Author: Lauren Johnson

Alphabet, Book Companion, Valentine's Day, Winter

Valentine’s Day Monster Activities for Preschool *FREE Printable*

Lauren Johnson

Valentine’s Day is fast approaching!! If you are in need of some Valentine’s Day activities for your plans, you have come to the right place. In this post, I will share some monster puzzles, ABC monster games, as well as a fun Valentine’s Day monster FREEBIE to help your preschoolers order the letters in their name, identify letters, and identify letter sounds.

Preschoolers absolutely love learning the letters and spelling of their own names. Here’s a look at the Valentine’s monster name puzzles. These puzzles are editable so that you can add the names of your own students with templates that support names with 2 – 15 letters. You can also use these puzzles to practice counting, ordering letters, spelling vocabulary words and sight words, if you so choose.

There are several ways to use these name puzzles. I prefer to print them in color, laminate them, and add a magnet to the back of each piece. This makes the pieces easier to manipulate on a magnetic surface. A cookie tin from the Dollar Store is an easy way to display the pieces with plenty of room to arrange the puzzle. If you choose not to laminate the pieces for reuse, your students can glue the pieces in order on a sheet of construction paper.

Black and white versions of each template are available with this resource if you prefer not to or don’t have access to colored ink. You preschoolers can color their own name puzzles, cut out the pieces, order them and glue. This approach would incorporate some very important fine motor skills as well.

You can have your preschoolers go on their own “Love Hunt” with the Love Monster Alphabet search and find activity. With this activity, you can display the alphabet cards and tuck the 10 monster cards underneath 10 different alphabet cards at random without letting the students see. Your little learners can take turns naming each letter then peek underneath to see if they find a monster. This can be cooperative or competitive, it’s up to you!

If you would like your preschoolers to keep track of where the monsters are found, there are two alphabet mat variations to use. Students can cover up the colored hearts with counters or monster erasers with the colored version. If you prefer black and white, have your students color or dot the letters where the monsters are found.

You can also use the Love Monster Alphabet Mats with search and find sensory bins or alphabet hunts around the room. I set up a sensory bin with our 1 inch tiles for Lillian to find and match the letters. You could also use the letter cards and “hide” them around the room. Have students walk around and color in each alphabet heart as they find the corresponding letter. These Love Monster Alphabet Mats are available for FREE in my shop. The link to this freebie is at the bottom of this post.

Update: I found these amazing little heart shaped containers at Walmart and had to grab them for this activity!! They are just the right size to fit the 1 inch letter tiles that I like to use with this Search and Find Activity. They would also fit alphabet erasers or letter beads if you prefer to use those. I simply put one letter tile in each heart and hid the hearts in a sensory tray full of black beans. They added task of opening the little containers is not only super fun and engaging, it is any way to build those fine motor skills which is exactly what preschoolers need before they learn to write. 

The last Love Monster activity I designed for Valentine’s Day is a set of Love Monster Alphabet Puzzles. This activity includes a set of 26, four piece puzzles. Each puzzle represents a different letter of the alphabet with a piece for the uppercase letter a piece for the lowercase letter and two pieces for a picture that begins with that letter. My favorite way to put these puzzles together is cooperatively in a small group. Because all 26 puzzles at once can be cumbersome, I prefer to choose 10 – 12 letters to focus on for the game and only use those pieces. Once I’ve selected the pieces I want to use, I mix them up and create a draw pile. Each player takes a turn drawing a card and placing it on the table. If the card goes with another card that has been played, it gets placed with that puzzle. If it begins a new puzzle, it gets placed in an empty space on the table. Your students can work together adding pieces until all the puzzles are complete. The Love Monster picture on each puzzle provides an opportunity for your students to self correct as they go.

That’s it! I had a lot of fun creating and preparing these fun Valentine’s Day activities for preschool and kindergarten. I hope that you are inspired by them as you plan a fun Valentine’s week for your little learners!

If you would like all the fun Valentine’s Day Monster activities, including the FREE alphabet mat, you can find them in my shop by clicking the icons below.

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Arctic Animals, Book Companion, Color Fun, Uncategorized, Winter

Penguin Activities for Preschoolers *FREEBIE*

Lauren Johnson

It’s been a while, but I’m back!! Now that we are in the midst of winter, I’ve got some fun activities for you all about one of our favorite cold weather animals- PENGUINS! In this post you will find penguin books, center ideas, sensory play ideas and a fun craftivity especially designed for your preschoolers.

