Pumped for Preschool!

The Most Beeutiful Friendship! 🐝

May 20, 2020 karrahpope

It’s only appropriate to blog about BeeBee on World Bee Day! Plus, I never want to forget this sweet story. 💕 My 6-year-old daughter befriended a bee. You read that right, a bee! We assume it was a male carpenter bee? It all started when she found him in our yard. Knowing Teaghan, I told her please do not pick up the bee- as it could sting her (obvious parental duty.. am I right??) She asked if I’d take photos of it and she left it alone for the evening. The next morning came… and the bee was still hanging out in our yard! She didn’t want to do her writing for “homeschool” so I suggested she go sit with the bee and write outside in the beautiful weather.. which she gladly did! ✏️ 🌞

I don’t know what went down outside during writing time, but the next thing I know she’s bringing it inside on a stick. 🤦🏻‍♀️ She pleaded with me that “he liked her” and she wasn’t worried about possibly getting stung. He hung out that morning on the table while the girls did their school work.. totally normal🤨. That afternoon, “Beebee” went missing… flying around in. the. house. 😳 We finally found it a few hours later near a window. I’m honestly not sure at what point Teaghan decided to go in for the bare hand hold. Butttt she did. She went there, without fear.

She was hooked. Best friend bracelets and all. No turning back now. And who were we to stop this friendship? So my husband and I totally let her do her thing. (last week it was a snake sooo I’ll take a bee.. I guess??) I could tell how intrigued she was.. watching it, talking to it, showing it around. Placing it gently on flowers to eat. Using pipettes to put sugar water on flowers. Seriously the cutest thing ever. What bee let’s someone hold it like that?? And doesn’t fly away??

She ended up taking her castle out of her room and making it a little home outside. If it wasn’t already a Queen Bee- it was at our house. 🤷🏻‍♀️ 👑 Every evening she made sure to leave it outside in case it wanted to leave or fly away.

And first thing each morning, she would go out back, scoop it up and they would start their day. For nearly 6 days (I initially thought 5 but I was losing track of days- quarantine life😏) she took it everywhere. In the car. To the beach. On bike rides (5 miles to be exact and it rode on her hand the entire time 🤣 🚲) She took it with her when we visited our “secret garden” and they cozied up and watched movies together on the couch. I have never.. 🤦🏻‍♀️

Beebee does Mother’s Day.

A Mother’s Day I’ll never forget, having an extra guest for breakfast. 🥞 🐝

Beebee does Homeschool.

Of course we are “homeschooling” so I took the opportunity to completely scratch any and all plans and go with the only thing she was currently interested in- Beebee. We read bee related stories and books (he made the best reading buddy!) I pulled out her bee puzzle. We looked up differences between the various types of bees. We did art based around honeycomb. And I made a quick little math game.. which ironically worked out because she can never remember what a hexagon is called- bet she’ll never forget now. 🙃 She was much more engaged so it was a win/win!

–Melissa and Doug Puzzle
–Ruby Lee and the Bumblebee
–Bees Feed Me- RAZ-Kids

Reading 📖

Math: Fill the Honeycomb 🍯 🐝

This is an independent math game I made for Teaghan to work on intermittently during the day. Still pushing subitizing skills. It’s a template for a Roll-n-Cover game. I had her roll three dice, add the numbers and find the sum using a yellow do-a-dot marker. Continue to do so until the whole honeycomb is filled. 🍯 I added this free to my TPT account. It is intentionally left blank- to focus on where your child is. Write in numbers 1–6 if using one die, 2-12 if using two dice, or numbers 3-18 if rolling three dice to add! 🎲

Process Art 🖌

Mourning the loss of Beebee

Teaghan came to me breathless last Tuesday afternoon holding Beebee saying he wasn’t moving. I held him (for the first time 😬) and he was, but not like usual. We took him out to our lavender flowers and put him on one. He then seemed to have perked up, so I was hopeful. After 20 min or so, he completely stopped moving and eventually died. Devastated is not even the word for Teaghan at this point. I went back outside later and found her laying beside him and oh my- talk about water works. Here I am crying over a bee. 🥺She has the most genuine, pure, loving heart- a true angel on earth. She even asked the neighbors to keep BeeBee in their prayers. 😭

BeeBee’s memorial 💕 buried with his bff bracelet and picture she made.

