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April Showers Preschool Collage - Categorizing Activity

This was a fun little project we did today. I drew umbrella parts on a piece of paper and had the kids cut them out. We glued the umbrella on a piece of longer white paper. On the bottom of the paper, I wrote, "things that can get wet" on one side and "things that cannot get wet" on the other (I separated the sides with a column). We then searched through old magazines to find things that would fit into each category. This was a great activity to get the kids thinking about the difference in the two categories and then categorizing their magazine pictures.

This is what we started with.

The kids cut out the umbrella pieces.

We glued the umbrella on top of the white paper and then I added the words and columns. We started searching through magazines for things that could and things that could not get wet!

This is what we came up with (sorry about the blurry picture???). It was funny because when we found the hamster picture, the kids were kind of "on the fence" about whether or not it could get wet. So, we put it on the line between the two so we were covered!!! I just love the little "extras" you get when creating with kids. You never know what kind of discussions will come up!

At the end, we had to add raindrops to the umbrella. The kids used a Bingo Marker to make the raindrops! We had a lot of fun with this collage and learned a lot too!

The Alphabet Tag Game - Simple Letter Recognition Activity

This activity is so easy to set up and the kids will love it! It is great for working on letter recognition skills. I called it The Alphabet Tag Game so the kids were really intrigued to get started!

I wrote a few letters on a piece of paper (for more advanced kids, you can write more letters on the paper, but for less advanced kids, too many letters can be overwhelming). Then, I gave each child a Bingo Marker. I told them that they need to find and "tag" (put a mark on it) the letter I say. So, I would say, "Find and tag the letter "A". The kids would find the letter on the paper and put a mark on it. They LOVED this activity because it was more of a game! They wanted to find and tag each letter! You could adapt this game for any level. You could do these versions of the game: sight words, numbers, math problems (have them tag the answers), opposites, uppercase/lowercase letters, animal sounds.... the possibilities are endless.

We tagged them all!! Yay!

DIY - Rustic Burlap Pennant Garland

I have seen burlap garland in stores and LOVED it! Of course, after looking them over in the store, I knew I could make one at home! I am not a person who can sew AT ALL, but I thought I needed to "stitch" the "pennants" on so they would last longer?? Some of the stores just had them hot glued on the string (which would be fine), I just wanted mine to last a little longer.

This is what I did:

I made a "pennant" template out of lightweight cardboard. I then took some burlap I had and traced the template on it with a pencil. Then, I cut out the shape.

I cut out 10 of these "pennants".

I took a BIG needle and some neutral yarn an started stitching away! I took some craft rope-like string and folded the top part of the pennant over the string and then just stitched it like the picture shows (I am sure there is a name to this stitch, but I sure don't know what it is).

This is what it looks like all done.

I tried to show the final product in a sunny place. I will be using this for parties and our yard sale this year. I plan on pinning some stenciled letters on the front for whatever occasion it is for! Wouldn't this be cute on a lemonade stand???

Another April Showers Craft for the Kiddos

This is another easy craft when talking about April showers with the kiddos!

First, I cut out these raindrop shapes out of black construction paper. Then, I put contact paper on the back of them so that the inside of the raindrop was "sticky".

Then, I had the kids put square pieces of blue tissue paper on the "sticky" part of the raindrop.



When they were done, I put another piece of contact paper on top (stickyside down) of the tissue paper. I cut off all the excess contact paper around the edge of the raindrop.

Now, we moved on to our umbrella. I had two pieces of the umbrella that the kids had to glue together (the handle and the top of the umbrella).

Then, I had raindrop shapes cut out of construction paper for the kids to glue on their umbrella.

Afterwards, we glued on foam letters for our names and I punched holes in the umbrella and black raindrops. I tied fishing string to the raindrop and the umbrella so they look like they are "falling".

Sorry about the poor picture, (I could not stray away from the sun glare) but when you put these in the window, the raindrops look like stained glass windows!

**You can adjust this project based on your child's skills. For older children, have your child cut out the shapes (umbrella top and handle) needed for this project. They can also cut the pieces of tissue paper needed. Most projects can be adjusted for your child's skill level. 

Educents - Free $10 Gift Card!

Educents is a new website set to launch tomorrow! They are going to offer educational items at a discounted price! I love that! I love educational products for the kiddos, but a lot of times, they are so expensive. If you click here, you will be able to sign up and then they will send you an email confirmation with a free $10 gift card code! You can't beat that!!!! I am excited to see what they have to offer!!!!

May Flower Alphabet Preschool Activity

Here is another great "May Flower" and/or "April Showers Bring May Flowers" project. I wanted to come up with a flower craft that would incorporate some letter recognition.

Here is what you will need for this cute flower craft:

• A Half of a Plastic Easter Egg
• Flower Petals Cut Out of Construction Paper
• Glue
• Green Marker

The first thing I did was cut out the flower petals and wrote the letters we are working on on each petal. Then, we took a half of a leftover plastic Easter egg and glued it in the center of light-weight cardboard. This was the middle of our flower (to see other ideas you can do with leftover plastic Easter eggs click here). Then, I put some glue lines around the flower middle so the kids knew where to put the petal when they were prompted. Next, I lined up the petals on the bottom of the paper and would say, "Find the "A" petal and put it on your flower." They would find the "A" petal and put in on a glue line. We did this through all the petals and ended up with one pretty cool flower! We added a stem with a green marker. This little craft (which is very easy to set up) was fabulous for letter recognition and listening to direction skills!