There is no shortage of adorable penguin themed books for little readers. I always try to balance out a mix of nonfiction and fiction books for my kids to choose from. Most of these titles have bright, engaging pictures as well as short, predictable text. My three year old daughter, Lillian, loves books but she doesn’t yet have the attention span for long drawn out stories. I will say Penguin Problems, by Jory John and Lane Smith is one of my absolute favorites. It’s a funny story about a penguin who complains. A lot. When a wise walruses teaches the penguin to appreciate the wonderful things in his life, he begins to see that life out on the frozen ice isn’t so bad. If you like Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman’s lovable character from the “Bear Snores On” series, you will love Where is Home, Little Pip? The story is about a sweet, curious penguin who wandered too far from the nest. The story and the illustrations are so engaging.

We spent a lot of time with Penguins Love Colors, by Sarah Aspinall. This is a fun story about 6 little penguins who all have a different favorite color, even though their home is surrounded by almost all white. They paint their mom a colorful picture in the snow, reviewing all the colors as they go, then get a much needed bath at the end.

I created a few colorful penguin activities to do after reading Penguin Loves Colors. The first activity Lillian chose was a colorful penguin and iceberg matching game. I set up the colorful penguins in an easy sensory tray and laid out the iceberg mats so that everybody could reach. We took turns choosing a penguin, naming the color and placing it on the correct iceberg. Lillian and her friend did a great job deciphering between pink and red, light blue and blue, and black and gray.

The next activity I created is a simple two piece puzzle set to match each color in the story, Penguins Love Colors. Each character was given a named based on their favorite color: Tulip, Tiger Lily, Dandelion, Violet, Bluebell, and Broccoli. With these puzzles, preschoolers can match the penguins to their corresponding picture by matching the colors.

Who loves Write the Room activities?? All of my kids love the challenge of finding all the elements of the story around the room and recording their findings on their recording sheets. I created a picture and word card for each colorful penguin in the story and designed three different recording sheets to choose from based on your learners’ abilities. The first recording sheet is for your pre-writers and requires only coloring to record their penguin findings around the room.

The other recording sheets are for writing (and coloring if you choose!). There are two versions of the Write the Room recording sheets. One version has a large space for preschoolers to write each word. This is better for those kiddos who are just beginning to write and need lots of room for their letters. The second version of the Write the Room recording sheet has smaller boxes designated for the words. You can give this sheet to your more confident writers to help them hone in on their fine motor skills.

Lillian is just starting to learn how to write letters, so I decided to use the Color the Room recording sheet with her. I taped the colored penguin cards to 6 plastic cups and provided the corresponding marker in each cup ahead of time. I hid the penguins around the house and had Lillian look for them. Each time she found another penguin, she could use the marker to color a penguin on the recording sheet. She was so engaged in the activity!

Up next, I created a Colorful Penguin Spinner Game. Preschoolers can use the spinner at the top of the page with a pencil and paper clip. This game can be used individually or with a partner. Preschoolers can take turns spinning the spinner and coloring in the corresponding colored penguin. The first color to get to the top of the graph is the winner! I like to laminate these or put them in page protectors so that they can be used over and over.

Another fun way to practice colors is with dot markers! I designed these colorful penguin cards with my pocket dice in mind. However, you can simply flip them over to make a draw pile or put them in a paper bag for students to pick from. As students roll (or choose) a new color, they dot a corresponding dot onto their Penguin Dot Art sheet. You can even add a standard dice to turn it into a counting game. For example, if your preschooler roles blue and 5, they add 5 blue dots to their picture.

Lillian is loves numbers and counting games, so we played with the color dice and number dice. We each took turns rolling the dice and dotting the penguin the right number of colored dots. She was so proud of her colorful penguin at the end!

Of course, the best way to follow up any story is with art. After we were finished reading and practicing colors, we created a colorful penguin ice painting.

This art project took a little prep ahead of time, but it was worth it. I simply filled an ice cub tray about 3/4 full of water. Then I gave each ice cube compartment a squirt of washable tempura paint. I added a popsicle stick to each ice cube and place the tray in the freezer over night. You will need to take them out of the freezer a few minutes before you start painting to let them melt slightly. The melted water becomes your medium so the paint will show up better when the cubes are wet. The final project ended up resembling pastels. So fun!

After we were done painting, we used some pre cut out shapes to build penguins on our masterpieces. I designed a template to use to make these shapes. I traced each shape onto the color paper that I wanted and cut them out ahead of time. You could also have your preschoolers color and cut each shape themselves, depending on ability. You can download this template for FREE at the bottom of this post.

Last but not least, to wrap up our penguin day fun, we played penguin ice rescue. Ahead of time, I froze small plastic penguin toys in yogurt containers filled with water. When it was time, I popped them out on a tray and gave Lillian and her friend a cup of warm water and a plastic dropper. I allotted 15 – 20 minutes for this activity and they played with it for almost an hour!

The girls took their time excavating the penguins from each block of ice, talking about the parts of the penguin as they emerged from the ice. Then they played together with the penguins in their little ice world, setting up a penguin hospital and giving them all a check up. I love how their imagination took this activity a step further and made it so engaging!

