BLOOMIN' MATH

We started this off with painting 10 flowers and 2 butterflies(I found popsicle sticks with flower shapes on the top at the $ store). I then programmed the flowers from 1-10. I also wanted to use these with my 1st grader and Kindergartner so I programmed the 2 butterflies with addition and subtraction signs.

Items needed are: the flowers and butterflies, 2 plastic flower pots, craft foam(for in 1 of the pots, cut it to size), and seeds(brown pompoms)

I use one of the pots to hold all the seeds and the other to insert the flowers.


Now for the fun...the children can insert the flowers to practice number recognition and counting by placing the correct number of seed to grow the flower and for the older kids they can practice their addition skills.

Making word families is fun with this activity. You program one side of the plastic egg with letters and the other half with word endings like -at(b, c, th, r, f),
-oat, -ock, -ed. I have them take one egg at a time and practice saying the word and for older preschoolers they write them too!!! I also have a couple that are programmed opposite with th-(ere, e, at, ose, ink) and wh-(o, at, ere, y) with the endings on the bottom.

Egg Matching

Back to the Water Table we go! My children have loved this activity. You program plastic Easter eggs with the uppercase letter on one half and the lower case on the other half and have them match them up. When they match one they can put it in the basket or the egg carton. They have even enjoyed putting the rice in the eggs and making little musical shakers out of them(which is new this year because previously I had put Easter grass in the water table).

GO APE

I am thinking my 10 years of playing Go Fish might have come to an end. We are a game playing family and they all have loved Go Fish(it is one of those do you want to play a game and you ask really already knowing the answer). I have played I am sure 100's of games of Go Fish and they love to play it over and over but sometimes even the best of moms need to do something different. I think I have it with game:



It is the same concept of matching(taking turns) as Go Fish but instead of asking for a color of card you "ape" what is on the card to ask for it!!! HILARIOUS!!! We giggle the whole game!

Water Table Fun!!!!

The water table(you can also use dishpans) has been my most favorite purchase since deciding to do preschool at home. It has so many uses and I use it all year. Here are a couple of the ideas so far this year:

SNOW

I found this fake snow and added some polar animals and a bucket and scoop for some snow fun!


What is at the end of rainbow?

I found these 2 buckets at Michaels last year(75% off) and the 2 different colored coins as well. My preschoolers find the coins in the rainbow colored rice and sort them between the 2 buckets using tongs. They can also count the coins too! I reuse the rice throughout spring time so I will share more ideas later!

To make the rice you take 2 cups rice, 1 tsp rubbing alcohol(this makes it dry fast and not sticky), and 5 drops food coloring. Mix it together and let it dry on newspaper. Repeat for as many colors as you like. HINT: Once dry the colors don't rub off on anything