{Three to Five Playful Preschool: New Resource for Parents}

Three to Five: Playful Preschool

Creative, Hands-On Learning

It's here! And you're going to LOVE all the brilliant, playful learning activities inside! The awesome new preschoolers' parent resource I was telling you about, "Three to Five: Playful Preschool" is ready for you all to download!

Why is it so awesome? Well, aside from the fact that Mama Pea Pod is a co-author (ahem!), there are plenty of reasons:

"Three to Five: Playful Preschool" is loaded with fun, play-based learning activities to help support your preschooler's development - from early literacy to early math learning to gross and fine motor skills to science and art, this e-book will help you provide learning experiences for your preschooler across a broad range of developmental skill areas through age-appropriate, play-based learning activities.

In addition to more than 25 playful learning activities and links to over 50 more activities and resources, the book also comes with 10 free printables to complement the activities - all brought to you by some amazing kids' activities bloggers including Nurturestore, Teach Preschool, Happy Hooligans, No Time for Flashcards and many more! And as an ebook, it is available everywhere worldwide for download directly to your computer, e-reader, and/or mobile device, so you always have it handy when you need it!*

And it's a steal! You can get your copy for the regular price of only $8.99! It's waiting for you :-) 

Here are some more reasons why you should get your hands on your own copy:

*It's an amazing resource!

*Hands-on, play-based learning activities

*Inspiring ideas, yet practical for every parent

*Handy checklist of developmental skills covered by each activity

*Convenience - with everything all in one place, just think how much time you will save by having all that searching already done for you!

*Gorgeous photographs with step-by-step guides - and all things you can easily do at home!

*Over 25 ideas for preschoolers, ten printable resources (including a city-scape play scene, My First Journal pages, recipe card, numbers game, weather chart printables, alphabet play mats, unique hand-drawn art pages, conversation cards, block building challenge cards, bookmarks) and additional links to over 50 more activities!

*A range of activities to meet your preschooler's various developmental needs: hands-on, learning through play, math, language, literacy, science, art, sensory, gross motor and fine motor play and more

*At only $8.99 (regular price) you really can't beat that deal!

Think your friends would like a copy? Share this post with them using the share buttons below my signature, below!

* You can buy it now, on any device, and then download it when you are ready. Depending on the apps you have installed and your operating system, you might be able to go ahead and download the book directly onto your mobile device, but if you have any doubts or problems, I recommend you use a computer to download the book and then share it to your mobile devices.

{10 Christmas Advent Calendar Ideas for Preschoolers}

10 Christmas Advent Calendar Ideas for Preschoolers:

This round up of 10 of our favourite ideas for advent calendars that are suitable for the preschool crowd may be just what you're looking for, or may inspire you to come up with a unique idea of your own! If you have a great advent calendar for your preschooler, please share it on the Mama Pea Pod Facebook page! I love to see what you've made!

DIY Advent Calendars Round-Up from Mama Pea Pod

Paper Bag Advent Calendar Activities (with printables) from The Connection We Share

Santa's Beard Countdown to Christmas from Paper Creations by Kristin

Matchboxes Advent Calendar from Write.Click.Scrapbook

Recycled Christmas Cards Activity Advent Calendar from Octavia and Vicky

Kid-Made Festive Christmas Countdown from Creative Play Central

Book Tree Advent Calendar from Reading Confetti

Around the World Advent Calendar: Merry Christmas in 24 Languages from Glittering Muffins

DIY Cone Advent Calendar from Glittering Muffins

Book a Day Countdown to Christmas from The Chirping Moms


You might also be interested in Mama Pea Pod's Christmas Ideas page over there on the right --> (scroll down a little)

{Back to School Books}

This year both my girls are starting new school experiences. Princess Pea will be starting first grade, and is bursting with excitement. Sweet Pea will be starting preschool, leaving our house and going 'out into the world alone' for the first time ever! (I wouldn't say she's bursting with excitement - she's more introverted and takes time to warm up in social situations.)

As always, we have been turning to books to help them with these transitions - to allay any fears and create positive yet realistic expectations of their new experiences....