I hope you found some inspiration for your preschoolers from this post. If you would like access the resources mentioned above, you can find them by clicking the link below.

You can download the FREE Penguin Loves Colors Craft Template by clicking the DOWNLOAD button below.

Penguin Template Download

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Spring

Rainy Weather Activities for Preschool *Free Printable*

Lauren Johnson

Spring has sprung and that means April Showers are upon us! In this post you will find several fun and engaging rainy weather themed activities for preschool designed to enhance fine motor skills, name building, alphabet knowledge, letter sound recognition, as well as counting.

Whenever I decide to explore a new theme, I always start with the literature. One of my favorite things about teaching is curating the children’s books to go along with the changing themes. I love scouring the library and exploring other teacher’s suggestions for new read alouds.

To start our rainy weather day, we read Red Rubber Boot Day, by Mary Lyn Ray. The simple, relatable story is about a child who tries very hard to entertain himself inside the house on a wet, rainy day. But in the end, he decides to put on his boots and his raincoat and enjoy the rainy day outside.

After the story, I gave my preschoolers 12 foam sheets shaped like puddles. Each “puddle” was numbered (1 – 12). I directed them to make a path with the puddles for us to hop through. Emmett, my five year old, and Lillian, my two year old, worked together to lay out a path across the floor. They happily hopped from puddle to puddle, counting out 1 through 12. Next, we rearranged the puddles into a random group and I grabbed two large foam dice. Emmett and I took turns rolling the dice. After each roll, we identified the number, located the corresponding puddle, and jumped in the puddle that number of times. They had so much fun with this!

Worm Weather, by Jean Taft is a particular favorite in my house because my kids are obsessed with worms! We live on a wooded lot and spend a lot of time outside, so if my kids come up to me with their hands cupped, chances are they have a worm. The story, Worm Weather, is about a brother and a sister who get caught in the rain. It is playful and full of rhyme.

To compliment the story, I gave Emmett a Worm Name Puzzle. Even though Emmett knows how to spell his name, he still had to pay close attention. The multiple m’s and t’s made Emmett have to attend to the picture and the letters as he put the puzzle together.

Because Worm Weather is told in rhyme, I decided to continue to reinforce rhyming with Emmett using these Worm Rhyme Match Cards. We used the cards to play Concentration, but they can also be used to find a partner or simply match them together.

Throughout the game, Emmett made a couple of mistakes. He still forgets that rhyming words sound the same at the end and not the beginning. When he tried to match “bee” and “boat,” that gave me an opportunity to reinforce the concept of rhyming words. Practice makes progress! If you’d like to grab the Word Name Puzzle or Worm Rhyme Cards, keep scrolling. The links are at the bottom of this post.

After the Worm Rhyme Card Match, I gave Emmett a consonant matching game to do independently. To prepare this, I simply printed out the cloud, glued it a cereal box and cut it out along the outline. Then I gathered all the consonants in my Target letter clips.

Emmett worked independently to match the uppercase consonant clips to the lowercase consonants along the edge of the cloud. This was a perfect way to strengthen those fine motor skills and alphabet knowledge at the same time. This printable is FREE in my TpT shop. This link is also at the bottom on this post.

While Emmett was working hard on his consonant cloud, I sat with Lillian as she explored our weather themed sensory bin. She kept very busy scooping rice from one bowl to the next.

I added four little bowls to the bin with the intention of having the preschoolers sort the different types of weather in the bin (sun, rainbow, rain, clouds). But Lillian was more interested in playing her own way so I let her do her thing. A discrimination sort may be a fun invitation for older preschoolers. Emmett eventually joined in and helped Lillian scoop all the rice around.

Next, we made play dough storm clouds! Ahead of time, I prepared white home made play dough. Then I set out blue rhinestones, blue glass gems, and pipe cleaner “lightening bolts” in a loose parts tray.

Our finished products! Lillian had a grand time mixing all the materials into her storm cloud. Emmett created a big storm over an ocean. This was a little messy but they loved it!

The last story I want to showcase is The Big Umbrella, by Amy June Bates. This is a sweet story about a friendly umbrella who can stretch as wide as it needs to to help anyone who wants to stay dry. It’s a great way to initiate a conversation about inclusion, helping others, or kindness.

The Big Umbrella inspired the creation of these adorable umbrella cards. These cards are designed to help early readers distinguish between beginning sounds. You can choose which letters to focus on and use only the raindrops you need. I like to set out the umbrella cards to start and put the raindrops in a draw pile. Preschoolers can take turns choosing a raindrop and placing it under the correct umbrella. Encourage kiddos to work together to complete all the umbrellas.

I hope you enjoyed our Rainy Weather Activities! I add new ideas, FREEBIES and resources all the time. Be sure to follow me by clicking the social icons at the top of this page so you don’t miss out on any of my new creations.

