Color Cleaning!!

Has your house ever gone from this:

to this in five minutes flat?

If not, then you are a blessed soul! In my house the struggle is real. No matter how hard I try, keeping things tidy is hard! 

So lets, "kill two birds with one stone" and get our kids to learn while cleaning with this: 

Tadah!!! It's color cleaning spinner.  Essentially, you spin the spinner twice. The first spin will tell you what color of toys to focus on.  The second spin tells you how many times you need to pick up that color.  You can easily adapt this to! Next to the color wheel, you can put a list of chores. Purple may be helping Mommy with dishes and you need to help was 5 of them. Adapt it to fit your family's needs.

 Now my littles are still learning how to clean. But they think they are playing a game... they will almost clean the entire room! I love it! They are practicing their colors, numbers, counting, and helping keep the house just a little neater! 

Get it here.

Sizes Freebie!

When I thought about teaching preschool and I started brainstorming ideas, this is what it looked like.

- Colors

- Letters

- Shapes

And.... then I drew a blank? What else are little kids suppose to learn at such a young age?  It didn't take me long to shift my focus from "learning" to "introducing."  In my opinion, at these young ages the best thing we can do for our children is to introduce them to new ideas, challenges, and the world around them.

Sizes is one of those simple concepts that I started to introduce Porter.  My little man is obsessed with Panda Bears right now. I simply cut up the different size Pandas, laminated them (totally optional, but laminating make me giddy so everything here is laminated) and gave them to P.  At first, he just placed them however his little brain told him and I just watched. Watching is a crucial part of teaching. Sometimes you need to sit quietly and watch before you teach. 

After a few moments, I started talking about sizes, "Can you place the Pandas from biggest to smallest?"  And then I felt super foolish. My poor kid looked at me so confused! All of this was definitely new terminology for him. Instead I took two of the Pandas (the biggest and the smallest one) and said to Porter, "Which one is bigger?" He pointed to the smaller one and I gently corrected said, "Try again." Of course, he picked the other one (he had no other option), and I praised him and said something along the lines of, "You are so right! This is so BIIIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGG!" and stretched my arms out super wide as I said it.  We did this a few times, and then switched to the word "smaller."  I would put my fingers close together when I said small to signify it was something little. The entire time, I just compared two.  But as I would ask him the comparison questions, I would make a biggest to smallest scenario on the ground and show him what that looked like. It was a fun, quick, introduction. Now, every time something doesn't fit he says,"That's to BIIIIG!" in his little voice that makes me melt. 

It's quick, it's free, it's a great introduction! Grab it here!

A Craftivity with Every Letter!

Remember this preview that we gave you a few weeks ago on this post. Well, today we want to share the entire packet!

Our goal was to provide you a craft to do with every letter of the alphabet.  We have down quite a few of these between our kids. Here are some of Porter's creations.

The best part of these creations is they are a print-n-go.  If you have a printer, you have everything you need.  Correction, the letter "B" may require a Ziploc bag. But it's adorable. You feed the fish into the belly of the bear (cute, right?).

To download this awesome resource, you will need to go here.  By the way, I need to put a major plug in for Teachers Pay Teachers. Guess what? It's not only for teachers!  Teachers Pay Teachers is a marketplace for collaboration. Teachers across the country make games, projects, worksheets, and curriculum for their classes. The thought process is, "Why aren't we sharing this awesome stuff?" So teachers will sell the games, projects, worksheets, etc., they make on this website. Some teachers are literally millionaires off this website. Look it up!

It's completely free to sign up and there is soooo many free activities and worksheets there. As a parent, if my sons start to struggle with something academically, you know I will be all over this website grabbing activities to help them in the home. Parents, sign up and check it out! Type in whatever your looking for: addition, patterns, shapes, colors, anything!  You will have a plethora of awesome activities to help your little! 

Daily Routine Cards for Toddlers

Ah, toddlers. I use to be one of those naive teachers. I taught before I had P and I remember thinking, "If I can handle 22 nine & ten year olds, Motherhood should be easy." Yeah, let's all get a good laugh at that one. And as fate (or maybe divine intervention) would have it, I was blessed with the most rambunctious, stubborn, bright, kind, and loving boy you could ask for.  Porter loves life. Every day is a new day for something great, and he is going to find that great thing. But the child is exhausting. He can wake up at 5:30 A.M., party all day until 9 P.M. (with only 45 minute nap during the day) and start the party over the same time tomorrow.

