I'm Just Not Creative!

I'm not going to sit here and tell you how to write a lesson plan with an anticipatory set and all that other lingo that teachers have to use. What I would like to address is the comments I've heard like, "I'm just not creative," "I don't know where to start," "how do I make learning fun?" etc. How about "My kid likes ____. How do I plan something for that?"
Okay, calling all non-creative, road-blocked, well-meaning non-teacher parents! (And all the rest of you!) What do you do to help your child get interested in learning? What about the wiggly toddler? The "I only want to play" kid? The "Mommy is talking. Time to glaze over" kiddo? (And by the way, my child is in ALL of those categories!!)
It may not be the right way, but here's a few pointers to get you going:
1. What do they like? Cars? Animals? Princesses? Bugs? The Solar System? If you can't name anything specific, what gets you excited? Enthusiasm is contagious!
2. Start with a book. It's the easiest way to start. Go to Google, Barnes and Noble.com, Amazon.com, or your library's web page. Start searching for books for kids in that subject area. Try to get some fiction AND non-fiction. Don't run from the non-fiction...it can end up being a favorite. Take the list and go to the library and check them out!
3. What letter can you associate with this topic? Does a number go well with it? Start simple! Don't try to get your 18 month old to write the letter S. You are setting yourself up for frustration. Show them an Ss, show them pictures of things that start with Ss, and get silly making sounds, but don't expect them to be able to recognize it tomorrow. They might, but don't get set on it. If you are reading the Three Little Pigs, try the letter P and the number 3!
4. Can you think of even a simple craft to go with this? If animals, how can you make an animal face? If a bug, can you construct one together? What items can you use instead of paper? Look in your cabinet!! If you can't think of one, GOOGLE! No one said you needed a teaching degree when you became a mom. :)
5. Snack time! How can you incorporate food? KIDS LOVE FOOD! Even if it's a simple as making a letter out of pancake batter to make capital T for breakfast, they will love it!!!
6. Math: Is there a color, counting, graph, or patterning activity I can make out of this topic? Three Little Pigs? Use the color pink! Sort out all the pink jelly beans! Do a color hunt for the color pink!
7. Trips! Any place you can take them to get a better hands-on experience? Museum? Zoo? Library? Pet shop? School? Planetarium? If not, how can you make it more real for them? My daughter LOVES it when I print off pictures from the Internet of whatever she's curious about. We were in Panera Bread on evening and she heard some music she despised. It ended up being the saxophone...a word and sound she's never heard before. And she certainly had NO idea what it looked like. So we printed one off and now she's practically an expert. Okay, I exaggerate, but she knows a lot about them. That leads me to...
8. Teachable moments! I would never in a million years thought to teach her about the saxophone. But a random outing sparked her curiosity. I had a choice...let it die down, or run with it. Watch your child, listen to questions, and think about how you can show them something that they are really interested in.
9. And I almost forgot: Gross motor skills and games! What kind of large movement can you have them do?Walk like an elephant? Spin like a planet? Think think think!

Okay, so now that you've been overloaded, I'm going to post on Tuesday an example of what I mean. We studied bears this week (another random teachable moment I ran with) and I'll give you a step by step plan of what we did during our bear unit. :)

In the meantime...what topics or questions do you have? Are there specific activities you want to see covered on this site? Let us know! We are here to help! Do you want more specific topic ideas? Do you want more book recommendations? Gross motor? How-tos? What needs do you have right now?

Sensory Activities

My children love to do sensory activities. Give them a container full of beans and they will be entertained for days. I recently saw this idea for beans and hearts on No Time For Flashcards. Both children have enjoyed it; Kaitlyn has loved it. She plays with it several times a day. I keep it in the kitchen so she can play with it while I am in there.

You can do lots of different things for sensory activities. You can make them similar to this one and add whatever suits your theme for the week. You don't have to use beans. You can use things like rice, sand, and packing peanuts. Brayden's preschool teacher filled her tub with sand during dinosaur week and the children looked for dinosaur bones.

After you fill it, give your children items like spoons and measuring cups to scoop, pour, and dump.

