Have you seen these adorable Pumpkin Preschool Activities? Excellent Letter and Number Practice with all of the fall fun of pumpkins.

A collaborative blog by Pre K and Kindergarten specialists. Child growth and development, information, free printables.

My kinders loved learning about bones. Here are some of the ideas I found online (links below) and of course, a Fairy Dust idea! I love this idea from Dilly Dali. For instructions: Cotton Swab Bones This would be so great to build as a class. Instructions at: http://pickupsomecreativity.blogspot.com/ Super easy plastic fork skeleton! […]

I love spring time in Kindergarten! Everything is clicking away with my kiddos and we are reading , writing sentences , adding , subtracting , and so much more . It is so much fun to be a part of. Take a peek at what we are doing in kindergarten this month, and enjoy the April F

Nutze die Idee als Inspiration für deine KollegInnen, deine Kinder oder als Anregungen für Eltern, die so ein Glas für sein Kind mit netten Wünschen füllen können. So eine Erinnerung kann beispielsweise in den Portfolio-Mappen gesammelt werden. #herzenswünsche #kita #kitakinder #portfolio #inspirationkita #kitaleitung #erzieherin #transition

My kids had a blast creating this magnet track craft. It was a craft that could be done by all three (ages 6, 4, and 3) at different levels. My oldest was able to do everything on her own. The others needed help here or there with some of the steps. They all designed their...Read More

Halloween activity for kindergarten. Frankenstein scissor skill cutting pages.

Salad spinner art! How amazing are these Halloween cut outs using the @ikea_australia salad/lettuce spinner with their paints.Watch the magic unfold of these spinner patterns. We add some blutac on…

The ultimate guide to teaching toddlers scissor skills from the best blogs. Tips and easy practice activity ideas.

Here in Virginia, it’s apple picking time at all the local orchards. Time for apple pie, apple cider, apple dumplings, and the list goes on… yum! So of course, we threaded lots of apple activities into our class. We were learning about our five senses in science, so this was the perfect opportunity to incorporate all of them. First, we explored apples with our sense of sight, smell, and touch. The students shook the apples to see if they made a sound, and then determined they did not. When we

Christmas Fine Motor Math Activities are a fun and hands on way to strength fine motor skills, build spatial and visual discrimination, while practicing counting. These are perfect for morning work tubs, math centers, a holiday party or fine motor tubs in a kindergarten classroom. These STEM activities are sure to be a hit in your classroom! Included are a variety of fun themed activities that your students are sure to love. I have included affiliate links to all of the manipulates that I use as well. Pattern Blocks One of my favorite fine motor activities is Christmas Pattern Block Math Activities Your students will have a blast working with shapes to build different Christmas themed pictures and count how many of each shape is used. Included in the packet are a variety of options for the 10 pictures including tracing only, small task cards that will challenge your students and encourage visual and spacial discrimination, as well as an open ended blank build your picture with shapes option. This provides an amazing option to differentiate and allow them to see the different shapes that you can use to build a shape. Each student may come out with a different way to create the picture and compare and a great way to bring in math questioning. I have included a free sample of one of the versions of the reindeer and the ornament for you to try in your classroom at the end of the post. If you don't get have Pattern Blocks yet, I have included my affiliate link for those as well. Snap Cubes Another favorite fine motor activity that I love is Christmas Snap Cubes. This is another hand on activity to get students building, creating, and counting quantities up to 30. Included are 10 different Christmas mats for students to build directly on as well as a version without counting, in case your students aren't there yet, as well as the small easy to store task cards. You can find the snap cubes here, if you don't have them in your classroom yet. And you can find a free sample freebie on on version of a snap cube stocking and snap cube wreath at the end of this post. Building Blocks These are another hit and with all of the Lego's you may have laying around. Students can use the Lego's to create their Christmas themed pictures. These are available in large to scale mats, you have even have the students build directly on the mats and count how many of each color or small easy to store task cards that are not to scale. They are also amazing fine motor practice! Included in the complete set are 10 different pictures. You can find the picture of the Christmas tree and a Gingerbread house as a free sample in my fine motor sample pack. Geoboards Geoboards are another great fine motor activity to use in your classroom. They are such a hands on way for students to practice making and identifying shapes and great for your tactile learners. These geoboard pictures include both a simple level and a more complex picture. You can find the geoboards that I use in my classroom here: Christmas Fine Motor Bundle You can find all of these activities with 10 different pictures in each set as well as other additional activities at a discounted price in my Christmas Fine Motor Bundle here. You can also click on any of the images to take you to the individual packets in my store. Or you can find the Free Christmas Fine Motor Sample here

One fun way to celebrate Chinese New Year with children is with a fun craft. Today we are sharing how to make this awesome cupcake liner dragon craft that

These Cutesy Calendars are perfect for a student-made holiday gift, but they can also be used for a variety of other purposes, too! This printable calendar is updated yearly and includes two years at a time! Handprint calendars make the sweetest gift for parents to receive from their student during the holiday season! I love […]

