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.

2013

2012

2011

2010

2009

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

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.

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: 

2011

2012

2013

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Preschool Theme

"The Very Hungry Caterpillar" by Eric Carle is one of our favorite books so of course we were both excited to have a preschool theme about it.

 We read the book and watched the movie.  You can find it right now streaming on Netflix.  It is a short little movie, but fun.  I also retold the story using these felt board pieces.

 You can find cute printables to go with this story like "The Hungry Caterpillar Cards and stick puppets below.

 These sequencing cards are great to have your child help retell the story.

 Here you will find a really cute Caterpillar Pack for free (again I hadn't replaced my colored ink cartridge which is why they are strange colors).

Here is a picture of my son doing one of the activities above.  It is a great way to go over the days of the week and retelling the story.

 You can find this idea for feeding the caterpillar and a whole lot more here.

 You could also watch Eric Carle reading the book himself here.

You can check out what we did for this theme in 2013 here and in 2010 here.

Check out more caterpillar ideas in my 2013 post here and at Confessions of a Homeschooler here.

Here is another printable pack for The Very Hungry Caterpillar.

This link has over 60 crafts to do with this theme.

Jack and The Bean Stalk Preschool Theme

Today we talked about Jack and the Beanstalk.  This site has some fun printables to color and use to help tell or retell the story.

 1+1+1=1 has an online book you can read.  It is simple and has cute graphics.  She also has some activities to go along with the book.

 3 Dinosaurs has a great Jack and The Beanstalk pack to check out.

Prek Pages also has some activities to go along with this theme.  Some are free and some cost money.

We also enjoyed watching my favorite version of this story "Mickey and the Beanstalk".

Chicka Chicka 123 Preschool Theme

Today we talked read the book "Chicka Chicka 123".  This book focuses on numbers.  It goes through numbers 1-20 and then counts by tens up to 100.  It is a fun way to practice and review counting and numbers.

 Check out this fun video.  I don't think the tune is as catchy as the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom song, but it is still a fun video to watch with your preschooler.

Making Learning Fun has all kinds of ideas and activities to go with this book including the two activities below.

At the end of the book it lists numbers 0-100 so we counted together to 100.  My son does a pretty good job at counting to 20, but doesn't really know higher than that so this book was a great way to help introduce those bigger numbers.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Preschool Theme

My older two boys are back in school and I am back to doing preschool with my 4 year old.  I'm going to try and let him take the lead as to how often we do preschool.  I don't want either of us to get burned out so while we will have "big" days, most days will be pretty low key.

Today we talked about a favorite book, Chick Chicka Boom Boom.  It is a great time to review the alphabet.  My son is reading now so I thought he had all his letters and there sounds down pat, but as we were going through I realized he'd forgotten some so I am glad we did this so I can work on reminding him of every letter and it's sound.

I read the book to my son, then he read it to me.  Then we watched this video a couple of times.  It has such a catchy little tune to it.

Something that I want to work on this year with my son is having him practice writing his name properly.  This site will allow you to type in what you want traced and you can print it out, really helpful.

 I hid alphabet cards around the house and had my son find them.  When he found them he had to tell me its name and the sound it made.  Then he wanted to hide them so I could find them and I told him the name name and sound.

Then we went through the alphabet cards and he found the letters to his name and spelled it out.  After that we counted how many letters are in his name.

 Kinder Alphabet has some great Chicka Chicka Boom Boom printables including alphabet cards and a few activities like this one where you match the upper case letter with the lower case letter.

Since we were talking about the alphabet as well we also watched Leap Frog's Letter Factrory Movie.  This is a great movie for learning letter names and sounds.

Here are some more ideas for a Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Theme:

File Folder Game

Tot-Book

Color Matching Freebie

These links will give you a list of activities:

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom on Making Learning Fun

Hubbard's Cupboards Chicka Chicka Boom Boom ideas

My 2013 Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Post

My 2010 Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Post

Mo Willem's Pigeon Preschool Theme

We continued preschool with more Mo Willem's books.  We love the Pigeon books he writes.  There are several we don't own, but here is what we have:

Don't Let the Pigeon Stay Up Late!

The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog!

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!

The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?

Pigeon Presents is a fun website with activities for kids and educator's.  Check out the direct link to these activities kits.

 Here is a word bubble pigeon.

 Pigeon Headband!  He wore his headband all morning even when we ran to the store.

We also made cookies in honor of "The Duckling Gets a Cookie!?"

Elephant and Piggie Preschool Theme

Today we had an Elephant and Piggie themed preschool!  My son has been requesting this theme for a little bit.  We really love the Elephant and Piggie beginner reader books written by Mo Willems.  You can find them on Amazon here.  Check out Mo Willem's site here. We do not own them all, but as you can see we own many.  We've been collecting them for about three years now.

My son has been especially interested in them lately because he has discovered that he can read the majority of the words in them and they have cute illustrations and fun humor.  Here is a comic strip printable to make your own elephant and piggie scene.

Check out Pigeon Presents for more online fun!  There is also a section for parents and educators that includes kits that have fun activities like the ones below.

We also made puppets.  I did the drawing and cutting, and my son did the gluing.  The idea came from here.

We've had a good time with these puppets making up our own elephant and piggie stories to act out.

Noah's Ark Preschool Theme

Today we talked about Noah's Ark.

We have the Noah's Ark Little People Play set that is a lot of fun to use for this theme.  To tell the story I used the set.  I hid the animals around the living room.  When it came time for Noah to gather all the animals I had my son find the animals and put them in the ark.  After all the animals were gathered we put Noah and his wife in the ark.  Then we swayed the ark back and forth and used our hands to pretend it was raining.  Then when it was time we let all the animals out and my son found them new "homes".  Of course, he wanted a turn hiding the animals and telling the story too.

I also read Jan Brett's "On Noah's Ark" board book.  It has great illustrations and is not very wordy so it easily keeps small children engaged in the story.

Our main source for the day was from Living Intentionally.  She has a huge Noah's Ark pack that we enjoyed several activities from.

Here my son is drawing a picture of a penguin.

This link has several coloring pages like the one below.

You can find this printable book and more Noah's Ark activities here.

You can find more Noah's Ark ideas here and here.