If you’re interested in any of the resources in this post, you can click the icon below to find them.

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Book Companion, Color Fun, Spring

Rainbow Activities for Preschool

Lauren Johnson

March is the perfect time for a rainbow theme in preschool, whether it is to compliment St. Patrick’s Day or go alongside your weather theme. Not only will a rainbow theme enhance color recognition and introduce different concepts of science and weather, rainbow themes are so fun and pretty!!

Whenever I introduce a new theme, I like to make sure there are LOTS of theme related books available in our playroom for my preschoolers to access. I use our local library to gather some ahead of time and I also have a seasonal book rotation for our home library. For this week, I gathered books specifically about rainbows as well as books that focus on color. Today we read A Rainbow of My Own, Elmer and the Rainbow as well as Planting a Rainbow.

Our first rainbow activity was so easy to prep because it involved items that I already had in the house. Ahead of time, I gathered up small toys of every color. You can choose to have your preschoolers help you with this process too by going on a color hunt. Then I prepared the outline of a rainbow on a large sheet of white paper.

Emmett and I took turns rolling a colored dice and placing a corresponding item on the rainbow. Emmett enjoyed arranging his toys according to their color. Once we had one color “win,” we decided to take turns choosing our own color toy to add.

Emmett was impressed with how it all came together. A rainbow made out of toys!

If you have colored letters or numbers, you can reuse this rainbow outline and add a literacy or numeracy twist. These colorful alphabet erasers are from the Target Dollar spot from a while back, but I was able to find them available online. My two year old, Lillian, loves naming letters so this activity was perfect for her.

Our next rainbow activity was a fun SNACK-tivity. I gathered Fruit Loops, jumbo marshmallows, and pipe cleaners and placed them all in a deep tray.

I encouraged the kiddos to string the Fruit Loops along the pipe cleaners to make a rainbow. Then we added jumbo marshmallows to the ends for the clouds. My five year old, Emmett, was really into making his rainbows look authentic. When he was finished, he proudly displayed his creations in his bedroom. Lillian, on the other hand, needed a little more direction and her activity became a snack a lot sooner!

In the end, we ended up with four delicious rainbows. This was a fun way to encourage fine motor development, hand-eye coordination, color recognition and patterning.

Who doesn’t love directed drawings?? Once we were finished with our snack-tivity, I guided Emmett through a rainbow directed drawing. I taught him how to make clouds with “humps” and then we went through the colors of the rainbow together to make the rainbow bands. While I think this drawing could be complete as an outline, Emmett wanted to color it in. My original plan was to paint the rainbow bands with our fingerprints, but Emmett was not crazy about that idea.

Of course, I let him decide how he wanted to color in his rainbow. He chose to fill in the colors with a good old fashioned paintbrush. He had so much fun, carefully managing his brush strokes. He decided to add a sun, a storm cloud and rain to go along with his rainbow as well. We will be sure to hang this one up!

At the end of our morning, I decided to reinforce color words with these fun picture and word color puzzles. These puzzles are part of a larger set of activities that I created for my Planting a Rainbow Book Companion. (Link below!)

There’s just something about vertical work that draws my preschoolers in. So I added magnets to the back of these puzzle pieces and left them all mixed up on the magnetic whiteboard. You may or may not want to offer all the puzzle pieces at once to your preschoolers. I knew Emmett would be up for the challenge because he is my puzzle guy.

Emmett worked one color at a time to construct the puzzles for each color. He got a little mixed up with the word “purple” and needed some assistance. Other than that, he was able to put them together independently and really enjoyed seeing the words associated with each color. I recently started working with him on CVC words, so he was excited when he put together the word “red.” He actually recognized each sound and blended them together. He was so proud of himself!

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the other fun preschool activities that I created to compliment Planting a Rainbow, by Lois Ehlert.

If you are interested in more rainbow and color ideas for early learners, be sure to check out these resources from my shop…

I add new ideas, FREEBIES, and resources all the time! Be sure to follow me by clicking the social icons at the top of this page so you don’t miss any of my new creations.

Counting, St. Patrick's Day

St. Patrick’s Day Preschool Math Activities *FREEBIE*

Lauren Johnson

Are you celebrating St. Patrick’s Day? This post will highlight the St. Patrick’s Day themed math activities I’ve created for preschoolers to enhance visual discrimination, sorting and classifying, counting, number identification, patterning, number matching, one to one correspondence and skip counting. This includes a Shamrock Sort and Classify FREEBIE. The link is at the bottom!

In case you’re like me and love to include fun literary connections in everything you do, I’m going to mention this sweet picture book, Ten Lucky Leprechauns. The illustrations are fun and the concept is simple – counting to ten. It works perfectly as a read aloud with preschoolers, especially to reinforce counting around St. Patrick’s Day.

