Finger-painting with yogurt,
pudding, whip cream
Play-doh
Sandboxes and dirt. Make mud pies.
Yummy!!
Water tables -- can be filled
with water, rice, sand, feathers, hay, anything just be creative. Use various
things to play with such as utensils, measuring cups and spoons, funnels, tongs,
sifter,... Remember to include some things that won't work to further enhance
the experience.
Nature walks -- sit and watch
the ants, look for birds in the trees and new plants sprouting up. Look for
changes in the colors around you, weather changes, and more.
Hand rhymes and songs
Lacing shapes, string wooden
beads, and puzzles
Chores and basic hygiene
Legos, wooden blocks, Lincoln
logs,
Cutting paper
Coloring
Magnetic letters with a lap
size magnet board (you can use an old cookie sheet for this)
Stickers
Notebooking
Own homeschool stuff, as much
as possible. including a notebook to draw/write, own pencil box with
whatever drawing implements she is permitted (if they can be different or
new from her usual drawing materials, so much the better), safety scissors (they
make some that only cut paper, not hair or clothes, if you think that's an issue.)
and glue stick.
Own "worksheets" at
the pre-K level matching, coloring, etc - there's lots of printable stuff on the
internet, just do a search for printable worksheets
Special math manipulatives, counters, bears, linking cubes, pattern blocks etc.
My younger son's favorite was real coins, used with supervision, of course.
Craft stick games - get a bunch of craft sticks and use markers to color designs
on them in matching pairs, using different shapes, colors or numbers of dots.
mix and let her match. Or turn over to blank side and play memory or make a set
with ascending numbers of marks, and order them.
Old deck of playing cards - let her do what she wants with them, or suggest
ideas like sorting, or use with play dough to build structures
rounded point toothpicks and play dough
- if you are really ambitious, you could draw some simple designs on index
cards (2D) or make samples (3D) for her to try to copy.
A 9 x13 baking dish or
jelly roll pan with a thin layer of flour or cornmeal in the bottom for drawing
with a finger OR spray shaving cream on a baking sheet and draw,
shape, etc.
A coloring book with large,
simple line drawings for mosaic fun - fill in the drawings with small
pieces of colored construction paper (cut into squares or tear; paint
sample cards free from your local home store is great for this) glued on with
glue stick.
Foam letter and/or number puzzles. for usual use, and for relief rubbings (put a
sheet of paper over the piece and rub with a crayon)
A large bin (like the Rubbermaid under bed storage kind) filled a couple of inches
deep with rice, and a set of measuring cups and spoons. Put a sheet down on
the floor first for easy clean-up, or let her clean up with a small dustpan
and hand whiskbroom.
Push a stepstool or chair up to the kitchen sink and let her "wash" a selection
of plastic ware. OR find a small pitcher and let her pour into small cups
(like small sippy cups without lids) and bowls. Fill the sink with
water or use a large bowl full of water in the sink to dip the
pitcher into to be filled. In the other sink put a baking dish or large
food storage container with short sides to hold the cups to be filled. If
you don't have another sink, put the pan on the counter next to the sink
and monitor the spill level in the pan, or you could have quite a mess
Encourage her to pour the filled cups back into the reservoir (sink or bowl).
Can use measuring cups and spoons here, too.
Take a sheet of paper and draw
some coin sized circles on it. Let her cover the circles with counters or
coins. Have some sheets with more circles and some with less. To make it
harder, use different sized counters or coins and make the circles
different sizes too.
Take several colors of construction paper or card stock, and cut different shapes
- circles, squares, triangles. Sort or line up by color or shape. Make it
harder by making more than one size of each shape, or adding more shapes,
or more colors. You can use these when she is older (or with older children) by
making patterns in the lineup and having her figure out the pattern and
choose what comes next. Or making rules to follow in building the lineup - the
next piece must have one thing in common with the one before, or two things
in common, etc.
Paperclips, regular or large size, to chain or lump together, or whatever.
