Preschool Powol Packets

Every once in a while you stumble on an activity that unites your kids more and does more for their sense of "team" than anything else you deliberately planned. A LEGO rainbow seems pretty simple, but the way everyone came together to make it happen was astounding. Building with LEGO has been one of the things that I will remember this summer for. Almost every day our kids (ages preschool, 1st grade, and 4th grade) have spent more than an hour playing and building with LEGO. Sometimes they work with each other and sometimes they work alone. Because they love LEGO so much we have been using it for a lot  of things...from math to reading! Recently I was sitting on the floor with them (mostly to be sure no LEGO pieces worked their way into little mouths!), when I started building a rainbow. Gradually everyone stopped what they were doing and came to help. Different kids had different suggestions about how to make the rainbow work. They helped find the right colors a

This sparkly slime has all makings of the perfect science project: preschoolers love playing with it and the science behind it is accessible for all ages! It's a science experiment any child will love. There are lots of slime recipes, but this slime only takes three ingredients to make (glue, borax, and water). Then you can make things fancy with glitter (for sparkles) and food coloring! Here is my super easy slime recipe. (I'll tell you a little about slime science below!) This recipe makes a big batch of slime...enough for seven kids to each have a handful! And, yes, we had seven kids playing with slime at once...it was awesome! SAFETY NOTES:  1- Do not get borax in your mouth (or your kids' mouths). It is toxic. If it gets in someone's mouth, call poison control. Obviously if you can't keep slime out of your kids' mouths and other body parts, you should wait until they're a little older to make this with them! Like everything on this

These ocean animal shadow matching cards are the perfect preschool activity for an Ocean Theme, matching math activity, or just for fun! The ocean animals you will find in this set of preschool cards includes a whale shark, threshing shark, octopus, gobi fish, sea star, crab, penguin, blue whale, nurse shark, orca, and a couple more coral reef fish. I recommend printing them on cardstock and laminating them so you can re-use them longer, but how you print them is up to you! We like to play memory games with them, but you could also play go-fish type games, glue them to a manilla folder for a file folder game, and more! I'd love to see what you do--feel free to send me an email, leave a comment, or visit me at PreschoolPowolPackets on Facebook! Click HERE to get this set of Ocean Animal Shadow Matching Cards {FREE}!! I have some fun facts about many of these ocean animals in my {FREE} Ocean Animals and Plants Cards here ! I also have an aweso

This is another awesome chemistry for kids science experiment that turns into a snack and  works wonderfully for preschoolers and older kids! It's a great hands-on science project. Preschoolers and kindergarten kiddos can confidently learn about the three most common states of matter (solids, liquids, and gasses) during every day conversation and fun science experiments like this one! Before I began this chemistry activity I talked about solids, liquids, and gasses, and how I asked the kids what happens when you add energy to each state. (If you add energy to a solid, it turns to a liquid. If you add energy to a liquid, it changes to a gas.) We talked about heat, and how easy it is to add heat to a solid, liquid, or gas. Then we pulled out the frozen (solid) carbon dioxide (dry ice). We added heat to it by placing it on the table in a warm room. We talked about how carbon dioxide is unusual because it will skip the liquid state and go straight to a gas. We watched

Since the sun is the center of our solar system, it made sense to begin a space theme/astronomy unit with a quick and easy sun preschool science experiment! It's the perfect science project for youngsters! This is such a breeze to set up and yet it makes such a vivid point: the sun is powerful! The entire lesson (and science experiment) took less than 15 minutes, so it could easily be combined with other activities or it could be an entire science lesson for a day. Or you could call it a science snack...  ;) Sidenote: This experiment is best for a hot summer day! Anyway, here's the sun science experiment and lesson: 1- Look outside and find the hottest thing you can find. (the sun) 2- The sun is so hot because it is made from billions of explosions. Luckily, those explosions are 93 million miles away!  3- Go outside.  It would take a jet airplane (going 500 miles per hour) just over 21 years to fly from the Earth to the sun. Light travels much fast

I've been teaching a chemistry for kids class for my 3rd/4th grader (with my preschoolers popping in for science experiments that they could appreciate), and making these edible atom molecules has been one of the highlights! The kids just love this science project. Honestly, I did not expect my preschoolers to appreciate the concept of atoms, but they happened to be in as I explained it, and they have asked questions about it all week. Just this morning, my just-turned-six year old explained to me, " Everything in the world is made from atoms, but they are so small we cannot see them. But if you get a whole bunch of them together you can see them! Atoms are like one little LEGO brick, and if you get a whole bunch you can build things. Atoms build everything!" Exactly, little buddy! Anyway, I don't usually share activies that I create specifically for my older kids, but this generated so much (unexpected!) interest for my younger ones too, that I decided

These galaxy-themed art works are the perfect combination of open-ended process art, realism, expressionism, and using science to create painting techniques and learn about the universe! It is perfect for an astronomy lesson or space theme! This galaxy art project is appropriate for every age group because each child can focus on the type of art that is most appealing and appropraite for each skill level--I did it with preschoolers and a 1st and 4th grader. It is even fun for adults--I had as much fun experimenting with these techniques in making my own space art as the kids did! Here's mine: We've been talking a lot about space and astronomy lately, so I bought light-weight canvasses for this project. The kids were really excited about painting on something more permanent than paper! They also bend less (and are less likely to fall apart) when the kids pile on the paint. And yes, I did suspect that would happen with this project! Before we get started, I

The thing about summer planning is that it should be easy and fun!  You can put together great lessons, science projects, and camps without spending time preparing supplies every day...or add them to an awesome Dinosaur Theme  for tons of science experiments, activities, and more!   These "no-prep" Preschool Dinosaur Activities are perfect for a dinosaur themed day or week...or just a kid who loves dinosaurs and needs a little organization in his day! If you are a parent, grandparent, or home provider, I suggest spreading a dinosaur theme out over about a week and having a specific time every day when you do "school time" or "Dinosaur time."  Right after snack time works great at our house!  Use one or two activities a day. (Then, of course, come back next week and use my No-Prep Preschool Space Activities!) If you are a teacher in a bigger preschool classroom you probably have a more structured schedule and know exactly when you could use an act