Our Journey Westward » preschool

Keeping Preschoolers Busy

Cindy — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 11:00:24 +0000

Eli is almost three! We’ve had such a good time keeping him busy this semester. Well, good time might not always describe what it was like keeping him busy! Here are just a few pictures of the little man who can frequently be heard saying, “I wanna do pwekool!”

Making “painted” cookies with Mahayla.

We pulled out the beans a lot! He loves to scoop, bury things and fill up all the wagons on his little tractors.

Mahayla is a super preschool teacher! She came up with the idea to make little cards with body parts written on them. She would read the body part and ask Eli to tape the card to the right spot on her! LOL He LOVED it!

The Dollar Tree is a great place for finding simple things to keep him busy. Several masterpieces were created with bottles of mini glitter glue.

Foam stickers from the Dollar Tree are probably his most favorite thing to use right now.

He loves stickers in general!

Cutting and gluing – anything – floats his boat!

This is one of our Preschool Activities in a Bag games.

Yep, that’s a real hammer and nail. Why not – as long as we’re supervising?

I’m going to make his “pwekool” time a little more structured this coming semester. Not anything academic, but more purposeful and planned out – so I’m not rushing around like crazy trying to find something to keep him from drawing all over the big kids’ math!

Favorite Toddler Books

Cindy — Fri, 15 May 2009 17:01:36 +0000

These are some of our literature favorites for toddlers!

Taming the Toddler

Cindy — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:07:06 +0000

The time has come to keep the toddler busy during school. I’ve always had to keep him occupied, of course, but now I’m finding the need for an arsenal of ideas so that school can flow smoothly. Well, as smoothly as school can flow with a toddler in the house.

I hope you’ve noticed the toddler section I added to the far sidebar. I found all sorts of great ideas from the links that should keep my active and inquisitive two-year-old busy for at least a little while. Here are some of the things I’ve prepared.

A bookshelf full of books just for him. Board books, hardcovers and softcovers. Almost all of it living literature because there’s no sense in even reading twaddle to a toddler!

A list of fingerplays, nursery rhymes and songs posted on the wall so I’m not stuck when the time comes.

EFL Fingerplays

Dinosaur Fingerplays

NNCC Fingerplays Plus

Preschool Rainbow Fingerplays

Rhymes and Fingerplays

Wikipedia Nursery Rhyme List

Preschool Express Songs

Preschool Educations Songs

A CD player with preschool-friendly CD’s in the schoolroom.

Toddler Tunes

Preschool Songs

100 Singalong Songs for Kids

Action Bible Songs

Silly Songs

Toddler activity bags and boxes ready to go at a moment’s notice. I’ve stashed them on a high shelf so he doesn’t have access to them. It’s partly to keep the activities fresh and partly to keep him from destroying them!

I’ll probably do an activity bag post soon. Remind me if I forget!

Imaginative toys. For the moment, they are placed around the room in “centers”, but I’m sure they’ll all be jumbled in one big mess before the first week of the new school year is over with. What sorts of imaginative centers could you put together for a two year old?

Easy dress up – hats, big shoes without heels, big shirts, old Halloween costumes

A toy barn with lots of animals and tractors (or any Little People set)

Toy cars with a little “town” to drive through

A play kitchen with pots, pans and play food

A wooden train set

Blocks of any sort – my favorite – foam blocks, wooden blocks and bristle blocks

A cheap toy electric piano and other simple instruments

Toddler-safe art supplies – including crayons, washable markers, finger paints, watercolors, paintbrushes, rollers, play dough & cookie cutters, safety scissors, glue sticks, lots of paper scraps, coloring books and two Christmas gifts her received that I’m very excited about – a Aquadoodle Wall Mat and Crayola Color Wonder Coloring Book. Just in case you’re wondering, the art supplies will always be supervised. No (more) crayon colored walls for me! By the way, Magic Erasers are a wonderful invention!!

Giggles computer games

I’ll be excited for you to add wonderful ideas to my list! Homeschooling with toddlers is challenging, but I’m not defeated (yet!)

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Preschool Activity Bags

Cindy — Thu, 06 Mar 2008 12:06:00 +0000

Have you ever seen Preschool Activities in a Bag? If you have preschoolers, this is a great resource!!

Several moms from co-op each chose an activity an month or so ago. We made nine of the activity we chose then had an activity bag exchange this week. Here’s a peek at the wonderful activities waiting for Eli when he’s just a tad older!!

Loved this! We’ll be doing the same thing (or something similar) next year.