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The Preschool Corner: Letter L

Dec112008
December 11, 2008 by 2 Comments

This week I’ll be sharing about our preschool fun studying the letter “L” and at the end of the post you will find Mr. Linky so that you can participate too in the fun by sharing what you’ve been doing during your preschool time.

We focused a lot of our letter activities on ladybugs this week, enough that we put together a little lapbook for Zachary, his first, so he was VERY excited! He wanted me to write his name a special title on it, so that I did: Zachary’s little, tiny lapbook.

ABC Page

The alphabet book page for the letter “L” was a Ladybug. I took the easy way out and cut the pieces out of construction paper instead of adding paint to the mix this week. I figured we had enough going on and red paint + Zachary might = a big mess.

Ladybug Thumbprints

These little ladybugs turn out so cute! I used one of my scrapbooking inkpads and let Zachary use his thumb/fingerprint to make the little ladybugs all over the paper. Then we used a pen to put dots on our ladybugs along with antennaes and legs.

Fun Activities: Ladybug Lapbook

We put our ladybug learning onto paper and added the pieces to our lapbook. We made a wheel on the lifecycle of a ladybug, played an alphabet matching game using uppercase and lowercase letters, and learned the parts of a ladybug.

To make the lapbook, I cut a red manila file folder in half and then glued in the mini-books when we were done, just to keep it as simple as possible. Since we didn’t have enough room inside our book for all of the books, we put our “following directions” mini-book on the front cover. Here are the links to the mini-books that we used:

Math: Lollipop patterns, Lines, and More

First we had a little fun drawing lines: curvy, straight, up/down, left/right. Then we worked on following directions and added this part to our ladybug lapbook. We counted how many ladybugs there were, added spots, antennae and colored the ladybugs by following the directions.

Since lollipop also starts with the letter “L”, I made up some little lollipop cards, cut them out and we used them to make different patterns. I would start the pattern and Zachary would finish it until we ran out of cards. He really enjoys figuring out patterns, so this isn’t much of “work” for him. :)

Here are the pattern cards that I made ~ click on the thumbnail to download the pdf file

totally tots

Letter Sheet Collage

L Worksheet

Verse

Matthew 5:16- “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven..” After all the trouble we had learning the 5 words in the verse, wouldn’t it figure that he can almost completely quote this verse? Go figure.

Writing

We practiced our letter writing this week using Peterson Directed handwriting. It’s a handwriting curriculum that we’re trying out with just Zachary right now (stay tuned because I’ll keep you posted on how it’s working for us).

Rhymes

Lazy Mary Will You Get Up?

Little Bo Peep

Little Boy Blue

Little Jack Horner

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Ll, Preschool Corner 2 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter K

Dec42008
December 4, 2008 by Leave a Comment

This week I’ll be sharing about our preschool fun studying the letter “K” and at the end of the post you will find Mr. Linky so that you can participate too in the fun by sharing what you’ve been doing during your preschool time.

ABC Book: Kite

The alphabet book page for the letter “K” was a Kite (and I won’t be using my scanner anymore to put these in – pictures are much better I think!). The shape of the kite gave us the opportunity to talk about various shapes and have fun piecing shapes together to make different things (see the pictures in Math below).

Art Activity: Tracing Keys

Tracing is always a challenge, but even more so when you’re trying to trace keys! But we did and tried to make it a little more interesting by creating a key pattern: one big key, two small keys, etc..

Fun Activities: Toothpick K’s

We have a bazillion toothpicks in our house and so we put a few of them to good use this week. It was only after we made our little toothpick craft that I realized that perhaps “K” wasn’t the letter we should have chosen.

Should you chose to make maybe 4 K’s (instead of a controversial 3), cut the tips off the full toothpicks (to help detract from any possible injuries) and then cut some other toothpicks in half, cutting the pointy tips off those also. Maybe injuries aren’t an issue at your house, but it’s all fun and games…. :)

First, Zachary sorted the toothpicks by size (short and long) and then had much fun getting sticky with glue. He dipped the toothpicks in glue and then placed them on cardstock to form the letter that we’ve been studying.

And since we still have toothpicks everywhere, I’m sure we’ll do this activity again with future letters of the alphabet.

Math

Spinning off the diamond shape of a kite we used some of our foam pattern blocks from Discovery Toys to put together other shapes and pictures.

