The One With April Plans

Hi there! Because of how the weeks fall in April/May, I will starting the April plans next week, April 6th. This week I will do a little bit more of review, plus some fun Easter egg activities! 


Pentagon Popsicle Stick Outline 
Directions: Glue popsicle sticks down onto a piece of paper into the shape of a pentagon. Remind your kiddo that a pentagon has 5 sides as you count them together. Invite them to decorate each side of the pentagon differently. Have different craft supplies ready for them to glue down items. (Buttons, stickers, crayons, noodles, beans, beads, etc) This is a simple way to reinforce a lesson about shapes, and to keep those little brains and hands working! 

Green Eggs and Ham Sensory Bin
Directions: This month we celebrated Dr. Seuss's Birthday, plus we learning about the color green. I knew we had to do this activity. 
I was initially going to dye rice green, but I'm feeling especially unenthusiastic about effort this week. Amen?  Instead I bought some bags of dried split peas and they did the job perfectly! I made a sensory bin out of some play cooking utensils, Easter eggs, paper with green eggs drawn on it, and a few other items from the book. (Train, car, box, goat, boat, tree, etc). I read the girls the book "Green Eggs and Ham" by Dr. Suess, then invited them to play and act out the story with the sensory tray! It was so fun! (The audio book of this story is read by Jason Alexander, George from Seinfeld, so it was fun for them to listen along while they played!)  Immediately, one kiddo of mine filled up an egg with the peas and said, "I made a maraca!" I was so proud! 

(Every time I do a sensory bin for them, they always ask if they can stick their feet in! It never fails! The control freak inside of me says no, but I always end up saying yes! I need to live a little!)

Egg Pom Pom Color Match
Directions: Lay out an egg crate or muffin tin filled with various colors of opened plastic Easter eggs. Encourage your child to color match a corresponding pom pom with the egg. To make this more of a challenge, (and keep them busier for a longer period of time!) invite them to use kitchen tongs/chopsticks to place the pom poms into the corresponding egg. Have fun! 

(even my baby was busy with pom poms!)

Easter Egg Circle Stamping

Directions: Separate the top and bottom of plastic Easter eggs (cut the little connecter apart if need be.) Then, dip the egg into coordinating colored paint and use it as a stamp on the paper. This art is so simple and fun for all ages! 

Egg Painting
Directions: Draw an egg shape on a piece of paper. Clip a large pom pom onto a clothespin to act as a paint brush. Invite the child to paint fun dots all over their egg! (I saw this on pinterest and thought that my kids would open the clothespins and be wild, but they didn't! Hooray!) They dipped and painted and had a grand time! This activity is great for reinforcing color matching as well as encouraging creativity! 

Egg Puzzle Hunt
Directions: Hide pieces to a puzzle/game in Easter eggs. Then, hide the eggs around the house and have the child search for them! They love running around gathering eggs, and completing a puzzle is a fun way to make sure that they have gotten all of the eggs! 
We used this toy, but you can use any puzzle!

That's all friends! Next week will begin new themes! 

The One with March Plans, Week 4

Hey guys! It's review week! This means that you can catch up on any old activites that you missed, (or redo any favorites!) I also have a fun new activity for each day if you're looking for something new to do! These turned out so cute! 

STU Letter Sort
Directions print file. Cut apart the letters on page 2. Invite the child to sort the letters from page 2 onto the first page as a sorting mat. My girls are learning to love using glue! Younger toddlers can simply sort without gluing. Older preschoolers can trace the letters as well! 

Baked Cotton Ball Rainbow
Directions: This was so much fun! I used 6 different bowls, and added 1/4 cup water to each bowl. Then, I dyed the water with food coloring. Then I whisked in 1/4 cup of flour to each bowl to thicken it up. 

 Next, invite your kiddos to dip their cotton balls into the bowl in order to make a rainbow! I lined a cookie sheet with foil for easy clean up. I gave the girls one bowl at a time (red, then orange, then yellow, etc) in order to not have mass chaos. One twin didn't like her fingers being dirty, so she just helped throw the cotton balls into the colorful mixture. The other twin was more hands-on and enjoyed dipping and being messy! We made our rainbow in a straight line because arches are more difficult for them to create. 