The only way I could get her to calm down was to turn it into a happy thing and to celebrate the time she had with Beebee with popsicles! (Notice her red, splotchy face 😭) Not everyone is lucky enough to have a bee friend for 6 days! 🐝

I found this probably a week later in her room. She set up a “Church” station. “God is really special. He made BeeBee. It is a bee it is in heaven. Thank you for joining us BeeBee” 😇

When laying with her to get her to sleep, she requested a video of memories of her and beebee then started singing this song. (I had to google it to figure out what song she was singing… but ohhh how sweet and perfect??) So here we go 💕 😭 original post can be found Here

So many people have reached out asking about Teaghan and this sweet story. From dropping off painted rocks, to bee necklaces, to sending lavender seeds to plant – we thank you! 🥰❤️ ❤️

Now I Know My ABCs!

April 25, 2020April 25, 2020 karrahpope

IG @pumped4preschool ✨

My little one is working on identifying a few lower case letters and letter sounds. Here are some effective, hands-on activities that we have been doing at home! With her, each day she will do an activity based around letter recognition, letter sounds, and writing (this can all be altered to meet your child’s needs- if your child has mastered their letter sounds, move on to blends such as “Sh-” “Ch-” and “Th-”)

Upper/Lower Case Recognition

I scatter post-it notes on our floor, call out the letter and she hits them with a fly swatter! (Dollar Tree!)

We did this during Easter, but can be done with any themed Do-a-dot sheets. I like to use ones from The Resourceful Mama! Print it out, write in sharpie the letters your child is still working on and have them color coordinate to match the upper case letters. We used do-a-dot markers. If you do not have those, you can have your child color in with crayons.

Kinetic Sand– so much fun and you can use stamps or magnets to teach letters. Stamp the upper case and have your child find the matching lower case letter to stamp (or vice versa)

I saw this idea on Pinterest– and you probably have a ton of boxes right now from ordering online! I used jumbo craft sticks and stickers. Sliced a slot for the popsicle stick to slide in with a knife. This was a Target box so it was a little too busy to write on directly so I slapped a piece of paper on it. Not very time consuming and Rowan really loves it. If you don’t have letter stickers, you can write them! It’s something she can do independently and it gives me a chance to see which ones she’s still struggling with.

Write letters on either TP rolls or paper towel rolls and have your child match the letters! You can focus on the letters your child is still working on. (These label stickers can be found at Dollar Tree)

Letter Sounds

Something about pulling out of a brown paper bag is just so exciting 🤣 I put all these stamps in the bag and Rowan pulled one out at a time to stamp it. She had to think of the beginning sound for the picture and find that letter stamp and then write the letter. 3 step activity she really enjoyed.

Utilize stickers! They are a great fine motor tool and can be used in a lot of other beneficial ways too! Either pre-pick them or have the child pick 10 or so and stick them to a piece of paper. Then write the beginning letter sound for each. Rowan actually asked to do this activity two more times in one day!

I added a step this day and she found the letter sticker then wrote the letter.

Make a DIY touch and feel box- this one we did with nature and then talked about each item and it’s letter sound! (Stick- “s”) Can also be done with items around the house and it is F U N!!!

Go on a nature hunt and write the sounds for each thing you find.

Have your child cut pictures from a magazine and then write the beginning letter sound.

Rowan loves a surprise! This has been one of her favorite activities to do! Put small toys or items from around the house in an plastic eggs and have them match letter sound. (we used magnetic letters)

She’s also had to practice writing the letters. ✍🏼

Writing Practice-

Smear Shaving cream on pan and have your child practice writing letters!

If you have a chalkboard, write the letters and have your child trace with a little water and a paint brush! Works better with a chalkboard that’s not on an easel (water tends to drips down) but this is what we have at home and it’s working! Can also be done with a wet Q-Tip! (For younger children- write one big letter at a time, for older children- practice writing sight words)

Writing Sensory Bins- this is rainbow rice and a dry paint brush but it can be done with anything you have at home- rice salt, sugar, sprinkles, sand, etc!

Our Trolls Day!!

April 17, 2020 karrahpope

We had the best Trolls themed day! We enjoyed the beautiful weather, listened to the new soundtrack, danced, played, and crafted all.day.long. It’s going to be raining here tomorrow so we plan to rent and watch the new Trolls World Tour movie! We are so excited!! Today, we based all of our activities around Trolls. 💕

Trolls STEM Play!

The girls created a “safe village” for their Trolls to keep away from the Bergens. A lot of laughter and imaginative play😍

DIY Guitar 🎸

I’ve been wanting to try this!! We’ve made a lot of DIY instruments while at home using recycled materials. **These were so fun!** We used two little Amazon boxes and do-a-dot markers to decorate them. The girls stretched rubber bands around them.

