Easter Egg Sight Word Game

Hello! Hello!  I hope you enjoyed your Easter weekend as much as I did.  It was wonderful to be with my family, to celebrate, and to be filled spiritually.

On Friday I had the opportunity to help do one of the stations in my daughter's Kindergarten Easter party.  I chose to do this fun little craft/game.  Inside the box are little squares of paper with a sight word on it.  There are also 5 images of cracked eggs.  To play the game, you take turns drawing out a piece of paper and reading the sight word.  If you know it, you get to keep it.  Pretty simple, huh?  The catch is that if you draw out a cracked egg, you lose all of your squares!  

I created the box using Cricut Craft Room by welding basic shapes together.  I had all of the boxes cut out and scored to make it easier for the kids.  The rabbit on the front of the box was also cut out on my Cricut.  It comes from the Create a Critter cartridge. The paper is CTMH's Chalk it Up.

That's it!  I hope I have inspired you today.  Happy Crafting! -Dari

Lion & Lamb Preschool Math Mat

Hello! Hello!  It feels like it has been forever since I posted.  I have been up to my elbows and then some with extra kids.  I cared for a dear friend's 4 children (11 months to 6 years old) for three days so she could drive to two different states with her husband for job interviews. 

Anyway, we learned about the letter L this week in preschool.  I created a math mat that could be used for addition or subtraction.  It is very simple.  You spin the dials and place the correct amount of objects (we used cheerios, because the kids love to eat things) then add the total up.  Or, you could subtract.  I have two variations of this.  The first one (pictured above) has the numbers 1-4.  The more difficult one has 1-8.  You can download your own copy on my website. 

The bottom picture is the instructions to draw the lion I used for our game.  It comes from an old Usborne book titled I Can Draw Animals. I don't know if it is still in print, but I took a picture of it so you can use it for your own personal needs.  Our art activity for Tuesday was drawing lions.  I was quite impressed.  Three and four year olds did this quite well.  Here is a picture of my princess and her masterpiece:

Hope you have a great week!  I am planning on it.  We are leaving for California in two days.  I can't wait.  Thanks for visiting. -Dari

Let's Fly A Kite: ABC Preschool Game

Happy Tuesday!  This week in preschool we are learning about the letter K.  I am sure we have not done this letter yet!  Last week my Princess informed me that we had already learned about the letter S.  I don't know how that slipped my mind.  Oh well.  It was a good unit and the kids enjoyed it.

Today I would like to share with you my latest preschool creation!  This game is pretty self explanatory.  The capital letter is written on the kite body.  The lowercase letters are on the side.  The child uses a clothespin, a place marker, or even a dry erase marker to identify the correct match.  I would definitely recommend laminating these cards to increase their durability and versatility.

You are free to download your own copy from my website.

Hope you have a great day! -Dari

The Snowy Day Math Activities

Hello! I have preschool on my mind.  Actually, I have preschool overload!  Tuesdays are always really crazy for me.  That's the day I plan and prepare the curriculum for the entire week.  Today I have a headache, and I don't think it is all due to preschool.  Just one of those days.  Oh well. 

I wanted to share with you two of the activities we are doing this week.  This week we are learning about the letter S, and we are reading the story The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.  This is a classic.  Anyway, I created a versatile mat to use for this unit (the orange one above).  The number squares can be adapted to the level of the child.  She can simply place a number on the mat and count out the corresponding amount of footprints, place two numbers and their correct amounts and then add them up, or sort different shapes starting with the "S" sound (square, star, circle) into different piles on the mat.  I will share my shapes activities another day.  If you laminate your mat, you could use it to roll out playdough "S"'s on.

The top mat is for patterns.  I purposely made the footprint blocks a little more challenging.  The feet go in opposite directions.  There are four lines for the patterns.  They increase in difficulty as you go down the page.  If you find that the footprints are too difficult for your child, simply use shapes or another object you have.

You are free to download these from my website.  Hope you have a great day! -Dari

Gingerbread Baby Preschool Games

Good morning. This week in preschool we did a unit study centered around one of my favorite books The Gingergread Baby written by Jan Brett.  I want to share two math games we did.  The first one is a simple counting/match game.  The kids simply count the chocolate chips on the cookie and match it to the correct numeral on the cookie sheet.  I know that gingerbread cookies don't usually have chocolate chips on them, but I bet they'd be delicious!

