St. Patrick's Day Preschool Mini Unit

I'm so excited to share our St. Patrick's Day Mini Unit!!!  I am so happy that you are loving ALL our MINI UNIT series and the FULL PRESCHOOL CENTERS!!!  We've been working on these activities for years, way back when my eldest was in preschool but I didn't publish the printables in the shop back then.  Now, I'm so happy to share them with you so you can enjoy the benefits of these as well.

Without further ado, I would like to showcase our St. Patrick's Day Mini Unit, full of fun and engaging activities for preschoolers, pre-k and kindergarten kids.  Included in this pack are activities that will let your child practice fine motor skills, alphabet tracing, hands-on math, and a lot more!  For more St. Patrick's Day themed materials you can click here.

Back to School Preschool and Kindergarten Learning Materials

School is just around the corner and I have prepared a COMPLETE back to school set that you will totally love!  All activities that you need to get your kids and students to be in the mood for exploring, learning, and practicing their fine motor skills are included in this set of preschool activities.  There are 30 activities in this set, all engaging and encourages hands-on learning.  I am sharing a few activities here so you will have a better idea of what you will be expecting from our BACK TO SCHOOL PACK.

Halloween Themed Early Literacy Preschool Pack

October is such an exciting time for the boys as Halloween is a big celebration here in Ireland.  With this, I am so excited to share with you our Halloween Early Literacy printable pack which we will be using for the entire month of October.  I designed this material specifically for Vito and suitable for ages 2.5 to 4years old.  Come take a look!

Bird Theme: Owl Babies Craft

For the Bird Theme, we are reading Owl Babies and The Story About Ping books.  Vito enjoys reading them with me but he loves Owl Babies more. So in line with it, we made some cotton owls at home to extend our learning about owls and the textures of birds.

Earth & Land Theme List of Materials

Here are all the materials and resources that we will be using in our Earth/Land Unit for the month of April.  I prepared this list for those who wanted to follow our activities and those who are inquiring about the materials we are using. 

March Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

March is fast approaching and I’ve been doing some planning for the boy’s activities for next month.   I am also looking forward for a warm weather so we can do outdoor play and exploration.  For this week’s featured activities, let me share Vito’s first “themed” unit:

We had a lot of fun with these, especially the scooping of pompoms and the paint works!

Now, for this week’s featured posts, I am sharing the activities that you can do for the month of March!

HALLOWEEN and THANKSGIVING Learning Materials

Visit my Sellfy store for some fantastic learning materials this Halloween and Thanksgiving season!  Click on the images below for the download link.

FREE Farm Animals Matching cards

We are having a Farm Unit this week and Vito is loving these farm animals matching cards.  This is the first time we’re using matching cards.

I’m using the 3 period lesson for this.  To know more about it read it here.

He was attentive for the first four animals and wouldn’t settle right after.  I took that as a sign of tiredness so we need to stop and did it the next day.  And yes, he’s was still interested and even knows the routine of rolling the rug and placing the cards!

I am loving this wonder years stage!  This is how I set up our materials. Just place all our animals in a basket together with the cards. You can get animal figures as big as these from Schleich.

If you would like to own a copy, you can download the cards from here.  Hope you find it useful!

Thank you and don’t forget to pin this for later!

 

For more printables, visit The Pinay Homeschooler Sellfy Shop

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Letter D: Dinosaur Unit Activities and {Learn & Play Link Up}

The boys are crazy about dinosaurs so this is what we had last week for our letter D sound of the week. I think this is the very first animal Vito recognized because he’s been seeing these dinosaur figures since he was born.

I made use of all Mavi’s dino toys and used it for Vito’s unit. The activities here are so simple and easy to prepare especially if you have dinosaur figures already.

Cleaning dinosaur toy.  This was the first activity I could ever think of. Knowing the boys like to play with water, surely they will like this. And they did!  They washed and brushed their dinosaurs together outside. Vito mostly played with the water but Mavi was seriously doing the work.  So even if Vito didn’t get to really “brush” the dinosaurs, it was a perfect way to expose him to such kind of activity.


Playdough Dino Prints.  I wanted Vito to improve his “pressing” skills so I got out our playdough so we can make impressions.
As you can see, he doesn’t really press the dinos in the dough.  He would just place them on it.  At times he would push them into the playdough using his pointer fingers, not much of the entire hand yet.

Letter D.  We started sounding the letter D around the house as we talked about dinosaurs. Aside from my foam letters, which I posted on the wall for Vito to see everyday, I also made him put dots on a letter D.   He had fun sticking the dots on the letter.  Vito is using more of his left hand these days. Hmmm… I think I might have a leftie!
               
Now Vito realized he can stick the dots to his face as well. And he had fun doing it!


Matching Dinosaurs.  Vito can identify objects now, so I was wondering if he can match objects as well. This activity is more of a presentation rather than Vito matching the dinosaurs.  I placed one piece of the dinosaur in the palette tray and the other on the basket.  Then I take one dinosaur from the basket and say “let’s look for a match”.  So basically, the child will learn objects that match. 


Dino Prints using Paints.  Another activity that I have to take picture before we do the actual thing.  As much as possible I try to involve paints in our unit activities to introduce Vito to arts.  This dino prints was not really appreciated by Vito. He couldn’t make a print out of a dinosaur yet, do he was quite frustrated, so he resorted to hand painting instead.

Discovering Dinosaurs in Ice. This was a total hit! I made these ahead of time and once they were ready both boys were so excited to touch and taste the ice!   
Integrating learning with sensory activities is so much fun!


