#3 Craft

This week our number of the week is 3.

This morning at craft time we did a simple craft with the number 3.

I printed these templates, one for each child plus an extra for a pattern. Then I printed this light green scrapbook paper and traced and cut out a number 3 for each child. They each glued a 3 to the one on their paper. I also gave each child three foam sticker flowers to put on their papers beside the 3. It was simple and fun and they  loved it. Austin was my assistant again today and did a great job helping the kids when they needed help.

This post is linked to math links, We Play, Preschool Corner, For the Kids Fridays, The Play Academy, Fun For the Kids Friday and Tot Tuesdays.

Paper Village

I've been wanting to print the little paper city for the kids to play with and yesterday I finally got it printed and cut out. Older kids could cut it out for themselves but my little group is too young to tackle this type of cutting.

I made each child a set and this morning I got it out for them to play with. One thing I did different than shown in the instructions was to glue the little people onto small popsicle sticks. I thought they would be easier for my gorup of kids to handle that way. I used regular printer paper but I'm sure that thicker paper would be even better.

But they had a lot of fun. I had crayons available for the to decorate their cities if the wanted too but left it up to them.

They had a lot of fun with this paper playset and I'm sure we'll be playing with them more and adding to them.

Links to paper city printables

Paper City

Vehicles

Helicopter

Sidney Opera House and Luna Park

Link

Ten Good Links for Those Who Work With Young Children

I was looking through some of my favorites in my childcare/preschool folder and realized I really should share some of these so others can read them as well. Maybe you already have read some of these but often a good article or idea is worth reading twice.

1. Miniature Gardens with Little Ones - This article has some really cute ideas on planting miniature gardens with kids. Fun creative details are sure to appeal to little ones imaginations.

2. A Playhouse Under the Table - I love this cute little playhouse table cover and it looks like it should be fairly simple to make.

3. Free Printable Paper Dolls for Boys - There are some great designs here that would be a lot of fun for little boys to play with. There are also plenty here that little girls will enjoy as well, but the focus of this post was paper dolls for boys since these can be hard to find.

4. Preschoolers in Childcare Centers Not Active Enough - Article from Science Daily

5. All Work and No Play Makes For Troubling Trend in Early Education - This is another article from Science Daily

6. Birdies in a Nest - This is a very cute project made with Easter Eggs.

7. Science Center Activities - This is an awesome list of simple and fun science center activities.

8. Free Online Games for Preschoolers - If your preschooler spends time online this is a very good list of quality sites for preschoolers.

9. ABC Jesus Loves Me - A free preschool Bible curriculum

10. Including Sign Language in Early Childhood Curriculum - This is a post on Spectrum Hope that I found very interesting and it encouraged me to keep a sign language component in our daily preschool schedule.




The Nut House

oh Amanda

Learning to Ride a Bike, Cooking, Outdoor Play Kitchen and Ice Cream

Around here every day is different. Although I may have a plan when I get up in the morning there are still so many unplanned moments and fun things. As well as some not so fun things. But . . . it's never boring.

Michael got a bicycle for Christmas and loves it. But for the past few months he's mostly been pushing it around the yard. Occasionally he would push it to the top of the hill and then coast down. But today he was ready to start trying to pedal. He was so proud of himself! And I was very proud of him too.



Austin made Tortilla Pizzas for lunch and they were really good. He added a very small amount of pizza sauce, spread on the tortilla before the cheese mixture. He also added pepperoni too about half of them.

When I was outside with the kids this morning I was walking around looking at some of the random things that were left here by the people who lived here before we bought the house. There was a small pile of cinder blocks. There was also a pile of boards. A lot of the boards had been there so long they were starting to rot but there were also some that were in fairly good condition. I was wondering what good use we could make out of some of these things. I've also had it in the back of my mind that we would soon set up a little outdoor play kitchen for the kids to play in. So I decided to make a makeshift "kitchen" for the kids to have fun with. Austin and Amanda helped me stack blocks to make three short pillars, then we put a few boards across the top. Add some dishes and containers, put a little table nearby and Viola! - a kitchen.

This evening Doug brought home ice cream, a variety of toppings and soda. So we had an impromptu ice cream party. It was a good end to a good day.

A Dr. Seuss Birthday Party - A Day Early

Today we had fun celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday. It was a day early but that certainly didn't keep us from enjoying it.

We colored coloring pages based on his books that I printed from Seussville.

The kids had so much fun playing with the balloons and noisemakers that Lauren's mother brought for everyone.

And at snack time we enjoyed the yummy cake, also provided by Lauren's mother.



And we read six Dr. Seuss books - three at circle time this morning and three more at afternoon storytime. I printed a picture of Dr. Seuss so the kids could put a face to the name and they were really fascinated by it.

Thank you, Sarah, for a great idea and for helping to make this a really fun day.