My princess is farther ahead and so I created a simple addition game for her to work on.  I let her choose the numeral tile she wanted and place it on the first square.  She then counted out the correct number of pennies and placed them on the gingerbread man.  I had totally intended to give her something yummy to place on the board, but I didn't want the other kids to feel left out. Then she chose another numeral tile and placed it on the second square and repeated the process of placing the correct amount of pennies on it.  Finally, she had to count the total amount on both gingerbread men and place the corresponding numeral tile on the last square.  She did really well and enjoyed this activity!  I think it was just the right level for her.  Stretched her thinking, kept her engaged, and yet was very doable. 

You can download your own copy of both of these games for your noncommercial use at my website.  Hope you have a great day! -Dari

Number Cards

Hello! Hello!  You may be wondering if I am going to post something crafty soon.  Well, I am working on knitting my first pair of socks, knitting a baby hat, and just finished crocheting another swiffer cover.  I don't want to post a pic of the swiffer cover, because it is the same pattern as the last one I did.  My socks are far from being finished, but I am hoping that my baby hat will be done in the next day or so.

I have been trying to focus a little bit more on my children, too.  I designed these number flash cards for our preschool board that I am envisioning, but as I was pondering what I wanted to work on with My Princess, I realized they would suit that purpose as well.  You can find the cards on my website, daris-corner.weebly.com.  You can also link to my website from the right. 

Anyway, these very versatile cards have been helping us with number order concepts.  I chose 3 cards in order 1-2-3 and layed them out in order.  We counted out loud while pointing to the cards. I had My Princess close her eyes.  I took one card out and placed it with 2 other cards above the others.  Then, I had her open her eyes and pick the card that went into missing space.  She really impressed me.  This wasn't challenging enough for her so we added up to 5 and then she wanted 0 in there, too!

After a few minutes of this, I cleared the floor (our work surface) and selected 10-11-12.  These are the numbers I feel she needs to work on at the current time.  She can count really well up to 10 and has a pretty good sense of one-to-one ratio, but when she counts past 10, she gets the numbers all messed up.  She really enjoyed this game.  I am going to continue using this method for a little while to strengthen/build her counting on abilities and her number sequence mastery.

I recently read, "You can be as happy as you decide to be."  What a great bit of advice.  We may not be able to control everything in life, but we can control our attitude.  Hope you have a wonderful day!  

Floor Size Phonics Mat

Hello! Hello! I have been a little frustrated, because My Princess has not been as attentive to my attempts at the Phonics Mat I painstakingly created.  Then it hit me.  How could I make it more fun?  It only took a minute before this idea came to mind.  I quickly ran into my fabric stash and grabbed the biggest heaviest piece I could find.  I layed it out on the floor and grabbed my scissors.  In just a few minutes, I was able to cut out the vowels from white felt.  Of course, My Princess was looking over my shoulder saying, "What are you doing mommy?"  Me- "It's a fun surprise sweetheart."  Well, as soon as it was done I said, "Can you jump on the letter that says, 'ehh'?"  She immediately responded by jumping to it.  We went through the vowels this way.  Next I jumped on a letter and said, "What sound does this letter make?"  She nailed it.  Then I asked her to jump on the corresponding lowercase letter.  After she grew bored with this, I grabbed hold of her hand and together we started from left to right jumping on the letters and saying the sounds.  We did this a couple of times.  What a wonderfully simple idea to whip up.  So glad I had it.  Too bad they don't happen all the time!

We have used "My Phonics Mat" as well.  I have found that she is learning, but I think it uses a lot of brain power so she gets overloaded very quickly.  We are now blending CV and CVC sounds.  Each little baby step adds up.

Hope you enjoy!

NUMBER BEAD LOLLIPOPS

 

I really like these "lollipops!"  Although they are inedible, the counting resources can be.  The inspiration for these came from a picture I saw on Pinterest. There were some construction paper rectangles folded in half with the number written on the front and a pipe cleaner attached to it.  Easy enough concept.  I wanted mine to be a little more versatile than that, so I wrote out the word on each and just had to make it cute!  

Originally I thought we'd just use pony beads, but as soon as they were finished, My Princess said she was hungry.  Suddenly I merged her desire for food with my desire for her to get some preschool done.  Thus, Cheerios were used.  Win win situation.  We love those.

Anyway, I chose 4 random numbers for her to recognize and then string the correct number of Cheerios on.  As I watched her, I thought, "You could extend this activity to include number order, patterns, skip counting.  Wow! You could even use these to teach/reinforce addition or subtraction concepts."  I love when you get more out of something than you thought you would.

You can find both a black and white template and a color template of this activity along with the directions and some of my educational ideas for it on my website.  You can find the link on the left of this page.