Yes, there will be spills. Personally, I wouldn't' do sand in the house because I am OCD. That is what we have a sandbox for. But I don't think there is anything wrong with it if you will have sand in it in your house. You can teach your children to pick up the beans and packing peanuts as they spill or when they are done playing. Messes clean up :)

One warning, if you have carpet that is plush in the least, I don't recommend you use beans on it. We learned that the hard way about 8 months ago. We found beans in the carpet for months! I now do this on hardwood floors.

Fall: Nature Walk

At preschool this week, Brayden's theme is Fall. He came home with this fun bracelet, so I thought I would share it.

AGE RANGE
Probably one and up. I would think a one year old could find interest in putting this bracelet on and collecting things.

SKILLS DEVELOPED

• Science
• Exercise

SUPPLIES

• Masking tape
• Baggie or basket (or something to put things in)
• Place to walk

PREP

• Dress child appropriately for the weather

ACTIVITY

• Put masking tape around your child's wrist. You want the tape "backwards" so that the sticky side is facing up. You don't want the tape to stick to your child.
• Go for a walk and find things in nature. For the lighter and smaller things, have your child stick them to his nature bracelet. For the heavier and larger items, have your child put them in the baggie or basket or whatever you brought along.
• Take them home and talk about the items found. For the older child, you could look up the items he found and read about them.

PHOTOS

Being Thankful:Fall and Winter Fun

I saw this activity in the Disney's Family Fun magazine (November 2008). (Great investment, by the way!) I'm going to give credit where credit is due, so thank you Zeppo Family from St. Charles, Missouri!

This family decided to keep a Thankful Box out all year. Throughout the year, they write down things they are grateful for and drop them into the box. On Thanksgiving Day, they open the container and read the blessings out loud. Then they use the strips of paper to make a paper chain to hang on the Christmas Tree.

*If you start now and each family member does one a day, you'll have plenty for a paper chain for the tree! We are starting this week!

Materials Needed:

• Oatmeal canister, shoe box, or some container to put the strips of paper in


• Pen/pencil


• strips of paper

1. Decorate your container.


2. Cut a slot in the top to put the paper in once written on.


3. Keep a stack of paper handy.


4. Write one thing per family member each night. We chose after dinner, so we can sit and chat as a family. I'm sure we can come up with one blessing a night!

For my 2 year old, I'll let her draw what she's thankful for during the day and she can share it with the family at night. Then I'll "translate" on the bottom of the paper. :) I'll write new things that the baby can do too, since I'm sure she's thankful for things like new teeth and mobility.

Fall: Texture Sort

Now is the time you'll find lots of gourds at the grocery store for really low prices. We purchased a bunch of them for around 50 cents a piece.

Age Ranges: 1 (with a lot of assistance), 2+ year olds more independently

Prep:

• Gather materials
• Decide on the specific skill(s) to teach
• Make picture/word cards with a specific attribute (bumpy, orange,etc)--optional

Materials Needed: Gourds, picture/word cards (optional)

Activity:

1. Gather a large group of gourds and pumpkins together. We went to the store and I let my daughter choose them.
2. Talk about how they feel (bumpy, smooth, rough, have ridges, indention), shape (round, oval, flat), colors (brown, orange, yellow, green), size (large, small) , how heavy they feel, etc.
3. Show them the picture/word card, or give them a category. "Let's find all the solid colored gourds. Let's find the striped gourds. Let's put all the striped gourds in one pile, and solid colored ones in another."
4. Use words like "sort," "category," "attributes," "similar" as this is a great way to build vocabulary. It also helps for future test preparation. When taking benchmark tests and SOLs, the testing language is very specific, so it's imperative that children know the terms used in the Standards.
5. After they have sorted, have them count the number of gourds in each pile.
6. Identify which group has greater, fewer, or equal amounts of gourds. (Again, using "greater" and "more" interchangeably so both terms are understood.)

