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Preschool Activity Ideas (archive)
PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS 1 PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR LITERACY Books we read :
Don basically knows his "X" after reading this book. He calls X 'the one who wouldn't come home.' Don knows his "i" from this book. I wish the author would write for all 26 alphabets instead of just the two. I have to admit that Don likes this book more because of the firefighters, not because he likes to learn the letter 'f'. Videos we watched :
Rock and Learn, getting ready for kindergarten
PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR MATH Books we read :
Part of Stuart Murphy's MathStart books. We love the series. This book presents basic counting. Don could only follow it up to 4 when we first read it, now he can do 8. Teaches big, bigger and biggest, plus others. From Stuart Murphy Math Start books. Simple math books but the math concept is too advanced for Don (multiplication and division). A fun read otherwise. Games we played :
I simply showed Don what 1 - 3 looks like in the abacus and asked him to 'give me 1 - 3'. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR SCIENCE Books we read :
The Kingfisher first encyclopedia Experiments we did :
This is from Mudpies to Magnets, by Williams, Rockwell and Sherwood Adapted from the above Rising Raisin. Fill the sink with water and let Don play with all the kitchen tools he likes. Then tell him what sinks and what floats and ask him to guess which one will sink and float, and why. He doesn't always care about which one does what, he just likes to play with the water. Fine by me. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS 2 PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR LITERACY Activities we did :
This activity covers reading and writing at the same time. I wrote four words that we use most often, Don's name, his brothers, mine and 'hug'. I read those words with Don and he soon 'knows' those words. (I say he knows because he can't really read them, it's a whole language approach instead of spelling). Then we made a book. One three-words-sentence per page. Don hugs Mom. Mom hugs Don. Don hugs Terry. Terry hug Mom. Mom hugs Terry. Add a few drawings. Add a cover (from construction paper).Don can read the whole book by himself !! We made labels for some of the things around the house. Table, TV, drawer, wall. Then we stick the labels to the item so now Don can see the label and try to read them. TV was the best, it was the easiest. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR MATH Books we read :
Funny book. Don loves it ! He doesn't really know he's learning math, he just enjoys trying to count all the weird, funny looking monsters. Now he really knows his triangle and can even make one using his arm. I think he can follow the book up to rectangle only. Pentagon and beyond is still too much for him. We love it, though, since it's a fun read. Don can't really follow the book. It's about counting money and he's just not into that yet. So we just read the book and not bother about learning math (or at least I don't think so, who knows what goes on inside a young mind). Games we played :
Pattern recognition. Don still needs to count the dots to play this game but he's starting to realize that there is a pattern, that he doesn't really need to count the dots. I actually bought the geoboard to prepare for his math lesson but wasn't going to do it until a lot later. But Don found the board and was playing with it and was excited that he could make lots of different shapes with the rubber band. He's learning on his own. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR SCIENCE Books we read :
Still on this book, have not finished and still interested. Experiments we did :
Solid and liquid. We put cold heavy cream in a cold jar (used baby food jar), put 2 cold marbles, and shook it. After a while, the cream has turned into butter. Introducing concept of energy by using plastic grocery bags. Hold it, spin it, and let it go. It was so simple and not really interesting to me, but Don was excited. For a while he kept saying 'energy' and just pointing to all other forms energy can be stored. Oh boy, sometimes what seems boring to me can be a wonder to him.
PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS 3 PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR LITERACY We didn't do anything specific for literacy. The weather has been great so we've been spending a lot of time playing outside. We read lots of books since that's just our favorite thing, but not specific books about learning how to read.
PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR MATH Books we read :
Part of MathStart 1 series by Stuart Murphy. Don is starting to re-tell a story, so whenever I don't have time to read to him, he'll open this book and he can re-read the story. Basically an addition book, but it is presented with building blocks made into robot toy, building, rockets etc. Really got Don's attention.
PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR SCIENCE Experiments we did :
We put 3 - 4 rubber bands around a baking pan and made a music box. I asked Don if he know why the rubber make a sound everytime I pluck it. He looked really carefully for a second, and said "It moved !!", with glee. He figured it out. He was so proud. Then I went on explaining that every sound is made by something that vibrates. He then touches and knocks on everything so it makes a sound. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS 4 PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR LITERACY Books we read :
Got the book as a present from the library. It's about letters that turn into everyday things, such as umbrella, elephant, etc. Videos we watched
About the alphabets found in circus. Very entertaining for kids, apparently, since the kids love it. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR MATH Books we read :
We love Stuart Murphy's books, if you can't tell by now. This one is about doubling, but I don't think Don gets the idea yet. The concept is still too difficult for Don, especially since he can't really understand beyond 5, although somehow I think he really does. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR SCIENCE Books we read :
This week we read a lot about animal since we went to the zoo and the aquarium last week. This book is about how animal parent take care of their babies. Don wanted to know how animal homes are like so this book answer his question. He then pretend to be a fox and made fox's home. The book is about cheese making. This got me wanting to make my own cheese, and we did. About milk production. We haven't gone to a farm but we really, really want to see it first hand. Experiments we did :
After reading the book about cheese making, we finally made our own cheese. We got cheesemaking kit from cheesemaking.com and made our own mozzarella. Don was so excited (and me too). PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS 5 PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR LITERACY Books we read :
Don pick this book from the library. It's part of Brand New Readers series and we love it. The books are only about 40 pages and it contains 4 stories. Each story is only about 5 - 6 sentences. The words repeat and the illustrations are just cute and attractive. Very easy read, very good to show off. Another one from Brand New Readers. Still another one from Brand New Readers series but this one is special for Don. He likes to read it with Daddy, just like the book. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR MATH Books we read :
Greg Tang's books are great math books for kids but they're not for preschoolers, except for this one. It teaches grouping and the rhyming in the text are great. I might also include it in my literary preschool activity ideas. This might also be included in both literacy and math preschool activity ideas. Mrs. McTats keeps getting more cats in her house (addition) and she names the cats from A to Z. How could I forget about this book ? Don's had it since he's a baby and we love it. I just never look at it as a math book. It teaches counting with a classic Dr. Seuss's rhymes. I can never read it and not ended up singing the rhymes. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR SCIENCE Books we read :
This is actually a 3rd level reader but Don said he wants to be an astronaut and goes to the moon. So I pick this book and we learn about rocket, space ship, astronauts, and the moon. Experiments we did :
Adapted from Bubbles, Rainbows and Worms, by Sam Brown We did our own version of 'Blow the Man Down'. The book suggested putting a ballon under a cup and tipping the cup by blowing the ballon (with a straw). Then to try tipping the cup just by blowing with the straw. We didn't have any ballon so we used a small ziploc bag. Still worked. We watched 'Animal Rescue' on the weekend and saw how the firefighters used an airbag to rescue a dog trapped between two rocks. So we used our 'airbag' (the ziploc bag and straw) to rescue people trapped in cars (Don's little toy car and an imaginary figure), animals trapped between rocks (his toy animals), and other things around the house. He was off playing the firefighter rescuing all his toys.
PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS 6 PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR LITERACY Books we read : We read lots of books since I love reading, and since I've been reading to my kids since they're babies, they love it too. So it's just impossible to put everything here, but I put the ones that would specifically help children learn to read.
This is an early level reading book. It's really simple and since it uses words that we use everyday (washing hands, brushing teeth, cleaning up room), Don picks it up quickly. After reading it together 3 or 5 times, he could 'read' it by himself, and oh he was so proud of it. I really love Jane Moncure and she always has good illustrator because her books are always cute. This one is part of the Word Bird series for early readers and it's about Dinosaurs !!! so Don just loves it. Videos we watched :
We have the book but this DVD really rocks. It was funny watching Don watched the DVD. He remembers the book vividly and seeing it on video just amazed him. The pages are animated, and there's sounds, and it's not Mommy or Daddy reading it. It's basically book on DVD, so it's not a movie. It has the stories Green Eggs and Ham, 10 Apples up on Top (we have both these books so it was just great to see them on video) and The Tooth Book. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR MATH Videos we watched :
Leap Frog Math Circus The video introduces numbers 0 - 10 and teaches addition and subtraction. I guess Don has been learning all his numbers and this video confirms it. He knows all his numbers with confidence now. He didn't really get the addition and subtraction yet. PRESCHOOL ACTIVITY IDEAS FOR SCIENCE Experiments we did : Water Volcano Basically the same as the Volcano experiment we did before, but instead of baking soda and vinegar, we used hot and cold water. So we put hot water in a little bottle, add a drop of red food coloring. Then we tie a string to the bottle so we can lower it to a bigger jar filled with cold water. Once submerged, the red hot water (lava) from the little bottle would flow out to the cold water, creating a volcano effect. Problem was, we used plastic bottle for the hot water and it wasn't heavy enough so it didn's sink to the jar but floated instead. So the volcano was a little 'wobbly'. Return to Preschool theme page.
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