Letter Sheet/Collage

Verse

Psalm 34:13- “Keep your tongue from evil.”

We’re still using the book My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. It has a quick little devotional and a few questions at the end of the story along with review from previous weeks.

This week we’re having a little trouble with Zachary getting the verse straight. He’s preferring two different versions of his own: “Don’t stick your tongue out in evil” and “Don’t keep your tongue from evil” – not quite the versions we’re going for. And so we keep reviewing.

Writing
We practiced our letter writing this week using Peterson Directed handwriting. It’s a handwriting curriculum that we’re trying out with just Zachary right now (stay tuned because I’ll keep you posted on how it’s working for us).

Rhymes and Songs

Old King Cole

Three Little Kittens

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kiddos. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Publish a post on your blog and link directly here. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so other bloggers can stop by to visit you.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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The Preschool Corner: Alphabet Book

Nov282008
November 28, 2008 by 15 Comments

This week we took a little break from schooltime to get ready for company – and just REST! :) I’ve been going back through my previous posts and separating them out and finished up a few more individual letter posts. They are back-dated to when we actually completed them, but if you are interested, you can follow the links here to the letter “C” and the letter “D”. When I have a little more time I will catch up with the other missing letters.

I also uploaded the template for the alphabet book that we are using to paste our activities in. I printed it double-sided on cardstock and then had it spiral bound (the exact word is escaping me at the moment – but it’s the inexpensive version you can have done quickly and easily).

To give you an idea on how we use this booklet, we print it off front/back and have it spiral-bound so that we can add small craft activities to the booklet that begin with that letter. Here’s a little peek at what we did for the letter B.

A brown boat with a blue sail in the blue water.

If you would like to share what you’ve been doing during your preschool time, feel free to sign Mr. Linky below. Guidelines for The Preschool Corner can be found here. Hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving!!

 

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Early Learning Printables, Notebook and Worksheets, Preschool Corner, Preschool Printables 15 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter J

Nov202008
November 20, 2008 by 3 Comments

This week I’ll be sharing about our preschool fun studying the letter “J” and at the end of the post you will find Mr. Linky so that you can participate too in the fun by sharing what you’ve been doing during your preschool time.

ABC Book: Jack in the Box

The alphabet book page for the letter “J” was a Jack in the Box. The shapes for the page were really simple – a circle, a small rectangle (box lid), a square, a triangle, and a rectangle for his “neck”.

Art Activity: Jellyfish

This jellyfish looks so cool when it is hanging up in a window and the light shines through it!

  1. Cut a circle out of the contact paper (as large as you would like – remember you are folding it in half). I traced a bread plate for the outline.

  2. Spread glitter glue over half (or all!!) of the contact paper.

  3. Fold the circle in half and seal it shut.

  4. Use scotch tape and thin wrapping paper ribbon to make legs/arms for you jellyfish.

Fun Activities

Jack Be Nimble – Make a candlestick out of a toilet paper roll and have fun jumping over it!
Jump rope – Zachary isn’t too great at this one, but we had fun trying!

Math
We used jelly beans this week to do a few different activities. We guessed how many were in a jar and then actually counted them together. We sorted them by color and had fun sampling them and trying to guess what the flavor of the jelly beans were (Jelly Bellys ROCK!! – but poporn flavored jelly beans are still yucky to me).
Letter Sheet/Collage

J Worksheet

Verse

John 14:6 – “Jesus said, I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.”

We’ve been using the book My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. It has a quick little devotional and a few questions at the end of the story along with review from previous weeks.

Writing

This week we used our Handwriting Without Tears worksheet to practice our letter “J” (the link will take you to the Scribd site where I uploaded the one I made).

Rhymes and Songs

Jack and Jill
Jack Sprat
Jack Be Nimble

Storytime

Jamberry by Bruce Degen
Sheep in a Jeep by Nacy Shaw
The Giant Jam Sandwich by John Vernon Lord

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kiddos. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Publish a post on your blog and link directly here. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so other bloggers can stop by to visit you.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Jj, Preschool Corner 3 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter I

Nov152008
November 15, 2008 by 2 Comments

Welcome to the first “official” Preschool Corner. I’ll be sharing about our preschool fun this past week and at the end of the post you will find Mr. Linky so that you can participate too in the fun by sharing what you’ve been doing.

This past week during our Preschool Time we focused on the letter “I”.

