Sunday April 26th / The Sunday Paper!
Toddler:
We know toddlers do not read but they ARE aware of print. You can use the Sunday paper and look at the pictures and words. The ads are a great place for your toddler to look at. Try a "Picture Walk" with your toddler. Look through all the pictures and see if your toddler can name and identfiy objects. You will need to start and they will jump in. Try the food ads and see what foods they can recognize by the pictures.
Toddlers are known for seeing a symbol and recognizing where they are or what it is. Examples; Does your child know Mc.Donalds as soon as they see the golden arches?? (I'd love to tell you mine don't but....) What else do they know? What else can they "read"? Mine also recorgnize the Target symbol, and the sprint logo (because we were at the store often for awhile!!), and many others. These are excellent pre-reading skills!
Preschooler:
You will need the Sunday paper, and two scissors.
One child size scissor and one adult.Take out the food ads and look through them with your child.
Show them how to cut out pictures. Then you cut out around 10 items that you have in your kitchen. Allow them to cut another ad of food items (cub and rainbow where I live), it doesn't matter if they cut correctly, just let them practice their cutting skills.
Glue your pictures to a piece of paper and decorate it like a teasure map. Explain to your child you are going on a treasure hunt in the kitchen to find the foods on your paper. You can add the word to the picture for literacy skills. Ask your child where they think each item will be...Is it in the refrigerator? freezer? cupboard? shelf? pantry? etc. Follow their lead through the kitchen and make a large X over the pictures when you find them.
Practice literacy pre-reading skills by starting at the top left and "reading" across the page. We finished with the last picture (oreo cookies) and had a snack! My son thought making large X's with the sharpie marker was great, and he laughed if he guessed the wrong place for something.
April 27th Monday Music
MusicToddler Open Shut Them!
Open shut them
open and close fists
Open shut them
open and close fists
Give a little clap clap clap
clap three times
Open shut them
open and close fists
Open shut them
open and close fists
Give a little tap tap tap
Tap your knees three times
Open shut them
open and close fists
Open shut them
open and close fists
Put them in your lap lap lap
fold hands in your lap
Creep them ,crawl them
slowly creep them
right up to our chin chin chin
Crawl hands from tummy to chin
tickle your child along the way
Open wide your little mouth
Touch lips with finger tips
But do not let them in!
Quickly run hands down and tickle tummy
April 28th Tuesday / Number Sense / A Counting Day!
Parent Info: Give your preschooler three of soemthing to count. Now hand them two more objects. You will notice at age 3-4 they start to count over again; 1, 2, 3, 4,5. At around 4 1/2 or 5 years old they advance to "counting on". They will say "4,5 without starting over at 1!" Try it!
For toddlers it is a big deal when they recognize to count one objects per "point", meaning they understand each object only gets one number.
Today both Toddlers and Preschoolers can count! Tell them today is a COUNTING DAY.
First we have to find something that has only 1! Then find something that has 2! You can keep going until your child is no longer interested. We made it to 20 with the preschooler. Your enthusiasm will rub off on them quickly, and you could be searching the house for items.
There are no rules. If your child picks up one block froma pile of 20 blocks, GREAT they know we count each one seperately! These are big accomplishments!
April 29th Wednesday I SPY
Toddler:The toddler version of this game can really be called "Where is it?" Just ask your toddler where things are and they will have fun looking for and bringing things to you. You can try and describe it such as; "Can you bring me the animal that says meow?" or "Can I have the person INSIDE the car?"
Preschool:
I spy with my little eye something that is "______________."
OR
I spy with my little eye something that can "_____________."
Ok, this where the game is RICH in language. Fill in the blank with colors, directional locations, size, etc.
Directional locations: On, Under, Beneath, Inside, Next to, Above, etc.
Preschoolers are old enough to understand the game and ask you questions too. My favorite is when my son says "I spy something with my little eye that is red. It's a stop sign!" silence "oops!" and cracks up because he didn't mean to tell me the answer!
The best thing about this game is it can be played ANYWHERE! ANYTIME! Once they know it play it while waiting at the doctors office, traveling in the car, or sitting in the backyard!
April 30th Thursday April Showers, Bring May Flowers
Tomorrow is May Day!
Let's make some May Flowers.
You will need coffee filters, water colors or water and food coloring, paint brush OR an eye dropper.
Lay the coffee filter out flat. Use an eye dropper to drop small drops of color that will expand on the coffee filter and leave a nice design. You can also use a paint brush and just lightly tap the brush to the filter, you will get the same effect.
Let the flower tops dry.
Glue the tops to the top of a piece of paper. You can add stems with crayons, markers, or cut stems from a piece of green construction paper.
Extend: Make your flowers into May Day cards and give them to others with a special greeting!
May 1st Friday / Muffin Tin
You need one large plastic bowl and a muffin tin
Toddler:
Put things to sort in a bowl on the floor and the muffin tin next to it. Shw your toddler how to place objects in the compartments and take them out. Toddlers will do this over and over. They may dump the bowl and be even more excited by the noise and action, just pick the things up and start over. You can also start this game by filling the compartments and putting out an empty bowl. (or switch it next time)
Things to sort in a muffin tin for toddlers: ping pong balls, cheerios, any cereal, any colorful objetcs that they can not swallow...
Preschooler:
This can be more advanced and use smaller objects. Most preschoolers no longer put objectsin their mouth. We have used buttons and small beads. I found a small bag of assorted beads at Michaels craft store. It is very fun to sort because it has many different things like; animals, shapes, colors, different textures etc. I will sit and sort too. Then I explain how I am sorting my and introduce new vocabulary and ways to sort objects. "I am putting all the blue ones in here and all the red ones in this compartment." or "I am putting all the hearts in here and all the squares in here" and/or "How are you sorting yours?" I did have to say that the beads were NOT CANDY because they looked like it.
Things for preschoolers to sort in a muffin tin: buttons, colored pasta, different shaped pasta, beads, anything that will fit into the tin compartments.
May 2nd Saturday / Water Play
Toddler and Preschooler:
Funnels. That is it really. Just add funnels to your bath toys and the result is amazing! I bought three funnels in a set and they have had hours, and hours of fun with them. They have small, medium, and large. They get a kick out of pouring cups of water into them and watching them go through. They also jus scoop water and watch it run out. They can put the funnels in a baby bottle and fill the bottle wth out spilling. -Try it!
Remember to READ 15 minutes a day to your child!
“Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold.”-Joseph Chilton Pearce, author on child development
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