He does. not. stop. 

Nap time can be a struggle some days. Getting him to transition between activities can be a struggle. And honestly, some days I have to fight the deep desire to throw on the T.V. all day long while I recover from the day before. We are trying to find a balance in this house.

Basically, Motherhood was kicking my butt. Until this.

I think that every teacher can agree that a schedule in the classroom is extremely important, especially in the elementary grades. As a teacher, it helped me pace out my day, kept me engaged, and on track. It also helped the students who seriously will ask you, "What are we doing today?" every. single. minute. if you don't have a schedule posted. That is not an exaggeration. 

Each night before I go to bed, I put a loose schedule on the refrigerator. When we wake up we check the fridge and start our day, slowly checking things off. Don't get me wrong. It's not a perfect system. There is definitely downtime between cards, or even times when we can't fit it all in. But that's life.

Here is the beautiful thing. After I had these cards, transitions became way easier for him. All I have to say is, "Let's go check the schedule!" And to Porter, the schedule is law (most of the time). Nap time is an easier transition now. And today, he came to ME and told me it was time for a nap. I heard the angels sing to me in that moment. And the T.V. is on less during the day because we are scheduling some sunshine instead, or doing some school activities.  

Give it a try. And give yourself a while to find that perfect schedule for yourself. It took me about two weeks. I even left some blank cards that you can fill in if you want something specific for your family.

And because you guys were SO awesome to support us during that giveaway last week, these schedule cards will be FREE until Thursday morning! Just download them here.

Leave us a note below telling us what you think and what you hope to see more of! Thanks!

We're Going on a Color Hunt!

Have you ever read the book, We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen?  It is a favorite around here.  Around January, Porter got into a reading slump.  He didn't love being read to anymore, and he was disinterested in books.   The beginning of June, I pulled this book from my preschool collection knowing it would be just what we needed to get him reading again. And it worked! In that first week, we probably read it eight times and we still read it at least once a week!  If you want to check it out, you can easily look this book up online, like YouTube.  There you will find the author reading/singing the book.

After you read the book, grab our activity and go on a color hunt!

We have included four different ways to do this activity. Do you necessarily have to have this printable to do these activities, of course not!! They just add a cuteness factor - and I am a sucker for cute learning activities.

1.  For the first activity, Porter and I went exploring outside and inside the house for the colors on the paper.  I would ask him questions like, "Can you find something that is the color blue?"  It was a hit and miss. Sometimes I would show him an example item and then have him find me another one. But, for a little guy who turned two on July 4th, I was impressed with his knowledge of colors.  After we found the item that matched the color, he would take pictures of the item using my iPhone.  Later that day, I sent the pictures to WalMart. Then, at my next grocery trip I picked them up.  We then glued the pictures (size 4x6) onto the matching square. So we glued the grass pictures on the green square. And then we had our very own color hunt book!

As smart as my little guys is, don't let these pictures fool you. He definitely needed help taking the pictures! He kept holding down the camera button, and it would take a hundred pictures of the same thing, literally! I had no idea my phone could do that???

2.  Our second idea is similar to the first, but instead of hunting for things around the house and taking pictures, you can cut and paste objects from magazines. They could cut out red lips, a red dress, red hat, and paste all the items in the red box to create a collage.  Get the idea? This would be a great activity for older kids who need practice with scissors!

3. If handing your toddler your iPhone seems a little too crazy, we understand. To adapt, we have smaller boxes with the color inside the box.  Have your little still go on a color hunt around the house and outside, but have them draw what they see inside the box. So Porter could have drawn the red hat inside the red box (Go Diamondbacks!).

4. Our last one is the simplest adaption of them all.  Print out the cards with the colors on them, and go on your color hunt! Have the children tape the card on the matching object. Porter would have taped the red card on the red hat. This can be done with the littlest of littles! Even if they don't understand their colors, this is a great activity to introduce them! Just remember, you gotta start somewhere!