ABC Book: Igloo

The alphabet book page for the letter “I” was an igloo this week. I cut strips of white paper for Zachary to snip into 1″ squares. When he was done cutting, he glued the pieces of paper onto a blue sheet of construction paper in the shape of an igloo.

Art Activity: Inchworm

We had so much fun making this little worm! (We had plenty of toilet paper rolls around the house thanks to Zachary pulling all the toilet paper off the roll, stuffing it in the toilet and plugging the toilet for us.)

  1. Cut two toilet paper tubes into rings (4 rings each for a total of 8 rings).

  2. Fold 7 of the rings flat and then cut them in half. One ring needs to be left whole to use as the inchworms head.

  3. Have your child color the inchworm pieces if they would like.

  4. Staple the inchworm together so the his back is like little arches.

  5. Use a paper punch to put two holes at the top of the worm’s head. Insert 1/4 of a pipe cleaner into the holes to use as antennas. Add googly eyes.

  6. Admire your handiwork.

Fun Activities

I Spy
Insect Hunting (never a dull moment with this one!)

Letter Sheet/Collage

I Worksheet

Writing

In addition to our letter sheet this week we have been using a new curriculum called Peterson’s Handwriting, so we are learing (and re-learning) some of the typical motions used in handwriting. We’ve been doing quite a bit of air drawing and practicing the same motions on the window or patio door.

We also had fun writing on the chalkboard using ice cubes. :) Nice and cold, but it did get it clean too!

Rhymes and Songs

The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Ten Little Indians

If You’re Happy and You Know It

Storytime

Itsy Bitsy Spider by Iza Trappani (also has a tape/cd to go along). Our kids LOVE this extended story!

If You Give….any of these books! by Laura Numeroff

On a side note:

Slowly (but surely) I am going back through my posts and “reorganizing” the ones related to preschool and the alphabet. As I update them, I will link to prior posts in my current posts. Hopefully this will make it a little easier to find preschool related posts and help you all out a little more.

The Preschool Corner is a place for us to share the ideas we are using during our “preschool time” with our kiddos. You can join in the fun and record what you are doing in your house. Publish a post on your blog and link directly here. Then be sure to link to the blog carnival on this post so other bloggers can stop by to visit you.

The guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Share what you’ve been doing in your house this week!

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Letter Ii, Preschool Corner 2 Comments

The Preschool Corner: Letter E

Oct52008
October 5, 2008 by Leave a Comment

ABC Book: Elephant Puzzle

This week I divided a picture of an elephant into nine pieces as a simple puzzle for Zachary to color. He cut it following the lines and then pasted it together on a larger sheet of construction paper for his Alphabet Book. If you click on the picture it will take you to the document where you can print off the puzzle for yourself.

Alphabet Activities: Popsicle stick E’s

We used 4 popsicle sticks to make the letter E together. Simple and quick! And since I’m posting this after I’ve already posted my “K” post, I can promise you the results were MUCH better!!


Art Activity: Eyedropper Art

For this activity you will need the following items: food coloring, several small containers, coffee filters, and eyedroppers.

  1. Fill the containers with water and put a few drops of food coloring into each container, making each container a different color.
  2. Flatten out your coffee filter as best you can.
  3. Have your child use the eyedropper to pick up a few drops of water and make a design on the coffee filter. The colors will spread some, and too much water can make a hole in the filter, so go easy! :)
  4. See if you can guess what colors will be made when the colors spread and run into other colors!
  5. Let the filters dry completely on either a cookie sheet or newspaper (the food coloring will stain if you aren’t careful!).

Fun Activity: Playdough

We had fun rolling out playdough and making our uppercase and lowercase “E’s” this way. Snakes are always fun!

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on the thumbnail graphic to download the Letter Ee sheet.

Math: Estimating and Weighing

We used our scales this week (a HUGE hit) to estimate and weigh things. We started out with our counting bears and then used other things around the house to see how they weighed in comparison to the bears.

Verse: Proverbs 20:11

Even a child is known by his deeds. This week we talked about how people know what kind of a person we are by how we act. We’re using the book My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt as a devotional during the week.

Writing

Zachary has the basics of the uppercase E down…just a few problems in where those lines get put. Sometimes all up high. Sometimes all down low. But it’s an E! We’re using Peterson’s Handwriting this year (you can see my reviews in the sidebar for more info on this program).

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