Preschool Powol Packets

It's Fall!  Johnny Appleseed's birthday is this week (September 26th), and October (National Apple Month) is just around the corner!  It's the perfect time to make an apple tree! I love projects that preschoolers can do independently (mostly!) while I help younger children at the same time.  This apple tree is one that crosses age barriers easily...and has room for creativity, expression, and experimentation.  It is also great exercise for little fingers and a sensory experience! Simple Supplies: * construction paper (I used blue, yellow, green, and tan.) * glue (I like to squeeze some on a piece of paper and let the children dip their paper into it.) * scissors * paint * paint aprons or bibs Easy How-To: 1- Prepare the construction paper: cut tree trunks and cut the green paper into thirds so children have the appropriate amount of paper for the leaves. 2-  Prepare the paint.  I put red, yellow, pink, and orange dollops in a tin.  Hand out aprons! 

I love Halloween!  I don't like scary or gory, but I love the cute, friendly, and Fall-themed Halloween fun!  I had a ton of fun making these Halloween (and Fall) Alphabet printables, and am excited to share them!  I hope you love them! You can download all the pages, or just the pages you like.  Each individual page is free!  Just click on the letter you want!  The "Student Cover" has room for your child to write his name and draw a Fall or Halloween picture.  You can help him staple the cover to his own personal book when he's done!  Each letter page has a picture to color and room to practice writing letters or words. You can see what the letter pages look like in the picture to the right. A         B         C           D         E         F         G         H         I         J         K         L         M        N         O           P         Q         R         S         T        U         V W         X           Y

This was such a fun project!  I'm so excited to share how we made it work!  I first shared the idea of using melted crayons to decorate a pumpkin about a week ago on Facebook, after I saw it on this blog .  Several people were curious about the process, and my daughter was very excited to try it, so today I'm posting our tutorial.  Try it out...I'd love to know how it goes! Simple Supplies: *  At least 6-8 crayons, not broken *  A hair dryer *  Tape *  A white-ish pumpkin *  Paper towels Easy How-To: 1- Peel all the crayons.  2- Prop the crayons up with tape around the pumpkin stalk.  They tape isn't completely necessary, but it makes it a little easier.  You will still need to hold the tops of the crayons so the hair dryer doesn't blow them over.  Set everything up on paper towels. 3- Set the hair dryer on medium and aim it at the base of the crayons.  After a few minutes, the crayons will be soft and bendy.

Butterfly books, butterfly crafts, and butterfly songs are some of our preschoolers favorite things! This year I will be joining a fabulous group of bloggers in a Virtual Book Club for Kids !  I am so excited!  We already loved the time we spent with Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert...today I'm sharing the butterfly craft and caterpillar song we did, as well as a few other Lois Ehlert resources! First of all, the butterfly craft .  This project is so simple a toddler can enjoy it and still layered enough to create a challenge for preschoolers and older children. Simple Supplies:   ** Pipe-cleaners, cut in half ** Coffee filters ** Water-based markers (I recommend Crayola's Washable Markers) ** A spray bottle with water in it ** Paper towels (to help clean/contain the mess)  Easy How-To: 1.  Let your child color on the coffee filter with the markers.   2.  Let your child spray her butterfly

Some of my best secrets are the ones my kids come up with themselves...like these sidewalk chalk pumpkins! The children don't need any special instructions or tools.  Just show them the pumpkins and hand them a pail of sidewalk chalk.  They'll figure out the rest! My younger preschoolers and older toddlers especially appreciated this activity.  It lets them be creative, express themselves, strengthen fine muscles and motor skills, color, share their creations, and touch pumpkins (oooh!  When was the last time they did that?)!  They can even "erase" it all and do it again!  After they explore, take the time to talk about what they did, the colors they used, the colors of the pumpkin, their favorite parts, if all the pumpkins felt the same, and what they noticed about texture. My five-year old did point out that the pumpkins have a different texture than sidewalk, and that the texture makes some of the pictures look funny.  She also noticed that sidewalk cha

Yay!! Fall is here!!  Halloween is coming soon!  To celebrate, I have a fun freebie:  Superhero Scarecrow! You can download it for free here !  There are two boards in the file: one with crows numbered 1-6 and the other with crows numbered 1-12.  If your child can add and choose whether he needs one or two dice, use the board with more numbers.  If your child is working on number recognition, use the 1-6 board.  This is great practice for number recognition, counting, adding, and coloring (fine motor skills). It's time to help the scarecrow save the corn!  Get rid of the crows by rolling the dice and coloring in the correct number.  To make it a team game, take turns rolling the dice and coloring in the birds. To make the board re-usable, either laminate it or put it inside a sheet protector.  Either way, you can write on it with a dry-erase marker and erase it with a paper towel! You can also put it inside a folder and use it as a file folder game! Click h

We've been learning a lot about birds lately, and I was sure the kids would be excited to try science experiment involving walking on raw eggs! Surprisingly, though, my children were much more worried about the eggs cracking under their feet during this science project!  They were, however, very happy to watch me attempt (successfully!) walking on eggs.  They even took the picture (I know...little kid feet would have been so much cuter, but...you get what you get.)! If you want to try this with your own kids, here are a few tips: * The tips of the eggs are the strongest part (notice the arch shape).  Make sure all your eggs are sitting in the same direction.  I put mine pointy-side up. * The secret is to spread the force of your weight out over as much area as possible.  If your heel isn't big enough to sit on four eggs, place it carefully between four of them.  Make contact with as many eggs as possible.  If you're working with older kids, g