We put rubber bands on a plastic container and our cardboard boxes to hear the difference. Fat rubber bands sounded deeper than the thin ones! So cool!

Our DIY recycle instruments were just what we needed for a dance party! 💃🏽 🎶

Rubber Band Splatter Art!

I love **all** process art! And Teaghan has been ALL about Jackson Pollock. I’ve seen this rubber band art on Pinterest before and making the guitars reminded me of it! So we tried it out. Super messy and really fun. Paint the rubber band, then pull it and let go! (Not sure where I saw the idea initially but Craftulate also has a blog about this using a baking tray!)

We cut out a Poppy Silhouette from a coloring book and glued her on. 💚💕💛 It looks like she’s breakdancing. Love the way this turned out!!

Poppy Puppet! 🌸

I had pink sparkly tulle left over from Rowan’s Birthday (bought at dollar tree). We used it for Poppy’s Hair! We also had these paper flower cut-outs and green pompoms that we used for her headband and dress. She turned out so, so cute.

Coloring Station

I loveee to use these Dollar Tree trays for activities whenever I can! Just looks so inviting 😆😍

Splatter Art with Flowers 🌸

We did this splatter art the other day with my anniversary flowers dipped in leftover Easter Egg Dye 😅🌸

Cut them into the cutest flowers! We did a mantle banner for Easter that the girls were OBSESSED with so they were determined to make a Trolls Day Banner

W is for World Tour 🌎 🎸

We just so happen to be working on the letter W. We connected it to World Tour. I love these sheets from Fun Early Learning. After Ro used a yellow do-a-dot marker, she jumped Poppy and Branch on all the Ws and slid them up and down the big W for more hands-on fun!

Luna joined in on the fun 😂 not sure she loved today as much as we did. But she sure makes a cute Poppy. Follow us on Insta for more P L A Y and F U N!
✨ @pumped4preschool ✨

Letter W- Outside Edition

April 15, 2020April 15, 2020 karrahpope

As long as it’s nice out, I like to do a lot of our “homeschool” outside! We had some fun with the letter W!

Letter W Hunt!

I made this for my girls. Hopefully it will print easily. You can find this here

I incorporated tally marks for my Kindergartener. Here’s a way to help them remember!

W is for Windy Weather 💨

I saw this on Pinterest and HAD to try it!! Super simple. Using a dry erase marker, draw on bottom of dry, glass dish. At the corner of the dish, pour room temp water in SLOWLY. Watch your writing lift up and float around. 🤯 It works best the slower you pour water in, I gave them each a little water bottle. I used a clear dish and put white paper underneath to get a better visual. I wasn’t sure if the dry erase markers would seep in and stain my white dishes. You have to thoroughly dry dish after each round! But so, so fascinating.

We pretended to be the wind and blow the letters around! 💨

Windy day- DIY Kite

Brown paper bag and string! We decorated ours with do-a-dot markers.

**Before** hole punching, reinforce bag with tape to make it a bit more durable.

DIY Wands!

Go on a nature hunt for the perfect stick for your wand! Find some pretty flowers and tie them around. So easy and a new, well-loved “toy” for your children! My girls love, love, loved making these! 👑 🌸

Pick Weeds!

I gave the girls each a bucket and told them their goal was to fill them up with weeds!! You can make it a game, to see who can fill it up first! 🏅I put some Disney music on and they really enjoyed this!
(Win/Win🤣)

W is for 🍉

This is a page from Fun with Mama. Rowan’s teacher dropped off the packet and it has some great resources in it! I especially liked this number puzzle. I colored and laminated it and ideally would have glued magnets on the back. I love that it is self-correcting so the children work on it independently.

We tried the dry erase magic drawing watermelons too! 🍉

Make a Watermelon fan.

Cut a paper plate in half, decorate like a watermelon and hot-glue a popsicle stick on for handle.

Form the letter W with Wikki Stix! A great, hands-on tool for letter formation!!

W is for Worms!

April 8, 2020 karrahpope

My preschooler is on the letter W this week and my kinder is talking about basic science skills (making observations, measuring, sorting). So this week we went on a Worm Hunt and made a “worm house”! To make the house, I used an apple juice container that I had in the recycling bin and cut off the top. We lucked out with it raining the night before so we were able to find at least 10. They wanted to keep going but I figured that was enough. 😅 We read about worm facts, parts of a worm, why they are so beneficial for soil.. and that they have FIVE hearts. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I found this awesome packet of info and activity printables here

The container was a Costco Apple Juice.. I cut off the top and it’s perfect. I love it when I find other things that go with our “theme”… and I happened to have these “inchworm” rulers in my teaching tote that’s been in storage! 💃🏽 We own **Diary of a Worm** so that’ll be our reading.