{Simple Book Word Sort Game}

Simple Word Sort Game

For The Beginning Reader

Princess Pea started kindergarten in January, for the first time. Although she's always been a book-lover and grand story-teller, she wasn't actually reading words yet (in fact, she was only just learning lowercase letters), but in the past three weeks she has gone from being a 'picture reader' to reading and decoding words all on her own. To help her along, I made this game from a book we were reading together this weekend. It's the sort of thing we do at school all the time, but this is the first time I did this for my own child - and it was quite exciting!

After reading the book, there were a couple of 'puzzle pages' at the end. I decided to make it into a more hands-on activity instead. I took CVC words (words that follow a simple Consonant-Vowel-Consonant pattern) from the book and wrote them on little strips of paper. I used three cupcake cases and labelled them with the vowels 'o', 'i', and 'u'. Then I let her sort the words into the appropriate cup. Good practice for beginning decoders, and because the words came from the book, they weren't just random out-of-context words. As a follow-up, you could have your child go back and find the words (and/or pictures of the objects) in the book, too, but we got caught up in other things by then. Next time.

{Summer Learning eBook}

Have you downloaded your free copy of the We Teach Summer Learning e-Book yet? It's packed full of fun and educational summer activities for your little peas, including one from us. Check it out! And if you aren't already a member of We Teach, I highly recommend it as an excellent, free resource for teachers and parents, with interest groups to suit every need.

{Ocean Waves in a Bottle & Sun Scholars Giveaway!}

Princess Pea is turning 5 next month - ack! (Slow down, slow down!) The debate about the best time to begin your child in school is raging, both on the internet (read here and here) and in my head, but I have come to a decision that I believe is the best for Princess Pea and our family.

I've mentioned before that we love her Hungarian preschool because it is 100% play-based. Although she moved to a new preschool when we moved house in February, her new one is of the same philosophy. She settled quickly and happily into her new class. We also love that as long as the weather is nice, they seem to spend pretty much the whole day playing outdoors.

On the other hand, she will eventually (probably in 1st grade) go to the private school where we work, which has a strong academic focus, even in the early childhood department and particularly in kindergarten. So entering in 1st grade might be a bit of a shock to her playful, little system. As well, the art and music programs at our school offer wonderful experiences to develop creativity and imagination of the kind that her preschool system is unable to provide, mainly due to lack of resources.

So the compromise we've (more or less) decided on is to keep her in her play-based preschool, while homeschooling her on the side in some of the skills that would be expected of her if she were at our kindergarten. That way, she will learn the skills, but still spend 95% of her day playing, creating, and  imagining, and will still spend lots of time playing outdoors (as opposed to two 20-minute blocks of outdoor play time).

So, with this plan in hand, I've decided to start a first 'unit of study' (gosh, it feels weird to say that in reference to my own little Princess Pea!) built around an ocean theme. We are planning an upcoming mermaid-themed birthday party, so there's lots of interest in under-the-sea life around here at the moment. I'm going to latch on to this current interest as a means to incorporate some of the kindergarten standards and benchmarks.

I'm still in the early planning stages, but my plan is to incorporate a little literacy, a little numeracy, a little science, a little art, a little music (yikes! not my strength at all!), and a whole lot of fun inquiry into this ocean theme.

I'll share more about my plans as they develop, but in the meantime, I wanted to share with you a great resource. Whether you homeschool, summer school, or just want some ideas of fun, educational activities to do with your kids this summer (or any time, really), you might be interested in the Sun Scholars Summer Program, offered by Rachel over at Sun Scholars.

Rachel has been kind enough to share the program with me to try it out, and to also offer a free copy to one of you lucky Mama Pea Pod readers!

I've been going through the downloadable program, and the first thing I noticed is how well-planned and organized it is. Rachel has thought of everything! She has built a curriculum around weekly themes (including a 'beach' one that will tie in nicely with our ocean theme). Each weekly theme includes some hands-on activities in each of the subject areas - literacy, numeracy, the arts, science, etc., and is organized into daily activities that are printed on individual cards that you can print out, keep in a binder, and take out as you need each one. The curriculum is designed for multi-aged learners, so even if your kids are different ages, you can pick and choose which activities to do, or follow the suggested modifications for each different-aged child. The package comes with a handy list of supplies you'll need, to help you get organized in your planning, and many printable materials, too.