Here’s a sneak peek at some of the same and different cards I’ve created for St. Patrick’s Day. There are a total of 12 cards, each displaying 4 shamrocks. Three are alike and one is different. Students can practice identifying the different shamrock by covering up with a manipulative of some sort. You can use gold coins, green glass gems, or any other festive counter that you can fine. I used foam shamrocks from the dollar store.

The Shamrock Sort & Classify activity also encourages preschoolers to think about what is the same and what is different about the shamrocks. This set includes 15 different shamrocks representing 5 different sizes and 3 different patterns. I also created sorting mats for preschoolers to need that visual. The sorting mats will help preschoolers sort by size into small, medium or large groups. They can also help preschoolers sort by pattern into checkers, polka dots, or stripes. This resource is FREE in my shop and you can find the link at the bottom of this post.

Preschoolers can practice counting by locating different St. Patrick’s Day pictures throughout the room and counting the St. Patrick’s Day icons on each. Emmett enjoyed finding the different cards throughout the room and filling up his Count the Room recording sheet. There are 8 icon cards in all, and each shows a quantity of 1 – 8.

The Rainbow Number Find includes number cards 1 – 20 with a pot of gold theme. You can set them up in a sensory bin or a draw pile. Then have preschoolers find a number and trace the corresponding number on the Rainbow Number Find mat. There are two versions of the mat, 1 – 10 and 1 – 20, each in color or black and white.

For preschoolers who are working on counting as well as one to one correspondence, grid games are so helpful and fun. Simply print the game board and gather a dice and some counters. I used plastic gold coins from the dollar store. Have your kiddos roll the dice, then add that many counters to the board, one on each square. Help them count as they go! There are two different versions of the game, one with 20 and one with 30 pots of gold.

Next is another dice game! The Shamrock Roll and Cover is a simple way to practice subitizing and number recognition. Have your preschoolers roll the dice and cover the number they land on. They can play with partners or independently.

Emmett and I played this one together and he really enjoyed it. We used the 7 – 12 mat and I was able to use a blank foam cube that I had in my stash of supplies. I just wrote numbers 7 – 12 on it with a sharpie. You can also use 2 dice, but make sure one stays on the number six and the other one gets rolled.

Another activity you can use these adorable number cards for is the St. Patrick’s Day Tens Frame Mats. Make the cards available, either in a sensory bin or draw pile, and have your preschoolers practice representing each number with counters in a tens frame. I used my plastic gold coins again for this one, but any counters will work. There is a mat for up to 10 and a mat for up to 20.

The St. Patrick’s Day pattern mats can be used as a full page or cut into pattern strips. The patterns include AB, ABC, ABB, and AAB. Preschoolers can use the little picture cards to complete the different patterns. If you have Velcro Dots, you could use those to help the pictures stay in place.

Emmett was so excited to show me what he knew about patterns. There’s also a blank pattern sheet included for those preschoolers that are ready to make their own patterns. Emmett got right to work on the blank sheet as soon as he finished the fill-in-the-blanks sheets.

The final St. Patrick’s Day preschool math activity I’d like to show you is all the puzzles I created. The first set includes 20 sets of two piece puzzles. One piece has a number and the other piece has a quantity, all St. Patrick’s Day themed. Preschoolers can take turns matching these or connect them independently if they are ready.

The second set of puzzles include numbers and pictures. Once you cut these puzzles into strips, students can use the pattern (counting or skip counting) to help them put the St. Patrick’s Day pictures back together. The puzzles are tiered so that you can differentiate for your students. They include counting 1 – 3, 1 – 4, 1 – 5, 6 – 10, 11 – 20 and skip counting by 2s and 10s.

Emmett is 5 and is getting ready to start kindergarten in the fall, so he chose to practice counting from 11 – 20 and by 10s. I did have to tell him what number each puzzle started with so that he could get started. But after that, he was good to go!

I hope you were able to find some inspiration for your little learners! If you are interested in downloading these paid and free resources from my shop, click the icons below. Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

I add new ideas and resources for early learners all the time! Be sure to follow me by clicking the social icons at the top of this post.

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Counting, Spring

Lion & Lamb Activities for Preschool *Free Printable*

Lauren Johnson

March has begun and we are counting down the days until spring! The old saying “In like a lion and out like a lamb” is the perfect way to teach preschoolers about the transition from winter to spring. I put together some lion and lamb themed weather activities, counting activities, and a FREE movement activity for you to use with your preschoolers.

In Like a Lion Out Like a Lamb, by Marion Dane Bauer, is a beautifully illustrated picture book that showcases the symbolism of the lion and winter and the lamb and spring.

To help preschoolers learn the characteristics of the Lion and the Lamb, I created a weather sort to show the different types of weather that each animal represents. You can decide to keep these in tact and use as posters or cut them up and use as a card sort.