This activity helps practice with specific standards here in Virginia:

Virginia Standards of Learning for Kindergarten:
Math: K.15 The student will sort and classify objects according to attributes.
Science:
K.2 Students will investigate and understand that humans have senses that allow one to seek, find, take in, and react or respond to information in order to learn about one’s surroundings. Key concepts include
five senses and corresponding sensing organs (taste – tongue, touch – skin, smell – nose, hearing – ears, and sight – eyes); and
sensory descriptors (sweet, sour, bitter, salty, rough/smooth, hard/soft, cold, warm, hot, loud/soft, high/low, bright/dull).

K.4 The student will investigate and understand that the position, motion, and physical properties of an object can be described. Key concepts include
colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, white, and black);
shapes (circle, triangle, square, and rectangle) and forms (flexible/stiff, straight/curved);
textures (rough/smooth) and feel (hard/soft);
relative size and weight (big/little, large/small, heavy/light, wide/thin, long/short); and
position (over/under, in/out, above/below, left/right) and speed (fast/slow).

Dinosaur Theme Week

Almost all children love dinosaurs at some point. There are lots of fun things you can to for a dinosaur themed learning week. Here are some ideas:

GROSS MOTOR SKILLS

Pretend to be dinosaurs and stomp around the house. You can give your child a dinosaur name based on name (so Brayden is "Braydensaurus") and have him choose a type of dinosaur to be (flying, swimming, land...).

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Be paleontologists!

• Put a toy, plastic dinosaur in some water and freeze it. The next day, work on extracting your dinosaur from the ice.
• Extract bones from the dirt. Put some bones in a baking dish. Cover them with sugar, flour, sawdust, etc. Use paintbrushes to find the bones. You could make some bones out of plaster (you can use a plastic dinosaur to make a plaster of footprints), use sticks or rocks (or whatever) along with the imagination of your child, or purchase a kit like the Scientific Explorer's My First Dinosaur Science Kit. Use a paintbrush to extract the dinosaur bones.

SINGING SONGS

To the tune of "I'm A Little Teapot" (add actions if you want to)

I'm a mean old dinosaur

Big and tall

Here is my tail and here is my claw

When I get all hungry

I just growl

Look out kids I'm on the prowl!

COLOR OF THE WEEK

You really could use any color since we don't know exactly what colors dinosaurs were, but common colors applied to dinosaurs are green, brown, and yellow.

SCIENCE

You could use your fine motor skills to apply to science. You can also get a Giant Dinosaur Hatch'em set. My sister gave one of these to Brayden when he was one, and I just hadn't ever used it yet. When we had dinosaur week last week, I got it out and we watched the egg hatch over a day and the dinosaur grow over a day.

GEOGRAPHY

Show your child a map of where dinosaur bones are primarily found.

ART

• Dinosaur coloring pages
• Playdoh: Have your child make a footprint using a toy dinosaur. Let the footprint harden to make a fossil.

LETTER OF THE WEEK

Have your letter of the week be the letter "D." See Letter Picture: D for an idea for a fun activity.

BOOKS

Go to the library and check out books about dinosaurs. If your child really loves dinosaurs, you might decide to buy one to keep around the house: Dinosaur Books. Some I like:

• Dinosaur Roar!
• Happy Birthday, Danny and the Dinosaur! (I Can Read Book 1)
• Danny and the Dinosaur
• Curious George's Dinosaur Discovery

FIELD TRIP

Take a trip to a dinosaur museum.

FUN/FREE PLAY

Get some Dinosaur Figurines and play with them. We own several, and my 4 and 2 year old had a lot of fun with each other playing with the dinosaurs. There was something about it being "dinosaur week" that made playing with them extra fun.

SORTING

You can use your figurines to have your child sort. He can sort them by colors, by his favorite to least favorite, by smallest to biggest, etc.

COMPUTER TIME

pbskids.org has some great dinosaur activities on the Dinosaur Train page: Dinosaur Train

TV TIME

• Watch movies with dinosaurs (like The Land Before Time)
• Watch the new show, Dinosaur Train, on your local PBS station

OTHER RESOURCES

• PBS Teachers
• Gayle's Preschool Rainbow (I didn't get my ideas from this site, but some do overlap)
• Child's Play

Fall Craft: Apples & Thankfulness

I was looking for a way to help emphasize being thankful with my toddler. There's such a natural sense of me, me, me that toddlers have, and I want to help Charis learn how it feels and what it looks like to be thankful for the wonderful people in our lives. Here's what we came up with around here.

