Hi!!! I’m Karrah. A preschool teacher in Norfolk. I have a Master’s in Elem. Education and certified PreK-6. I have two daughters, Teaghan and Rowan. I love to come up with fun, hands-on learning that will hopefully instill a love of learning for young children!
If you’re anything like me you have boxes galore right now. (Thanks Amazon😬) use these for your children to play with!! They can decorate them with stickers, paint, markers, etc! Are you building a leprechaun trap?? They can also play inside- if big enough. Stack them. Turn them into a bed (baby Rowan 😭) use them for any dramatic play they think of (house, crib for baby doll, construction worker- use play hammers and golf tees, transportation-turn into some sort of vehicle or draw lines for a road for Hot Whees), pretend to be a snail or turtle 🐌 🐢 and slide across the house (my girls came up with that themselves😅). You can also use them if you plan to do any crafts.. they are great to use for shaking glitter, or shaking marbles with paint on a piece of paper. You can flatten them and use as a placemat/table protector for crafts, or flatten them as a big posterboard. So many fun things! I’m sure Pinterest is loaded too!! These are just some ideas I’ve used before! 📦 📦
I told my girls yesterday school would be closed for several weeks but we would most definitely be doing some sort of “homeschool”. This morning, I had a chair and little area set up for me when I came downstairs to start teaching😭. Children love structure. However..I quickly told them momma’s not workin’ weekends and to go play.😅 I spent the majority of my morning organizing for the next two weeks. Would part of me like to stay in jammies and have a free-for-all? Yes. However, I’d give it two days (and that’s being generous) and they’d be ready to kill each other. Let’s be honest here. Also, having absolutely no structure would just set them up for failure when returning to school. I put together a little schedule for us to follow. They will not have a completely structured day and I will not be entertaining them all day. Children need to be bored from time to time, it’s when their creativity sparks. If it’s nice out… they are going outside. Dig in dirt, jump on the trampoline, blow bubbles, make an obstacle course, arts and crafts.. I don’t care, but go outside. If it rains, they can choose from our creative play bin for inside on the table or go play in the playroom. My kids don’t use the iPad at home, that’s just my personal decision. I haven’t decided yet if Teaghan will use it a little for her programs she uses at school. I’m not a fan, but I don’t want her to fall behind in the programs. At max she’ll do 20 min a day, or maybe just rainy days? Idk. 🤷🏻♀️
If you plan on working with your children, I highly suggest a schedule and a designated place to work. You’ll go crazy cleaning up every part of your house. We have a finished third floor that I have recently made solely into our Play Room.. so that’s where we will be doing our “school work”. Keep in mind I ammm a teacher.. most ALL of this stuff I’m about to share, I already had filed away or pre-made. It was not that much prep work for me, so just pick 1 or 2 things that you like and want to try! Don’t feel overwhelmed. ❤️
Set a few Goals
I thought about a few things I personally saw my girls struggling with or things they are working on at school. Teaghan stilllll can’t tie her shoes great, so there’s one thing we will spend some time on. Also, putting her own hair in a pony tail. Academically, she’s working on writing skills, reading comprehension, and coins/skip counting in school so I based her activities around those things. Rowan is writing her name but it’s “ROMAN” so I’ll be working with teaching her how to write a W. She’s also still working on number recognition, especially 6-10, letter formation and sounds.
Teaghan’s K work
Reading comprehension– I use Bob Books at home and she came home with some high frequency word books sent from school. After she reads one, she’ll roll a die and that will tell her how she’ll respond to the story.. I’m not doing the writing portion, just using it as a discussion template. This makes it a game, and I guarantee she’ll want to do more than one.. because that’s just her.Writing practice– T loves to write and create books. Her teacher sent home the blank pink booklets so we will definitely be utilizing those. The others are prompts with St. Patrick’s Day coming up and birthday cards to create. Vocabulary/Word work ideas. Word searches and word scrambles are amazing brain development tools and help improve mental acuity. Some of these are from workbooks I had, but Google is your friend. Soo many free activities out there!! (After she rainbow traces the alphabet, she can see how many words she can make.)Sight words– I’m going to use this Bananagram game for us to play using her sight words. She will have her flash cards as a reference! Counting coins and skip counting– I’m going to encourage her to play “grocery store”. She can price items in her kitchen set and “ring” them up.. or create some sort of menu with prices. She has Post-it notes to write on and coins to sort/count. She jump-started “home school” today bc she was soo excited and wanted to color the skip counting chart by 2s. I plan to print more for her to color by 5s and 10s. She can then use these charts to help her count her nickels and dimes. Some of the coins are fake and some are real.