I cut the cards up and added magnets to the back for Emmett to manipulate on our vertical surface. He was excited to do this activity right after reading the story. The “Light Rain” card started a conversation about the different types of showers. We looked back into the story to check and found out that the lamb did in fact bring rain showers in the spring, so he moved that card to the Lamb Weather side.

The Lion and Lamb Weather card sort set the stage for Emmett to complete the Lion and Lamb Cut & Paste activity independently. He still gets a little overwhelmed by coloring, so we took turns coloring the weather icons. Then he cut and glued them all on his own.

I had a few items set aside for Lillian and I to explore while Emmett was doing the cut and paste activity. I pulled the lion and lamb animal figurines from our animal set and paired them with the corresponding “That’s Not My…” book. I also prepared Mary Had a Little Lamb alongside a lamb puppet that I was lucky enough to acquire from a retiring preschool teacher. As adorable and fitting as these items were, Lillian was just not that into them today!

I had to improvise to get her engaged so that I could monitor her as well as help Emmett with his activity. I quickly whipped out some blue paint and a gray piece of cardstock and told her to paint a “Lion Storm.” She loved that! Next time I will have some process art handy ahead of time for Lillian!!

Once the paint was all cleaned up, I introduced the Lion and Lamb Action Dice game to the kiddos. There are 6 cards total, 3 lion themed cards and 3 lamb themed cards. Each card states an action that the preschoolers can do to imitate either a lion or a lamb. I just cut the cards out and placed them in my pocket dice. If you don’t have a pocket dice, you can easily put the cards in a draw pile face down or inside a grab bag. Emmett and Lillian LOVED this game!! We took turns rolling the dice and made sure to play until all the actions were done at least once. Emmett’s favorite was by far “pounce like a lion.” The FREE download for this game is available at the bottom of the post!

After our dice game, I set up three counting centers for Emmett. The first center included 12 clip cards featuring different amounts of lions or lambs. Preschoolers can count the number of lions or lambs in the picture then clip the correct number.

Another counting center consisted of two types of number mats. The lamb mats depicted numbers 1 – 10 and the lion mats depicted numbers 11 – 20. Each card had a bubble number for building the number, a tens frames for showing the number and a traceable word for writing the number. I designed these mats with play doh in mind, but you can use any small manipulative that you have handy.

The last counting center was number puzzles. These took a little time to prepare but it was worth it! The number puzzles represent numbers 1 – 20. You can decided to use as many or as few of the puzzles as you want. Each puzzle consists of four pieces, a tens frame, a number word, the ordinal number and a quantity of lions or lambs.

I gave Emmett the choice of which counting center he wanted to do and he chose number puzzles right away. I decided to use puzzles 1 – 10 with him today because this was one of the first times he has worked with the number words so I wanted to start simple. In order to keep track of all the pieces, we mixed them up and put them face down in a pile at the end of the table. Then we took turns drawing a card. Once the number was determined, the card was either placed with an existing puzzle on the table or set down on its own as the beginning of a new puzzle. We took turns until all the puzzles were complete.

At the end of our Lion and Lamb day, we reviewed the characteristics of Lion and Lamb weather. I asked Emmett our question of the day, “Which do you prefer, lion weather or lamb weather?” He surprised me by answering lamb weather!

I designed these quick Draw & Write activities for preschoolers to show their preferences. There is space to draw something that represents lion weather or lamb weather. Then the student or teacher can fill in the sentence, “I like ____ weather because _____.”

Emmett was so proud of his work, he hung it up with our other artwork on his own while I was putting his sister down for a nap. He said he used the rainbow picture from the weather sort to remember all the colors!

If you would like to use these fun Lion and Lamb activities with your preschoolers, grab them by clicking the icons below!

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Alphabet, Valentine's Day

Valentine’s Day Activities for Preschoolers *FREE*

Lauren Johnson

Valentine’s Day is almost here!! I want to give you all a quick overview of the activities we did to celebrate. Don’t forget to read through the whole post because I’ve got the FREE heart craft template ready for you to download and the link to the FREE Heart Alphabet Match. Take a look!!

Play Dough invitations-to-play are always so fun. I love how by switching out the cutters, colors and loose parts, you essentially set up the same activity over and over but it feels brand new. These play dough stations are also so fun for a range of ages. My 2 and 5 year old were both engaged for a significant amount of time.

Our loose parts were all things that I had already in the house. Acrylic table scatter from craft and party stores is a favorite loose part to include. Emmett, my 5 year old, actually found an acrylic maple leaf in the playdough, hidden from the last time he had a loose parts tray. We also had Valentine’s Day gems that I probably bought on clearance after Valentine’s Day last year. Other items to include could be colored straws, beads, or Valentine’s Day string necklaces cut up into different lengths.