 Place the cookie sheet in oven at 300 degrees for 45 minutes. 

Once the cotton balls have cooled, the kiddos can SMASH them with hammers! They absolutely loved smashing and cracking the cotton balls! Have fun! This was one of their favorite activities! 

Rainbow Treasure Hunt: Rainbow Name Relay
Directions: Cut out 6 slips of paper (red, orange, yellow, green blue, purple) and write your child's name on each one. Tape the slips around the house to hide them. Then, play a relay game. "Find the red paper with your name on it, then run to me and give me a high five! Great! Now find the orange!" Ask the kiddos to find the papers in rainbow order. If you have multiple children, writing their names on the slips help with name recognition. Once they have all 6 color slips, they can create a rainbow with a little white cloud! Have fun learning rainbow order! 

Green Color Sort: Rainbow Froot Loops
Directions: Poke a spaghetti stick into a little ball of play dough. Give your child 6 little play dough sticks in order for them to sort the 6 different colors of Froot Loops. They will love sorting the colors and making rainbow towers. This helps with fine motor skills, sorting skills, and color recognition as well. (I love how time consuming this is too, they were busy for a while!)

Five Green and Speckled Frogs Story Tube
Directions: Print file. Cut the frogs apart into 5 long white strips.  Staple the strips around a paper towel roll. Use this paper towel roll to be a fun interactive story telling tube. Sing the song "Five Green and Speckled Frogs" If you're not familiar with the tune of the song, click on this video to see how it goes!  Our color of the month is green, and the number of the month is 5, so this works out perfectly. Start with all 5 upright on the tube (log) and as each one jumps into the water, slide the frog forward to see the splash. 

3 frogs on the log, 2 splashed! 

(Note, I stapled too high on this picture, and it made the frogs really loose! I would staple much lower, near the frogs' nose, and the frogs stay on much better!)

Here are the printables!
STU sorting mat
5 Green and Speckled Frogs

The One with March Plans: Week 3

Let's get this party started!

PRINT THE MARCH CALENDAR HERE

Uu Dot Art:

Directions: print file. Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase U. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) You can read Dr Suess's ABC book and demonstrate which letter is big U and which one is little u. Introduce the fact that /u/ makes the "uh" sound*. 

*For vowels, always teach the short vowel sound first. (This makes the learning-to-read process easier!) This week, try to remember to demonstrate the short vowel sound with words like "umbrella and underwear" vs "unicorn".

Pentagon Soccer Ball

Directions: print pentagon file. Cut out the black pentagon pieces Make a soccer ball out of a paper plate! Show your child a picture of a soccer ball (or a real life soccer ball if you have one!) Observe that the black patches are pentagons!  Invite your child to glue down their pentagon patches onto a white paper plate in order to make a soccer ball! (Clearly,  the spacing won’t be right, but it will be pretty adorable!)

Green Paint Swatch Shamrocks

Directions: print shamrock outline file. (or draw out a shamrock on a piece of paper) Cut up lots of green paint swatches from a home improvement store.  Invite your child to glue the pieces down onto the shamrock. (Older toddlers can glue by themselves. If your child seems too young, you can always smear a glue stick all over the shape and allow them to just stick the pieces down) Describe the different shapes of green. “This one is dark green! This one is lime green!” Have fun decorating this, and Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

*note: If you don't end up getting paint swatches, you can always just use some green paper pieces!*

U Snack-Umbrella muffins

Directions: Together, make some muffins! My friend Candace showed me this awesome recipe for making green muffins with spinach! They are not too shabby and my kids LOVED them. You really can't taste the spinach at all! 

Once the muffin has cooled, remove the top of the muffin (does this remind anyone of a Seinfeld episode?). Poke the end of a bendy straw into the muffin top in order to make a tiny umbrella. Adorable! Remind your little one that  U makes the “uh” sound, as in umbrella!

