January's theme at preschool this month is all about Winter. They're learning about penguins, snow and snowmen, igloos and the weather.
Quick side note: I feel (and I know Mike feels the same way!) so blessed to have Maddie in such a nurturing, loving preschool. I got to work in her classroom on Tuesday and almost didn't want to leave after my hour because it was just a fun environment. Her teacher is gentle, there is such a sweet little group of girls that Maddie plays with and I know that this time is so invaluable for her.
Anyway. :) It's a big thing for me! I went for quite a while thinking that we'd skip sending her to preschool all together and now my heart is just so happy with where she is. Now I can't imagine her not going!
So to build off what they're learning in school, we've been doing some extension activities at home.
Crafts
I drew some snowflakes on paper and put out Q-tips, a paint dabber, white paint and some glitter.
She dabbed the paint along the lines and then sprinkled glitter over all the snowflakes.
They turned out great!
We did this one last year, but since it was fun, we repeated it this year!
I covered some paper with painter's tape and then gave her big paint dabbers and white paint.
She stamped paint all over and the sprinkled more glitter.
Then, we worked together to peel the tape off (it comes off really easily) and marveled at the "magic" snowflake left on the paper! :)
Sensory
*One that I don't have pictures of (even though I
really thought I did) was when we made snow, using
THIS product. This is a really fun sensory AND science experiment. I always find the snow at our local teacher's supply store, but add in small trinkets and tiny winter objects to make it a hide and find game. Maddie and her friend Mya played for quite a while with our giant bowl of snow we made!
For this one, I also grabbed an old dish and together, we sprayed shaving cream (Dollar Tree!) inside. We pretended that this was snow, too and Maddie had a BLAST smooshing and squeezing and spreading it all over.
Look at those snow monster hands! :)
It's such a great time to talk about textures, temperatures, sounds and smells.
To make bath time educational fun, we learned about icebergs and simulated lots of small icebergs by ice cubes in the bath tub.
She loved this and I think I finally drew the line after I'd refilled our ice bowl six times. Ha!
It was fun to hear the cubes crackle as they were dropped in the water and she loved watching them (sometimes helping them along) dissolve and get smaller.
Literacy
These next printables are from Making Learning Fun.
With this one, I'd call out a letter (this page was all lowercase letters) and she'd peel off a sticker and cover the correct letter.
*And no, she can not write her name. She did make the letter M, but the rest was done hand-over-hand.
We also read and colored a book about a melting snowman. :)
Fine Motor and Logic
This started off as a simple fine motor skills practice with objects, an ice cube tray and chopsticks.
She had fun transferring the objects from the bowl into the tray.
But, then I decided to try something new and it was a major hit (major as in, we played for a solid 30 minutes and the minute Mike got home from work, she made him play, too!).
Her job was to match the winter objects side by side in the tray. Then, she'd close her eyes and I would make an error. We started off with her having to open her eyes and correct that one error, moving all the way up to her having to identify and correct up to six errors at once.
I know, it doesn't sound huge but she loved the challenge and it was a great logic activity. She'd have to move several of the pieces around to get them all back to their matched state.
So, that was our mini-unit and I think she had a blast! I love that I'm able to tie her preschool curriculum into our home learning because I think it just makes everything so much richer!