Sensory bins!!! I did the sensory bins a little differently this time. This was actually the first time I tried dyeing the rice beforehand. I usually set up my bins at the last minute and forget to leave time for the dyeing process. This time, I set aside some time to buckle down and do it and it was so easy!! I used a 1 cup rice to 1 TSP vinegar ratio and just experimented with the dye. The first batch of rice was just different concentrations of red dye. The second batch I mixed in different shades of pink and purple. The last batch I left plain so that I could reuse it for another theme. The kids loved it!

We had a friend over to play during our Valentine’s Day activity time so I decided to make 3 separate sensory bins. Having one bin for each preschooler worked out so well. These bins are from the Dollar Tree so it didn’t cost me much to set up. All the other items in the sensory bins I’ve collected over the years from Michaels, Dollar Tree and Hobby Lobby. Table scatter, plastic heart containers, felt hearts and large pom poms filled our sensory bins.

Of course, we can’t celebrate Valentine’s Day without a little artwork. I decided to create a couple of large heart stencils and have the kiddos use cotton balls to dab paint into a heart shape. To set this up, I printed out the hearts (you can download the FREE template below) and cut the heart out of the middle of the page without cutting through the outside edge. This created the heart template. Then I lined the heart template up on top of a blank piece of white cardstock and taped these in a stack to the table with painters tape.

Next, I poured pink, purple and red tempera paint onto a paper plate and set up “dabbers” made out of clothespins and cotton balls. I loved watching the kiddos work so meticulously on their masterpieces. Emmett worked very carefully to fill his whole heart template up with every color. He dabbed his paint on evenly and thoughtfully. Lillian, my 2 year old, was so excited to paint, she dabbed all over everywhere! At one point, she got ahold of the jar of purple paint and began dumping it onto her paper! Her template did end up leaking because it got so saturated with paint, so just make sure to tell your preschoolers not to use too much paint or else it will run.

Our finished products! Can you tell which one is Lillian’s?? You could easily add words to this artwork and make it a Valentine or a parent gift. I decided to leave it as is because I like the simplicity of the heart on white paper. I love how we all did the same activity, yet none of the finished products look alike. I’m sure a whole class’ worth of stenciled hearts would make an adorable bulletin board.

If you would like to download the heart template to use with the Painted Stenciled Hearts activity, press the button below.

Download heart template here

Our last activity of the morning was a Heart Letter Match. Alphabet games activities are essential to preschool, but sometimes the number of pieces in an alphabet match game can be cumbersome! I decided to add magnets to the back of the puzzle pieces and have the kids spread them out across our whiteboard. This kept all the pieces in place and allowed the preschoolers to easily see all the pieces at once.

The matching aspect of the game was really geared towards Emmett. He didn’t become interested in learning his letters until just this year and he has a few left to learn. Emmett was excited to manipulate the pieces on the white board.

As he found matches and lined them up together to make whole hearts, we took turns saying the letter names and letter sounds. I was able to see which letters he is still confusing and which ones he still needs to learn.

Emmett was so proud of himself when all the matches were made! Towards the end of the game, he even told me to stop taking my turns so he could finish them all. I left the puzzle pieces on display for the remainder of the week for the kids to take apart and do again. Lillian even practiced naming a few!

If you would like to grab this FREE Alphabet Heart match game, click the icon below.

Thank you for visiting my blog! I hope you found lots of inspiration for your preschoolers. You may also be interested in these alphabet activities…

Alphabet, Winter

Snowman Alphabet Activity for Preschool and Kindergarten

Lauren Johnson

It is freeeezing cold here and we are exploring all things winter, snowmen included. I am excited to show you this Build A Snowman Letter and Sound Match activity!! Not only is it adorable, it can be turned into a cooperative game. Have you ever played the game Hiss with your preschoolers??? If you have, this game will feel familiar.

The Build a Snowman game is designed to strengthen letter recognition as well as beginning sound recognition skills. It has 104 cards, 4 for each letter of the alphabet. To build a complete snowman, you will need a head card, uppercase letter, lowercase letter and picture card (with a corresponding beginning sound). This may sound like a lot of cards, but don’t worry!! I designed this game so that is is easy to cut with a paper cutter to save you precious time.

Players

This game works best with 1-4 players.

Setup

Before you begin the game, you will need to decide how many letters of the alphabet you want to include. I suggest using no more than the cards for 12 letters of the alphabet at a time (48 cards total). This will keep the game manageable as far as space and time needed to play.

Shuffle the selected cards and place them all in a draw pile that your students can reach.

How to Play

Decide who will go first.

For each turn, have players draw one card and decide where to place it on the table or work space.

Head cards can be placed on top of any snowman that needs a head.

The letter and picture cards must be placed with other corresponding letter and picture cards.