Rowan’s preschool activities!
Encouraging writing– I have a bin of stickers, stencils, markers, pencils, and crayons for her to create really anything she wants on construction or computer paper. (Teaghan can obviously use these too during her writing)Putting magnetic ABCs in order. If you have magnetic letters, put them in a basket and grab a cookie sheet. It’s always a plus if they can self-check.. so I put Chicka Chicka Boom Boom out since the alphabet is in the back. Sing the ABC song to help too!Writing practice: Dry Erase markers. I own a little laminator so these sheets can be reusable. If you don’t, they sell slots at the dollar store pictured above with the “W” practice sheet inside.. you can slip any paper in and use it again and again.Counting and number recognition– These are pre-made, but you can easily make them. They have self-check on them too, flip over the card and have your child count the dots to see if they were right with the number identified! I plan to use those shamrock shapes and hide them around the playroom for Rowan to find. I’ll help her line them up once she finds them all and practice counting (there’s 20 total). She can rote count to 30 but skips 15 so we will be working on that with one-to-one counting. Magnetic numbers can be used as well to put in order. The Number Wheel as mentioned before in my blog is also a really great tool!! Rowan LOVES these Poke-a-Dot books!! They are great tools for counting and fine motor, they make a popping noise when each button is pushed! I’ll have this puzzle for her to work on as well. It’s also a great tool for self-check since the number and picture will only fit together if correct. I took the number words out of the box since she’s not ready.. but that’s where Teaghan can chime in and finish the puzzle!
Quiet Time 🤫
They can choose from anything in here after they complete their puzzles of the week. Teaghan has a bunch of 100 pc puzzles to choose from and Rowan can work her way up with amount of pieces. This is a time for me to prep our next activity..whether it is a “special craft”, science experiment, or board game. I may even get one or two house chores/projects done. Orrrrr start a million things I’ll never finish. 😆
Creativity Bins-
We have a whole closet full of arts and crafts stuff. I pulled a few containers out for them to easily chose from independently and take outside or to the table so they aren’t constantlyyy needing my help.
Hope you found this helpful, and could use some of these ideas with your children over the next few weeks. Or send to caregiver and they can benefit from it. Remember one day at a time! We are all in this together. You can do it. 😘💪🏼
I love a good celebration. I’ve always done something with the girls for St. Patrick’s day as far as arts and crafts, gearing up in all green, and last year we built our first leprechaun trap! (Teaghan STILL talks about this!)
Ideas for St. Patrick’s Day-
Go on a hunt for a 4 leaf clover ☘️
Create the color green! (Mix yellow and blue.. try with food coloring or paint!)
Use bottom of water bottle or cut a green bell pepper in half to stamp a clover shape onto paper
Free paint at an easel (if you don’t own one nail/tape a piece of paper to your fence) cut paper out in the shape of shamrock.
Paint a rainbow! *ROYGBIV* create out of paper, use sidewalk chalk, markers
Sing and dance to Jack Hartmann- Colors of the Rainbow 🌈
Graph/sort/count/group Lucky Charms
Create the color orange for a leprechaun’s hair/beard. Draw a simple face on a paper. Mix red and orange paint together, child can use a fork to spread paint.
Read facts about Ireland and Saint Patrick
Build a trap to “catch” the leprechaun!! Watch your child’s imagination run wild and see what they can create. We used a shoe box last year, colorful paper, markers, glue, popsicle sticks and cotton balls. Teaghan knew she caught one bc our trap was all messed up from when he “escaped”! 😳🤫
Green Taste Test!
Taste test! This was a HUGE hit last year with my girls and I was soo excited to try with my preschoolers this year. Womp. I gathered up a bunch of green foods.. this year won’t be as much because I’m definitely not going out to get certain items just for this (under the circumstances). It was unbelievable what they would actually try, just from how I presented it.. in cupcake liners, in a muffin tin! We graphed and voted our answers. We counted and talked about textures. We talked sour vs. sweet, veggies vs. fruit, healthy vs. not-so-much. Make everything a learning experience for your child. They seriously loved eating every single one.. okay maybe not the okra. BUT they’ve been asking to do this again since last year!
