Coronavirus quarantine home school educational activity tips, schedules, and learning ideas for school closings for moms.
If you want to teach your little ones about the concept of opposites you will want to check out these fun opposites worksheets and activities.
How to teach baby sign language, and when to teach it! This guide has everything you need to know about baby and toddler sign language.
Learning about the human anotomy is fun and easy for kids with My First Anatomy game. Identify, match, and learn! We are fearfully and wonderfully made!
Toddlers at 2 to 3 years old are at a stage of rapid cognitive, physical, and social development. Free learning milestone checklist for kids
Enhance your child's ability to follow directions and describe the location of an object using positional or directional words.
Are you looking for fun hands-on kindergarten activities? This list has 25+ play-filled activities for kindergarteners to do at home (from Busy Toddler)
Get silly with a fly swatter! Find the letters, then swat each one with a fly swatter in this fun and funny game that great for preschoolers or toddlers.
FREE printable puzzles to teach preschoolers about antonyms and opposites. Includes 12 self-correcting puzzles with visual cues to find the matching pair of antonyms.
Learn about five different biomes as you color and read key facts about with free printable Biome Coloring Pages for Prek-4th graders.
Five Fun Activities for Teaching Prepositions. Teaching prepositions through playing games & enjoyable activities for children to learn while having fun.
Looking for an easy toddler activity? Try making a matching pairs sensory bin! This fun learning activity is perfect for toddlers on a rainy day!
This magic pepper and soap science experiment is super fun and incredibly easy to do! Add it to your preschool or early elementary science lesson plans.
Science projects for kids can be fun and exciting. Make hands-on science crafts at home with these easy at home science crafts.
Measuring Length Activity Mats provide a hands-on opportunity for children to indirectly measure. Great for group work or learning centre activities
This Salt Painting Science Experiment is a fun way to combine art and science. It is also a visual and hands-on way for children to learn about absorption.
My son loves learning about the human body so we've jumped right into learning about the body with these cool human body printables for kids.
This 7 minute animal themed HIIT workout for kids improves emotional regulation and reduces meltdowns. Loved by OTs, teachers, and parents alike!
DIY Song Cubes to help children learn music "old favorites" and practice finding and keeping the beat; for preschool, pre-k, and kindergarten.
Here's are 10 fun counting songs with lyrics. Teach your child to count forwards and backwards with these awesome rhymes.
How to incorporate body awareness activities in your child's daily routine for better proprioception.
Download and print out the POSTER here (PDF file)
Anger is probably the #1 issue the kids I work with deal with. In this post you will find many great links, worksheets, and resources for addressing anger in children of all ages. One of my favorit…
I think it's a great idea that everyone know some sign language. it's easy for babies to learn
Want to see if a layer of blubber can really help you stay warm in icy water? Try this arctic animals science experiment to experience it.
If you (or your preschooler) has ever asked the question, "what is blood made of?", you must check out this fun activity to learn about the parts of blood.
Songs are an excellent way to build phonemic awareness skills because they focus on the task of listening. Click to hear them all!
Students will love these fun hands-on phonics activities that teach letter sounds, digraphs, letter blends, vowel sounds, and more!
I don’t know anything about the Terrible Two’s. When Hayden was two, that was a breeze compared to him being three. Since he has turned three, he’s been this walking, talking, opinionated little boy. Finally, someone has really put together a picture of what is going on in a toddler’s brain! Source: […]
The best Sensory Board ideas! Find the best kids activities and craft ideas! Great Sensory Board ideas that kids will love to play with and engage with. Easy and fun things that children of any age will love. Best Sensory Board ideas that will keep the kids busy and entertained for hours. Learn how to
This post contains affiliate links to materials I recommend. Read my full disclosure statement. My friend, Kim, at Life Over C's has an awesome 21 day series going on her blog called 'Learn with Your Craft Stash'. The series focuses on learning activities you can do with craft items you have around your home or classroom.
I love learning about arrays because they are so visual which allows for a lot of really fun rectangular arrays activities and practice! I l...
Learn what is under your skin with this fun, hands-on human body project for kids of all ages. Download FREE printables here!
Learn why and how children develop pre-writing skills in this podcast episode. Based on research, there's lots of information and links to free printables.