So, to introduce our ocean theme, we followed the instructions given to make ocean wave bottles. These are so cool! At first I thought about skipping the oil in the ingredients, but I'm so glad I didn't, as it really creates the wave effect, making the water roll, just as a real wave would out in the ocean. We had so much fun with these! We used some empty water bottles, a handful of sand from the sandbox, water, blue food colouring, some blue glitter, and some cooking oil. We also popped in a couple of shells, though you can't see them as it turns out.

 

We've also tried the squishy bags and the strawberry mice. We filled ziploc bags with shaving foam, a bit of glitter, and a few drops of red and yellow paint. As the girls squished them, the paints blended to make - surprise! - orange. While Sweet Pea squished and squashed and rustled the bag, enjoying the sensory play, Princess Pea attempted to write letters in the foam, through the bag. It was all fun and games, until she squished it a bit too hard and it squirted out and a spot hit her in the mouth - yucky! (Mummy's fault for not following all the instructions and taping up the end of the bag - oops!). Older kids could practice spelling words with them, too.

And when Daddy Pea brought home a big carton of strawberries for a treat, what better treat than making them into cute strawberry mice? These snacks are part of the unit built around the story, "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie". I didn't have all the same items on hand as in the suggestions, so we improvised a bit. How cute and fun! A great way to get kids helping out in the kitchen. They could even use them to reenact the story or make up a play of their own before eating them up for their snack!

Other activities that have caught our eye include making a family tree, testing out sound energy with musical glasses, experimenting with colour-changing milk, and making a beach bucket cake!

If you're interested in finding out more about the Sun Scholars Summer Program, head on over to Rachel's blog, Sun Scholars. And if you'd like to enter to win a FREE copy of the summer program (in digital format for downloading), just leave a comment below telling me a fun activity that you plan to do with your kids this summer!

This giveaway will be open for a week, closing on June 2nd at 8pm, GMT+1. A winner will be selected through Random.org and will be announced here in a blog post. The chosen winner will have 48 hours to contact me to claim their prize, or a new winner will be selected. For additional entries, you may share this post on Twitter (tag @mamapeapod) or Google+. Be sure to come back to leave an additional comment for each entry to be counted.

Good luck and happy learning!

{The Carrot Seed - A Seed for Learning}

The Carrot Seed

A Seed for Learning

Princess Pea will soon be five (yikes!), and has been talking a lot about starting school (though she won't start until she's 6). So I've been bringing home books from school that go together as a theme that we can talk and learn about. We've been calling it 'school' - she loves to have 'school time' - it makes her feel like such a big kid! This is protected time for just her and me - Daddy Pea takes Sweet Pea to do something else, so we can have this time alone together. 

We've been having beautiful, summery weather lately, so Princess Pea and I have been making a habit a couple of times a week to sit in the garden and read and talk together after I get home from work. 

This week, we read about how plants grow.

We started by reading The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss [affiliate link]. (Thanks to Kristina at Toddler Approved for this Virtual Kids Book Club suggestion!)

Princess Pea was very interested in why the carrot isn't visible on the plant when it finally grows. We talked a lot about the parts of a plant - roots, stems, leaves, flowers, seeds - and how we can eat the different parts: carrots are roots, lettuces are leaves, peas are seeds, etc. We consulted a non-fiction book, The Seed by Christine Young [affiliate link], to see how the different parts of the plant grow and the life cycle of a plant. 

Then we reread a current fiction favourite, The Pea Blossom by Amy Lowry Poole [affiliate link], which tells the sweet story of a pea from the time it is in its pod to when it grows into a plant with pods and peas of its own, and how it inspires a sick little girl to get better.

Then we read another non-fiction book, Carrots by Gail Saunders-Smith [affiliate link]. In it, we see all the steps involved in how the carrot goes from seed to carrot to dinner. Princess Pea loves to help make dinner and after reading the book she really wanted to help cook some carrots for dinner. Unfortunately, we were out of carrots. So we had a cucumber instead. I taught her how to peel it by herself and she was so excited to be really helping!

