Beginning Sounds Balloon Game

You will need: two ballons, a sharpie, minimal artistic skills

Blow up two balloons. One one write letters, and on the other draw pictures of things that start with that letter sound. 

To play throw the balloon with the letters up in the air and have your little one catch it. Have him choose a letter he is touching when he catches it and tell you what sound the letter makes. Then throw the second balloon with the drawings and have him find the object that begins with that letter sound. We began with letter A-I and then gradually added more letters and drawings. 

This was a great activity for my active boy. He wanted to keep playing and playing!

Falling Leaves ABC Game

You will need: 

Construction Paper

Scissors

marker

Basket

I made 26 leaves by cutting construction paper and wrote upper and lower case letters on each leaf. Then I gave them to my little one and had him throw the leaves and high as he could. He loved that part! He then made sure all the letters were facing up. I would call out a letter and he would put it in our little basket. Then we would talk about what words began with that letter sound. Great game for letter recognition and sound recognition. 

Little Pintesters: Toilet Paper Tube Fun!

Here are two activities you can make using empty toilet paper or paper towel tubes.

The first one is a fun game my boys absolutely loved. Found HERE. You take the tubes and cut them up into different sizes and you tape them onto a cookie sheet or tray. Then you take a small ball and the kids have fun tilting the tray and making the ball go through the "tunnels." To make it more complicated you can add more balls. FUN!

Our Score: 10

The second activity found HERE (This a great website if you're teaching your preschooler at home). You take six tubes and cover them with colored paper. Then you glue them onto a long piece of cardboard or cardstock and onto each other. I used a glue gun and it worked very well. You label each tube with its corresponding color. You can have your little ones sort all kinds of objects. We've used popsicle sticks, pompoms and beads so far.

Our Score: 10

 

The best part of these activies is that they cost little to nothing to make! 

 

How Many Gum Balls?

I bought a cookie sheet at the dollar store and wanted to find a way to incorporate it to our preschool Tot tray weekly activities or "juegos" as my little one likes to call them. I once saw a printable on this blog that I thought my little one would enjoy. I decided to draw my own and hot glue some magnets to  pom poms and, voila! We now have a fun activity to practice numbers and counting. The numbers we used are just made from old milk jug lids and I used a sharpie to write the numbers.  

ABC's , 123's Scavenger Hunt

I wrote the alphabet and numbers 1 through 9 on a small dry erase board. We walked around the block and tried looking for all the letters and numbers. Each time my son saw one he erased it off the board. We looked for letters and numbers on street signs, traffic signs, the mailboxes, on cars, on home security signs, etc. It was a fun outdoor activity. 

Fly Swatter Game

Materials: New fly swatter, paper flies (using word), contact paper, tape, or lamination. Dry Erase marker, sticky tack.

1. First I made a word document with 26 flies and printed it out.

2. Then I cut out small squares our of the same paper to put in the center of the fly with glue.

3. I then put a strip of clear tape over the fly and cut them out. You can also used contact paper or lamination to laminate them and to have a surface for writing with a dry erase marker. 

To play: Decide what topic you want to review, such as, letter, lower and upper case, shapes, numbers, letter sounds, sight words, etc. and write them on your flies. Stick them with sticky tack on your wall. You can certainly put magnets on them and put them on your fridge to play. Call out a letter and have your child swat it! 

Bean Bag Toss Game: Shapes

Materials:  a piece of fabric, a bean bag, bottle caps, a computer to make a grid with the four shapes. 

1. I painted the shapes on an scrap of fabric. 

2. I made a word document with four of each shape and printed it off.

To play: toss the bean bag on one of the shapes and put a bottle cap as a marker on the chart. You can play alone and try to get a certain row, column, or fill out the whole chart, or play with several people and work together. Or you could also have each person be a different row and try to get those shapes before the other person gets theirs. So many possibilities!

Juegos de Eric

I have struggled to really find a method that would help my active three year old learn preschool topics. I think he wasn't ready for some of the things I was trying to do with him, and my method wasn't meshing with his hands-on learning style. I really didn't want to force him or make it seem like a chore. I wanted him to start learning and have a good experience from the very beginning.

I month or so ago I found out about Tot trays. I lay out 5 trays every day on the counter with different learning activities about letters, numbers, handwriting practice, cutting, sorting, and other topics. It really has been a success so far. He calls him his "juegos" (games). He gets to choose which activity to do and how long to do it. He loves having a choice and usually does them all in one day. I switch one or two out every day to add variety.

The activities pictured above can be found here:

Number recognition bingo marker

(I made the printable, but got the idea on the website)

Name puzzle popsicle sticks

Name puzzle on cardstock

Foam numbers with beans

Pre-writing practice strips

Letter "C" sensory bin