Materials Needed:

*Washable paint

*Apples (1-3)
*Paintbrushes or sponge brushes
*Blank cards with envelopes

Ages: 2+

Prep:
*Put down paper on the table to keep paint from getting everywhere.

*Cut the apples. One needs to be cut in half, so it keeps it's pretty "apple" shape.

The other apple(s) I cut in half horizontally, so that the shape of the core makes a star. Then I cut the apple around the star, to make an easy to hold square (like a stamper).

*I put paint in individual jars, for easy access for the brushes.

*Lay note cards out flat.

Activity:

1. Show your toddler how to paint the sliced apples. It works better to paint the slices rather than dip them.

2. Show them how to press the apples on the card. It's okay if they wiggle, it's their creation...a piece of them.

3. After they dry, draw (or if your child is old enough, let them) apple seeds and stems on the apples.

4. Keep the note cards handy. It's a good idea to write a thank you or "I appreciate you" note right then. Explain that when you care about someone, appreciate someone, or want to say thank you, it makes their day brighter to get a card.

We keep the cards in plain sight so I can grab one when the opportunity presents itself.

It's never too early to set the example of being grateful. Make sure you do the same, and tell your child when you send a card or call someone to say thank you, I miss you, Happy Birthday, or whatever you decide.

Letter Picture: D

The other day, Brayden (4) brought this home from preschool. This week, they are learning about dinosaurs and it is also the letter D week. I thought it was really creative.

AGE RANGE

I would say this is for the two year old on up. If you have an 18 month old or so who you think would do well with this activity, go for it!

SUPPLIES

• Picture of a D. They did both uppercase and lowercase. You could do one or both. You could print it or draw it. Here is a link to a block letter: http://familycrafts.about.com/library/color/blcapitald.htm. Or you can make it in Microsoft Word. To do that: (1) Open Word. (2) Go to File>Page Setup. A new window will open. (3) Under Margins, change all margins to .5. (4) Under Orientation, click Landscape. (5) Click OK. (6) Type a capital D and a lowercase d. I would put a space between the two. (7) Highlight the letters. (8) Change the font to Arial. (9) Change the font size to 460. (10) Go to Format>Font. A new window will open. (11) Under Effects, check the Outline box. (12) Click OK. You are now ready to print!
• Construction paper.
• Dot stickers.
• Dinosaur sticker.
• Dog sticker (or any other "D" word sticker you want to use).
• Glue.

PREP

1. Print your D picture.
2. Either cut out or draw lines for your child to cut out a door for each D (D and d).

ACTIVITY

• Have your child put a D sticker (duck, donkey, dinosaur, dog, etc.) in the center of the capital D and one in the center of the lowercase D.
• Have your child decorate the D's with dots.
• If you want your child to cut out the doors, have him do so.
• Have your child glue the doors in place to cover the D stickers.

PHOTOS

Here are two photos of Brayden's D picture.

ADDED THOUGHT

You will notice that this picture is hanging on the fridge. You have probably read this a million times, but display the artwork your children do. I hang the kid's pictures on the fridge as soon as they are done (or as soon as the glue dries). I always make a big deal about it.

If you are the type who hates to hold on to stuff and want to throw it away, don't do it in front of your child :) If you are the type who hates to throw stuff away, you can take pictures of it and just keep a few things.

Fall : Do-A-Dot

Do-A-Dot Art! is a pack of sponge tip paints/markers that are washable. There are multiple packs, multiple colors, and different coloring books designed especially for these markers. I found our set at Michael's, our local craft store. Here's how we started talking about Fall with our 2 year old.

Ages: As early as they can pound on a piece of paper with these markers. :) I just found them recently, but my daughter would have been able to handle them much earlier.

Materials Needed:
*Book about fall (We read When Autumn Comes by Robert Maas)
*White paper
*Do-A-Dot markers (green, red, yellow, orange)


Prep:
*The night before I painted a bare tree for her to put leaves on
*Choose an appropriate book to teach about fall (or apples).




