Preschool Popsicle Stick Puppets

We have made popsicle stick puppets a couple times now.

Bugs:
I cut out the circles before hand so the kids glued them together and drew bee stripes and lady bug dots.
Here's my example next to the four year old's and the two year old's bugs.

Halloween:
Again I cut them out before hand so that the kids could draw faces and glue them on the sticks.
The example followed by the four year old's puppets. This time the two year old wasn't interested in coloring.

Preschool cookies

My son loves cooking and has a variety of toy kitchen food, dishes, and appliances either store bought or homemade. Store bought might last longer, but cardboard will do when he wants it now.

toaster and knife block:

microwave:

I thought making cookies would be something the kids could do and then play with later.

Be careful if your young ones still like to tear.

What you need:
cardboard circles for the cookies
paper circles of various colors smaller than the cardboard circles for frosting
paper scraps of various colors

What the kids do:
Cut paper scraps into chocolate chips or sprinkles.
Glue frosting and sprinkles or chocolate chips onto the cookie.

Preschool activities and crafts

We do a little preschool here with some friends and family. The kids' ages rang from barely 2 to 5 so I have to find activities that the littles can do while the older ones still benefit from. We work on pen control with dry erase markers and pages in page protectors at the table first while everyone is arriving. They can trace shapes or their names or do mazes or matching activities. Once they're all done, we go sit on the floor to sing some songs and read a couple of picture books. Some weeks we do shapes or letters on the felt board.

After that we usually do our craft activity, have a snack, and then just play with toys. Now it's finally not too hot to go play outside.

Understanding the scriptures

Alicia's tips to understanding the scriptures:
Start with a prayer and a desire to understand.
Accept that you may understand part of it without understanding all of it yet. Remember the bigger picture even if some details don't make sense.
Look words up in the Bible Dictionary or dictionary.
Use the Class Member Study Guide for the chapters you are reading.
Read a chapter from the scripture stories books, then read the chapters in the scriptures that the story came from.
You can also do the same with any other picture book or movie that was based on the scriptures like The Living Scriptures or VeggieTales.

Don't Waste Time

"As if one could kill time without injuring eternity" (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 1971, p8).
"Verily I say men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own freewill, and bring to pass much righteousness;" (D&C 58:27)
"The glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth." (D&C 93:36)
"Whatever principle of intelligence we attain unto in this life, it will rise with us in the resurrection.
"And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his diligence and obedience than another, he will have so much the advantage in the world to come." (D&C 130:18-19)

Did you learn something with this time?
Did you accomplish something?
Did you nourish a relationship?
Did you nourish yourself?
Was it time well spent?

Preschoolers and sidewalk chalk

Sidewalk chalk seems like a good way to combine getting outside and art. It helps them learn to draw and write with something really big before trying to master writing small letters on little lines.

The kids like me to write words for them especially their names or initials. Edmund usually requests I draw him a garbage truck. I like to draw decorations pertaining to the next upcoming holiday, too.

They like me to make hopscotch or even just a numbered path to jump along.

What do your kids like to do with sidewalk chalk?

Preschoolers and playdough

     I decided to get the playdough out today for the 3 year old and 5 year old. I've found playdough mats on the internet before. Today I made some shape ones myself. Some people laminate them or I suppose you could put them in page protectors. I just put them under our clear plastic table cloth. (We got tired of Edmund spilling his water and soaking the cloth tablecloth.) They're basically any type of picture that you can interact with with playdough. Some ideas are big block letters they can use as a template to make playdough letters or they could make playdough raindrops to rain on a picture.

         

     I also washed off a lid from a parmesian cheese container. Because of the circle holes on one half and the half circle on the other half, you can push it into the playdough to make shapes in the play dough (like an alien face for example).
     The kids like to make playdough circle pancakes or cookies and play with Edmund's pots and pans. Today we also made snowmen out of the cookie circles and used toothpicks for arms and legs.

What do your kids do with playdough?