D is for Dumping

 What little kid doesn't love to dump their box of toys onto the floor? And what mom isn't driven crazy by this behavior because I know I sure am! Here is an activity that will keep your kids busy for hours that allows them to dump their toys to their hearts content without driving you up the wall in the process.

Hang a sand bucket from the ceiling on a string or yarn. Under it, put a box full of toys. Make sure to add lots of toys that start with the letter d like: dolphin, dog, dice, domino, dragon, dinosaur, dragonfly, etc. Have your child find all the things that start with a letter d and put them in the bucket.

When they have found them all, dump it out and start over again. After you have found all the letter d toys a couple of times, you can do other searches like all the land animals or all the nonliving things or all the things that are blue, etc. At the end, just let your child fill and dump to their hearts content with what ever toys they want.

D is for Dots

 

We painted dots using things we found around the house - q-tips, pencil eraser, bottle caps, etc. We also read a great book called Lots of Dots. 

Danny and the Dinosaur Hats

 Danny and the dinosaur is a classic book that never goes out of style! We made some brontosaurus hats to go with our Danny and the Dinosaur book reading.

Here's What You Need:

• 2 green constuction paper cut 6" tall
• 1 yellow construction paper 
• Googly eyes
• glue

Here's What You Do:

1. Draw the dinosaur legs, head and tail on the yellow construction paper. The legs were about 4 1/2" tall and the bottom was about 3" across. The head was about 10" long and the tail was about 9" long. I drew it like this:                                                                
2. Glue together 3 of the green papers that are 6" tall to make a tall headband. Fit it around your child's head and cut any extra length off. 
3. Have the kids cut out the pieces. On the head, glue two googly eyes and a mouth.
4. Glue the head on the inside of the band on the middle so that the head curls up and over the child's head. glue the feet on each side and the tail in the back. 
5. Glue the green paper together to make a headband.  

Letter D Songs

Here are some fun letter d activities involving music and movement.

Freeze Dance  - D is for Dance!
You can dance in many different ways, with many different things to celebrate the letter D. We like to freeze dance. We use The Freeze song by Greg and Steve, but you don't need this song to freeze dance. Just turn on your favorite tunes, pick someone to be a DJ and dance until the music stops then freeze! Start dancing when the music starts again.


"We are the Dinosaurs"
By: Laurie Berkner Band   

"Dinosaur Song"

(Sung to the tune of "If You're Happy and You Know It)
There are dinosaurs stomping all around.
There are dinosaurs stomping all around.
There are dinosaurs around, they are stomping all around.
There are dinosaurs stomping all around.

*You can replace stomping with other words like flying, swimming, roaring, etc.

5 Little Ducks
 

5 little ducks went out to play

Over the hills and far away

When mommy duck said, "Quack, quack, quack."

4 Little Ducks came waddling back

(Repeat, taking away one duck each time until you get to no little ducks . . .)

. . .When mommy duck said, "Quack, quack, quack."

No little ducks came waddling back.

But when daddy duck said, "QUACK, QUACK, QUACK!"

5 little ducks came waddling back.

Halloween Ideas

I'm baaack. Life sure is crazy with another little one needing love and attention, but we are starting to get back into the swing of things. Hopefully, as things smooth out, I will be able to post regularly again. I'm finding the hardest thing is that as Anya and I do preschool together, half the time I am holding a baby. That makes taking pictures a little more complicated! Anyway, here are some Halloween fun activities and songs we have been doing the last couple of days:

The Skeleton Dance - This is awesome because it is catchy and fun. It is also great because the moves are mirrored so the kids are moving in the right direction. I just wish I would have had it when we studied bones recently.

 

The Improved Frankenstein - Last year we did this fun Frankenstein, but it kind of looked Shrek-ish. You can see the instructions and picture  here. 

So, we changed the golf tees and screwed in some screws instead.  Once I got the screw started, it was easy for her to keep going. I like it much better! 

 

Of course we had to read our favorite monster story to go with it:

Candy Corn Mosaic -  I have seen this idea on a couple of different websites.  Here is our version. 

 

To begin we looked at, tasted, and talked about candy corn. We talked about color and shape, but I really wanted to focus on the words - top, middle, and bottom. This activity is great for color sorting, scissors practice and practicing vocab: top, middle, and bottom. We started with strips of white, orange, and yellow.  Then cut those strips into squares. We put the white on top, the orange in the middle and the yellow on bottom. Pretty easy, but a lot of fun!