E is for Elmer the Elephant

E is for Elmer the Elephant!
To see these activities in action, watch them in my Instagram stories, saved under "Ee"

• Elmer the Elephant Letter Roll and Decorate
        **Activity inspired by Katy @ PrekWolfPack
• Using butcher paper or newsprint, draw a BIG Elmer the Elephant (use a sharpie, or I used a homemade India Ink bingo dauber inspired by Cassie Stephens). Be sure to add the grid lines!
• What else you need:
• Letter die – I used blank dice from the Dollar Tree (or there are lots of options here) and added the letters we are working on right now (B-G).
• Square Letter Stickers [to match the letters on the die] – I made my own, using precut square stickers from Online Labels.
  *Usually I will use my Silhouette machine to make custom stickers, but Online Labels has a lot of simple shape sticker options with templates for easy printing (order a free sample to try them out!).
• How to play:
• Roll the letter die, recognize the letter
• Find the matching letter sticker
• Stick it on Elmer to make him a colorful patchwork elephant!

• Elephant peanut Letter Find and Cover (or write)
• Grab a bag of peanuts (with the shells on) at the Dollar Store or grocery store. With a sharpie, write one letter of the alphabet on each peanuts.

• Toss those peanuts in a sensory bin (our go to is a rice/wheat bin) with some jumbo tweezers and letters in their name (we are always practicing spelling our names!)
• Print this traceable alphabet (lowercase on one side, uppercase on the other side), laminate or put in a sheet protector to use with a dry erase marker.
• Use the tweezers to find and pick a peanut out of the bin.
• Recognize the letter on the peanut.
• Find that letter on the traceable page and trace it.

• **If your preschooler can write letters on their own, use lined paper or a blank page that they can write the letters they find.

• Read Elmer’s Friends by David McKee
• Have your preschooler/s bring their favorite stuffed ANIMAL.
• This book talks about one of the best, or most obvious, things about that animal, ie: Polar Bear, you’re the whitest.
• Look at the stuffed animals and work together to decide what is their favorite thing, or the best thing, or most obvious thing about their animal.
• IE: Puppy Dog, you have the cutest bark.
        Unicorn, you have the pointiest horn.
• Then have that same conversation about the kids! What is a special thing, or a favorite thing, or the best thing about them?
• IE: Matt, you’re the silliest.
        Ellie, you have the darkest hair.

• Feed the Elephants – capital and lowercase E sorting
• What you need:
• 2 Paper elephant heads, 1 with a capital E and 1 with a lowercase E. Cut out the nose!
• 2 paper towel tubes (or long craft tubes), wrapped in matching gray paper.
• Peanuts in the shell, with one letter E or e written on them.
• Some kind of bin with a filler (rice, wheat, beans, dry oatmeal, etc).
• 2 containers (I used quart mason jars)
• Tape the craft tubes to the elephant heads, as though it is their trunk, sticking straight out. Then attach those heads to their own container.
• Put the peanuts with the letter Es written on them in a bigger bin with a filler.
• TO PLAY:
• Grab one (or two!) peanuts.
• Recognize the E, if it is capital or lowercase.
• Feed the elephant that matches that E, by putting the peanut in the “truck” (craft tube).

**This activity can also be played by sorting numbers and letters (if you want to use the alphabet peanuts from the activity above, and write numbers on more peanuts).  Elephant head printables are available for free HERE.

• Read Elmer’s Special Day by David McKee
• Decorate these Elephant Masks from First Palette.
• use dot stampers, markers, crayons, water colors, glitter glue, stickers, etc… 
• Cut out and attach to a jumbo craft stick (or punch holes and tie yarn).

• Using the elephant masks, go on an elephant parade. During the parade, act like the animals…
• stomp like an elephant
• slither like a snake
• jump like a kangaroo
• fly like a bird
• etc!

• Elephant Snack time
• Turn on youtube to watch the elephants (we watched the Cincinnati Zoo Home Safari) while you try some shelling peanuts and eating them.
• Discuss what else elephants like to eat!
• Watch the Elephants and what they do.

• Draw an Elephant
• Follow Art For Kids Hub's simple directions to draw your own elephant (Gerald from Piggie & Elephant)!!

Find more E preschool ideas and activities here!