Afterwards, we talked about who else likes to eat carrots - bunnies, of course! And we went on a bunny hunt in the garden! I had some bunny cut-outs left over from our Easter Egg Hunt party, so I hid them in the garden and she had to find them - all while hopping like a bunny! (I didn't realize it at the time, but this activity totally reminds me of the rabbit-themed Garden Hunt that Abbie from Greening Sam and Avery guest posted here on Mama Pea Pod last summer.)

Then we had a little treat - a marzipan carrot that the Easter Bunny had left!

Finally, I got her to pick the dandelions from the garden (a great way to do the weeding!) - which she used to form a letter C for carrot!

Want to join the Virtual Kids' Book Club, too?

{Alphabet Mat Jumping School Game}

Princess Pea invented a game she calls 'Jumping School'. She's very proud of it!

The 'teacher' (me) calls out "start" and the 'students' (her) jump around all over the alphabet mat.

When the teacher calls out "stop", the students have to name the letters they're standing on.

Perhaps not the most original game in the world, but she's very proud of it!

Not a bad way to work on letter recognition, and get some active play in at the same time!

You could liven it up with some music if you like, and make it like musical statues!

*If you have an interest in how movement helps with learning, 

you might want to check out one of my favourite blogs, Moving Smart.

Addition: Since writing this post, I've discovered that ''jumping school" is the Hungarian name for hopscotch. So I guess this should really be titled 'Alphabet Mat Hopscotch Game'.

*This post contains affiliate links for your convenience.

{Clara Caterpillar - Dramatic Play at Storytime}

Do you know the book Clara Caterpillar by Pamela Duncan Edwards?

We borrowed it from the library and Princess Pea loved it!

It's full of fun alliteration for 'C' sounds, and the story is about a 'plain' cabbage caterpillar

that ends up saving the day and becoming a hero.

As we were reading it one day, Princess Pea decided that she wanted to be Clara Caterpillar,

so...

she started acting out the story as I was reading it...

Here she is in her egg.

Here she's eating the cabbages.

Little Sister kindly helped her build a chrysalis by wrapping her in tissues.

Then she emerged from the chrysalis as a plain, white butterfly.

Daddy Pea had to step in to be the nasty crow that tries to eat the butterflies.

And finally, Clara Caterpillar saves the day and becomes the butterfly hero!

She had so much fun acting out the story! I think this may become a regular part of our story times!

Shared at: It's Playtime, I Can Teach My Child, The Educators' Spin On It's Love Books

{Graphing for Preschoolers - Animal Vitamins}

About a week after Princess Pea got new animal-shaped vitamins, we started to notice that every day she seemed to end up with an elephant.

It's our morning game: We take out a vitamin and hide it in our hand, while Princess Pea tries to guess which animal it is. There are 14 different animals pictured on the bottle, which she uses as her guide to help her guess.

But for some reason, we just kept getting elephants.

This led to a hypothesis that perhaps there were actually only elephants in the bottle, and the other pictures were 'just for decoration'.

So we decided to make a chart to keep track of which shape she gets each day. I quickly drew up a rough graph over breakfast; I sketched the animals and Princess Pea helped to identify which letter I would need to write as the first letter of each animal's name. Princess Pea has been enthusiastically recording her vitamin shape each day.

So far we've learned that:

There are not only elephants in the bottle.
Of the 14 different animals pictured, she's only gotten 3 different kinds: elephants, monkeys, and tigers.
Since we started graphing, she's gotten 4 monkeys, 3 elephants, and 2 tigers.
Since we started graphing, the shape she's gotten the most has been monkeys.
Of the three types she's had, she shape she's gotten the least has been tigers.
There are 11 animal shapes that she hasn't gotten yet at all.

She's also learned about graphing, predictions, probability, statistics, letter-sound relationships, what gazelles are, and how to write the letter X :-)

Will keep you posted as to our further findings, because I know you're all now on tenterhooks!





Linking to: Living Life Intentionally, It's Playtime, Sunday Showcase, I Can Teach My Child, Sun Scholars