If there are no corresponding cards on the table for the card that has been drawn, that card can be placed on the table alone to start a new snowman.

Continue drawing and placing cards until all the snowmen are built.

Because this is a cooperative game, there are no winners and losers. Preschoolers and kindergarteners can work together or independently to complete the task of building all the snowmen. I especially like this format because it keeps the cards organized and sets the pace for the activity.

The cards are designed in such a way so that they are able to be placed in any order, as long as the head is at the top. This makes it easier to match the letters and pictures in the order they are drawn from the pile.

If you would like to add the Build a Snowman Letter and Sound Matching Game to your classroom or homeschool, you can find it by clicking the image below. Have fun with your little learners!

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Alphabet, Winter

Snowflake Alphabet Activities for Preschool

Lauren Johnson

I’ve got some new winter alphabet activities for you! Just in time for our first snowfall!! These activities are perfect for preschoolers who are mastering their letter recognition, letter sound correspondence, and letter formation.

This set of activities is everything SNOWFLAKES and includes several ways to use these Snowflake Themed Letter cards. I included a set of uppercase and lowercase letters so that you can decide what your preschoolers need to practice.

The Say, Build, Write Mat is perfect for these dry erase sleeves. I got these from the Target Dollar Spot over the summer, but you can just as easily use a page protector with dry erase markers. The mat allows your preschooler to display a letter card, say the name, say the sound, build the letter, and write the letter.

I left the “build” area of the mat open ended so that you can decide what materials you would like to provide your preschoolers to build the letters. Giving the kiddos a choice of materials would also work well. Things like pipe cleaners, mini erasers, play doh or beads are great options.

What is it with preschoolers and dice?? Writing letters can seem like a tedious task until dice are involved. The Snowflake Letter Cards fit easily inside pocket dice. You can choose 6 letters you would like your preschooler to practice writing. Then have them toss the dice and record the letter they land on. This activity works well in partners or independently.

Snowflake Search and Cover miiiighhtt be my favorite activity in this set because it’s just so fun to set up the search tray. For this one, I just tossed a bag of cotton balls into a tray and set the cards up, but you can present them however you like! Make a draw pile, a sensory bin, it’s up to you!

Next, I’ve included a Snowflake Color the Room recording sheet in uppercase and lowercase letters. For this activity, you simply hang the Snowflake Letter Cards throughout the room and have students travel around to find them. As they find the letters around the room, they can color them on their recording sheet. Lillian is just learning pen control, but she enjoyed pointing to the letters and saying their names as we found them around the room.

For those preschoolers who are ready to write, I’ve also included at Snowflake Write the Room Recording Sheet in lowercase and uppercase letters. This is an easy way to differentiate too! Simply give your pre-writers the coloring sheet and your writers the tracing sheet. They will be completing the same activity but fine tuning different skills. Win-win!

The best part of this set of activities is that once you have the Snowflake Alphabet Cards ready to go, all you have to do is print the rest! The cards can be used with all the recording sheets in this resource, so you can get a lot of mileage out of one prep.

If you would like to add the Snowflake Alphabet Activities to your collection of winter themed activities for preschool, just click the image below.

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Winter

Preschool Mitten Activities *FREE Printable*

Lauren Johnson

Winter is here! Emmett, Lillian and I started January out by talking about the characteristics of winter and all things mittens. Keep reading to find a FREE mitten matching printable.

The playroom is now STOCKED with books about winter and snow for the month of January. I choose to read Winter is Here to my preschoolers to introduce characteristics of winter. We talked about winter words like mittens, coat, scarf, snowman, etc. We pointed out winter words and pictures as we read the story. You can find FREE printable Winter word cards HERE. There are many, many more winter and snow books available for the kids to flip through on their own or bring to me during reading time.

After the story, we listened to the song Three Little Kittens (Little Baby Bum version). Then we gathered all the mittens in the house and took turns “losing” them. This was basically an Easter egg hunt with mittens instead of eggs and the kids loved it. After the last round, we piled all the mittens together, matched them, and counted our matches.

Next, Emmett decided to play a mitten memory game that I’ve had in my stash for a couple of years. This particular mitten matching game came from Karen at Prekinders. You can check out more of her winter themed resources HERE. Matching games are his FAVORITE. Now that he is five, he can play by the original “concentration” rules. But if this is too challenging for your preschooler, you can adapt the game by allowing students to only turn 1 card over on each turn and leave it facing up during the game. This way, your preschooler can focus more on visual discrimination as opposed to remembering where each card is.

Speaking of matching, I like to use Emmett’s love of matching games to squeeze in a little phonemic awareness practice. I created this mitten rhyme match to help my preschoolers continue to strengthen their phonemic awareness skills using only pictures.

You can read more about this matching activity and grab it for FREE by clicking HERE.

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