Top 10 Proven Preschool Activities for Pp

Number 1: PLAY!

If you do nothing else this week, please let it be play!  Of course, almost everything I suggest is about playful learning because it is essential for children, and pretty darned important for grown-ups too.

Number 2: Pizza

See, learning about the letter P is fun AND delicious!  You already know I love to cook with children, and what's better for this week than making and eating pizza?! 

Depending upon how much time I want to spend on this, and on the age and skill level of my kiddos, I've had them help me make pizza dough (I cheat and use the bread machine), or I've used something as a pre-made crust.  Both work beautifully, are fun and fairly easy, and you end up with something delicious that your children will want to eat.  Today let's talk about letting children make their very own mini pizzas by using half an English muffin as a crust.

 I like to put out pizza toppings for the children to choose, and invite them a couple at a time to come and assemble their pizzas.  If you want to really talk about the sound of Pp, consider offering pepperoni, peppers, and pineapple along with any other toppings you want.  

It does take a few minutes for a preschooler to scoop up the ingredients they want, and to spread them on their pizza.  They're making decisions, estimating how much they want of each ingredient, and working their finger muscles as they arrange the toppings.  This is a fine motor, sensory, life-skill, healthy eating experience, and that's definitely worth the time it takes!

Make sure you know who's pizza is where on the baking sheet, because they WILL want THEIR OWN pizza!  Bake it until everything is hot and the cheese is starting to turn golden, and then.... well, your child will help you figure out what comes next!

Number 3: Pigs in a blanket

This is another fun cooking activity for your little ones, and you'll just need a can of biscuit dough and some mini sausages.

Let the children cut the pieces of biscuit dough in half, and squish each half.  Lay a sausage on the dough, then roll it up.

Lay them on a baking sheet and bake according to the directions for the dough.  YUM!

Again, if you're not sure what comes next, ask your children, they'll know it's time to eat!

Number 4: Picnic

You might be thinking a picnic takes a lot of planning and preparation, but when you're dealing with children, simply taking your meal outside to eat equals a picnic!  I like to keep a picnic blanket handy so we can make a picnic in just moments.  Have a large box from a delivery?  Instant picnic table! 

There's something magical about getting outside to eat - and of course, once they're done eating, it's time to PLAY!

Number 5: Puddle Stomping!
 

This is one of my all time favorite preschool activities, and one I think most of my former students remember well, even many years later.  I have a couple of pro-tips to help make this activity go smoothly, even with a group of children.

- Plan ahead.  Before you ever head out the door, make sure you have towels and dry clothes handy for afterwards.  Is your child wearing something that is okay to get wet, or do they need to change into play clothes first? Is the puddle in a place that's safe for bare feet? 

- Set limits.  Is splashing okay?  Are you getting full body wet, or just feet?  What space do you expect the children to stay in?  By thinking this through ahead of time you save yourself having lots of tired, wet children making a mess in your house afterwards!

I like to have the children take off their shoes and socks inside, and then head out. We run, we stomp, we splash... then we look for earthworms that have been washed out, and gently rescue them from the puddles.  We run around some more, and we notice how different everything looks when it's wet.  Take off your shoes and stomp right along with your child - I promise, it's fun!

Number 6: Penguins

Read about them (here's a post about penguin books), craft them, act like them, there are so many awesome ways to include penguins in your learning! Did you know Emperor penguin daddies keep their unhatched eggs warm on their feet? 

Penguins DO waddle, but they also like to slide on their bellies, which is called tobogganing.

They live in colonies or rookeries, and their chicks are fluffy and gray - NOT black and white.  

These are pictures of our penguin rookery - the patterns and instructions are available in my TeachersPayTeachers store here if you're interested, or for a penguin craft and games for learning letter P, check out this resource:

Number 7: Pirates

I've blogged about our pirate activities several times - check those posts out here, here and here!

Number 8: Hand prints and foot prints, of course!

As always, you can find the original inspiration for each of these, and many more ideas for similar crafts on this Pinterest board.

Number 9: Puzzles

Do you and your littles do puzzles together?  Puzzles require children to look for similarities and differences in shape and color, to rotate pieces, to work their finger muscles, to think about what the picture is supposed to look like, and much more.  Start with puzzles with 4 or 5 pieces, and work up to more complex ones.  You can usually find puzzles at resale stores or garage sales for very little money, and your local library may also have some in the play area that you can use while you're looking for books!

Number 10: Letter crafts

Make the letter-sound connection by creating letters that go along with some of the letter Pp activities you're doing this week.  We added penguins to pink or purple lower case letter p, and turned the upper case P into a pepperoni and peppers pizza pie. 

Have a great week friends - peace!

Penguin Fun

 Do your students love penguins?  Winter is a great time to learn about penguins - and other polar animals!  Last week I shared some ideas for learning about polar bears, so this week I thought I'd blog about penguins.

A couple of years ago we were lucky enough to have a penguin exhibit at our local museum (Fort Worth Museum of Science and History.)  Most of the exhibition was photographs, but there was also a docent with this beautiful taxidermied penguin, so we were able to get up close and check it out.  It amazed us all to see how tiny its feathers were!

After walking through the photo exhibition and seeing pictures of penguins doing all the things penguins do, we noticed a lovely, long bench.  The children decided to practice tobboganing, which is just sliding on our bellies.  This is one of the ways penguins move across the ice!

Back at home we tried holding "eggs" on our feet, just like daddy penguins do all winter. We were inspired by the book Without You, by Sarah Weeks, pictured here along with some other fun penguin books:

Standing still was pretty easy, but when we tried to waddle with our "eggs" on our feet, they went rolling.  We decided we would not make good penguin daddies, that's a hard job!

