Blogging End

I've been thinking about this blog for several months now and have officially decided to stop adding new posts to it.  I plan to leave this blog up for anyone who might find it useful in the future.  I have really enjoyed blogging in the years I have done it, but  my preschooler is coming to the end of his preschooling days.  I thought in September that I would finish out the year, but to be honest I have lost the motivation to do it.  My son and I still are doing preschool things, but it has been a nice break not having to worry about taking pictures or making sure I have links to share with every little thing we do.  I do hope that my posts over the years have been helpful and will continue to be helpful.  :)

Reindeer

Today we talked about reindeer.  My son named his hand print reindeer "Cutie" and "Goodie".  Be sure to check out www.reindeercam.com to see live footage of some reindeer and Santa stops by sometimes as well.

I know my posts this season haven't been overly interesting, but around Christmas time we pretty much do the same things each year so to keep my focus on the activities and not blogging so much I will give links for my previous posts.  :)

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Candy Canes

Today we talked about candy canes.  My son was really excited about this topic!

He enjoyed hanging some on our Christmas Tree.

He also enjoyed painting a candy cane green and red.

I didn't take pictures of the rest of our candy cane activities, but you can look at previous posts for the activities and links to them.

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Gingerbread Baby

We enjoy reading "The Gingerbread Baby" by Jan Brett around this time of year and doing gingerbread activities.

This year we used graham crackers, frosting, mini candy canes, and sprinkles to make a gingerbread house.  Our houses never work real well with this method unless I use a glue gun to put the pieces together before hand, but I was going for things we already had in our house.  I didn't use a glue gun before hand and we opted for a flat top house once it kept falling apart on us.  My son still had a blast with the sprinkles (as you can see).

Another different activity we did is making a large gingerbread boy.  I actually wanted to make one just my son's size, but we were a little short on the brown butcher paper so he is a bit smaller.  You could use construction paper to glue or tape eyes, nose, buttons and so forth on.  However, anytime that I can get my son to color or draw and do it happily that is what we go with.

All of my other Gingerbread Activities I have shared before.  You can check out loads of links from posts I have done in the past.

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As you can see I have been doing gingerbread stuff since before my current preschool was around. :)

Thanksgiving Preschool Theme

Today was our Thanksgiving Preschool Theme.  We enjoyed reading this printable booklet that you can color as well called "The Story of Thanksgiving". 

I have not been taking many pictures lately, but I do have a great list of resources for a Thanksgiving Theme to share with you.  Here are some wonderful printable packets:

3 Dinosaurs Thanksgiving Pack

1+1+1=1 Thanksgiving Pack

Our Little Monkey's Thanksgiving Tot Pack

Homeschool Creation's Thanksgiving Pack

You can also check out previous Thanksgiving Posts of mine (with more pictures)!

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We most likely will be taking a preschool break next week, but will be back for lots of December fun!

Gratitude Preschool Theme

 Today we talked about gratitude.  We read "Bear Says Thanks".  Then we talked about all the things we are thankful for.  We had fun making a long list and then I pointed out that when we are thankful for something we should thanks especially to our Heavenly Father when we pray.  We sang some church songs, "Children All Over the World" and "I Thank Thee, Dear Father".  I encouraged him to sometimes say prayers where he just says thanks for things.

This Gobble Gobble Pack has a Thankful printable booklet.  Here is one of the pages my son was working on.  He has his brothers and blankets on this page.

A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving

 Today we had a Charlie Brown Thanksgiving!  We enjoyed making the things that the characters make in the movie to serve as their Thanksgiving feast.  Then we watched the movie (3 times). This is our second year doing that and we've had fun both times.

You can see our Charlie Brown Thanksgiving from last year here.  We did more activities last year.

Turkeys

Today we talked about turkeys!

I actually didn't take any pictures today other than the one above with my son and his paper plate turkey, but I have lots of links to share with all kinds of turkey activities.  We did some, but not everything.  There are a lot of fun ideas to go along with this theme. 

A Teaching Mommy's Turkey Pack

Lawteedah's Thanksgiving Tot Pack

Lovely Commotion's Thanksgiving Pack

Kindergarten Fever's Thanksgiving Printable

All Our Day's Thanksgiving Printables

This Reading Mama's Cut it Out turkey printables

Confessions of a Homeschooler's T is for Turkey Printables

Here are some more turkey crafts:

Paper Plate Pop Up Turkey

Turkey Puppet

You can find over 170 turkey crafts at this link

Pattern Block Turkey

Paper Plate Turkey Wreath

You can also check out my turkey post from 2013.

Mail Carrier Preschool Theme

Today we talked about Mail Carriers!

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a Mail Carrier Unit that includes the hat above, the activities pictured below and some others as well.

 We watched this video that describes what a typical day for a mail carrier could be like and issues that they may have to deal with.  This topic is also a nice time to talk about writing letters, your address, and what it takes to mail a letter.

My son helped write a letter for someone and put it in the envelope.  Then when it was stamped and ready to go he dropped it in our mail drop box.  

My son hasn't felt so great the last few days so even though there is a lot more you could do with this fun theme I kept it basic and he had a good time.  Another idea I think is fun is to is to have children sort mail and set up a little post office.  They could sort letters by color or shape or number. 

Family Preschool Theme

Today we talked about one of my the best things in the world, family.

 I helped my son go through pictures of our family members and pick some out to make a collage with.  He enjoyed gluing the pictures onto the small poster board we had and then we hung it in his room.  As we did this we talked about the different members of our family and how each family is different.  Some families have lots of kids, some don't have any, some only live with one parent, some are mostly boys (like ours), some our mostly girls, and so on.

