The best activities for learning Bb

 Welcome to part 2 of letter Bb preschool activities you can do at home or at school!  In the last installment I talked about baking bread, going on a bear hunt, enjoying a teddy bears' picnic, and lots of fun backyard activities you and your child will love.  Let's explore even more ideas today!

Activity 1: Songs  

You had to know there would be songs!  You probably already know Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and if you do, you might even have a baseball bat and ball you and your littles can enjoy.  Here are two more letter Bb songs:

Beetles in the Basin in the Bathroom

 

Here is the Bee Hive

 

If you'd like to check out the counting clip cards and other early math activities with a bee theme, click here to see them in my TeachersPayTeachers store. 

Want more songs for Bb?  I have a Letter Bb playlist on my YouTube channel - click here to check it out!

Activity #2: This week's hand (and foot!) print ideas are a bumble bee, bear, and butterfly. Bea-u-ti-ful!

Last week some of you shared your hand print creations with me on Instagram 💗💗💗💗💗!  I would LOVE to see how you and your littles use any or all of these learning activities!  Please tag me @paulabeckerman2399, or leave comments on this blog - it absolutely makes my day!

Activity #3: Make binoculars

You'll need 2 paper tubes, a sheet of paper, a hole punch, and about 18' of yarn.

Start by measuring the length of your paper tubes, and cutting your sheet of paper to that width - keep all the length.  You'll have a long rectangle.  Tape or glue it to one of the paper tubes, carefully lining it up the ends of the tube and the paper.  Wrap it around both tubes, then tape or glue it in place.  (Remember, your little one can do the taping and gluing, only help with the parts they can't do well, and always let them do as much as they can!)

Use the hole punch (this part is probably too difficult for your child) to punch one hole on the outside of each tube.  Thread the yarn through and tie the ends so your child can put the binoculars around their neck.  It's fun to look through the binoculars to look for things that start with the letter B!

 

Activity #4  Butterfly paintings

You probably remember doing something like this when you were little: fold a paper in half, apply paint to one side, fold the paper shut, smush it, then open it again to find a symmetrical painting.  I recommend having plenty of paper on hand, because most children LOVE the magic of this simple activity.  

This is a great time to introduce the word symmetrical - being the same on both sides.  It's a great word, and once they start looking they'll notice LOTS of things are symmetrical: their face, many doors, lamps, the fireplace, the tv, the couch and more!  If they ask - and someone's child will ask - things that are not symmetrical are asymmetrical.  

Activity #5 Sensory play with a basket of beads / buttons / dry beans.

A lot of children really enjoy sensory play.  Just running your hands through a bowl of beads feels marvelous, and this is something our children don't get to enjoy often enough.  Sensory play can include water play, mud and sand play, soft animals, finger painting, smelling jars and much more - all staples of early childhood learning.  You can connect sensory play to letter learning by choosing materials that start with your focus letter, such as beads, buttons, or dry beans.  

Sensory play can get very messy - children are scientists who explore the world with wild abandon, and don't always keep materials in a container as parents and teachers might wish.  There are some easy ways to make sensory play a happier experience for both you and your child:

1. Know it will get messy to some degree, and put this kind of material out when you have the time and patience to deal with it. Stay close enough to supervise and redirect if your child starts throwing small pieces all over.  Make sure they know your expectations (Do you them to keep the materials in or near the container?  Do you expect them to help pick it up afterwards? Is there a time limit on how long you can keep it available?)

2. Place your sensory bin on a large towel or sheet, so when they're done most of the materials can easily be scooped back into the bin.

3. Consider taking water, sand and dry food materials outside to play, where clean up is easier.  I used to buy feed corn for our outside sensory bin, and whatever we didn't clean up, the squirrels would take care of.

4. Consider the ages and stages of your child(ren) and make sure materials won't be a choking hazard.

5. If the materials don't offer a way to play, your children will invent something - so put in a couple of scoops or bowls for them to fill, add some toys to hide and dig up, or add a favorite bath toy - the kind you pour water through - so they can pour materials through it.  Bored children WILL find a way to be entertained.

 

Activity #6: Letter Bb crafts

When I taught preschool one of our weekly activities was to cut out both the upper and lower case letter of the week, and to decorate them with things that represented the letter.  I had a copy of our alphabet letters posted along the top of the wall, and many of my students put their letters up on their bedroom walls and created their own alphabet wall at home.  These activities evolved over time, and your letters don't have to look like mine - there are many right ways of doing things in this world!  I'll share my ideas with you, but if there is something that is more meaningful to you and your child, do that instead.  I've taught a lot of children, and know a fair amount about early childhood education - but YOU know YOUR child best.

B is for butterfly.  You (or your child) can draw or cut out an upper case letter B from a piece of construction or printer paper.  Notice how the top and bottom half of the B are symmetrical?  Remember our symmetrical butterfly painting?  How could your child turn their B into a symmetrical butterfly?  We glued on shapes, and I guided children to find 2 of each shape, and to place one on the top and one on the bottom of the B.  A pipe cleaner bent in half, with the ends curled around my fingers make simple antennas, which we stapled on.  If your child wants to add a couple of wiggly eyes, or long thin oval to represent the butterfly's body, go for it!

b is for bat and ball.  When I was in kindergarten Mrs. Potts taught us "first the bat and then the ball for b" - and it stuck with me.  I could tell the difference between b and d because d was "first the dog and then its tail". Thank you to Mrs. Potts, my students made their letter b crafts with a paper baseball bat and paper baseball, and I printed the words on it so they and their parents would remember.  