We had fun making our own penguin rookery, complete with chicks sitting snug on the father penguins' feet.  I displayed them on a large sheet of polystyrene foam, and the mottled white background looked icy.  (I've recently updated this activity and added a non-fiction book, and made it available here.)

We also watched some awesome youtube.com videos about penguins.  These links will take you to some of our favorites!
Jack Hartman, penguin dance
Happy Feet brain break
The Learning Station, Penguin Song

We learned about the letter P the same week we learned about penguins, so we made some pink or purple lower case letters, and added some penguins to it.  The children got to choose how many little penguins they made for their letter, so we added a little math by making a graph about how many penguins we used.  Super simple, and totally relevant to the children - oh yeah, and it was a good reason to practice writing their names!

Here's another fun penguin activity that ties back into penguins sliding on the ice.  Freeze a tray of water a couple of days ahead of time (you want it frozen completely solid).  Sit a toy penguin on it, and see if it starts sliding.  If you have it laid flat, the penguin won't move unless you scoot it along.  Then slowly raise one end - I used stacks of dice - until your penguin goes sliding on the ice.  Experiment with the ramp you've created - what else slides?  How high do you need to prop the end?

You probably already know I love to use hand print art with the children each week too, so one of our choices was a hand print penguin - with a textured "snowy" background.  I mixed approximately half shaving cream and half white paint, and let the children finger paint that onto their paper (fun!), then we made the penguin separately, and glued it on once the background was dry.  The shaving cream/paint dried with texture and a lovely silky feel to it.  If you haven't tried this yet, you'll be amazed by the results!

For even more penguin ideas, check out this post and this post here on my blog.  If you're looking for resources you can download and print to help you teach your children about penguins, you can see what I've created here.

What are your favorite penguin activities?  I'd love to know!

Penguins and piggies and pizza, oh my!

There are SOOOO many things that start with the letter P and are relevant to preschool kiddos, that we had a very busy week!  We started out by reading about penguins, both fiction and non-fiction, then made a cute penguin craft. These are parent penguins, keeping their chicks warm on their feet.  We displayed them all together, in a (reused styrofoam) rookery, just like real penguins.  We learned lots of great vocabulary including chicks, rookery and brood pouch.

One of our penguins books was Five Little Penguins Sliding On The Ice, by Steve Metzger.  We had fun acting it out!

For more penguin counting fun, check out this adorable Penguin poem on my blog, and available at my TeachersPayTeachers store.

It was also fun to practice being a penguin parent, carrying our "eggs" on our feet to keep them off the cold ice.  We decided daddy penguins definitely had an advantage, having a brood pouch to help keep their eggs on their feet!  Some of the kiddos pushed their "egg" up their pants leg, to make their own brood pouch!  I found the idea here.

One sunny morning we all took turns planting peas in the veggie garden.  It's quite barren out there now, but as spring approaches, peas will be one of the first plants to germinate.  As we planted we talked about what the seeds will need to help them grow: water, soil, and sunshine.  We pushed each seed into a small hole, and covered them with a little soil - they germinate in the dark, then grow up into the light.

On Wednesday, we made "pigs in a blanket" for lunch - yum!

Later in the day I had my kindergarteners plan out, write and illustrate an experience story about our cooking.  They were very proud to read it to their parents and their friends, and I saw some of their nicest handwriting!

We had a lot of choices for our hand print art this week!  I found Pete the Cat here,

the pirate here,

 this penguin here,

the peacock here,

the polar bear here,

and Pigeon here.  I love them all!

Of course, if we're talking about the letter P, we have to make pizza!  This year I let each child make their own pizza on an English muffin.  They spread the sauce, chose their toppings, and put their pizza together just the way they wanted it.  Look at all these tasty ingredients!

 Ready for the oven...

 Ready to eat!  Yum!  The kiddos not only gobbled up their pizza, but also ate salad and corn.

While some children were making their real pizzas with me, others made their P for pizza craft with Ms. Julie.  They added pepperoni, pineapple and peppers, all to fit with our letter P theme.  We made the lower case p for penguins earlier in the week, and each child chose 1, 2, 3, or 4 penguins to go on their pink or purple p.  In the next picture, you can see the graph they made, showing how many penguins each child chose.  When we graph we talk about number, more than, less than, equal, greatest or most, and fewest or least, all good math vocabulary to develop.

 Just for fun, we played Papa's Pizza Topple, a toy left over from when my own kiddos were little.  To be successful in this balancing game the children have to place their pieces gently, and pay attention to which part of the pizza is heaviest; leaning down, and lightest; sticking up.

We also did a lot of puzzles this week.  I've written an entire blog on that - please scroll down if you'd like to read it.  This giant Winnie the Pooh puzzle was difficult, but we had to do Pooh bear activities, as January 17th is A.A. Milne's birthday, and Winnie the Pooh Day.

We read Pooh bear books, and snuggled with stuffed animals and puppets...

 ...and played Pooh bear toys, including bingo and a matching game.  For lunch we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches (yum!), and lots of fresh veggies from Rabbit's garden: corn, cauliflower, carrots, tomato, spinach and peas.

Our last fun P activity this week was painting on HUGE paper.  This paper was padding in a package I received earlier in the week, and saved for painting on.  Who says art supplies have to be new?  The kiddos had a blast doing extra large paintings, and reused the paper in the process. 

We had a great week, with lots of fun learning activities.  Next week, letter Q.  Perhaps we'll even have a visit from HRH The Queen!