5 ABC Activities for Your Pre-Preschooler {@ Or So She Says}

It's so strange for me to have all my boys in some form of school away from home this year.  Well, at least for about 6 more weeks.  Then I'll have a tiny one at home with me, but he won't be in need of any alphabet practice just yet.

I thought before I put some of our favorite ABC learning activities away for awhile, it would be fun to share them with you.  I know kids as young as 2 can start preschool these days, but we've only ever done one year with our boys.  The former teacher in me loves doing simple activities as home to prepare them for the schooling they'll receive, and I promise your kids will LOVE these! 

I'm over at Or So She Says today with 5 simple alphabet activities you can do with your  pre-preschooler at home.  I used some of these when I taught, and some are ones I've discovered as a mom.  So, come and visit me for all 5 activities, supplies, and how-to (click here for my entire post).

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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Turkey Math Game For Kids {In/Out}

'Tis the week of Thanksgiving.  I love this week (can you tell I'm not in charge of cooking and/or hosting Thanksgiving dinner?)!  I feel like it's the first official week of the holiday season.  For me, even anything Christmas goes this week.  I do wait to decorate until the day after Thanksgiving, but there have been a lot of bits and pieces of Christmas creeping up around our house lately.

 I do have some more Thanksgiving posts up through Thursday, but Friday I'll be ringing in the Christmas holiday season!

I've been helping out in my twins' first grade classroom on Fridays.  I get to do math centers with the kids.  I love being there, and it makes me REALLY miss teaching.  

We played this game last time I went to volunteer.  I used this games when I taught first grade as well.  The kids always loved it, and it's a great way to teach addition and subtraction.  You can make this game as generic or holiday-themed as you like.  I'm a bit of a holiday fanatic, so I can't not put some sort of holiday twist on it (hence, the turkey and fall-colored Kisses).

I have all the instructions here for how to play, but in a nutshell you pick a certain number of counters (or candy in our case), and one person hides a few counters under the turkey pot, leaving some outside as well.  The other buddy has to then guess how many counters are in the pot based on the number they began with, and the number of counters on the outside.  Then the buddies switch rolls and play over and over.  You can change the number of counters/candy to small and easy for younger kids, or larger and more challenging for older kids.

I like having my boys record how many counters are in and out each time.  That way they can see the different combinations written out.  I have printable record sheets for the turkey version of the game here.

This game is the perfect way to keep your kids doing a bit of "homework" over the break while having fun, and celebrating this Thanksgiving time of year.

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you found a little something worth your time.

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Inserting Special Characters {Fruit Edition}

I've done a couple of posts lately with Inserting Special Characters in a word processing document(typing in circles and typed embellishments).  There seems to be quite a bit of interest with these posts, so I thought I'd share another fun special character that can be inserted.  Fruit.  Don't you get antsy for summer and the fresh fruit season?  I sure do!  Strawberries (at good prices) are beginning to pop up all over my local grocery stores. 

Arent' these cute?  They can be found in the Apple Color Emoji font.  The steps to inserting the special characters can be found here.  Follow the steps outlined in the post, but look for Apple Color Emoji instead of GungSeo.

You can use these fruits for anything!  I decided to try a fruit Sudoku game with them.  I became a Sudoku fan when my doctor told me I needed to quit teaching and take it easy for the last month of my pregnancy with my twins.  I had a lot of time on my hands, so my mom brought me a Sudoku book.  I was a bit skeptical, but after one puzzle I was hooked!

   This Sudoku game is intended for young kids.  It's perfect for reinforcing mathematical and reasoning skills.  My six-year-old twins can do this on their own, and even my three-year-old can do it with a bit of help.

 If you aren't familiar with Sudoku, the objective of the game is to fill in the entire board with fruit (in this case).  You may only have one of each kind of fruit in a row and in each quadrant (outlined by the darker lines on the table).

 The board above already has fruit placed in some of the squares.  You will need to print out the page of fruits (below) and fill in the remaining squares.

This page of fruit will need to be printed out.  You will then cut out each individual fruit to fill in the squares of your board.

Here's a blank board for you to make your own puzzles.  I found some Sudoku puzzles to copy at this website.  I used the 'Kids' column and clicked on the medium level.  Just replace the numbers with fruit.

You can make more simple (4 squares by 4 squares) or advanced (9 squares by 9 squares) boards if you'd like.  You can also adjust the level of the game by how many fruits you put on the board to begin with.  Lots of possibilities!  You can also choose other fruit to use.  I only used six of the fruits available from Apple Color Emoji.

Click here, here, and here to print the game boards and fruit page.  

Happy puzzling!

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ABC Tree

While going through some of my boxes the other day, I found this ABC Tree I made for my boys' room a few houses back.  I'd kind of forgotten about it.  My twins may have outgrown it by now, but my three-year-old loves it.  

Before the days of Pinterest, I used to just save pictures from blogs/sites in folders on my desktop (did anyone else do that?).  I guess I was doing my own version of Pinterest.  Pinterest is so much better because you can be linked directly to the source.  This darling room was in my 'Boys Room' folder from a couple of years ago and I don't have a source for it.  I fell in love with the tree picture on the ledge in the top, left corner.  I know it's a bit hard to see (click on it to see it bigger), but this is where my inspiration came from.  She painted hers, and I like it better than mine, but I'm happy with how mine turned out.  I'm not so good with paint, so thank goodness for scrapbook paper!

SUPPLIES

*12" X 12" black piece of card stock (background)

*scrapbook paper scraps in varying colors and patterns

*brown card stock (trunk)

*green card stock (leaves)

*black vinyl

*adhesive of some kind (I used double-sided tape)

*Cricut

*Cricut Classic Font Cartridge (letters)

*Cricut Simply Charmed Cartridge (leaves and trunk)

HOW TO

I started by going through all my scrapbook scraps.  I didn't go out and buy any new paper, I just made due with what I had (I like to force myself to do that once in awhile.  It's easy to go buy something new for every project, but I'm always pleasantly surprised with what I can create when I use just what I have).

I cut out several circles with my Cricut.  Here are the different sizes:

Letters Y, L, A, & N:  2" circle for the outer layer and 1 3/4" circle for the inner layer.

Letters S, Q, V, B, C, M, X, K, & O: 1 1/2" circle for the outer layer and 1 1/4" circle for the inn layer.

Letters P, I, T, F, Z, U, W, R, G, H, E, D, & J: 1 3/4" circle for the outer layer and 1 1/2" circle for the inner layer.

The letter C & J at the bottom of the tree are the initials of my twins.  The J is 1 1/4" and the C is 1 1/2" outer with 1 1/4" inner.

I then cut black vinyl letters from my Cricut.  I did some uppercase and some lowercase.  The larger letters are 1" and the small ones are 3/4".

I also used my Cricut to cut out the leaves and trunk, but you could easily trace some or freehand them.

Arranging everything took a bit of time, but I just kept playing with it until it looked like a tree.  Then I taped everything down. 

This was on my boys' bookshelf in their room.  It would also look cute framed on the wall.  You can also adjust the colors to make it more girly or whatever you fancy.  

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Here's a quote for you today:

"They say I'm old-fashioned, and live in the past, but sometimes I think progress progresses too fast!"

-Dr. Seuss

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