A Preschool Lesson Plan with a Dinosaur Theme

The Sweet Bee is participating in a co-op preschool this year, with 5 other children. She loves to go to school each week and play with her friends. Since the children are all 3 years old (or nearly so), the mothers of the group all agreed that focus of the group would be mostly fun and social, with some learning thrown in too. I was excited to host this week, and I thought I would share my lesson plan with you.

We focused on Letter D and Dinosaurs (I made sure to allow plenty of noisy roaring). Most of the items are pretty self-explanatory. I found the song lyrics and the coloring pages online doing a Google search. The craft project was mostly my creation; it went over really well and it was fun to see the variety in the finished products.

9:00-9:20 Play Time/Free Time
Puzzles, Blocks, Little People, Lacing shapes

9:20-9:30 Circle Time
Good Morning Song
Calendar—Talk about the day, the month, and the date.
Weather –look out the window and discuss what the weather is like.
ABC song-sing while doing something silly like jumping up and down, clapping hands, swimming our arms, etc.

Introduce letter D. Place letter D objects in a grab bag for the children to take turns choosing one. Use letter block, foam letters, magnet letter, D poster page and D sticker page.

Sharing Time-each child shares what they brought that starts with the letter D.
9:30-10:15 Lesson Time
Dinosaur Dig (outside)
Have a container of sand to dig through and find a hidden dinosaur. (Two beach buckets of sand, with 3 small dinosaurs hidden in each)

Song (to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb)
Dinosaurs were very big
Very big
Very big
Dinosaurs were very big
Very, very big

Read a dinosaur book: Dinosaurs, Dinosaurs by Byron Barton

Song (to the tune of "Did You Ever See a Lassie?", have the children stand and move left and right)
Did you ever see a dinosaur, a dinosaur, a dinosaur?
Did you ever see a dinosaur go this way and that?
Go this way and that way
Go this way and that way
Did you ever see a dinosaur, go this way and that?

Song (to the tune of “This Old Man”, use actions and roaring)
This T-rex, this T-rex, he goes tromping all around,
With a stomp and a tromp and a (clap, clap, clap)
This T-rex is tromping on!

This T-rex, this T-rex, he goes roaring all around,
With a grump and growl and a great big (Rroarr!)
This T-rex is roaring now!

Craft Time
Color a dinosaur shape, glue on googly eyes and spikes.
Need: glue sticks, crayons, markers, googly eyes, triangle shaped colored paper for spikes, dinosaur shape (cut out of cardboard) for each child.

10:15-10:30 Snack Time
Meat eaters vs. Plant eaters
Hot dogs on a toothpick, dip in ketchup
Broccoli trees and baby carrots, dip in ranch
Cheese cubes
Water, juice to drink in sippy cups.
Napkins

10:30-11:00 Free Play

11:00-11:30
Read books: How does a dinosaur...various by Jane Yolen, Oh My Dinosaur by Sandra Boynton
Color dinosaur pictures
Dance and sing to dinosaur songs, and fun wiggle songs from the preschool playlist

Favorite Crafty Sites

I'm taking a partial maternity leave from this blog as we recently welcomed a sweet baby boy into our home. So today I am happy to be sharing a guest post from my dear friend Janene.

I will be the first to admit that I am not a natural crafter. Creativity does not come to me quickly. If I do manage to come up with something on my own, it takes me days of stewing over it and mulling it over in my mind. I don't come up with my own craft ideas, but I will say, I am pretty darn good at copying. I can see something and look it over for a while, and then I can probably figure it out (if you give me enough time, that is!)

Creating things for my children, my home, and for my friends brings me a lot of joy! The problem is, I get stuck somewhere between having a great project to work on, and the motivation to actually get the sewing machine or hot glue gun out. Once I do start a project, I can't usually put it down until it is done! I love that "project well done" feeling!

Well, lucky for me there are a TON of crazy good craft blogs out that inspire me, almost daily, and make me want to get my craft on. These blogs include amazingly detailed tutorials to follow and lots of pictures to help.

So I thought I'd share all of my favorites with you, and maybe you'll be inspired too.


1. Made by Rae
2. Make it and Love it
3. Homemade by Jill
4. How Does She?
5. Little Birdie Secrets
6. MADE
7. So You Think You're Crafty?
8. Heather Bailey
9. Ucreate
10. V and Co.
11. The Idea Room
12. Nanny Goat
13. Create

Janene is the mother of three children. She loves to take pictures and read good books and she is a fabulous friend! You can view her work at jkphotography and reserve your next photo session with her.