Activity:
1. Read the story, talking about what happens in the Fall/Autumn.
2. Make sure you point out the changes in the trees.
3. Show your child how to dot on the leaves.
4. Let them stamp away! Try not too be too involved. I have a tendency to want crafts to look a certain way (like actually looking like a fall tree when she's done) but sometimes that takes the fun and creativity away from your child. I just try to keep on on the paper (rather than hands, clothes, or tables).




To do this activity with apples:
*Read an apple book. We read Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. It's a great story about a bunny family that goes to an apple orchard to pick apples. There are graphs that older children would understand, and diagrams of an apple. The farmer explains how apples grow, and at the end of the story there is a recipe, a song, and a painting craft. Apple tasting (red vs. yellow vs. green) is very appropriate with this story.
*Use Do-A-Dot markers to make an apple tree.
*We also talked about the parts of the apple (since there is a diagram). We cut open an apple and used the terms in the book to talk about what each part does, which part we eat, etc (skin, flesh, seeds, stem, leaves).

Extensions:
* For older children, you can fold a piece of paper into 4 squares. Paint a bare tree in each square. Label Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter. Read Arnold's Apple Tree, a great book about the progression of an apple tree through the seasons. Use the Do-A-Dots or a Q-tip and washable paint to dot the leaves, buds, flowers, and snow on the trees.

*For any age group, use animal stamps or stickers and add the appropriate animals to the pictures. You can make it a counting activity as well "Let's add one squirrel. Let's add 2 birds. Let's add 3 blossoms, 4 red apples, etc."

*You can add pictures of people (from a magazine, stick people, real photos) and dress them appropriately for the season. I took pictures of family and just asked her what they should wear to pick apples ("Should Mommy wear a bathing suit in the fall? Should Daddy have gloves? What is the weather like? So since the weather is ____, then he should wear ___.")

*We went to the grocery store and chose one of each kind of apple to taste. She had a great time helping me choose good apples from each display. We later took them home and tasted. I let her take a bite out of each apple to see which she liked the most and to talk about different flavors and textures (sweet, sour, hard, soft, etc). Then I chopped them up and we used the recipe in the book (Apples, Apples, Apples) to make applesauce.

Fall Books

In honor of the first day of Fall...

I thought it would be nice to have a list of books about Fall. I like to reserve books online at the library and just go in and pick them up. That way I don't have to spend as much time digging for books about specific topics! Included are books about apples and pumpkins.

These titles will be updated periodically, as we come across more great resources!

A Tree Can Be by Judy Nayer
We're Going on a Leaf Hunt by Steven Metzger
**When Autumn Comes by Robert Maas (uses photographs)
**The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree by Gail Gibbons
One Little, Two Little, Three Little Apples by Matt Ringler
**Up, Up, Up! It's Apple-Picking Time! by Jody Fickes Shapiro
**Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace
Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins by Dianne Ochiltree
**Changes by Margorie Allen and Shelley Rotner (uses photographs)
**Picking Apples and Pumpkins by Amy and Richard Hutchings (Uses photographs)
Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss

** These books have a good amount of educational information included in the story.

Apple Unit for Toddlers

First Week of September: Apples
*I did these activities last week with my pre-toddler (14 months)

Writing/Fine Motor: Color a picture of an apple with a red crayon or red color wonder marker *this will mostly be random scribbling and/or chewing on the marker and that's fine :)

Music/Math: Sing Ten Little Apples by Patricia Morrison
(sung to tune of Ten Little Indians)

One little, two little, three little apples
Four little, five little, six little apples
Seven little, eight little, nine little apples
Ten little apples red.

Ten little, nine little, eight little apples
Seven little, six little, five little apples
Four little, three little, two little apples
One little apple red.

Reading/Math: Read Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss

Gross Motor Skills/Science: wash apples in the sink (you can fill up the sink with water and watch for whether the apples float or sink). Allow your toddler to really help scrub the apples with a little vegetable scrubbing brush to get the full gross motor skills benefit.

Vocabulary/Foreign Language: Apple, Red, Manzana(apple in spanish), Rojo(red in spanish)

Optional Field Trip: Go apple picking at a local orchard!