Valentine's Party!

Today was our Valentine's Day Party in pre-k!

The craft I love the most of any we do is hand prints.

Can you imagine having a bunch of these and making a t-shirt quilt for your kiddo with his hand prints all over it??

To make these shirts, we fold each shirt with a piece of paper in between the front and back of the shirt so that the paint doesn't leak through to the backside of the shirt.  That also gives us a place to write the kiddos names.  Place a small heart on the shirt, where the middle of the palm is going to sit, and paint their cute, chubby little hand red.  (We use acrylic paint so that it will be permanent.)

Center their hand over the heart and push...make sure that you press hard enough to get complete coverage.

Lift the hand directly up...and VOILA!  Cute hand print!

Leave the heart on the shirt until the paint is dry so it doesn't leak under the edges.

And when you remove the heart...you have this!  Precious!

We printed off the "Blowing you Kisses" topper HERE...

And we bought the little bottles of bubble at the dollar store in packs of 6 (they were the wedding bubbles.)

We made good use of our construction paper and cut out a bunch of red and pink hearts...

...and the kids glued them onto white lunch sacks to make a simple Valentine's Box.

At the end of the day...parents came and we played a game of Valentine Bingo.  We got the free download from Jamie over at 

The Crafting Chicks.

Finally (whew!) each kiddo decorated their own heart shaped cookie (from Costco) with pink frosting (spread with craft sticks) and topped with conversation hearts.

Now I'm ready to go fall into a sugar coma!  

Happy Valentine's Day, y'all!

XOXOX, Andrea

Number Matching Game

Today we played an extra-fun numbers matching game...we used hearts because of Valentine's Day...but we plan on using them over and over, because we LOVE numbers!  :)

First, cut out the hearts by folding construction paper in half and using our staple method to cut them evenly.  We cut 12...but are going to add more, up to 20 for now, and then maybe up to 30.

Cut the hearts in half:

Pick your numbers out, as well as stickers for the picture part of it.

Put the numbers on the right side of the heart, and the number amount of stickers on the other side.

We laminated them, so they'll last!

We sat in a circle and gave each kiddo one of the left side of the heart...they needed to count the objects and know how many there were...then, when it was their turn, they chose the corresponding number and put the heart together.

This is great for visual learners who need to see to learn...and also a great way for them to associate an amount with a number.

The kids loved this fun game!!  :)

Musical Letters or The Best Letter Game Ever!!!!

 We stumbled on this game quite by accident.  We love to play a couple of different music games with the kids...musical chairs and freeze dance.  One day, Janette's husband came up with the idea that we combine them along with the letters to make a fun letter game...and the kids loved it.  

We lay the alphabet around the rug in random order... 

The kids stand in a circle around the rug...and then we start the music.  The more upbeat, the better.  We love the kid's versions of many of the popular songs...the kids dance around the rug and  when the music stops, QUICK!!  Find a letter!!

They all drop down by the letter they are close to.  Then a letter is called, and the one who has that letter brings it to the front and exchanges it for a small treat...like an M-n-M or skittle.  We have them tell us the sound of the letter and sometimes a word.  

Several of our kids who were struggling with letter recognition at the beginning of the year are learning and they love it!

Then the music starts again and off they go!

When it gets down to not having enough letters for each to have their own, they share.  So then there can be more than one winner in that round.  Sometimes we throw numbers in, too.  Just to mix it up.  The kids love the movement and the music and the competition! 

We love this game, and so do our kids!

Worms

Who doesn't like to make worms?  To work on fine motor skills, give each child a pipe cleaner and a plate full of beads and let them go to it.

You can give them specific directions (like make a pattern or use your favorite colors) or just let them be creative and tell YOU what they are making.

**Fun Christmas Variation:  instruct them to make a red/white pattern and make a candy cane.

You will need beads and pipe cleaners.

Chopsticks

This is a fun "game" we use to help our kiddos hone their fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination.  Prep is easy and they love this game.  You can "play" different ways, like ask them to pick up all their blue fuzzies, then their pink ones and so on.  You can ask them to pick up 5 fuzzies then 4 more.  It can be used as an activity to count, add, subtract, or tell their colors.  Or they can just simply see how fast they can pick up all their fuzzies!

You will need:

training chopsticks

fuzzies

a cup or other container to put them in

You can get regular cheap chopsticks at WalMart and put a rubber band around the top of them to make them into training chopsticks, or you can buy the connectors, like we have, or you can buy actual training chopsticks.