A set of large stencils - the ones with small designs are just frustrating for
little kids.
A hole punch and/or staple remover. My younger son went through a period of fascination
with the staple remover at about 4 year old. He used it to "bite" paper.
He named it Fang, and he played with it every day for long periods of time.
He still loves to hole punch (he's 6 1/2 now).
Shelling salted peanuts- and
then when a large enough amount has been shelled ( and not already consumed) you
can put them in the blender with a dash of vegetable oil and make peanut
butter. Then the younger one can spread the peanut butter on crackers, and have snack
during the next lesson period.
On a similar vein- using cookie cutters ( stars, hearts, etc. ) to cut out
pieces of bread. Then spreading cream cheese on with a butter knife and
decorating the surface with raisins, nuts, olives etc. ( if you use a
circle as a cutter-they can make faces- and use sprouts or cut up
vegetables too.)
Spice paintings- using white glue on construction paper and then using any
old spices out of your cupboard as "glitter".
Good old ooblek ( cornstarch/water/food color)- try making two or three colors
and filling "honey bears" plastic squeeze bottles with them.
Then give her a rectangular cake pan to squeeze them into. ( A
plastic table cloth laid down first is a really good idea.)
Sorting buttons and beads. Stringing beads in simple patterns. Attaching
buttons and beads to Styrofoam blocks with old fashion hair pins (like bobby
pins but with thinner wire)
Speaking of wire- playing with twisteez
(plastic coated wires --twisteez are for all ages!) and playing with pipe
cleaners- the more the better.
Using eye droppers to mix colored water. Fill an assortment of small plastic
cups with colored water (I use liquid watercolor from discount school supply-
but food color will also work) Make sure the colors are fairly diluted- then
give one small cup of clear water and let the color mixing begin.
Taking the kernels off Indian
corn. And in case you happen to have a hand crank wheat mill around- grinding
wheat berries into flour. (I know - most people don't have a wheat
grinder- but if you do, it should keep your little one entertained for a while.
Especially if the goal is enough flour to then make pretzels or pizza for
lunch)
Using the Handwriting Without Tears laminated letter cards and play dough or
pretzel dough to form the letters.
Using mini cupcake tins, and cookie cutters with play dough along with an
assortment of plastic gems for decorating with.
Using measuring spoons to move colored pebbles ( the type for aquariums) from
one container to another. Add colored sand to the pebbles, pour the mix
into a tub and a use sandbox sifter to separate them. (again Discount
School Supply has the colored sand)
And finally Dover Publications has a bunch of reusable sticker sets - some with
imaginary scenes and some with scenes from different environments and
different times in history. I'm going to try to get some that correspond
with some of the subjects my older child is working on and see if they keep my
littlest one engaged.
As a different approach- sometimes we move the "schoolroom" into
the back yard. Then my littlest can play while my older one has lessons. Granted
this works best for either me reading to him- or his reading to me. But we
have also managed to do math lessons out there. I have also taken to giving my
older one a break between subjects by reading aloud a book that both he and my 2
year old will enjoy. This seems to help too.
The main thing to remember is
to keep whatever activities you choose special for school time only, not other
times. Anything that looks like or is what big people use is fun and
special.
I keep several of these around for my children to explore.
Quiet things for them to do during reading time when they have ants in their
pants and just can't seem to sit still no matter what I try. These are clear
medium-size Rubbermaid buckets that I fill. Some of these I keep on hand for use
not during school but at other times when I need to keep them busy and quiet so
I can talk on the phone, deal with guests, deal with a sick child, or other
things that come up. Not everything I have for each box fits in all at the same
time. Rotate the contents to make it more fun.
Be creative and create your own. Share your ideas with
me! I would love to add some more to this list!
Art Bucket:
Coloring books, paper, regular scissors, scrapbook scissors,
cutting cards, stickers, crayons, colored pencils, stencils, washable markers,
a ruler, Crayola Wonder markers and Finger-paints (with the books and paper).
