Update

 I know I don't talk about my family a lot on this website, but I thought I would post a little update. We are getting ready to have another little one join our family and we are so excited that it is a boy! Pregnancy and I don't get a long very well so this will probably be my last post until after the baby is born. I am due next week and I will be taking a little break from blogging for a little while. 

But, if you are wanting some ideas of things to do with your little one, check out our archives and you can do some of the activities we've already posted. Have a great couple of weeks!

Alphabet Spoons

 Here's a letter matching activity to practice matching upper and lower case letters. 

Write the upper case letters on white plastic spoons. Write the lower case letters in a different spot on a clear plastic spoon.

Find the match and stack them on top of each other. 

C is for Crayon

 If your house is anything like ours, then you have a lot of crayons floating around. We have both a pencil box and a gallon size bag full of them! On top of that, quite a few of them are broken. This week we are going to do a few crayon related art activities to try to use up our huge supply. 

Here's a simple crayon monogram. We did C because we are Chipman's Corner, but you could also do your child's first initial. This might also be fun to do as a gift for a favorite teacher, just frame it without glass or in a shadow box. 

To make it, draw your letter on a piece of paper to use as a guide. We backed our paper with cardboard to give it extra support since we aren't going to frame it right now. 

Break the crayons to a size that fits your letter. Our letter was on a 12 X 12 paper so we broke our crayons in half. 

To attach the crayons you can use a hot glue gun or tacky glue. If you use tacky glue, put a book on top of the crayons while the glue dries to help it stick to the paper. 

C is for Cupcake

 Anya and I love to make stuff together. She loves helping me with dinner and loves helping me bake. Of course, we especially love making yummy things like cupcakes with sprinkles! 

We read If You Give a Cat a Cupcake.

We talked about directions and following them in order. Sequencing is an important math skill to work on with preschoolers. I printed off some pictures from the internet of the steps for making cupcakes and put them out of order next to the board. (Gather ingredients, mix ingredients, put in cake liners, pour batter, bake, frost.)

Then, Anya put the steps in order and we talked about which was first, second, third, etc. I told her we were going to make cupcakes and she was in charge of telling us what to do. She loved this idea! We washed our hands and got to work. A few times, she checked her step by step list to remember what we needed to do next.

In the end, eating the cupcakes was the most important step!

Bone X-Rays

As part of our discussion about broken bones and casts we discussed getting an x-ray. We read a great Franklin book (Franklin Goes to the Hospital) about getting x-rays and being brave at the doctor's office. We looked at real pictures of broken bones in the bones books we got from the library. Then we made x-ray pictures. 

We used white glue and q-tips to make our x-ray pictures. Thanks to pinterest for a fun idea!

Broken Bones & Casts

We had a sad thing happen this week. One of our baby dolls broke her foot. : ( So Doctor Emma helped us fix her up with a cast so she could heal. Luckily, she is being brave and letting mommy take care of her while she recovers. 

The girls had fun playing doctor (despite the fact that we don't have any doctor dress up stuff. I think we might have to remedy that pretty soon). When it was determined that baby would have to get a cast, we went right to work. 

We used paper mache and paint to create our pretend cast. It was pretty fun and it was actually pretty easy. Here's the step by step in case you are ever unfortunate enough to have your baby doll break their foot. 

Here's What You Need:

• plastic doll
• saran wrap
• newspaper
• white glue 
• water
• paint

Here's What You Do:

1. Make sure you are using a plastic doll in case the paint or paper mache gets onto the leg or foot. Cover the area with saran wrap to prevent the newspaper from bleeding onto the doll.

2. Cut your newspaper into small strips.

3. Mix  water into the glue so it's about a 3:1 ratio. I didn't measure, just added it until it looked good. Then dip the newspaper into the mixture. Carefully pinch out any extra moisture by running the strip between two of your fingers. Then wrap around the leg. Repeat until the whole area is covered.

4. After it has dried for a day or two, paint the cast.  - We did two coats. 

Hopefully, your baby will recover quickly! When it's time to cut the cast off, just use a pair of scissors.

Bone Snack

 Here are some bones that your little tikes might enjoy gnawing on. I know a lot of you have started thinking about Halloween so make sure to add these to your party snack list. 

We used big pretzel rods, marshmallows, and melted white chocolate to create our concoction. One bag of white chocolate chips made about 6 bones. You could also do small versions with regular straight pretzels and mini marshmallows. They were quick and easy and a big hit with the whole family.

Thanks to familyfun.com for the great idea.

B is for Bones - Skeleton Puzzle

"Mr. Bones, Mr. Bones, how do you feel Mr. Bones?" - name that movie! (Think musicals.)

 

This is a project that the kids will love to have and take home. Who doesn't love a dancing skeleton? It is great for a one on one project, but would need tweaking for a group of kids. I'll explain how Anya and I did it, then I will give some suggestions for making it more group friendly. Before I get started, here's the link to a free printable: skeleton puzzle.

We read a book about our skeletons and reviewed how they give our body shape. We also learned how they protect our body parts like our brain and heart. Then she and I cut out the pieces of the skeleton together and she took a guess at where the pieces went.

 

Next, she looked at the book we just read to correct any of the pieces that were out of place. 

 

Last, I punched holes and put brads in the connected pieces. (FYI: I used a mini hole punch and mini brads.) Then of course, she had to make Mr. Bones dance!

Now, this is not necessarily a project that a preschooler could do on their own for two reasons: there are a lot of pieces to cut out, plus some of them are small and brads are not something most preschoolers can manipulate.  So here's some ideas to change it up:

• Make the pieces bigger, cut them out and do it as a group.
• Have the pieces precut and glue them instead of using brads
• Have the kids cut out only the big pieces and precut the little pieces. 
• The teacher can put the brads in after class and give it to the kids the next day.

I hope that one of these ideas works. FYI this is a great 3rd grade project! I used it in my third grade class when I taught health and I also let my third grader do one as well. This is always a big hit with the kids!