We layered the container with soil and sand and topped with grass. The idea of this is to see a visual of how the worms break up and mix soil.. we shall see.

This was the page assigned to Teaghan. So instead of just filling out a ~~worksheet~~.. we are actually **using** these two science tools in our worm hunt.

Looking at the parts. Identifying the clitellum.

You can find this free measuring printable here

Drama child. 🤣 this worm template can be found here.

We did not add googly eyes as suggested because they don’t have eyes but we did add the mouth and 5 heart stickers! ❤️

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Caterpillars!!🐛

April 5, 2020 karrahpope

Now is a great time to purchase your very own caterpillars! Watch them grow into butterflies!🦋 Meet Flutter, Butter, Belle, Lyla, and Sophie. Our 5 new “pets”.😂 We have had ours for about a week and they seriously grow SO fast. Order yours at https://www.insectlore.com/ Your child can keep a journal of what they observe. Be sure to talk about the life cycle and characteristics of living organisms. This is such a fun memory for your child! (and can go along with the Caterpillar Poem in the Distant Learning packet)

The caterpillars came with a little packet of wildflowers to plant too! 🌱 🌸

Learning with Easter Fun!🐣 🐰

April 5, 2020April 7, 2020 karrahpope

I’ve used this activity years ago with 1st grade. I plan to use it with my Kindergartener. I put different coin combinations in each egg for her to practice counting! I made myself a key to check to see how she is doing. That cute bunny tray is from the dollar store. I can’t seem to find that sheet anymore, but you can just write #1-12 for the child to write their amount next to.

I also used this game years ago..I did find it again on TpT you can print it from here! I have it laminated so I plan to use those do a dot markers.. I think a magic-eraser will wipe it away.

I made this for my preschooler to do. She will take an egg out of the basket, open it up and count the dots that are on the bunny shaped paper, then place the bunny in the correct number on the tray. 🐰 This can also be done with various subitizing **numbers** which I may do sometime this week with Teaghan, or addition problems…anything your child is working on.

Jelly Beans!

I found this free on TpT you can print it Here

I personalized this for my preschooler. She’s still working on identifying a few lower case letters. I printed the egg Do-A-Dot sheet from The Resourceful Mama. She has the best sheets!! I wrote in lower case letters with Sharpie for her to find and match to the corresponding upper case using Do-A-Dot Markers!

🐰 🎨

I have blogged before about Crayon Resist and Marbleized shaving cream! Have fun! ☺️🎨🐣🐰

NPS Distant Learning

April 5, 2020 karrahpope

The SUN☀️

We started off reading The Sun from the Science portion of the packet. We used that to create a sun paper plate craft and wrote the facts on yellow strips of paper.

Sun Prints!

The girls placed magnetic letters on plain construction paper and left it outside all day in the sun. They took off the letters to see where the sun faded their paper and left a sun print. Pretty cool visual to see how the sun effects things.

They loved it so much. They wanted to try it with different shapes so they placed shells on paper the following day! You can create pretty much whatever design or pattern they want to try!

We also put these items on two different pans and sat one in the shade and one in the sun! Would have had better results had it been hotter out (for the crayon to melt some!) But this was great to feel how the sun warms things – the fork was warm in the sun and not in the shade!

Annnnd the chocolate morsels did melt in the sun! 😆🍫

There’s two writing prompts about how day vs night look. So we read What Makes Day and Night.

I showed them a visual using a flashlight as the “sun” spinning the globe to show when we have day(sun shining on our side of earth) and when we have night (when we moved away from the light). I used a piece of Scotch Tape to circle VA with Sharpie to show them!

Homemade Musical Instruments 🎵 🎶

April 1, 2020 karrahpope

Recycle everything!!! Especially with Earth Day coming up, it’s a perfect time to teach your children about The Three Rs. Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. All those TP and paper towel rolls will come in handy. You can recycle so much around the house to act as an art project for your child. These musical instrument projects are great for creativity, following step-by-step directions, and using fine motor skills. Your child will enjoy helping to make them and love playing with them!

Make Maracas!

Fill two plastic eggs with rice or beans, whichever you have on hand. Close eggs. Place two plastic spoons around egg and wrap tape around the spoons, holding egg in place.

