Road to Reading

Four days ago I started on a journey the I may never be turning back from.  I got my act together, redesigned the blog to be more appealing, got my license from Scrappin Doodles to share my work, started a Facebook page and dove off into the unknown.

It's been fun to watch in the last four days how many people have "liked" Little Adventures Preschool on Facebook, and how many have left comments about downloading the Thanksgiving Math pack.  It has been thrilling to find out how much other people enjoy what I've shared.  Today, we arrived at two dozen (and then a couple) of "likes" on Facebook, so I thought it due time to share the next little project I've been working on. 

C (turns 3 in January 2012) has mastered the following letters: A T M S B H C I.  I have a philosophy about the order kids should learn the letters in, and it has to do with being able to use them immediately to "read" words - but more about that another time.  So with mastering these letters C is working on automaticity in recalling the letter sound, and then blending multiple letters into words.  I created Road to Reading as an activity that might make more concrete the skills I'm trying to teach him.  The idea is that you drive a small car under the letters while you say the sound of that letter.  Drive the car faster and faster until it blends into a word.  That's it!  Sound like something you'd like?  Click on the picture of it below to download the PDF file. 

Enjoy playing with the Road to Reading, I plan to make more versions of it as we master more letters.  As always - please let me know if there are any typos.  To download: just click on the image of the game above.  Please leave a comment here if you download, I'd love to know who's using it! And, if you blog about the pack let me know!  I'll add a link to your blog under the printables section of mine!

We went to the park as a family today, and I couldn't resist posting these two cute photos of EMan and C playing the day away.



Sight Word Caterpillar

This week we learned about caterpillars on Monday, and once I got more ink for my printer I went ahead and printed out this cute site word caterpillar.  Annie over at The Moffatt Girls blog created this and I hope it will be a big hit on Monday when all my preschoolers return.  I drew a new head for the caterpillar to match our room decor a bit better than the one provided.  Find Annie's Caterpillar {here} and download my caterpillar head {here}.  I only put up the sight words we've talked about or will talk about on Monday, there are many more in the download, and we'll be adding to it all year.  Thanks Annie!

I'd highly recommend that you let your little one trace the words as you add them to your wall.  I went ahead and traced them myself with a permanent marker since I wanted them to be read clearly from across the room by all students, but if it was just C and me I'd let him trace the words for ownership purposes.

Field Trip Friday - Zoo

Since we spent this week talking about what animals do in the winter we naturally had to spend Field Trip Friday at the zoo!

 EMan is getting so big walking everywhere by himself.  I started having him hold my handle strap on this trip.  It's an elastic with cute fabric over it that has a handle strap for a kid to hold onto and a strap with a buckle to attach to the stroller.  It helps kids remember to stay close enough to me.  He did great for it being the first outing where he's gotten to walk a good part of the way on his own.

Spoiler Alert!

If you are a grandparent to one of my boys, and you don't wish to know what you're getting for Christmas from them, PLEASE don't read any further!

If you don't care if you know early, or it doesn't apply to you, enjoy!

Thursday was craft day in our house.  Little Learners didn't have anyone signed up to come, so we stayed in our paint clothes all day and got to work.  I don't know if any of you are brave enough to let your kids paint with semi-gloss, wall paint, paint and primer in one but I decided I was this day.

 We're making all sorts of picture blocks for Christmas, so we got busy painting.

 And EMan got busy eating crayons, yum!

 After the boys were done painting they needed a little snack.  As you can tell C also painted his legs, indirectly of course.

 It's days when I just give them the Costco sized animal cracker bucket that make me thankful for our kid sized vacuums.

 The boys had the job to paint the blocks.  When they were dry I used some Mod Podge and put pictures on them.

 The boys are getting this set of nine blocks that will have six different puzzles on them.  I don't have the room in my house to do this type of project without the boys seeing, so they've seen it and will hopefully forget it so it's kind of a surprise on Christmas morning.

 Grandparents will be getting these cute blocks with pictures of the boys on the sides.

And yes, I still have paint on my chairs to clean up.... oh well.

Thanksgiving Math Pack

I'm excited that in less than 24 hours there are a dozen followers of Little Adventures Preschool on Facebook.  I guess it's time to roll out what I've been working on, the Thanksgiving Math Pack!  I've yet to use it with my kids (I'm out of ink) but I'll post pictures as soon as I do.  This pack contains activities that would be great for the young preschooler (EMan, 1 year would enjoy it) and the older preschoolers and kindergartners that are in need of some fun math exploration. 
You'll explore:

• simple 5 piece puzzles
• Gross Motor math skills
• Short Path Game
• Compare (like "war" the card game)
• Geometric Solids
• Grid Game

You'll need:

• a die - I made one from a block and drew 1-3 dots (twice) on the sides since that's our level of math understanding in our home
• printer and scissors
• glue or magnets or Velcro (for the geometric solids)
• tape or magnets for the gross motor game
• counters - the more interesting to your kid the more involved they'll be!

Enjoy playing with the Thanksgiving Math Pack, and as always - please let me know if there are any typos.  To download: just click on the image of the pack above.  Please leave a comment here if you download, I'd love to know who's using it! And, if you blog about the pack let me know!  I'll add a link to your blog under the printables section of mine!

Animals in Winter

Today in Little Adventures Preschool we talked about what animals do in winter. We started by talking about winter and what people do to get ready for winter.  We made this fun graph with all the kids faces to identify what types of clothing everyone had.



Then, we talked about what animals migrate and what that means.  We used the do-a-dot painters to paint some butterflies.

 Snack time is an important time to learn new skills.  I was very focused on pouring her water.  Of course there are messes every day, but that's part of growing up!

 Next we learned about animals that hibernate in winter.  I didn't get any good pictures of that.  Lastly, we learned about animals that adapt in winter.  All the animals that we talked about are brown in the summer (to match the dirt) and white in the winter (to match the snow).

 When our book was finished we used crayons to find the word 'the'.  Here A astounded me by finding the word 'the' in together!

 Some of us are still working on recognizing the word the, and the twins have an excuse since they started after the 'the' lesson :)

We didn't get to the printables that I started creating (grid and short path math games).  If you'd like to download them click this link here: Animals in Winter Math Games

Short Path Game

I've been reading a great book lately to help me up my math exploration with the kids.  It's called More Than Counting.  It's inspired some game making and I took a plunge and installed Adobe Acrobat Pro (the trial version) to see if I could make printables to share.  I started with an Animals in Winter Short Path Game.  Our preschool topic tomorrow is about Animals in Winter, so what better to start with?  Using the homemade 1-3 die, kids will roll to see how far along to move their counter.  When they get from the squirrel to the acorn they win.  Every child has their own game board for this type of game. 

So, what did I learn when I tried this out with the boys?  LOTS!  First of all, we are NOT READY for this type of game yet.  There is still a lot of 1 to 1 correspondence lacking in my boys knowledge.  Also, the idea of leaving a game piece and each move adds on to where you already were along the path.  So, the conclusion?  HOLD UP!  BACK UP!  It's time to start with something easier.  Now, I'm off to make a grid game instead, we'll see if we can master some of these skills yet!

To download the file for the Animals in Winter Short Path Game, just click on the image of the game above.

Update (just a few minutes later) I've finised a grid game. I've yet to try it with my boys and will be heading off to lunch time now, but go ahead and try it with your kids.  If you download the game PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT!  I'd love to know who is using these and how.  Just click on the picture below to download the grid game.