Googly Eyes

My children love to use googly eyes in their creative artwork. They add an eye-popping touch (ha ha) to any creature that we are creating. The Sweet Bee often skips the creature creating part and is most content with a bottle of glue and pile of googly eyes.
Shhh...don't tell, but I always go back later once the glue has dried and pull off the eyes from her artwork and return them to the jar to be used another day. This applies to buttons and beads also. Then we always have plenty of googly eyes on hand!

Christmas Craft Time

We're counting the days until Christmas! Now that school is out, we have a little time to work on some fun holiday projects. We'll be trying some of the following in the next few days.

From No Time for Flashcards

Super Simple Snowflake/Star Ornaments
Fork Print Tree
Shape Tree

From Let's Explore

Christmas Card Puzzle Game
Simple Reindeer Ornaments

From Serving Pink Lemonade: Bottle Cap Christmas Tree

From Kids Craft Weekly: Santa Cards

And of course, we will also be doing some baking. You can find our favorite Sugar Cookie recipe here, and a great recipe for gingerbread cookies here.

What fun activities will you be doing this week?

Easy Ornaments

One Christmas tradition I enjoy is making an ornament, usually with the help of my children (is it a tradition if this is only the second time I've done it?). This years version was inspired by an idea I saw here, but I got creative in using mostly supplies that I already had on hand.

Supplies needed:
-small round wood discs (I found mine at Michaels in the wood section)
-paint
-scrapbook paper
-mod podge
-string
-hot glue gun
-ribbon, bells, photos, graphics, etc (whatever you want to use for ornamentation)
Paint the wood discs and allow to dry (both sides). Cut slightly smaller circles out of decorative scrapbook paper, and mod podge the paper to the painted discs. Once the glue was dry I threaded white ribbon through a shiny bell, tied a bow and used a hot glue gun to attach the ribbon to the disc. The last step is to use the glue gun again to attach a string to the back for hanging on the tree.
The possibilities for the focal part of the ornament itself are pretty endless. You can use photos, old Christmas cards, berries, flowers, or whatever strikes your fancy. I made a version for my piano students using a small picture of a piano I printed from the computer (in the photo above).

4 Activities for Kids

Here are a few fun activities to try on a long summer day!

Rainbow in a Bag (from More Mom Time)

Mix the following in a pot on stove:
1 cup cornstarch
1/3-cup sugar
4 cups cold water

Heat, stirring constantly. Once it starts to thicken - remove from heat.
Divide between as many bowls as you have colors (food coloring). Add some food coloring to each bowl and mix. Primary colors are great!
When it has cooled, scoop some of 2 or more of your goop into a ziploc bag. Seal the bag and enjoy squishing and squeezing to blend the colors.
And if squishing the bag isn't enough, my girls had a blast mixing up all of the leftovers in the bowls. Messy, but fun!

Watercolor Initials (from Blissful Kids)

Supplies:
Contact paper
Paper
Paint

Draw and cut-out your child's initial from the contact paper. Stick the initial onto the paper. Make sure you give the contact paper a good rub so the colors won't seep underneath it during painting.
Let your little artist go to work painting the entire paper. When finished, let your painting dry, then peel off the contact paper.

Cutting Practice

We printed off these cute paper dolls and the Ant Bug had a fun afternoon cutting them all out. She didn't really play with them much after she was all done, but it was worth it for the cutting practice!

Sensory Activity: Dig and Find (from No Time for Flashcards)

Supplies:

Your choice of rice, dried beans, unpopped popcorn, oats, etc.-we went with rice.
Small toys or items to find-we used plastic letters and animals
Storing and scooping supplies-plastic containers, spoons, measuring cups, etc.
I loaded up two large containers with rice, hid a few toys inside, and let the girls go at it. Finding the toys was pretty easy, but they really enjoyed scooping and pouring the rice and transferring it between containers.

It got even more fun once the feet were included!

Try not to stress out about the rice all over your floor! Sensory activities are messy, but they are so important for this age. That look of happiness makes it all worth it!

A Book, a Song, and a Craft

A book, a song, and a craft. That is my recipe for a great "school-time" session with my children. The Ant Bug loves to do arts and crafts but it can be difficult to come up with something to do everyday.

Tiger!

Thankfully, No Time for Flashcards has been a life saver and it has now made the list of my daily must-read blogs. Allie is an experienced childhood educator and she posts daily activities for young children that promote play, discovery, and learning. Most of her projects are relatively simple and can be tailored to meet the interests and abilities of many children. She always includes a few book suggestions that correspond with the project, and she quite often includes a song (with a video clip so you can learn the tune). The two new favorites we've added to our musical repertoire are A Slippery Fish and Fried Ham.

