A little of what we've done

I thought I'd show a little of what consumes a lot of my time lately.  I have been hitting counting and recognizing numbers one through ten pretty hard with my new preschooler for the past month.  I also have been teaching him colors.  His interest in this stuff is very minimal so his progress has been very very slow.  Therefore, I will no undoubtedly be looking up a thousand different ways to teach the same concept until he gets it.

This is all old news for Kadyn and it has been difficult to keep her stimulated through all of this.  She finds it difficult to not jump in and answer questions for my other preschooler because she already knows the answers.  Therefore, I have tried to differentiate our activities a little to help keep things relevant to her level of development as well.  For example, on days we work on the number 4, Kadyn is working on the number 44. First up we have pictures of numbers we decorated.

Next up we have a little file folder game that covers shapes, colors, matching, counting, and color recognition.  I found this idea on the web. I love it!  Those little pieces stick with velcro.

Then we have a face collage for the little toddlers.  I of course cut out the faces and stuck them to the paper, but the toddlers were able to help put glue on the backs of the faces with a glue stick.  We are working really hard on learning facial parts right now.

 

I think I have mentioned before that our library here stinks.  They have no books for beginning readers.  Therefore, I took it upon myself to make some.  They are pretty lame drawings, but they get the job done and Kadyn really enjoys them.

Here is a picture of a kite we made with 4 bows on the string and free art on the body.  We were working on the number four that day.

Then we have a picture of a sun with some glitter made on a paper plate for the day we worked on yellow.

This next one is a picture of a project Kadyn did at church.  I really liked it because it shows how well she's been doing writing her name.

 

The next picture fascinates me because it really show how Kadyn's coloring has developed. Instead of scribbling all over the picture she is taking thetime to pick different colors and try to stay in the lines. This observation of development fascinates and excites me.

The last picture I have is a Kadyn original.  It was completely her own doing.  I didn't have a hand in this (no pun intended) whatsoever.  She just got a sheet of paper, traced her hand and colored it.  Notice the finger nails she drew on there.  So proud of my girl.  

There is of course so much more, but this is a just a sample of what we've been up to at preschool times during daycare and free time on the weekends.  It's so fun!

Had to share

You know me, Miss Education.  Anyhoo.....I ran into the coolest website that has a gazillion ideas for activities for your toddlers and preschoolers.  There is a ton of free resources online for preschoolers.  However, when I come across educational activities to stimulate my one year old (budding toddler) I find them most lacking.  Usually I just read through them thinking, "I already do that.  I need something more."  The other day in my search for a new activity to help one of my daycare kids learn to count, I bumped into this great website that covers it all.  Finding free activities that we can do at home (especially during the cold winter months when we can't go outside) is just priceless.  I hope some of you can get as much use out of it as I think I might. 

http://preschoolexpress.com/