Magnetic Trays: Letter matching

Today in my preschool class at table time our curriculum activity was a letter hunt game. We extended this into our free play time and the kids really got into it! 

These are uppercase foam letters with magnets on the back. I wrote uppercase letters on paper and placed them on the table and on the cookie sheets for the kids to match. 

Here is a link to buy the Uppercase foam magnetic letters similar to the ones we use.

 Some kids spelled out their names 

Others found their name cards and friends name cards and copied the letters from there.

 They even started to write their own letters on the small paper to then place the magnets on!

 Lots of learning going on today!!! 

Here is a link for lowercase letters if you have older children who can use them for spelling practice!

I love using cookie sheets because it gives the kids their own work space and of course it makes using magnets even more fun!! We use these cookie sheets at our independent table for all sorts of activities! 

SUMMER Bucket List 2012

I have been so bad about blogging lately but I have been taking pictures so here is what we have been up too lately! 

 Underwood Family Farms

We went to Underwood Farms. If you live in Southern California they have two locations, last year we went and picked our own fruit! Lots of fun! 

We feed the animals......

                                        We went down the BIG tractor slide! 

 We explored the farm!

   

Feeding the Ducks and Nature Walk

It's pretty amazing what a long walk will do! We were not in any rush and I let my son talk, stop, walk, and explore as much as he wanted. We collected pine cones and found sticks, those sticks became horses to ride, a hammer to use, weights to lift and brought on a discussion of our current favorite book 'The Snowy Day'  We saw lizards and bugs, talked about bus stops and ambulances! It filled my soul to have uninterrupted time to truly stop and listen to my 3 year old!

We were almost home and it had been a long few hours, my son stopped and said...."why is the doggie sad?" I said "What doggies are you talking about, I don't see a doggie?" He points to the cement and sure enough the stained concrete looked JUST LIKE A SAD DOGGIE! Do you see it???

 Car painting invitation

I bought an old pull down shade for $1 and rolled it out then found some toy cars with different size and textured wheels and invited my son to have fun painting with cars! We talked about the different tracks the cars made and we raced the cars to see which was faster. He found his stick (the one from our nature walk) and decided he wanted to make a track with his stick (again referring to the story "A Snowy Day" Then I brought out a scrapper and we explored how we could scrap the paint to make it smooth and how we could mix the colors with it.

His finished masterpiece hanging to dry! 

 Hot and Cold.....Colored Ice exploration!!!

I bought star ice cube trays for $1 filled them up with water then added a drop of food coloring to each mold. After freezing, I popped them out and and poured a glass of warm water. I invited my son to see what would happen to the colored ice cubes if he put them in the hot water.

 He discovered that if he dropped it in the ice cubed started to melt and then we talked about colors and color mixing. 

Yes, it was messy, but that's the FUN in it!!!

 Ice excavation!!!

The night before I took a shallow dish, filled it with water then added some of my son's toys. After it was frozen we talked about how we could get the toys out! "We could use a hammer!" my son said "Or some hot water to melt it!!!" OHHH YEAH!!! (proud mama moment!)

 I encouraged him to find other ways to melt the ice with the hot water other than just pouring the whole cup onto it. I had set out some different items for him. (a fork, a paint brush, a spoon and small wooden dowels.) He explored with them all then he discovered how the paint brush dipped in hot water was melting away the ice. He worked hard on helping Superman to make his great escape!!

I then showed him by modeling how he could make a hole through the ice by holding the small scoop dripping water in the same spot allowing the ice to melt all the way through! He made several holes and soon his whole iceburg was melted and all of his toy were rescued! 

Other happenings!!! 

We went to a local Music and Eco festival for kids at La Brea Tar Pits

 We re-visited our Giant Magnet Board!

We played with our Marble Run! These things are so FUN!!

and we discovered a quite local park that we LOVE!

I hope you have enjoyed part of our summer bucket list! I've only had a few weeks off and  then I'm back to work....BUT I am so excited about my upcoming post about beginning of the year preschool classroom set up!! I am loving my classroom this year!!!