Alligator A

One thing I really appreciate about the site is that the majority of her projects require only the basic art supplies I am likely to have in my cupboard (construction paper, paint, glue, scissors, markers, crayons, pipe cleaners, etc). Check out her recommended master list of craft supplies here.

Spotty Spider

Every few weeks the Ant Bug and I go through the site and make a list of the projects that we would like to do. Then I put the recommended books on hold at the library. Whenever the urge to do a craft project strikes our fancy, the Ant Bug just chooses one of the current library books on our shelf and we pull out our craft supplies.

Rabbit R

Great projects that don't require a lot of planning. Perfect for busy mamas!

Peacock (really, it's a peacock, not a turkey). It goes with Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What do you hear?

So the next time you and your little one's are in need of some arts and crafts, be sure to check out No Time for Flashcards.

Create an Animal Alphabet Book

After a recent family visit to a nearby wildlife preserve, we realized that we had a lot of great photos of wildlife (thanks to the skills of my husband). The Ant Bug and I decided to make an Animal Alphabet book and it turned out to be a great hands-on learning project.

We first spent a few afternoons sorting through the pictures, selecting the photos she liked best, and then labeling and making a list of what we had.

A is for Alligator

C is for Caracara

O is for Owl

P is for Pelican

For most of the animals the Ant Bug would identify what letter the name started with, then either she (with some help from me) or I would type the rest of the name. We supplemented our collection with photos from visits to the zoo in past years, and few photos from online for those difficult letters like X and U (we went with Xenops and Urchin).

Once we had photos for all of the letters of the alphabet printed (plus a few extra for good measure) we headed to the store where she picked out an inexpensive photo album (30 pages).

We then sorted through the photos and put them in alphabetical order in the book. She added letter stickers and glued on a small label with the name.


This project kept us busy for multiple afternoons and was a fun way to reinforce emerging literacy skills. This is a great book for our collection that both of my girls love to read.

The idea for this book was inspired by a Color book I saw on Make and Takes.

If you would like to make your own, there are lots of options for homemade books: colors, numbers, shapes, emotions--just choose a theme that works for you and your child and personalize it how you like.

Happy book making!

Red Ripe Strawberries=Homemade Freezer Jam

It's springtime (and nearly summertime) where I live, and that means red ripe strawberries!

My girls and I headed off to a local pick your own farm and had a grand time picking berries. We picked 18lbs in about 30 minutes. Then we went back a week later and picked another 18lbs!

With 36lbs of strawberries, we are stocking our freezer with delicious homemade freezer jam.

This is what you'll need to make your own.

-Strawberries
-Sugar
-Pectin
-Containers to store your jam

If you're new to home preserving, this is what you're looking for when you shop for pectin. Depending on your local store, you might have a few options. No cook pectin is the way to go. To my delight, this year I discovered the no cook packets on the left which use 4 cups of berries and only 1 1/2 cups sugar. The liquid pectin on the left calls for 2 cups of berries and 4 cups of sugar. Hmmmmm. You decide.

Once you have your pectin, it's pretty simple. Just follow the directions included on the package.

Wash the berries well, then cut off the stems. I cut the berries in half or quarters to save myself a little mashing effort. Crush them one layer at a time using a potato masher.

You'll need to provide your own cute assistant.

Mash the berries to your desired consistency. I like my jam still a little chunky.

Follow your directions for adding the pectin. Some recipes also call for lemon juice. Mix it really well.
Ladle into jars, leaving space for expansion during freezing. I like the Ball freezer jars shown above (they come in 8 or 16oz size), but you can also use regular tupperware containers. Don't they look beautiful?

The jam will keep for 3 weeks in the refrigerator, or up to 1 year in the freezer. Peanut Butter and jam sandwiches are a staple in our home, so a jar never lasts long!

If you still have strawberries leftover they also freeze well.

Wash them well, then you can cut them up depending on their size. Load them into bags (quart or gallon size) and load them into the freezer. Simple, and you have tasty berries all year round to top your waffles.

Since we've got strawberries on the brain, we decided to make this cute lumpy bumpy strawberry from an idea I saw on No Time for Flashcards.

Can't get enough strawberries? These two books are our favorite "berry books".

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Big Hungry Bear
by Don and Audrey Wood

Jamberry by Bruce Degen

Happy strawberry days to you!