Valentines Day

Are your students getting excited about Valentines Day?  It's such a fun holiday to celebrate - there's good things to eat, crafts to make, and kind words spoken or written.  A lot of the children seem to show up in red, pink and purple clothes, often with hearts on them.  Valentines day can be a lot of fun, and even although I don't have a class of kids to prepare for it this year, I thought I'd share some of the things we've enjoyed doing in the past.

One of the things my kiddos have always loved to do is cooking.  There are a lot of fine motor skills and life skills involved, not to mention measuring and counting.  For our Valentines day party I like to have the children bake cupcakes - and they are all too willing to oblige!

After our snack, our party begins in earnest.  A lot of parents come and join us, so I like to take the opportunity to show the parents what the children have been learning.  Valentines is a great week to talk about the letter V in preschool, and you can see one of our letter crafts behind this happy kiddo.

Another way we show off what we've been learning during our party is with a modified game of pass the parcel.  I grew up in Australia, and pass the parcel was a popular party game.  It's a bit like musical chairs, but with a gift.  While music plays, the gift is passed around a circle of children.  When the music stops, whoever is holding the parcel takes off one layer of wrapping.  There are always a lot of layers!

 Between each layer, I put a note on a heart shaped paper, with directions for something for us to all do.  Some are simple and fun, like go hug a grown up (I don't say parent, in case someone doesn't have a parent attending, but of course it's their own grown ups they go to first!)  We also have directions like "say something nice to the person next to you" or "smile at someone you like."  My oldest students are usually able to read these simple directions, but if they can't, there's also former students who come back to visit, brothers and sisters who want to join in and help.

Other directions include reciting learning songs, jumping up and down while we count to 20 - just quick little things that are part of our daily routine precisely because they help the children learn and remember.

Of course we have the obligatory Valentines containers.  I use paper sacks that the children decorate at school earlier in the week.  That also is a lesson.  I show them a bag I made years ago.  One side has layer upon layer of ribbon and stickers, hearts and sparkles - way, way too much.  We talk about the word "gaudy", and how you can't see the things that are on there because there is too much.  The other side is what I call "tasteful" - enough decorations, not bare, but not ridiculous either.  Check out their bags, I think all the kiddos hit the target!

Many of the children write their friends' names on treats or Valentines that they bring.  Sometimes parents help them, but not always.  Either way, they take turns reading the names of their friends, and delivering their Valentines.  Reading names is a great way to begin reading, what could have more meaning than your own name, and the name of your friends?  They see each other's names in our classroom so often that even the 3 year olds can usually figure out each name - even if only by the first letter.  Oh yes!  We practice looking each other in the eye and thanking our friends for each card or treat, no matter how small. It's easy to get overwhelmed in the giving and receiving, but gratitude is not only a social nicety, but I think a big part of feeling happy.

Our Valentines learning gets another boost about a week later.  Those of you who work in early childhood will smile and understand totally!  My husband usually gets me roses for Valentines (I'm a lucky wife!), and I enjoy them as long as they last.  There comes a day though when they are no longer attractive on my kitchen counter, and it's time to move them on.  Not to the compost or the trash can, oh no!  We can sort and graph with them!

But we still aren't done.  The children love to pull the petals off, pretend with them, give each other flowers... those roses still have at least 2 days of learning left in them!

 Eventually we take them outside and inevitably they are thrown up in the air, danced in, gathered and dumped, loved upon until they are no longer even pretty scraps.  Some end up in sandcastles and "soup", others dry up  on the playground and settle into the mulch. 

I've used this activity with my own kiddos for several years, and they love it.  I hope yours do too!  It's an easy emergent reader that has children reading "This heart is ___ (color)" - a simple text to help them work on color words.

If you're planning your Valentines Day learning, I hope you'll also check out my Valentines Day resources.

Happy Valentines Day everyone!

Vroom! Vroom! Transportation Theme

What comes to mind when you think of a transportation unit?  Cars, trucks, trains, buses, bikes... there are so many possibilities, and the children seem to love them all!  Putting this blog post together, I found so many incredible pictures of transportation activities that we've done... so fasten your seat belt!  We're off!  

First stop, outer space.  I found the idea for our rocket ships at crafty-crafted.com and thought it was so adorable!  Most children seem to enjoy having their feed painted - I think it's the tickle-y feeling and the 1-1 time with a teacher... oh yeah, and the paint and craft supplies... We save our hand and foot print crafts in an alphabet binder, which I promise to share with you soon.

 I bought my astronaut costume on the day after Halloween, when everything was on clearance.  The children quite literally loved it to death.  It was used so hard by so many kiddos that it eventually split in the back and the zipper broke.  Any toy or material that the children use until it is unusable is a winner in my book, far better than those toys that just sit on a shelf unused.

 These kiddos are playing one of the games I created for my Astronauts and Aliens games pack.  It includes two space themed game boards, each in both a full color and a printer-friendly version, plus a snap/concentration style game, all focusing on learning the letter A - although you could use the space themed game boards with whatever skill you want your kiddos to learn.

 Another fun idea that I found via Pinterest.com at redesignrevolution.com it's a great idea for recycling bottles and making a high interest toy all at once.  Who doesn't like free toys?!