Yellow + Blue = Green Water Walking Experiment

Directions: For this activity you need 3 clear cups, yellow and blue food coloring, and 2 paper towels. Line up 3 cups in a row. Fill the first cup up about halfway with yellow colored water. Fill the second cup about ¼ of the way with clear water. Fill the third cup up halfway with blue water.  Connect cup 1 and 2 with a paper towel. Connect cups 2 and 3 with a paper towel. Over time, water will draw out from the outer cups into the inner cups and create green water in the middle. Ask the kids what they predict will happen to the middle cup!

U Letter Recognition:

Directions: print file. Point the the Uu at the top left of the page and encourage them to find all of the other U's hiding on the umbrella. The child can mark them with crayons, markers, dot art stampers, or stickers. Remind them that u is for umbrella! :)

Rainbow Number Puzzles

Directions: I found these adorable, (and already made, hallelujah!) rainbow counting puzzles that would be perfect for Fridays when we work on numbers. Click on this link to get some fun puzzles! I went ahead and laminated mine so that we could play with them more often. Well, actually I'm just obsessed with laminating things...so....yeah.

Here are the printables for the week! As always, free!

Uu Dot Art

Pentagon Templates 

Shamrock Outline 

U Letter Recognition

The One With March Plans: Week 2

Here's week 2! Ready for some more green fun!

 CLICK HERE FOR THIS MONTH'S CALENDAR

Tt Dot Art*

Directions: print file. Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase T. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) You can read Dr Suess's ABC book and demonstrate which letter is big T and which one is little t.  

Pentagon Bean Outline

Directions: Print file (used in last week's lesson) Ask the child to identify the shape if they can! Remind them that it is a pentagon and invite them to count the sides and corners with you. Invite the child to line up beans around the perimeter of the shape. This is great for fine motor skills, and helps to reinforce the shape. 

(I used Cheerios instead of beans!)

Shamrock Bell Pepper Painting

Directions: Cut a green bell pepper in half. Use the half as a stamp in order to make shamrock shaped prints on the paper. (My kids had no idea what a shamrock was, so I had to introduce the subject completely and describe St. Patrick's day!) I always use paper plates as a paint palate for easy clean up. Have fun making cute shamrocks! 

T Snack: Turtles

Directions: Cut a green apple horizontally to make flat, circular rings. (Cut out the core of the apple as well!) The apple will be the turtle body. I sandwiched 2 rings together using peanut butter, but that's was just for fun. Use grapes as arms and legs around the apple "shell". I had some mini chocolate chips, so I used those for eyes. Super simple and toddler friendly! Remind them that T is the letter of the week, and T is for turtle! 

T is for Turtle*

Directions: print file. Color the turtle green (color of the month) and then decorate it with the letter T. My girls aren't at the age in which they form letters independently well, so I wrote the letter T on some stickers and they decorated that way! It was fun and simple way to make the letter correlation. 

Yellow + Blue = Green Paint Mixing

Directions: Yellow and blue paint into a disposable cup (for easy clean up!) and invite the child to stir the colors together. Ask them to predict what color it will turn. As they discover what color it turns, reinforce that yellow and blue make green. Invite them to paint a paper plate in order to make a turtle! Remind them that T is for Turtle! 

T Letter Recognition*

Directions: print file. Point the the Tt at the top right of the page and encourage them to find all of the other T's hiding on the turtle. The child can mark them with crayons, markers, dot art stampers, or stickers. Remind them that t is for turtle! :)

Cupcake Tin Counting

Directions: Use kitchen tongs to place small items in muffin tins. See if they can put 5 items in each cup. I used pom poms, but you could use duplos, snacks, or any small fun item to transfer. As they place the item into the tin, count together 1-5. 

Love you guys! Enjoy this green, #5, turtle-filled week!

Free printables here:

Tt Dot Art

Pentagon (same as last week's)

T is for Turtle

T letter recognition