What are you planning to do with your children while they are home for the next several weeks?? Children thrive on a schedule, so I hope you can come up with one that works for your family. Here are a few ideas to engage your child and keep them actively learning while home!
Number wheels! Your child can help you make this. I printed off a blank, 10-section pie chart and let Rowan fill in the stickers. Write numbers 1-10 on clothes pins for them to match. This activity helps with one-to-one counting, number recognition, and fine motor with peeling stickers and pinching clothes pins.
My name!!
Children are more likely to be engaged if it is about THEM. Learning the letters of their names, counting their letters, spelling their names, and practicing writing their names can be a focus over the next 2 weeks! If you have a printer there’s many websites out there that you can plug in your child’s name and print out tracing practice. If not, just write it with a sharpie for them! Make it fun by using highlighters, different colored markers, Q-Tips with paint, fine paintbrush, stickers, glitter glue, etc! It doesn’t have to just be pencil and paper! A website I use is http://www.createprintables.com
Build letters! If you have toothpicks or popsicle sticks, these are great tools to use to build letters. If not, go on a hunt for sticks outside and use those!
PLAY-DOH
Play-Doh is one of the.best. fine motor and hand-eye activities. If you do Play-Doh, have your child roll it into snakes and balls. This is strengthening their little hands and muscles for writing! You can form letters, patterns, shapes, etc. The possibilities are endless. This is also great to use if you are working on scissor skills! Roll a “snake” and have your child cut it into pieces! Put a placemat outside if it’s a nice day, for easier clean up. 🌞
At my preschool, we introduce a new letter each week and focus around that particular letter. In my class, I introduce the new letter with a “mystery bag”! I gather up different things that start with the letter and place it in a paper bag. During circle time, we sit in a circle and practice the new letter sound. At first, I always show the letter, upper and lower case and try to affiliate it with someone’s name in our class, or a friend in a different class, if I can! We then put on our detective glasses 🕵️♂️ and take turns each pulling out an item to find what’s inside! For me, there’s so much more to this than the letter sounds, yes, I’m exposing them to Phonemic Awareness, but we are also practicing taking turns, self control, listening while friends are thinking/speaking and then helping friends if they need it! It’s also a way to introduce items they may not know (i.e eggplant for letter E). We always talk about the items… where might you find it? What’s it used for? My hopes is that at least ONE item will stick for them to remember that letter. This has truly become a favorite part of the day.. my students absolutely love it!
I also read a letter book each week, I use My First Steps to Reading series by Jane Moncure. We connect what’s introduced in the book with some items we pulled out of the mystery bag! They get SO excited if their item was also in the book that week!
Teacher Friends- they sell Alphabet Sounds Teaching Tubs at Lakeshore for like $160! I’ve collected little things around my house (thanks girls 😬.. they actually OKed me taking an extra Elsa and Moana figure- it’s a miracle🙃) and thrift stores for little to nothing! I store them in a quart Ziploc bag in a container to pull from each week. I obviously use new or fresh filler items each week when I have them handy! Like that kiwi for letter K. It can also be modified for older grades— comparing sounds, adding beginning sounds (sh-, ch-, th-), ending sounds, etc.!
Review!
When there’s a week that we are not introducing a new letter, we review letters we have already learned. I try to base the items around the monthly theme. In December, all the items in our bag were Christmasy! I laid out the letter cards in the middle of their circle and we had to match the item to the correct letter. We made it a game that we had to work together to solve. One week in February, I put in pink, red, and purple magnetic letters to review.
We are “detectives” a lot in my class. So we put on our pretend glasses and used this fun activity to see how many letters we could find! 👓 We are constantly working on letter identification. Super easy prep.. using a white crayon, I wrote down all the ABCs on white construction paper for each child. They did the rest. They used water colors to paint and reveal all of their ABCs and talked about them as they appeared! They loved to find “their” letter and their friends’ letter. It’s a fun way to use as an informal assessment to listen to the children’s feedback, and see which letters they know and which letters they still need more time on. There’s honestly SO much you can do with this activity. During free play, give the children the choice to draw with a white crayon and see what they can create, they can see the end product after painting! It is something I can do with my kindergartener at home with her sight words. She also still writes a lot of her numbers backwards (normal) but totally a fun way to present it and practice.. sometimes it’s all about presentation.