The Little Critter books are a great place to look into books about families.  We read a couple of the ones we own.

We also sang a lot of songs.  Our church's Children's Songbook includes lots of songs about family.  They learned a new song at church this year called, "The Family is of God" and we enjoyed singing that together.  My son knows the chorus pretty well and I helped him on the verses.

Last year we made a family tree and did some other family activities as well.  You can check it out here.

Last night we did this little family craft to hang up for Thanksgiving time.  It is a nice time of year to focus on being thankful for our families.

Monster Preschool Theme

Today we had fun talking about monsters!

Here are some favorite monster type books that we own and enjoyed reading.

"Go Away Big Green Monster!" is a fun book.  Making Learning Fun has great activities that go along with this book.  

"One Hungry Monster" is a great counting book.  A few years ago I made some different activities myself to use with my boys.  I don't have them available, but I copied the monsters from the book and used them as I wanted.  You can find out more about it in my 2010 post here.

Another book that is fun to read when talking about monsters is "Where The Wild Things Are".   Making Learning Fun has great activity ideas to go with this book as well.

There are some really fun printable packs to go with monsters.  3 Dinosaurs has a huge pack with lots of great activities to go with monsters.  I like her packs because she has easier stuff for tots and harder things for kids around kindergarten age.

 Little Monkey Printables has a Not So Scary Monster pack filled with great activities as well.

If you are looking for some math activities check out this blog post that has links to 25 math ideas.

Some of our favorite monster movies are "Monsters Inc" and "Monsters University".  Check out Monster Universities home page for fun ideas.

 My son wanted to make another Mike Wazowski paper plate monster like last year.  He was more involved with the process this year aside from just gluing on the pieces I had cut out.  It is fun to watch kids grow and learn.  Of course, he had to demonstrate his monster face.

Scarecrow Preschool Theme

Today we focused on talking about scarecrows.  The book we read yesterday had a scarecrow at the end so it is nice to do the two themes back to back or joined together.

 There are several fall packs that you can find for free to print off.

Autumn Themed ABC Printable Pack

Scarecrow Tot Pack

Fall Pack

Scarecrow Freebie Activities

 I made these scarecrow cards many years ago.  I wrote the body part that the arrow is pointing at on the card.  Have your child point to each body part on their own body with each card.

 This is a fun little scarecrow book called Scarecrow Loves Fall.

 We had a great time doing some scarecrow themed songs and finger plays.  You can see many ideas to use at this website.

My son also enjoyed making a shape scarecrow.  I had many shapes cut out and he chose which ones he wanted to use to build his own little scarecrow.

You can also check out my 2012 post and my 2013 post about scarecrows.

The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything

Today we read "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything".  This is a fun book to read a loud and have fun with.

Making Learning Fun is the best resource I have found for this book.  There are flannel board pieces like above and activities like the ones pictured below, plus more.

 Here is my son's very own scarecrow.  He actually colored some which is great considering he tries to avoid coloring as much as possible!

 This is a free printable that is a fun way to review the book.

This Roll a Scarecrow is a fun game to play a long with this story.

You can see previous posts about this book in the links below: 

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Leaf Preschool Theme

 Leaves are a fun topic this time of year with them changing colors and falling off the tree!

We always enjoy going out and collecting leaves when we have this theme.  Here is our collection this year.  It is fun to sort them in many different ways; size, shape, color, and so on.

We also enjoy doing leaf rubbings.  My son did a good job all by himself this year.  If you put a leaf under the paper and use a crayon you can get this fun look.

 There are also several sources that have fun leaf activities.  Making Learning Fun has leaf and Fall activities like this counting one below.

 There are several free printable packs worth checking out.  I have used them all throughout the years.

3 Dinosaurs Leaves Pack

This Reading Mama Fall Pre-K Pack

A Teaching Mommy Leaves Pack

Homeschool Creations Fun Fall Printables

My son wanted to make little leaf men so he glued googly eyes on some of his leaves and gave them mouths with a marker.

 For more ideas from my previous Leaf Themes you can check out the links below.

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Pumpkins Preschool Theme!

My favorite Fall Theme is pumpkins!

We went to a pumpkin patch as a family last night so we were all ready to talk about pumpkins the rest of the week.  My older children will be out of school Thursday and Friday so we won't have formal preschool then, but we will be painting our pumpkins.

 Here is my son at the pumpkin patch.  He found a cute little pumpkin that he thought looked just the right size for him.

We measure the pumpkin in all the ways we could think of.  How tall it was, how wide, how long the stem was, and so on.

 My son wanted to roll the pumpkin across the kitchen floor and measure how far it rolled so we did that too.  :)

We love to do "Five Little Pumpkins".  I usually do it once with these visuals and then again and have them do the finger actions and roll around like a pumpkin at the end.

 We talked about the life cycle of a pumpkin using sequencing cards.  I have not been able to locate the link I found these cards at years ago, but this is a fun idea we actually did last year with the pumpkin life cycle.

 There are some really great Pumpkin Packs out there.  Here are a few Confessions of a Homeschooler's Pumpkin Printable Pack.

 1+1+1=1 and  A Teaching Mommy has a pumpkin printable pack.and  also have Pumpkin Printables.

 Lawteedah has a Halloween Kit with pumpkin printables.

3 Dinosaurs also has a free pumpkin printable pack.

My son also enjoys visiting Starfall's website and building his own pumpkin. We also watched this Super Why clip that shows how to spell "pumpkin".

You can check our more ideas from previous years.

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 (there are three parts for 2013 year so be sure to check out the links after this post)