Like I said, you don't need our packet to do these things, you can just write the colors on a piece of paper and go! But if you have a sweet spot for cute things like I do, grab our printable here or here!

Happy Color Hunting!

Hooked on Phonics

A little humor for your enjoyment:

Totally had Hooked on Phonics growing up as a kid.

Let's talk phonics! Basic alphabet sounds are essential to teach.  It builds the entire foundation for reading! If your little is very little like mine, identifying the letter is a perfect way to start. These cards can help.  After they master letter recognition, they can start working on the sounds. These cards will help with that too. The final step is to start putting together letters to make simple words. An example would be cat or job. This will give your child the basic understanding creating words with letter sounds.

                           

However, how many times have you come to a word that doesn't follow the simple sounds of the alphabet? The English language can get pretty confusing,  This is when you would start teaching the other phonics. Don't worry, we included those other phoncis in the set too. Some examples are vowel sounds (there are 2 for each vowel), other letter combinations like ch, sh, or ou and ow, and the syllable -le. All of which are in a lot of words.

When walking into a school classroom you might have noticed on the wall is the alphabet. Did you notice that it included a lot more that than your ABC song? If it didn't, then it most definitely should! These are what we can PHONICS CARDS, when teaching school we would refer to the phonics cards on a multiple basis. They are a tremendous help for kids to remember the sounds for certain spelling patters.

You're probably thinking okay my child is too young for this and you are probably right. I am not gonna just go start teaching my 3 year old vowel teams. However, I do have all the phonics cards up. I believe that if they at least have access to them and can see them later on they will be able to recognize them and make a connection making it easier to learn and remember later on.

Here is an example of how you can use those phonics cards when teaching your child phonics.  You are going through words like "cat" or "dog" and your little is doing a really good job at sounding each sound out and then putting all the sounds together to create the entire word. But then you both came to a word that had a harder phonics sound, like "ch." After they struggle for a little bit (don't jump in too eagerly), you gently remind them to remember the "chick card." If you refer to the cards by their picture, it makes it much easier for them to remember. Plus it has the phonic sound on it, bonus! They then would remember the sound or look at the card for a hint and then be able to put the word together.

So whether your child is learning the basic letters of the alphabet (included), or are learning the more complex phonic sounds (also included), we highly encourage you to get this up on your walls! You can download these cards purchasing them here or here. Or, you got it, we can send them to you already cut and laminated ready to hang if you buy them here.

Emotion Cards Freebie

  I openly admit that we are Daniel Tiger Neighborhood fanatics in this house. When P turned one, we started introducing the show slowly. And from then until he turned two, that was the only show that he would watch. Let me stress that again, that was only show in this entire world that he would watch. I can quote every episode, and every song. But to be honest, I didn't mind.  Social skills are incredibly important.  I can teach P letters, sounds, names, numbers and whatever else.  But social skills take time, control, and lots of practice. Social skills can be tricky to teach sometimes, but those jingles that go along with each episode are the. best. ever.  We sing them all the time around this house and 75% of the time they produce desired results. And with a very high strung two year old, that's a miracle. 

  When I decided to start doing preschool with P, I knew emotions and social skills were going to a big objective for me. Not only did I want Porter to be able to identify his emotions, but I wanted him to identify the emotions from other kids as well. And I wanted to help him understand how we get these emotions. For example, someone took our toy, so now we feel mad.  Now, I get it. He's two. He won't conquer this concept entirely. But I know two things will happen: 

1.  Kids are constantly learning.  He will pick up little pieces of this big concept. That is good enough for me.  

2.  Talking with your kids about emotions build relationships. And I strive to have a good relationship with my littles always. Not just when they are little.

So. Here is a freebie to help get that discussion going.

These emotion cards can be a great way to start a conversation about feelings.  Here are some examples of questions you can ask.

*How is the child in the picture feeling?

*How can you tell that is how they feel?

*How can we make someone who is sad feel better?

*When is a time that you felt happy?

  After your discussion, put magnets on the back, put them on Popsicle sticks, or hang them around the room! Then when you need to talk about feelings, refer them back to these cards! It will help them make a connection between the lesson and their little lives. 

For your free download, click here.