-Kiley

E is for Eyes

• Eye color sorting
• The dollar store has plastic eye balls, usually during Halloween time. Stock up! Try to get different colored eyes if possible!
• Using paper craft rolls (or TP rolls) paint or color them colors to match the eyeball colors. AKA ‘sorting tubes’.
• Tape them to a container, or wall, or other place that your preschooler can drop the eyes in and have them fall through. *we used a big plastic tub.
• Make sorting a fun moving game. 
• Put all the unsorted eyes in a bag, bowl or lay them on the floor on one side of the room and the sorting tubes on the other side. Have your preschooler/s run back and forth sorting.
• Put the different sorting tubes in different places in the room, and the eyes in the middle. Have them pick one eyeball, run to that colored sorting tub and drop the eye in. Run back and get another.
• Lay out the different colored eyeballs and tell your preschooler a color. They will find one eyeball that color and put it in the matching sorting tube. Come back and do it again.

• Play I Spy
• Using our eyes, we played a game of I spy!
• 1 round – only spy a color
• 2 round – only spy shapes
• 3 round – only spy high or low
• etc.

• Circles & Eyeball drawing
• With my Silhouette machine, I cut out TONS of different sized circles on different colored paper.
• I laid them out on the table with some markers and let the kids get creative drawing eyeballs.
• show them different kinds of eyes. Ie: cat eyes, human eyes, scary eyes, sad eyes, sleepy eyes, spider eyes, etc.
• If your “E is for Eyes” preschool is during Halloween season, tape them all over as a decoration (we put ours on the garage door!)

**For more Eye preschool activities, click HERE**

H is for Humpty Dumpty

• Read “Little Lumpty” by Miko Imai 

  This is a great book that my kids and I really enjoyed. Little Lumpty lives in the town of Dumpty, the same town and the same wall that Humpty Dumpty fell from years ago. Little Lumpty is curious and climbs the wall, but how he gets down is another story.

 

• Humpty Dumpty eggs
  1. Use a sharpie marker to draw a simple face on a raw egg.
  2. There’s something about holding a real egg that my kids are fascinated about. We had to learn to be very gentle with the eggs because they can break very easily!
  3. Talk about the oval shape, the smooth, cool texture or anything the kids notice.

• Build Humpty Dumpty’s wall
1. Use duplos or other blocks to build a tall wall.
2. While you’re working, see what other words you can rhyme with TALL and WALL.
3. Place the tall wall inside a glass dish (to catch poor Humpty).
4. Place your Humpty Dumpty egg on top of the wall and sing the Humpty Dumpty rhyme. Let the kids roll Humpty off the wall!! Their reactions are awesome
5. We noticed that just like the rhyme, we “couldn’t put Humpty together again.”

• Scrambled Dumpty
1. My kids enjoyed letting their Humpty Dumpty eggs fall off the wall so much, we ended up with six eggs to scramble for lunch.
2. Let the kids help cut up some ham or turkey deli meat (it will cut with a butter knife).
3. They can help scramble the eggs with a wire whisk.
4. Cook the eggs and serve for lunch!
• Humpty Dumpty Coloring Page
1. While the scrambled eggs are cooking, the kids can color this fun rhyming coloring page.
2. Print here from Carl’s Corner.

• Humpty Puzzle Fixed with Bandaids … how’s that for a title?! My kids actually loved this and couldn’t figure out how it happened
1. Cut out a large oval from white cardstock.
2. Draw a Humpty Dumpty face on the oval.
3. Let the kids help color Humpty. My kids added legs and a tongue.
4. Set Humpty up on a high shelf, ledge or mantel. Make a big deal about “Oh, I hope Humpty doesn’t fall!”
5. Finish the rest of your preschool activities.
6. Sometime during the day (I did this when we left to pick up the boys from school…) be sneaky and cut Humpty into puzzle pieces. Scatter the pieces on the floor.
7. Let the kids discover poor Humpty and suggest they use bandaids to fix him.
8. My kids loved this and kept asking how he fell and broke into pieces!

Halloween {Eyeballs} Day

We have done several fun preschool days leading up to Halloween. Once a week we have our friend preschool and this was one of those days. It’s always more fun with friends!

• Read “The Eye Book” by Dr. Seuss 
  1. This is really a great book. I loved being able to point out the colors of the eyes and all the things we can see with our eyes.  
  2. It’s rhyming text made it easy for the kids to guess which word should come next.

• Mirror Fun
  1. Give each of the kids a small mirror.
  2. Have them observe their eyes closely and tell you what they see!
• Preschool Journal Page
  • Practice writing Ee and “Eyes”
  • Put eyeball stickers all over page.

• Squishy eyeball bags … a fun sensory activity that the kids really enjoyed. 
  1. Fill a plastic baggie 1/4 full of clear, light corn syrup.
  2. Add 1-2 drops of green food coloring and squish together until mixed. 
  3. Add several large googly eyes.
  4. Zip and tape the bag closed.
  5. Let the kids shmoosh the eyeballs around. Have them describe what they feel. We had great words … juicy, squishy, cold, slimy, gooey.