Our theme last week was "Construction" and we focused on the letter P, number 13 and color yellow. We read this week: Curious George Makes Pancakes by Margret and HA Rey The 100th Day of School by Angela Shelf Medearis If you Give a Pig and Pancake by Laura Numeroff Curious George and the Puppies by Margret and HA Rey My First Chinese New Year by Karen Katz We finished the month of January this week (CAN'T BELIEVE IT!) so we got to compare this year's weather and last years! Our question of the week was "What would you like 100 of?" Some of these answers were great! For our theme of the week, we did talk some about construction. Other thank some discussions about what construction is, and building with blocks, we focused more on two very special days that happened this week. I just have to share the sensory table from a younger classroom. How cute! First we had our 100th day of school! My kids were fascinated by this and kept counting to 100 all day. We used construction paper, paper plates and dot paint to make 100 gumballs! In small groups we counted 10 dots for each color of paint to get to 100. The Lunar New Year also fell this week. I bought this place mat from Pottery Barn Kids that shows the different animals. On the back I wrote little blurbs about what each animal stands for, years, and who they do/do not get along with. The kids loved finding out what animal year that they were born in. We also colored pictures and made paper fans to celebrate with. This kids really put a lot of effort into their pictures, which I loved! We talked about the color yellow, and we sang "Yellow Sun" to the tune of "Row your boat" "Bright sun shining down, Shining on the ground. What a lovely face you have, Yellow, big and round." I got it from here! When we focus on a color I love to do "color hunts" in our classroom. Each child takes a turn to walk around the classroom and bring back something that they found that is yellow. The tricky thing is that they have to bring different things, no duplicates allowed! Here is what we found for the color yellow. When we worked on our number activities, we practiced writing the number and word for the number 13. I made these worksheets that reinforces the one to one concept. The kids practice writing the number and have to color a square for each picture that they see. For our letter activities, we used our handwriting sheet for the letter Pp from this book. We did this worksheet that helps work on letter recognition that I got from this book. The students wrote in their journals for the letter. We turned a P into a Pig! This book is great, although this week I made up my own. I found this recipe for playdoh. The kids had a lot of fun playing with it! The kids made a little booklet calls Panda's Pillows that came from a Mailbox book: Letter of the Week. We made a retelling of the story "If You Give a Pig A Pancake" with the kids kids each illustrating a page. I love making little class books, the kids love making them too and their parents love to read them. I usually hang them up next to our Car Talk so the parents can flip through them at pickup. I made 3 pizzas out of paper plates and cut them into halves, quarters and eighths. The kids had a lot of fun putting them together and playing with the slices. Playing hot potato was super fun as well. For our alphabet wall we made puppies! Here are the words we came up with this week! Look at this adorable cupcake from one of the other classrooms! Up next week: "Ground Hogs and Shadows" and a focus on the letter Qq, number 14 and color gray.

Tons of Leap Year craft ideas for kids! The most adorable frog-themed crafts that the kids will love in the classroom or at home!

I'm trying to incorporate more science experiments in my classroom this year. My 1st and 2nd graders had such a wonderful time with our Apple Experiment. An apple experiment is a great way to tie your fall activities together, especially if you are planning a trip to the apple orchard. Here is what you need to do your own class experiment. 4 jars oil vinegar water an apple magnifying glasses a knife to cut the apple recording sheet (available at end of blog post) Place a quarter of the apple in each jar. Have the students add oil to one jar, vinegar to another, and water to the third. Leave the fourth one to have only air. We labeled the jars and observed the apples for a week. My students were constantly checking on the apples throughout each day. This picture shows the beginning of the experiment. This picture shows the end of the experiment. What happened? The apple,exposed to air, started to oxidize. The apple in the vinegar had brown spots all over it. The apples in the water oxidized a bit, but compared to the other apples in liquid it wasn't that much. In the oil, the apples also oxidized a bit. Another liquid to use in this experiment would be lemon juice. Definition of oxidize-when the apples come in contact with the oxygen in the air and begin to react by turning brown. When we were finished we documented the results. My little guys have begged for more experiments ever since! Click here to get this document for free.

Have you ever wondered what Johnny Appleseed carries in his knapsack? My students answered this question inside these knapsack crafts!

Stress-free Halloween activities are perfect for a fun party at home or in the classroom. These are low prep and lots of fun.

Find fantastic Groundhog Day activities for your primary students including ideas for read alouds, small group, math activities, crafts, and more!

This writing lesson and craft revolving around snow globes helps bring winter to the classroom, even if live in a place without snow!