My preschoolers are obsesssed with Shaving Cream. It is a great tool for early writing and I use it a lot for shape and letter formation. I squirt it right on our table in our classroom. I’ve held up pictures/flash cards/items around the room of various shapes and letters for them to try to write. It can give me a feel on who needs additional help as I’m watching them. I also love when they request to just play in it.. because while they’re engaged in unstructured play, they are still practicing early writing, being social with their pals about their unique creations, and using their imaginations.💡It’s super easy to clean up and makes the room smell fresh! (AND it’s only $1!! A little goes a long way)
Add excitement to Homework!
I’ve actually used shaving cream manyy times at home to spice things up for Teaghan with her kindergarten homework (she is NOT a fan of HW🙄). If I ditch the homework notebook and break out a baking sheet and shaving cream, she will happily practice writing her sight words. I find it much more beneficial if she is engaged and not crying during homework… because no one has time for that! Oh, and I don’t call it “homework”. 😉
Use it for art! Marbleized shaving cream was a hit.
One recent project we did in PreK3 was marbleized shaving cream. I squirt some shaving cream on a baking sheet for the children to smear all around their tray. They picked which colors of food coloring they wanted to add. We put a few drops on top of their shaving cream and used the bottom of our paint brushes to swirl the colors around. When they were finished swirling, they pressed their paper on top. I used a ruler to scrap the excess off the paper. They were in awe with the cool designs they were creating! We turned them into Mittens to finish up our letter M week.
I have a boy heavy class.. and they just tend to be more hands on in their learning. Last week we worked on the Letter L. We played with LEGOs and Laced beads for fine motor practice. We stamped with different sizes of LEGOs. (My girls equally loved this!) Great way to tie in colors and shapes. We then compared the shapes.. which were bigger? which were smaller? And talked about how the blue stamp made two squares together, creating a rectangle. I related that to a graham cracker because they are 3 and 4 and snacks are life. So when you have a graham cracker it’s a rectangle.. break it in half and now you have 2 squares! Early fractions? They’ll be college ready by the time they leave me. 😂 The children will automatically break their graham crackers now and start talking about the shapes they are making! It has really helped with identifying rectangles from squares. It’s all about having fun and relating it to what they know and love.
Teaghan asked me for an “experiment” Saturday and she’s been bummed about no snow (yet) for us to play in. So we decided to head to the dollar store and make our own! I’ve seen different DIY recipes and decided to try the conditioner and baking soda one. When we got the the dollar store I also found a little Snow Kit, so we grabbed that too, to compare the feeling, consistency, and over all look. I grabbed a plastic table cloth to lay on our floor for her and Ro to have a contained space to play and help with clean up. Such a fun way to see creativity with your own children and watch their imaginations go wild. They added some little trinket toys and had the best time. T couldn’t pick a favorite because “they are both awesome”.. I definitely liked the conditioner/baking soda since you could actually mold it into various shapes/creations. Also very glad I tried this at home versus in a PreK class because it’s messyyy, which I typically don’t mind but this would need to be an outside activity with more than 2 kids kinda thing. 😅
Conditioner/Baking Soda Snow ❄️
3 cups Baking Soda (you’ll need two boxes)
1 cup white conditioner
Some sort of long shallow dish (I used a glass one because it’s what we had at home)
Today in PreK3 we read Sneezy the Snowman. We drew our own snowmen and gave him foam mittens! We talked about how to sneeze and cough into our arms. First thing in the morning I plopped an ice cube, googly eyes, orange triangle noses, and two little sticks in each clear cup. Ta-Da!… now we have our own melted snowman. The children were able to watch the ice cubes melt as the morning went on. We “painted” by dipping our paintbrushes into our cups and onto blue construction paper. I wrote each child’s name on their construction paper in pencil for them to trace with their paint brushes.. then they could go to town with whatever they wanted to create. Simple, effective, and F U N.. oh and reusable!⛄️❄️
Pumped for Preschool! 