If your child is starting to pay attention to letters, and enjoys coloring, you may like this FREE activity to practice Bb, Cc and Dd.  Please follow their lead on what is enjoyable - the most important thing they're learning in preschool and kindergarten is that learning is FUN!  We're setting the stage for their attitude towards school for the rest of their life - that's a big responsibility!  If they don't want to color or do worksheets, please don't make them.

Most of the resources I make for preschool and early kindergarten are games.  If you want more play based learning activities, I'd love for you to check out my resources on TeachersPayTeachers - and no, you don't have to be a school teacher to use the site, parents are teachers too!  

Thank you for reading all the way through.  I really would love to know how you're using these ideas!  Let me know in the comments, or tag me on Instagram: @PaulaBeckerman2399 .  See you next week for the letter Cc!

Get busy with the letter b

I hope you enjoyed lots of letter Aa activities last week - if you missed that post, see it here.  Now let's get busy with the letter Bb!  There are SO MANY great things you can do to reinforce the connection between the letter B and the sound |b|: ride bikes, blow bubbles, bathe baby dolls, bake bread and more!  There are so many in fact, that I'm going to break this week up into 2 blog posts - are you ready to get started?

Activity #1  Bake bread.  

Yum!  If you have access to a bread machine it is super easy to make bread, but even if you don't, it's worth the time!  After you get online and find a recipe that appeals to you, you and your little one will do a lot of math as you prepare your dough: measuring teaspoons and tablespoons of ingredients, counting in cups of flour, and don't forget the real life skills of scooping and pouring. I've baked bread literally hundreds of times with children as young as 2.5, and the trick is to let them help however they can.  You probably don't want to have them measure and pour cups of water - how much would make it into the dough, and how much would spill?  Some things are too heavy for little hands, and some measurements need to be relatively precise.  

What to do?  Hold their hands in yours and help them scoop teaspoons of ingredients, then let them dump it in. 

Have them rest a measuring tool on the edge of the mixing bowl, and you pour liquid ingredients into that, then they dump it in.

Count scoops out loud together.  

If you're using a bread machine, show them which button to push to start it, and hold the lid open and watch it go for a minute.

 If you're kneading by hand, share the dough with them and let them knead for as long as they can - if you're talking about the bread, the sticky feeling of the dough, how you want to eat it when it's done, they'll hold out longer - and strengthen their hands as they do!

Once you've got the bread started, consider taking a close look at a piece of bread together.  Does your child notice all the bubble holes in the bread?  That's what makes it light and fluffy to eat!  

Yeast is the ingredient that makes the bubbles, and it needs warm liquid to do it.  If you put a little yeast in some warm water in an empty bottle, add a pinch or two of sugar, then stretch a balloon over the bottle, you'll trap any gas the yeast makes. 

It will probably take about as long as baking the bread does - so it's great to do these things at the same time!

Of course the best part of baking bread is eating it (smelling it cook is a close 2nd)!  Still, make sure you save a little for the next activity.

Activity #2: Teddy bears picnic

Bread isn't the only food that starts with the letter B - there's bananas, berries, bologna, broccoli... enough to make an excellent teddy bears picnic!  I like to read the book, but you can also listen to the song on YouTube.com, and then pack your basket with food that starts with B, grab your favorite bear(s) and book(s) and head to the backyard to enjoy your picnic! 

Activity #3: Go on a Bear Hunt

I learned this song / game first from Dr Jean's song, then later found the book and story retelling by Michael Rosen, and later still the version from The Learning Station.  My favorite is the book - and seeing the author tell it is fantastic!  However you learn it, going outside and pretending to go on a bear hunt is FUN!

While you're outside for your bear hunt, take a little time for:

Activities 4, 5, 6, 7 & 8: Bounce balls, bathe baby dolls, ride bikes, blow bubbles, and observe bugs!

That's more than enough for one blog post - but come back on Wednesday for a second installment of letter Bb activities!

Finishing off the letter B week

 One of our regular weekly activities is hand or foot prints related to the letter of the week.  This week the kiddos chose between bees, butterflies and bears.  Having their hands and feet painted is a cool sensory experience, and our mommies and daddies treasure the resulting art work.  Win-win!  I also upload most of our artwork to Artsonia, a free, on-line student art gallery.

We love to take our fun and learning outside as often as possible, and this week was no exception.  To add variety to our ball play options, I set up some cardboard tubes.  In their previous lives, the tubes had carpet rolled on them.  Now we roll balls down them.

We made bubbles one day too - but not the soapy kind!  I gave the kiddos a small cup of vinegar, a bowl of baking soda, and pipettes to transfer the vinegar into the baking soda.  We started by smelling the vinegar - we talked about not mixing or smelling just anything, because some things can be dangerous, but these items aren't.

 Wow!  Look what happens!

 The children were amazed - and some of them wanted to do it over and over.  I suggested they see if they could do it at home this weekend - so if your child is wanting to make a chemical reaction this weekend, this is the one!

 We had to move on to the rest of our day... making and baking birthday cake...

We also needed the big carpet out, because I planned our Teddy Bears' Picnic for today.  Since the carpet was out, we also got out the instruments.  The kiddos made a lot of noise banging, tapping, shaking, and exploring the instruments.

When it was time for lunch, we put the instruments away, and took our teddy bears and lunch out to the carpet, and had our picnic.  We ate lots of 'b' foods: bologna on buttered bread, bananas, and 3 kinds of berries.  Yummy!

 

We finished Friday afternoon with the birthday cupcakes we made earlier in the day.  What a delicious ending to a fun and busy week! 

 Next week, letter C.