Make a kazoooo!

Wrap some wax paper around a toilet paper roll and secure tight with a rubber band. Puncture small hole in TP roll (you can use pen or end of scissors). This one took some playing around with, with how you blow into it. Once we figured out that you really have to yell into it, it was pretty cool.. Teaghan loved it!

Use two paper towel rolls as “rhythm sticks!!” My preschool class used these when working with syllables! Jack Hartmann “months of the year” syllable song is fun to introduce and use them!

Make a Rain Stick!

I’ve done these several different ways with wrapping the ends with wax paper and duct tape.. but I just squeezed the ends and stapled them this go around.

We also had some empty chip containers we decided to do the same with! The girls decorated them with foam stickers and added rice to one and beans in the other to hear the difference.

Our next project is to try to make a “guitar” with a shoe box and rubber bands! 📦 🎸

There are so many more ideas out there! These are just a few my girls tried last year and what we’ve made so far during this time at home!

NPS Distant learning week 2

March 28, 2020March 28, 2020 karrahpope

Reading –

Week two has a poem Little Tadpole. We plan to talk more about/review the life cycle of a frog 🐸 while reading this poem. My preschooler actually created a cute life cycle before schools let out! We will listen to a read aloud of There was an old lady who swallowed a frog (YouTube), read A Frog in a Bog and Frog and Toad Together. There’s also a writing prompt: Tell a story about a frog.

There’s also a short story My Dog 🐶 in the packet and it just so happens that my 4-year-olds letter of the week is V. I’m going to roll with a veterinarian theme for the week. We have a doctor’s kit, so I printed out labels for items in the kit, to introduce/expose new vocabulary.

Ideas for the week💡 ….

Go on a walk, make a tally mark for every dog you see, practice grouping sets of 5
Plastic pets in dirt/mud outside – have children “wash” them – sensory
“Would you rather….” pet addition — There’s a writing prompt on this as well!
Veterinarian Dramatic Play
Syringe Art !!
Brown paper bag pet puppets
research a specific dog of choice

There’s been a lot of rhyming worksheets in this packet. This book has a lot of rhyming and a perfect option for beginning readers.

These books are just options I’ll have out to read throughout the week.. either at “school” or during bedtime.

Math-

Week two is different shape activities and a Shape Hunt- it’s very simple. I will feel her out and see how she does, but I anticipate her doing the whole week in a day or two. I plan to break it up into two different shape hunts, the first hunt will be her fav color (Red), which may be pretty time consuming considering our house is all very neutral colors inside. 🤣 I’ll tie in her writing prompt about favorite color this day. I plan on extending it by giving her a camera and letting her take pictures of allllll the things she can find for each shape in the house and yard. (I.e circles- she can take a picture of the tops of cups, candles, door knobs, plates, trampoline, etc. Rectangle- door, windows, picture frames, bricks.. you get the drill)

Last week, we played a 3 way version of the card game WAR with her subitizing and number cards. Both my girls had a lot of fun with this, but I noticed Teaghan could use more practice with her perceptual and conceptual subitizing (quickly recognizing dice/tally/domino number sets without having to count). This was also exposing Rowan to sets of numbers, Teaghan helped her along the way! Since they loved it, and actually played together we will definitely be playing again this week.

When we played last week, I mixed this sheet with the number sheet. I plan to switch it up and just use subitizing cards the next time we play.

They have a lot of small stuffed animals that I plan to use with them while they play Veterinarian. “If three frogs came in your clinic and then two dogs came in, how many animals are in your clinic now?!” Throwing in math and word problems to them while they PLAY!

Science(week3)/Social Studies(week 2)

The Sun ☀️ We will talk about how the sun is a big star and it’s importance to plants and animals. We will talk about how the sun is the source of energy and light that warms the land, air, and water. We will also start a chart of the weather for each “school” day for the rest of March and April.

We will recreate something similar to this using the Science reading for the week.

Social Studies– K.7- The student will describe how the location, climate, and physical surroundings of a community affect the way people live, including their food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and recreation.

We recently went on a ski trip, so I plan to use utilize that to teach this week’s “lesson” on physical surroundings. She will compare and think about the differences of being on that mountain compared to where we live. We will discuss and talk about characteristics of Norfolk and the bodies of water near us! Hopefully we will be able bike over and explore around the Lafayette River with some sort of nature hunt.

Additional Resources for my preschooler-

I saw this idea of Pinterest and thought my little one would love it! Making pet collars/name tags!