Free preschool lesson unit: Five senses of Christmas part 2

This is part 2 of 3 for a free preschool lesson unit on the fives senses of Christmas. 

Part 1 can be found here. Here is the link to Part 3

I CAN TASTE CANDY CANES

To begin our day for I can taste candy canes,  we read the book Katie the Candy Cane Fairy by Make Believe Ideas.

This is story is about Katie a fairy who performs a Christmas show with her fairy sisters each year. They depend on candy canes to make their show magical but then one day their candy canes disappear. They decide to go on a search to find new ones and figure out a way if they can still perform a magical show without depending on their candy canes.

Activities that go with the book

Disappearing candy candy stripes science experiment from Play dough to Plato

Go on a Candy cane hunt and then danced and sing with your candy canes to any Christmas song. 

Other activities

Paper clip candy canes

There are 4 sets with 12 total patterns. 

You can DOWNLOAD the candy cane patterns HERE.

Edible Peppermint ornaments from Hello Homebody

Candy cane play dough from Growing a Jeweled Rose

I CAN HEAR CHRISTMAS BELLS

We begin with reading  the book Christmas Parade by Sandra Boynton 

This book is about the pigs, chickens, cows, rhinos, and other animals who come to celebrate Christmas in a loudly way. 

Activities
Jingle bell toss: Grab your jingle bells, stand behind a line, and starting tossing the bells into a bucket, bowl, or whatever container you would like.

Counting Jingle bells 1-12

Click HERE to download this free bell printable with numbers 1-12.

Jingle Jingle Little Bell Lyrics and Action
Free printable can be DOWNLOAD HERE

Christmas bell countdown

Christmas bell template with poem can be DOWNLOADED HERE

Musical bell or pip chime music

My son was having a hard time with remembering numbers so I added a piece of paper with a color to the each chime. It is much easier for him to play.

I then took two Christmas songs and created pipe chime music sheet with colors rather than numbers. The two songs I choose were Rudolph the Red nose Reindeer and Away in a Manger.  Musical Pipes is a website I like to use get free pipe chime music.


This pipe chime music is 3 pages.

This pipe chime music is 1 page.

FREE DOWNLOAD
Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer pipe chime music
Away in a Manger pipe chime music

The next post will be part 3 and the last of this lesson unit. It will be I CAN TOUCH PRESENTS AND BOWS AND I CAN SMELL GINGERBREAD COOKIES.

Busy Bags: Round 2

This is round 2 of our favorite busy bags. If you missed Busy Bags: Round 1, you can find it here. 

PATTERN STICKS

These pattern sticks were made using color coding labels. I used this TEMPLATE to make the pattern cards and laminated them. Then put the color coding labels on the Popsicle sticks. You can make as many different pattern cards as you would like.

NUMBER WHEEL

Here is a free PRINTABLE for the number wheel. Once I printed it out, I glued it onto cardboard. You then write numbers 1-10 on a clothespin and have your child clip them on to the correct number of dots.  

BUTTON SNAKE

You can find free instructions on how to make this from Mama Gab. There are different versions of this activity but I liked this one because of the felt shapes. This activity was given to me and the person that gave this to me added a snake tail, eyes, and tongue. I think it is so cute.

POPSICLE STICK PUZZLES

These Popsicle stick puzzles are a popular activity but they are nice because they kids enjoy them and there are so many options on what pictures to use. These Popsicle stick puzzles represent the four seasons and are graphics of mycutegraphics.com You can print out each picture from HERE, cut on the dotted lines and then use Mod Podge to glue them onto the Popsicle stick. I store each puzzle in a snack size Ziploc bag to keep them from getting all mixed together. 

All of our busy bags activities are stored away in a Ziploc bag and then we have all the bags in a plastic bin so they can be easily stored away. Do you have any favorite busy bags? I would love to share your ideas!

Printable preschool assessment form

Preschool assessments are a great way to record a child's progress throughout the school year. Last year, we had an cream party on the last day of preschool and I wanted to use an assessment that went along with our ice cream theme. Below is the assessment we used, you will also see a beginning of the year assessment with the same theme that has different wording. We had a lot of fun with this theme and will be using it about for this coming school year.

Beginning of school year preschool assessment

                     

 End of school year preschool assessment

One of our activities for the ice cream party was this coloring page and poem. 

Preschool learning binder

A few years ago I made a learning binder for my oldest child that focused on different subjects. I have LOVED this binder. It is great for quiet time, to take in the car, or those times they just need something to keep them occupied when you are somewhere such as the doctor's office. We have even taken it on vacations!

UPDATE 11/03/2018: You can now purchase a digital version of this learning book at Little Wiggles Design. It is personalized with your child's name. Not all these activities are included in the pearschool learning book and those activities not included are still available for free download here!

I recently  put together a preschool learning binder for my preschooler and I am excited to share all the worksheets and activities I have in it. 

I purchased a 1.5" binder to put all the worksheets in and used this cute cover from Joy of Kindergarten. There is a girl version available too.

So the worksheets can be used over and over again, I laminated all my worksheet and then we use washable dry eraser marker. The preschool learning binder is organized into categories and I have a page divider between categories.

Below are the categories 

Progressive name spelling

I downloaded free front from this website to make this. The names of the fonts are ABC Print Arrow, ABC Print Arrow  Dotted, and ABC Print Dotted.

Alphabet tracing and writing

Alphabet letter worksheets

Alphabet Tracing

Itsy Bitsy Fun

Letter sound matching A - Z

Other letter sound worksheets:

 The Kindergarten Pod 

The Education Highway

Beginning Sound Fill in the Bubble

 Finding numbers 1-10

Matching numbers 1 - 10

Matching numbers 11 - 20

        

Matching dots with numbers

                       

Progressive number writing 1 - 9

Tracing number 1 - 10

Shape tracing

Matching shapes

Shape pattern mazes

Education.com

There are 11 rhyming pages in this packet. 

You can download them all here. 

Line tracing

Kids learning station

Worksheet Fun

Picture tracing

Making learning fun

Worksheet Fun

Which one is different worksheets

Other which one is different worksheets

The Measured Mom

3 Dinosaurs
 (Look through each printable pack to find which one is different worksheets)

Beginner Mazes
Mr. Printables
Worksheet Fun

Easy word search puzzles
Mr. Printables

I like having all the worksheets together in one binder and that it is easy to put together.The best thing about this binder is my boys actually enjoy doing these activities. My preschooler always ask if he can do his "homework." Hopefully he will still be excited when he actually has real homework!

Little Quack book activities

I love preschool during Spring time because there are so many fun themes and activities related to Spring. For this week, we learned about ducks and I planned our activities around the books Little Quack by Lauren Thompson.

I used these numbers and duck below after reading Little Quack's Hide and Seek. My three year old would close his eyes and I would hide the duck under one of the numbers. I then call out different numbers to have him look under until he found Little Quack. He also took his turn in hiding Little Quack as well. 

Click here to download

I also used these cards to review shapes. 

Click here to download

To take it a step further we would also name an object and its shape of things Little Quack might see outside, for example the sun and it is the shape of a circle.