Hope you enjoy!- Dari

My Phonics Mat

I finally finished my smaller version of Sally the Sound Snail. Yea!  She will be much better suited for the desired purpose.   So, what is her purpose you ask?  Sally helps blend sounds together.  In some of my research for language/reading development, I ran across several methods that use either a sound train or a board to help children blend sounds together, thus beginning the process of creating words.

This is just the direction I have been trying to go with My Princess, but was not sure how to accomplish it.   As I merged ideas from these various sources, I came up with "My Phonics Mat" and Sally the Sound Snail.  Here are my ideas for using the mat and snail:
1) Place letter cards on the mat and have Sally slowly slide across the mat while saying the sounds out loud.
2) Place all the vowel cards on the mat and have My Princess put Sally on the card that makes the sound I dictate.
3)Have My Princess place letter cards on the mat to build words and then sound them out.
4) Write a word on a paper and have My Princess recreate the words with the letter cards.
5) Reverse the process by using the letter cards to create a word and having My Princess write the words letter by letter on the mat using dry erase markers.
6) I am sure I will come up with other uses for it!

I laminated "My Phonics Mat" for durability and also to enable My Princess to write directly on the mat.  Right now we are using it to solidify her understanding/mastery of the soft vowel sounds.  Next, we will add one consonant sound at a time and blend it with the vowels individually.  Progression will follow.

I would love for you to use this as well to help you in your educational endeavors.  You may download "My Phonics Mat" and my letter cards on my website.  The link is found at the right!
If you come up with any other ideas to use this, let me know.  I'd love to hear.

Wishing you a happy day!- Dari

ABC Lotto & Number Wheel Games

Wow! I can't believe it is already Thursday. It has been such a busy week. We have finished learning the alphabet in preschool, and I wanted a fun way to review the letters and sounds with my little princess. Thus, ABC Lotto was invented. This is not a new concept, but I had a different spin on the activity. I laminated my boards- each card is different. I purposely made one with the letters in alphabetical order. I gave each player a handful of chocolate chips. Of course, they got to put 2 chocolate chips on the freebie stars. From my board (alphabetical order), I called out, "What letter makes the .... sound." When they found it on their board, they put a chocolate chip on it. Because the boards are not organized in the typical Bingo manner, when a player got 4 in a row vertically, he/she could eat 3 chocolate chips from his/her pile. This also helped review one-to-one counting of 3 and 4. I randomly picked a letter from my board and marked it off with a dry erase marker. After the game was over, I simply sprayed each board with my homemade disinfectant spray and wiped with a paper towel. Good as new! Ready for the next game. You can download this game on my website. The link is on my sidebar. Hope you enjoy. Oh! I made one in alphabetical order so that I could use it as mentioned above, but also so we can review the letters in order. To do so, just use the one board, point to any letter and say, "What comes after the letter ....?" or "What comes before the letter ...?" You could also have each child find the letters in his/her name and place markers (chocolate chips or ?) on those squares. The second game I created this week is the Number Wheel. Once again, this is not a new concept; however, my little one can count one-to-one up to 10 and I wanted to challenge her a little more. So, my number wheel goes up to 16. I will be gluing my circles onto clothes pins. Why? Because I like to kill more than one bird with each stone. The clothes pins not only are the means to match the numeral with the amount of dots, but will also build finger dexterity and coordination. Opening and closing the pins strengthens little muscles that are just developing. You can also download this game from my website. I will post my finished game here(when I get the clothes pins glued on). Until then, here is the photo of the wheel and some of the circles. Happy learning! -Dari OK. Here is the finished photo. Hope you enjoy! My little princess sure has.

Rainbow Unit Preschool Pack

Happy New Year! Wow! This isn't even one of my New Year's Resolutions. I have had a lot of fun finding preschool packs online. They have been wonderful to use with my little angel this year. They have allowed me to have everything ready at the beginning of the week to reduce prep work. What a help that has been seeing as I have spent so much time with my two older angels. I have put most of the worksheets and activities into sheet protectors, which means she can use her "magic" finger to erase and reuse! Talk about free entertainment and less attention/help from me!! So, I have wanted to put together one of my own. I finally finished my first one. It isn't as cutesy as the ones I have seen, but I wanted to focus more on the science aspect of this topic and not necessarily the frills- if you know what I mean. Take a look. Hope you enjoy! You are free to print this FREE preschool pack out for your own little angel. Sincerely, Dari PS: Ha! Ha! I can't seem to upload a word file. If anyone knows how, please let me know (lol).

OK- I created a website and uploaded the preschool pack there. My website is daris-corner.weebly.com.