and suggest they use bandaids to fix him.
8. My kids loved this and kept asking how he fell and broke into pieces!

Halloween {Eyeballs} Day

We have done several fun preschool days leading up to Halloween. Once a week we have our friend preschool and this was one of those days. It’s always more fun with friends!

• Read “The Eye Book” by Dr. Seuss 
  1. This is really a great book. I loved being able to point out the colors of the eyes and all the things we can see with our eyes.  
  2. It’s rhyming text made it easy for the kids to guess which word should come next.

• Mirror Fun
  1. Give each of the kids a small mirror.
  2. Have them observe their eyes closely and tell you what they see!
• Preschool Journal Page
  • Practice writing Ee and “Eyes”
  • Put eyeball stickers all over page.

• Squishy eyeball bags … a fun sensory activity that the kids really enjoyed. 
  1. Fill a plastic baggie 1/4 full of clear, light corn syrup.
  2. Add 1-2 drops of green food coloring and squish together until mixed. 
  3. Add several large googly eyes.
  4. Zip and tape the bag closed.
  5. Let the kids shmoosh the eyeballs around. Have them describe what they feel. We had great words … juicy, squishy, cold, slimy, gooey.

  

• Monster Eyeball Game … this game has two parts. We took our time because the kids were enjoying it and doing a great job!
  1. PART ONE:
     • Give the kids a paper sectioned into 6 squares.
     • Print and cut out shapes in different colors.
     • NOTE: I could have had the kids cut out the shapes themselves, but didn’t want to totally overwhelm them. So I just had them cut out one shape from the last color.
     • Have them glue one shape to each section.
     • Use a crayon to add arms and legs to the shapes. I told them not to add the eyes yet!
  2. PART TWO:
     • Beforehand, squish several (15-20) colored googly eyes into a ball of model magic (or playdoh) … I just love using model magic right now.
     • Have the kids use their fingers to find the eyeballs in the model magic.
     • As they find each colored eyeball, have them place it on the matching monster shape.
     • Continue until all of the eyeballs have been found and the monsters have lots of eyes!
     • TIP: we noticed that we could tell if there were still eyeballs hiding by listening for the googly eyes rattling in the model magic!

 

• Eyeball Hunt … this ended up being more fun than I had planned and I wish I had better pictures. I’ve realized that it’s more fun for the kids to help do the prep work sometimes. I was going to have the monster drawn and ready for them, but decided to let them do it … and they loved it!
  1. On a large cardboard box, draw the outline of a monster. Not scary of course. Add antennae, lots of arms and legs, eyes, crazy hair.
  2. Give the kids washable markers and have them color the monster!! Encourage them to add anything they’d like. My kids added teeth, polka-dots, hair and lots of color.
  3. Mom’s Turn! Use a knife to cut holes where the eyes are. Now you’re ready for the game.
  4. Hide ping pong eyeballs (found at the dollar store at Halloween time!) around the room or outside.
  5. Have the kids find the eyeballs and poke them through the eyeholes. They stuck just enough that the kids had to pop them inside.
  6. They loved it!

• Eyeball Snack
  1. Cut bananas into slices. Give the kids a box of raisins.
  2. Have them place one raisin on each banana slice to look like an eyeball.
  3. Place two candy eyeballs in a cup of pudding.
  4. I found these candy eyeballs at Michaels (Halloween time). You can also get them from Amazon here.

Earth Day. It’s the Little Things.

• Read “Earth Day” by Margaret McNamara … I love these Ready-to-Read, Level 1 books for younger kids.
  1. This book is a cute story with a great message. Emma cannot think of a big idea to save the Earth, so her Dad helps her think of many small things they can do. I love all of the simple, practical ideas that I can do with my kids!

 

• Recycle Activity & Game!
  1. Gather five empty boxes.
  2. Print the labels (above) and trace them!
  3. Print out the recyclables page (above) and cut apart.
  4. Help your preschooler decide which label each picture matches & glue it on!
  5. Attach these labels to each box.
  6. GAME: If weather permits, “litter” the backyard with lots of (clean) recyclable items. Let the kids practice picking up the litter and recycling it!
  7. Continue recycling from now on!

• Read “Fancy Nancy: Every Day Is Earth Day” by Jane O’Connor … I have to be honest and say, I have two boys first, so this is the first Fancy Nancy book I’ve ever read. I’m hooked. They are so cute.
  1. I loved the little sayings in this book, “Less than a mile, bike in style” and “Please take note. Always bring a tote.”
  2. After reading, the activities below are inspired by the ideas in the book!

• Decorate reusable tote bags!
  1. Use fabric markers, like these, and let your kids decorate a blank canvas tote bag to their little heart’s content (canvas totes are available in most craft stores or from Amazon above.)
  2. You may want to put a piece of cardboard inside the bag to prevent bleeding.
  3. If you don’t want to mess with fabric markers, you could always have the kids draw a picture, then copy it onto transfer paper and iron it on your tote!
  4. Take these to the library or the grocery store the next time you go!

• Turn it off! … a fun little reminder to save water and energy around the house.
  1. Print the reminder page above, cut apart and laminate.
  2. Talk about how we can save energy by:
     • turning off the light when we leave a room
     • turning off the TV
     • turning off the computer
     • turning off the water while we brush our teeth
     • turning off the water after we get a drink
  3. Go on a hunt around the house and place a “Don’t forget to turn me off!” reminder near each light switch, sink, TV and computer.
  4. Make an extra effort to turn things off and save energy!
• Have a fancy energy-saving dinner (or lunch or snack) … just like Fancy Nancy in the book!
  1. Turn off the lights and have a candlelit dinner.
  2. Use cloth napkins instead of paper ones.
  3. Serve foods you purchased at a local farmer’s market.

Earth Day

Earth Day is on April 22nd. We are going to take the whole week before Earth Day and celebrate with lots of fun activities and great books. 

• Read “The EARTH Book” by Todd Parr … see the preview on Amazon here. A bright and colorful book showing simple ways to take care of our Earth to make a BIG difference!

• Explore our Earth with Google Earth.
  1. I just downloaded Google Earth here and I’m completely amazed.
  2. We saw our house with our car parked in the driveway, then zoomed way out to see exactly where we are on the globe.
  3. Then zoomed back in to see my sister’s house in England. AMAZING!

 

• Earth Coffee Filter Art … a very simple idea from DLTK Kids. We don’t drink coffee and I didn’t feel like buying a pack of filters just for this, so I cut a thick paper towel into a circle and did the same thing!
  • Use blue & green washable markers to draw on a dry coffee filter or paper towel
  • Squirt water in the middle of the filter with a squirt bottle.
  • Watch the colors spread creating a beautiful Earth!

• Paint Chip Scavenger Hunt … using Earth toned paint chips! My 2-year-old loved this activity from Come Together Kids.
  1. Collect several paint chips in earth tones … greens and browns will probably work best, but try yellows, blues, greys, pinks!
  2. Hole punch each corner and attach a ring.
  3. Take your scavenger hunt color cards outside or to the park and have fun matching your earth tones to the grass, trees, bark, dirt, flowers … anything!

• Make Earth Cupcakes … these cupcakes inspired by Kiboomu are perfect! My kids loved making these. There may have been a few fingers licked.
1. Mix one white cake mix according to box directions.
2. Divide into two bowls.
3. Add several drops of green food coloring to one bowl … and several drops of blue food coloring to the other.
4. Fill the bottom of each cup with blue batter, then add a few smaller spoonfuls of green batter.
5. Bake according to box directions.
6. TIP: Fill two squeezy bottles with the cake mix and let the kids fill the cups.