While I do believe play is very important for young children, and have offered my students a lot of time to explore their world through play, I know there is also room for learning more academic skills.  I believe there is a lot of room for those two philosophies to overlap - so we learned about non-standard units of measurement in a playful way, with these transportation themed math manipulatives from Lakeshore learning.

 I also have a collection of vehicle shaped beads, which the children love to sort by shape, color, translucent/non... so many possibilities. 

 

  

Maybe your budget won't allow for manipulatives right now.  (I didn't buy mine new either!)  I've put together some math mats and a collection of paper vehicles to make it easy to incorporate math skills into a transportation unit.

You probably already have puzzles on hand for your kiddos - and if you don't, really, it's time to hit up some garage sales and pick some up.  Puzzles allow children the opportunity to learn to match shapes and colors, to think logically, to manipulate the pieces to develop spacial reasoning skills... and they are also fun!

No transportation unit would be complete without cars and trucks, the kind of transportation that our children have the most experience with. 

 

 The children have spent a lot of time "driving" the big trucks around the backyard.  For the children who really need big body play, bending over to hold a truck, and then running full tilt through the grass is pure joy.  When we're done running, we may as well have a car wash, and clean those vehicles up!  (Do you hear the music for "Working at the car wash" in your head now?  Yes, we sang it while we worked!)

 Another favorite play item that the children love enough to wear out, is our huge cardboard tubes.  People often ask where I got these, as there are so many great ways to use them, but it's not the kind of item you run to the craft store for.  No.  These were scavenged from the curb when neighbors had new carpet installed - the carpet comes wrapped on these awesome tubes.  Silly neighbors, they didn't know what the tubes are for, and tossed them out. (If you work with children long enough, I think you lose all sense of pride, and start picking up learning materials where-ever you find them.)

These kiddos are rolling toy cars and balls down the tubes.  It's great fun to put them in the top of the tube, then race to the bottom to see them magically appear!

 Here are the same small cars and some construction vehicles, and the children thoroughly enjoying moving some soil around with the trucks.  This was lovely sensory play, pretend, and an opportunity to work on co-operation with our friends, as the children built "road blocks", made mountains, and even buried trucks.

You probably also have bikes for your children, another great big body play opportunity with a transportation theme.  I have the kids wear helmets, not only for safety, but also because our state has a helmet law, and I do believe in starting out as you intend to continue.  Why let a toddler ride without one, then suddenly try to make them wear it later?  Chances are, they'll resist.  My kiddos know that there is not only no riding without a helmet, but you can't even claim a bike until your helmet is on.  Wow, do they move fast to get their helmets!

Trains, trains, trains!  We love trains! Trains sets, block trains, train crafts, and of course, real trains!  I like to approach each theme with a variety of experiences, so there is something that's just right for each child. 

Here are a few more vehicle ideas.  I've created an "ambulance" from a children's wheeled cart and some posterboard.  When we learn about the letter A, they drive the ambulance and say "aa-aa  aa-aa" (an ambulance sound) as they drive it.  This idea came from a brilliant presenter and author many years ago.  I recently gave the book to another provider, and the name eludes me right now.  I will remember and post it here!

 I found the tractor at funhandprintartblog.com.  Don't you love having so many wonderful ideas at your fingertips?  I so love the internet!  (I'll age myself for a moment.  When I was a teen, the thing I desperately desired was an encyclopedia set, so that when I wanted to find something out, I could just do it, rather than waiting for the public library to open, and walking there to look it up in the encyclopedia!  Okay, dated myself, and revealed my nerdiness.)

Another vehicle the kiddos are all familiar with is the bus.  This is a great thing to talk about when we're reading the Pigeon books by Mo Willems.  I was lucky enough to find a fun Don't Let The Pigeon Drive the Bus board game last year, and the kids LOVED it.  Board games are a great way to practice taking turns, counting spaces to move, following directions, and cooperating with a group.

How have I not mentioned food yet?!  Food is another great way to get children's attention and interest.  Coupled with this obviously sweet bus treat picture, that sounds nutritionally and educationally dreadful.  I promise I don't mean bribing or rewarding children with calorie laden junk, (although we do occasionally enjoy a treat).  I'm thinking of food, and particularly food preparation, as another high interest, multisensory approach to learning.  When we made our bus treat (graham cracker, frosting, rollos for wheels, chocolate squares for windows, candy for stop sign) we talked about colors and shapes, and the children worked on fine motor skills and following directions to put their treat together.

Here's a bus themed activity that I created to work on subtraction skills...

and for children who are beginning to read...


I haven't mentioned ships and boats and submarines yet.  Here's an adorable hand print that Ms. Julie came up with for the letter Y.  It's the only water-faring vehicle I can remember doing anything for! 

I haven't gathered any on my Pinterest Transportation Board either,


so I can see that I'm going to have to work on that.  Do you have any favorite transportation ideas you'd like to share?  Please leave it in the comments below.  Thank you for stopping by Paula's Preschool and Kindergarten!

From the mouths of babes...

I'm not awfully proud, and I don't mind admitting that a lot of our toys, especially our outside toys, come from garage sales and hand-me-downs.  Still, I had to wonder this week, when the children decided to gather all the outside toys - yes, right down to every block, bucket, shovel and sandbox toy - and to pile them on the playground.  "It's all trash," they told me.

 "And this is our trash truck."  How clever they are!  They took turns standing on the step and holding the yellow handles, just like the guys on our trash truck do.