  

• Monster Eyeball Game … this game has two parts. We took our time because the kids were enjoying it and doing a great job!
  1. PART ONE:
     • Give the kids a paper sectioned into 6 squares.
     • Print and cut out shapes in different colors.
     • NOTE: I could have had the kids cut out the shapes themselves, but didn’t want to totally overwhelm them. So I just had them cut out one shape from the last color.
     • Have them glue one shape to each section.
     • Use a crayon to add arms and legs to the shapes. I told them not to add the eyes yet!
  2. PART TWO:
     • Beforehand, squish several (15-20) colored googly eyes into a ball of model magic (or playdoh) … I just love using model magic right now.
     • Have the kids use their fingers to find the eyeballs in the model magic.
     • As they find each colored eyeball, have them place it on the matching monster shape.
     • Continue until all of the eyeballs have been found and the monsters have lots of eyes!
     • TIP: we noticed that we could tell if there were still eyeballs hiding by listening for the googly eyes rattling in the model magic!

 

• Eyeball Hunt … this ended up being more fun than I had planned and I wish I had better pictures. I’ve realized that it’s more fun for the kids to help do the prep work sometimes. I was going to have the monster drawn and ready for them, but decided to let them do it … and they loved it!
  1. On a large cardboard box, draw the outline of a monster. Not scary of course. Add antennae, lots of arms and legs, eyes, crazy hair.
  2. Give the kids washable markers and have them color the monster!! Encourage them to add anything they’d like. My kids added teeth, polka-dots, hair and lots of color.
  3. Mom’s Turn! Use a knife to cut holes where the eyes are. Now you’re ready for the game.
  4. Hide ping pong eyeballs (found at the dollar store at Halloween time!) around the room or outside.
  5. Have the kids find the eyeballs and poke them through the eyeholes. They stuck just enough that the kids had to pop them inside.
  6. They loved it!

• Eyeball Snack
  1. Cut bananas into slices. Give the kids a box of raisins.
  2. Have them place one raisin on each banana slice to look like an eyeball.
  3. Place two candy eyeballs in a cup of pudding.
  4. I found these candy eyeballs at Michaels (Halloween time). You can also get them from Amazon here.

Earth Day. It’s the Little Things.

• Read “Earth Day” by Margaret McNamara … I love these Ready-to-Read, Level 1 books for younger kids.
  1. This book is a cute story with a great message. Emma cannot think of a big idea to save the Earth, so her Dad helps her think of many small things they can do. I love all of the simple, practical ideas that I can do with my kids!

 

• Recycle Activity & Game!
  1. Gather five empty boxes.
  2. Print the labels (above) and trace them!
  3. Print out the recyclables page (above) and cut apart.
  4. Help your preschooler decide which label each picture matches & glue it on!
  5. Attach these labels to each box.
  6. GAME: If weather permits, “litter” the backyard with lots of (clean) recyclable items. Let the kids practice picking up the litter and recycling it!
  7. Continue recycling from now on!

• Read “Fancy Nancy: Every Day Is Earth Day” by Jane O’Connor … I have to be honest and say, I have two boys first, so this is the first Fancy Nancy book I’ve ever read. I’m hooked. They are so cute.
  1. I loved the little sayings in this book, “Less than a mile, bike in style” and “Please take note. Always bring a tote.”
  2. After reading, the activities below are inspired by the ideas in the book!

• Decorate reusable tote bags!
  1. Use fabric markers, like these, and let your kids decorate a blank canvas tote bag to their little heart’s content (canvas totes are available in most craft stores or from Amazon above.)
  2. You may want to put a piece of cardboard inside the bag to prevent bleeding.
  3. If you don’t want to mess with fabric markers, you could always have the kids draw a picture, then copy it onto transfer paper and iron it on your tote!
  4. Take these to the library or the grocery store the next time you go!

• Turn it off! … a fun little reminder to save water and energy around the house.
  1. Print the reminder page above, cut apart and laminate.
  2. Talk about how we can save energy by:
     • turning off the light when we leave a room
     • turning off the TV
     • turning off the computer
     • turning off the water while we brush our teeth
     • turning off the water after we get a drink
  3. Go on a hunt around the house and place a “Don’t forget to turn me off!” reminder near each light switch, sink, TV and computer.
  4. Make an extra effort to turn things off and save energy!
• Have a fancy energy-saving dinner (or lunch or snack) … just like Fancy Nancy in the book!
  1. Turn off the lights and have a candlelit dinner.
  2. Use cloth napkins instead of paper ones.
  3. Serve foods you purchased at a local farmer’s market.