Hi! Long time no blog! Life has been a little busy for me lately but I'm finally back to share some things that are happening in my classroom! Here are 5 things from this week! 1. CVC READ & FIND During guided reading I was noticing that some of my kids were having a hard time stretching and blending the sounds in CVC words. So I made up these CVC Read & Find mats to encourage them to practice the skill during centre time. It was a surprising hit and even kids who usually don't go to "academic" centres were trying it out. We did short a words this week so I'm planning to put out short e words next. You can find these CVC Read & Find mats/cards in the product below. Click here or on the image to check it out on TpT. 2. MOTHER'S DAY GIFT I always like to start Mother's Day gifts early so we don't feel rushed the week of. This year we made these "Thumb-body Loves You!" magnets! I cut out a circle from cardstock to fit the juice lid (my teaching partner had a bunch she had saved from frozen juice concentrates) and the kids put their thumbprint in the middle (we used an red inkpad) and wrote their names at the bottom. Then I wrote in "Thumb-body Loves You!" and taped it on the lid. On the other side we added a magnet so that it could go on their fridge at home! Here are some by the kiddos. They turned out soooo cute! One of my kiddos even wanted to do the "Thumb-body Loves You" part all by herself and did such a good job writing in that small space. We hope the moms love it when they open it next weekend! 3. MOTHER'S DAY CARD We always do a card as well and this year we decided use this adorable picture idea from Burgh Baby and make it the cover for our card! I drew the heart and U with chalk on the pavement of our Kindergarten pen. Then I had the kids lie down on the pavement so their bodies would look like the letter I. Then I got up on a ladder to snap the picture. For the inside I had the kids tell me what they wanted to write in their Mother's Day cards and then I typed it into a word document. I typed almost exactly what the kids said. They needed very few prompting and if they did I prompted them with questions like "What is your favourite thing about your mom? What is your favourite thing to do with your mom?" etc. They came up with some adorable things to say, so again I'm hoping the moms will love it! Here is an example of the inside: 4. MOTHER'S DAY GIFT BAG Stamping with paint and cookie cutters is my go-to for decorating gift bags. It's easy, cheap, low-prep and each bag turns out unique and beautiful. It doesn't get much better than that! For Mother's Day gift bags we used butterfly, flower and heart cookie cutters and pink, purple and white paint. We'll put the magnets and cards inside (or staple the card to the back if it doesn't fit inside) and send them home on Thursday! 5. SIGHT WORD MINI READER I'm always thinking of new and engaging ways for the kids to practice sight words independently at centres. I also wanted something that they could do at centres and then put in their book boxes to read at independent reading time. So I made up this mini sight word practice booklet + mini reader to try out this week with our focus sight word and the kiddos loved them! First the kids colour the word on the cover (you could also get them to rainbow write) and write their name. Then they practice both tracing and writing the word. Then there are 4 pages where the kids can trace the sight word in a simple sentence and read the sentence. I'm thinking of making these for all pre-primer sight words but we'll see if I can find the time! I'm also thinking of adding tracking dots under the words with 1:1 correspondance. Let me know if you have a preference and I'll keep it in mind when I'm working on them! *UPDATE: They are now ready! You can buy them in sets or in a big bundle! I'll leave the link for the bundle here. In the description you can go to each individual set if you are looking for a particular sight word!"* Click here to see the "Sight Word Mini Books Mega Bundle" or on the image below: You can grab this "will" booklet and "this" booklet (which I made for my LLI reading group) by clicking here or on the image below: Ok that's it from me this week! If you are interested in checking out other Five for Friday posts you can click on the image below to check our the linky! Have a great weekend! SaveSave SaveSaveSaveSaveSaveSave

Practice number recognition and fine motor skills the fun way with these Color by Number Winter Preschool Worksheets! Your little kids will have a great time coloring the adorable winter animals and scenes. You're not

Every teacher wants a stress-free holiday party. Check out these easy peasy, fun and independent Stress-Free Valentine's Day Activities.

Today I'm going to show you this super cute Coffee Filter Bat Craft that's great for Halloween decorating or even a theme unit about bats.

I had some requests to make a Father’s Day activity similar to the Mother’s Day activity that I posted recently. So, here it is! Click the picture below to get the free download. I also just posted a Father’s Day Free Tie Craftivity in my TpT store. With these two activities – you are set for […]

I know this book was published in 2001, but it is new to me! I ordered it from a recent Scholastic Book Order, and I have loved reading it to my grandchildren! There are lots of ideas of activit…

Classroom Freebies Too is more freebies for more teachers!

Summer bucket lists are a fun way to keep kids involved with a variety of things over the summer. This summer bucket list is meant for kids to fill out.

Exploring President's Day activities with kids can be a lot of fun, especially with money. We've included a free printable book for President's Day just for you!

Read Across America is week is coming up FAST! Here is a little activity that I thought I would share. This activity explores your kiddos' foot from Dr. Seuss' The Foot Book using non-standard measurement. Students will trace their foot onto the paper. (I would do this without a shoe on.) After they trace their foot, they can use pennies, paperclips, unifix cubes, and crayons to measure how long their foot is. You can read The Foot Book before hand and have a discussion about the numbers your class comes up with afterwards. Have fun! P.S. This is also a great Big Buddy Activity! Click HERE to get this FREEBIE! Happy Read Across America Week and Happy Birthday to

We love sensory bags at our house. Ever since I made our first sensory bag, Jumbled Snowman, over a year ago, they are always a guaranteed hit. It is a great way to provide hands on play for toddlers and preschoolers. So of course our Study of the Stars would not be…

Looking for fun Counting to 100 Activities? Check out these fantastic hands on math centers and worksheets for extra practice.