Sometimes I throw in a glue stick but I try to keep it simple.
Puzzle Bucket: I have 2 of these.
This is mainly for older children. Madlibs, crosswords, word finds,
dot-to-dots, other activity books, regular pencils, and erasers are all in
here. Those reusable sticker books and write and wipe books are also fun to
add to this. The second if for the younger ones -- wooden puzzles, lauri
puzzles, and other small puzzles go in here. You can also have the kids make
their own puzzles put in Ziplocs and put in here. We also added some puzzles
we got from brighter learning visions and put them in here when we were done
using it with the kit. Another good thing is those matching games where you
match capital letter to lower case letter. Mama animal to baby animal. Etc..
to this kit.
Solitary games Bucket:
Zone pieces, cards, Rush Hour, Cuisenaire Rods and Books.
Pattern Blocks and Books.
Math/Science Bucket:
Counting Bears and cups. Peg board with pegs and cards. Dice.
Fraction pieces. Thermometer. small scale. pinecone. feather. a rock. paper
clips. I also have a few Ziploc bag activities in here too. Plus some other
manipulatives though I am not recalling off the top of my head what they are.
Kid Knex Bucket:
A bucket filled with pieces and instructions that came with the
kit on how to build some things.
Lego Bucket:
Same as the Kid Knex Bucket
Products:
ABC Bingo (Trend Enterprises, available at teacher
stores)
Numbers Bingo (Trend Enterprises, available at teacher stores)
Lacing Tracing Cards (Lauri Products, or Trend)
Puzzles: floor puzzles, wooden peg puzzles, Lauri puzzles -- any kind
basically
Math Manipulatives: Counters, Pattern Blocks, Cuisenaire Rods,
Multilink Cubes, and Attribute Blocks. I also have pattern block animal cards
and the cuisenaire rods alphabet book. And a scale. For a long time, I just
let him play with these however he wanted or directed his play toward counting
or math activities but lightly.
Scissors: I started with a blue pair that is one continuous loop and really
easy for toddlers. I also used the Fiskars "My First" pair. These
are neat and both are available at Teacher Stores.)
Construction paper.
Glue: Craft Glue, Rubber Cement, Glue Stick, Elmers Glue
Craft supplies
Old calendars to cut up.
Trend Trace and Erase Workbooks (one is called Before I Print, one is Counting
Fun, one is Shapes and Colors. Available at office stores or teacher stores.
Kids love them because they are markers.)
Lacing Beads and Cards
My First Uno and other games
Concentration
Go Fish
Baby Einstein Flash Cards. I used these more with my son, who was talking in
complete five to eight word sentences at 18 months. He loved these cards. They
are big. They are bright. And they are very sturdy! They have 3 sets now; and
I just go the third for my baby's "school" this year. (animals,
nature, and basic objects. Can't remember the official titles.)
My First Brain Quest This is a great series and is excellent for taking
along with you when you are traveling. It teaches basic skills/information
from the youngest age up to 6th grade. I believe that is the oldest level I
have seen this for. There are also subject specific sets as well.
Teaching
Resources:
Preschool
Readiness
The
Preschool Busy book by Trish Kuffner.
The Toddler Busy Book by Trish
Kuffner.
The Baby Busy Book by Trish Kuffner.
The
Play and Find Out series by Janice Van Cleave
Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready by June Oberlander
Website
Resources:
Before
Five in A Row (B4FIAR) is an excellent unit study
that works for many families. It didn't work for ours though. The plan is to
read one story each day for five days and to do activities to enhance the
child's comprehension of the material.
Letter
of the Week has
activities for various age ranges including preschool and Kindergarten (as
well as younger) to teach the name and sounds of the alphabet. Best of all --
its free!
Zip
Lock Bag Activities
This is similar to the activity buckets that I have
above but there are a ton more ideas. I was thinking of creating some of these
and putting them in an activity bucket of their own. These are good for a wide
range of ages too. Be creative -- you can probably come up with some great
ones on your own as well!