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

Marble Painting Apple

You will need:

construction paper

paint

cake pan

couple of marbles or glass beads

I cut out an apple for our fruit theme this week. I put it in a cake pan and squirted a little bit of yellow and green paint. I put the beads in and had my son just roll them around to paint his apple. Really easy and mess free painting!

Transportation- Printable Blog

I found an AWESOME blog browsing on Pinterest. Our theme this last week was transportation. I printed off these awesome preschool activities. They have games, handwriting practice, puzzles, etc. I put them in a sheet protector so we can reuse them in the future.

Airplane In the Clouds

You will need:

2 large wooden sticks

1 small wooden stick

cotton balls

markers

glue

construction paper

Color and decorate the sticks. Glue them to make an airplane, then glue your airplane on to the construction paper. Take the cotton balls apart and glue them on your paper to make clouds.

Slippery Soap Poster

We talked about hygiene yesterday. This was our craft. You can print off the soap in black and white or color here. We put it together and glued it on a piece of scrapbook paper and colored around it with markers. We'll probably put it in the bathroom to remind him to wash his hands.

Macaroni Kid

We've started having themes for each week and mini themes of the day that go with that week. It's mostly to help me think of ideas in a way that it makes more sense for me. So this week is All About Me week. Yesterday we talked about My Body. We made this little Macaroni kid for our art of the day.

You will need:

Macaroni

construction paper

marker

two dry beans

glue

I drew a little guy with toes and fingers and everything. I had to help my son put the glue on the lines, he's still learning :) Then he put the macaroni to build a little macaroni kid, and we used two black beans for the eyes. We talked about his body parts and how many of each part he has.

Toilet Paper Roll Rocket

If you have an empty toilet paper roll just go here for a huge list of printable templates of cute things you can color and glue on your roll. We made a rocket!