KidsbCool Preschool Crafts Songs Games Part 2

SPRING
Set up a doctor's office for those with Spring Fever.
Our hospital donated some gowns, caps and shoe covers.

Bulletin Boards

Background White- Buy some cheap bugs(fake of course). Paint some trees and grass on, remember no artistic skill required. Kids like paintings that look like a kid painted it. Staple the bugs on the board.

Background White- Have the kids close their hands and stick their thumbs out. Paint hands different colors. Paint an outline of a volcano on the board and put prints up to be dinosaurs! Label hand dinos with the childs name. Example: Johnasauras.

SCIENCE TABLE

Tape small pom-poms to the Coffee Can Tree branch to show new life. Or small pieces of green paper kids cut or tear.

Add some more bugs in a bowl with a magnifying glass.

Take a walk and collect green things. Give each child a small bag to put stuff in and each donates one thing to the science table.

Put out some insect books on the table...their not just for the reading area!

I got these really great magnetic marbles from Kaplan. They are wild!

Add Green and Yellow Color Cans

Get a tornado maker! It cost $1. It's a piece of pipe with rings on the inside which will make a tornado when connected to two 2 liter bottles (one almost filled with water)

Variations! Use smaller 1 liter bottles. Add food coloring!

ART/FINE MOTOR

Collect the bottom of chicken trays when defrosting chicken in your home. You can use them for paint and glue and then just throw away.

Pour paint in the bottom of tray.(very thin)Let kids make tracks with plastic bugs on paper.
Place a large magnet and several things that a magnet will and will not pick up. Example: Paper clips and pennies. Add a sorting tray to separate the two.
Get a wash tub of dirt and add real worms! *yes I do this every year!*
Using chicken trays let kids make dinosaur tracks with rubber dinosaur toys in the paint.
Have the kids mix and stir food color or powder paint in sand for sand and glue art.
Cut out tulip shapes from cardboard boxes in Large, Medium and Small sizes for kids to trace around.
Find some A B C stampers and crayola ink pads. Got mine from a garage sale for 50 cents.
Let the kids mix Yellow and Green Playdough for swirls.

CIRCLE TIME

You must get the book David A. Carter's More Bug's In Boxes.
A great pop-up for spring!

Using picture cards or animal memory game show mothers and let kids find the babies.

This one from my co-teacher...Get a surgical glove and poke tiny holes in the fingers. Fill with milk and let the kids milk the cow! Cool!

Read Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.
We have the large and small book. Kids like to read one then the other even though they are the same.

Make green jello jigglers.

Make yellow playdough...remember! Let the kids do it!

Make a volcano from old playdough. Have a bottle with long neck like a flower vase. Shape playdough around it and put baking soda in the vase. Tell the kids a fantastic story of a volcano erupting and pour in some vinegar! Wham! It's messy but cool!

I made a flannel story about a purple dinosaur. All the other dinos, red, yellow and green ones wouldn't play with him because he was purple. Of course he saves one and they figure out his color dosen't make him different.

Get those kids ready for kindergarten with these activities.

Show things kids will use in kindergarten. A backpack, a lunch tray, milk cartons...etc... Add these to housekeeping.
Set up a date with kindergarten teachers to meet the incoming kids. We are lucky to have ours right next door. We walk over and meet the teachers and take a look at the rooms. Then we walk around to view the lunch room, the office, the library and playground.
Start having the types of work they will get in kindergarten availible to the kids. Dot-to-Dot, association sheets, tracing ABC's, practicing names etc...

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