Dinosaur Free Play. And of course, how can we not have a free play.  I let Vito play with the dinosaurs most of the time.   Vito and Mavi played the dino figures indoors (Mavi making stories)….. 
… and they also played with it outdoors!


More dinosaur activities!!
Over the years, we’ve done a number of wonderful dinosaur activities.  Click on the links below for more ideas!

Dinosaur and the land before time
Dinosaur activities
Digging Dinosaurs
Dinosaur and Worksheets
Preschool Dinosaur Activities
Homemade Dinosaur Fossils

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

For this week, I’d like to feature simple and easy to prepare activities. These would be best for busy moms like me!

FREE Yoga Poses Nomenclature Cards by Eager Ed
Spell Your Name Busy Bag by Spark and Pook
Beach Crafts for Kids to Make Dinnerware by Hands On As We Grow
A Week in the Life of Unschoolers by Nourishing My Scholar

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

• Montessori Education
• Homeschool
• Sensory Play
• Tot and Preschool Trays
• Fine and Gross Motor Activities
• Kids in the Kitchen
• Healthy Recipes for Kids
• Arts and Crafts
• Natural Living
• Free Educational Printables
• Family-Oriented Activities
• Healthy Living

Your post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

• Please link up 1-3 posts
• Follow each of the hosts on social media
• When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
• By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
• Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
• Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

Grab This Button:

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Star Unit Activities and {Learn & Play Link UP}

Welcome to another series of Letter Sound of the Week!  Today, I’m going to share our ‘star’ themed activities for learning the letter s sound. Vito really really like seeing stars around the house, and it’s the first shape that he can identify.  So while he’s at it, we jumped from letter c to learning letter s!

Letter Sound Basket. None this week. All we ever did was look at stars!

Painting the letter S.  We are exploring different mediums in painting and currently, the boys love the roller paint brushes I got for them last month.  So here is Vito painting the letter with a roller brush which he loves to use.  As we do the stroke, I would emphasize the word “up” and “down”.   I would exaggerate the hand stroke a little bit to demonstrate what does up and down means. And yes, this is also an activity for colour recognition: yellow.

Playdough & Star Cookie Cutter.  Playdough is a great activity for fine motor skills.  Vito is enjoying playdough so far.  He likes squeezing and grasping the dough already.  We used our star cookie cutter for this.   
                                           

Counting & Gluing.  An activity that’s like hitting two birds with one stone.  Practise gluing and counting at the same time.  What I did here was punch the star shapes and made Vito apply glue on the paper.  Then we place the stars according to their number.  We then count the stars over and over.  These days, Vito loves to count than reciting the letters LOL. He’s like, 2, 2, ,2!

An activity that’s like hitting two birds with one stone.  Practise gluing and counting at the same time.  What I did here was punch the star shapes and made Vito apply glue on the paper.  Then we place the stars according to their number                  
                  

Colour Matching.  This is a DIY.  I printed stars in coloured cardstock papers, laminate then glue them on the popsicle sticks. The bead cubes were from Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads. We matched the stars to the cube by placing them into the hole.   I showed Vito how to do it first and then he mimicked my actions.  The matching of colours is still a hit or miss, so I’m guessing he couldn’t recognize them yet.
  

Big and Small.  A random activity while playing the cookie cutter.  I was showed Vito the big star and small star.  He wasn't interested at all with this.

Now, for this week's feature!  Here are my favourites this week, something that we would like to try this summer!
FREE Summer Songs and Rhymes for Circle Time by Living Montessori Now
Parts of a Fruit Lesson with Printables by The Natural Homeschool
Shark Unit Study by Gypsy Road
Accordion Critters by Little Fingers Big Art

Welcome to the Learn & Play Link Party!

Now it’s time for this week’s link party! This is a BRAND new link up for all blog posts that include learn and play activities and hands-on education for kids. We are excited to read your blog posts and to see what you have to share! Please link up below and grab our button to display on your blog.

If you are a blogger, share your family friendly posts here. We are looking for things which include:

• Montessori Education
• Homeschool
• Sensory Play
• Tot and Preschool Trays
• Fine and Gross Motor Activities
• Kids in the Kitchen
• Healthy Recipes for Kids
• Arts and Crafts
• Natural Living
• Free Educational Printables
• Family-Oriented Activities
• Healthy Living

Your post will be featured on each of our blogs where we will pick our favourite posts every other week. That means there is more of a chance that you will be featured!

Everyone, please meet our link party hosts:

Christian Montessori Blog ~ Please visit our CMN FB group ~ Pinterest

Vanessa from Mama’s Happy Hive~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jennifer from Study at Home Mama~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Marie from Child Led Life~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Jae from Pinay Homeschooler~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Heather from Golden Reflections Blog~FB~Pinterest~Instagram~Twitter

Renae from Every Star is Different~FB~Pinterest

GUIDELINES FOR LINKING

• Please link up 1-3 posts
• Follow each of the hosts on social media
• When you link up, please add our button and place it at the bottom of your shared posts or link back with text link.
• By entering a link, you’re giving us permission to feature an image on our blogs. Proper credit & links will ALWAYS be given.
• Please visit a couple of shared posts and leave a comment for them
• Remember that you must link back in order to be featured

Grab This Button:

<div align="center"><a href="http://christianmontessorinetwork.com/category/learn-and-play" title="Christian Montessori Network"><img src="http://www.christianmontessorinetwork.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/learn-and-play-link-up-150-150.png" alt="Christian Montessori Network" style="border:none;" /></a></div>

Please Follow
Follow Pinay Homeschooler's board Pinay Homeschooler on Pinterest.

An InLinkz Link-up