Two Points: This is MY method, and not necessarily right for you, your teaching or care philosophy, your set-up, or your students. Curriculum participation by my students is VOLUNTARY. I invite them to participate, but if they choose not to, then that is fine. I usually offer them a choice of a few of the activities and let them decide where we start and where we go. An engaged child learns, a dis-engaged child rebels. The 3-year rotating curriculum is theme based. Some times we stick to the plan, but usually I observe what they are interested in learning about, what they are asking questions about, and suggest up to three different themes they can choose from for us to study. I make my own 3-year rotating curriculum for many reasons: Packaged curriculum is often only one year. Since I teach for 3 years, this would be redundant. Most packaged curriculum focuses on skills my students master early. My 2s count to 20, know 11 colors, know most of their phonics, uppercase and lowercase letters, 10 shapes and some of their numbers and I still have 3 years of curriculum to teach them. They often are worksheet intensive. My students usually are cognitively advanced from their fine motor skills. I have 4 year olds that still can't write well. If I had relied on worksheets for the last 2 years, there is no way they would have the skill sets they have. Worksheets are also not considered Developmentally Appropriate Practice [DAP] for children under the age of 8. We use them here for writing practice starting at age 4. [Yes, worksheet-intensive public schools are not using DAP for kindy through 3rd grade!] They can be expensive. If you are purchasing worksheets, why would you spend even $1 a week/$52 a year when you can purchase a 400 page Scholastic preschool workbook from Sam's Club for $8 that covers probably more material, is most likely aligned with the public school expectations, and is colorful. Colored copies are NOT affordable to make from packaged curriculum. Most [ALL!] preschool learning should be interactive. Pinterest is a better source for ideas. My students change every time I do a theme. I have to be able to tweak it to the interests and capabilities of those currently in my care. Plus, I'll find more interesting activities on Pinterest, have an idea for a new game, etc. It's a constant evolution to keep my curriculum relevant to our current group, situation and resources. However, curriculum planning and creation is very time consuming. Even with older curriculum I spend several hours going over it prior to teaching - updating, creating new materials, purchasing and setting new classroom decorations. While I have had my 3 year curriculum, this year I found myself wanting a more specific schedule to focus on specific skill sets for this particular group of children. Most of these skills can be incorporated into our themed curriculum, or they take 5 minute sessions to pop into our day. I have two groups, the younger preschoolers are 2-3 years old and the older ones are 4-5 years old, all at the same developmental and skill set level within their group. This makes it easier, as I can tailor everything to just 2 groups. If I were to have additional levels of children, then it would be tailored to each level. Children here are taught at their developmental level, not age. Asychronastic development is normal, so I may be teaching a child at various levels depending upon the subject matter. For the younger preschoolers, I came up with this structure. For the older pre-k students, I came up with this one. For instance, both of them have Measurement & Comparison on Friday for Reasoning. However, for the younger students, this would be a more/less, longer/shorter, big/little, etc. activity, while the older students would be measuring with rulers, yardsticks, tape measures, measuring cups, unit blocks, foot steps or themed units, and graphing the measurements to compare. Same skill set, differentiated at vastly different levels. Even this needs conditional tweaking. All the pre-k's know how to spell their last names now, so that is no longer a relevant skill activity for music and will be changed out. In another post I'll get into the curriculum components and the importance of each. For instance, how counting on Friday teaches 1-to-1 correspondence and creating method processes for counting groups of objects. CLICK PICTURES TO VIEW LARGER I use this MS Word template, available for FREE on TPT, for curriculum planning. Often, the daily skill sets above are either already incorporated, or can easily be incorporated, into the theme planning. For an example of a completed curriculum unit, check out our Owls Theme. Each monthly theme is broken down into 4 sub-themes. For instance: SPACE Astronauts & Rockets The Universe Our Solar System Aliens & Robots We also have a musical component, often classical, and an art component, often a master, and Spanish vocabulary component that we incorporate. This planning form may not include all games, file folder games, manipulatives, room-set up, etc. that I utilize. For those of you trained in curriculum creation, I do NOT do a full curriculum development for each activity. With having these children usually from infant to school-age, I keep an internal evaluation of progression and plan out only weekly learning objectives. Since I am creating the activities for my personal use, I do not need to create written procedures and evaluations. My curriculum is stored currently in file folders in a large office bookcase unit. I would like to get it into boxes so that I could have EVERY theme-related item, including dress-up, room set-up, manipulatives, etc. together for an easy pull. File boxes will most likely be the easiest, but they do take up a lot of space. In each file some of the things I probably have: Completed planning sheets All the books I own for that theme Flannel board Sentence and word walls File folder games Samples of previous crafts DVDs CDs Coloring pages Mini-book(s) Build-a-[theme item] game Curriculum creation is one of my great joys. I love the research and compilation, the creativity and excitement of bringing something fun and educational to my students. Learning is rarely linear. Children take developmental leaps, sometimes in odd directions. As a teacher, it is important that I keep each one challenged without pushing or inhibiting their growth, and that takes constant evaluation and a good eye for when those leaps happen so that we can move on to a higher level of instruction. When we do an activity, I constantly question if they WANT to do another round, another activity, and I usually cut them off while they are still engaged. I want them wanting more, and they will usually ask if they can continue. One of the most important desires and abilities I can instill in them is that of self-directed learning. So as they choose to go off with their rulers after we've spent several minutes doing a measuring activity, conferring between themselves as to procedures and what to measure next, I step back and let them. They know I am here as a resource, rather than an intrusive director. It is my job to ensure that when I invite my students to learn, they glow with excitement and anticipation of a fun, interactive, playful time. The results, so far, have been astounding. A few of my complete curriculum units are available through my TPT store. Apples Dental Ice Cream Penguins Rainbows St. Patrick's Day Valentine's Follow Connie -'s board Classroom on Pinterest. Tags: preschool, child care, pre-k, curriculum, development, teaching, education, homeschooling, homeschool, home, school, preschool curriculum development, planning
Today we are going to learn about some simple physics by doing simple and easy science activity i.e. Refraction of light. This activity is so quick and I really wondering how I missed this experiment this long to explain or show my kids and make them Wowww!! This is one among the 10 min STEAM […]
My kids love to play with human anatomy toys which help them learn about their body! These are great science gifts for kids.
Free Printable preposition game for toddlers and preschoolers to help develop gross motor skills, fine motor skills, vocabulary and visual discrimination.
Tips for staying calm, calming your child, and tools that they can use anywhere.
Learn what plants breathe through with this easy leaf & tree science experiment as kids get hands-on with the process of photosynthesis!
Have a child learning to read? Try this missing sounds reading activity to work on decoding skills. A hands-on, phonics based reading game.
Need human body worksheets for kids? These worksheets are a great way to introduce the human body organs and their functions to your kids.
Every great reader has their beginnings in sounding out words!
Learn about play schemas and get activity ideas for each of the 9 play schemas. Transporting, positioning, connection, transforming...
Try these fun and educational activities for kids. Make a volcano, a tornado, glitter jars (like snow globes), giant bubbles, dry ice bubbles, and more.
