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**

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.

I Spy Shakers (Eyes)

My daughter came out of her nursery class at church yesterday with this little “I Spy” shaker that they had made. I thought it was such a great idea and when her older brothers both wanted a turn, I decided to try to make one. SO SIMPLE! My daughter’s class was using it to talk about EYES but I love it because you can use it for any letter week, any theme, any holiday. Just change up what you put inside to spy!

 

You can probably figure out how to make them, but here’s a quick tutorial and a couple of tips…

You’ll need:

• a clear plastic water bottle
• about 2 cups of rice (or small pasta noodles or popcorn kernels)
• glue
• several small objects to “SPY” inside

*this is where you can get creative … ex: all buttons of different colors for B week, everything red, white & blue for the 4th of July, all things starting with R for R week. You get the idea

1. Empty the water bottle.
2. Remove the label.
3. Let it dry completely inside.

4.    Use a small funnel. Or if you don’t have one like me, roll up a scrap piece of paper into a cone and tape it!

5.  Fill the bottle 1/4 full with rice.
6.  Drop several of the small objects inside

7.  Fill about 1/2 full and add more of the small objects.
8.  Fill about 3/4 full and add the rest of the small objects.
TIP! I found that it’s easier to shake and find the objects if it’s not completely full to the top with rice. Leave an inch or two of empty space at the top.




9. Seal the lid on by putting a thin ring of glue around the inside of the lid, then screw it on the bottle tightly. You don’t want the kids opening it and dumping the rice out!







10.  Make a label for your “I SPY” shaker and include a list of everything to look for inside. It would look even better printed out, but I was in a hurry with this one.
TIP! Make a list of all the items going inside before you put them inside
TIP! Take a picture of the items before putting them inside and put that on the label to make it a picture list for younger kids to “read” themselves.




11.  Tape the label around the bottle and secure with a long strip of packing tape all the way around (kind of laminates the label)

YOU’RE DONE!
It was easy enough for me to make so I’m excited to let my preschooler help make a few others to go along with our different letter themes throughout the year! Usually the making part is the most fun and the best learning experience

Eyes

• Glue E page ... draw a large letter E, trace with glue, and glue on googly eyes

 

• Wear glasses with different colored lenses (I found ours in the party section). I also found these similar ones on Amazon here. The description says “Contains 8 per pack, 2 each of green, blue, pink & yellow.”

• Eyedropper Art
  1. Fill an ice cube tray with water.
  2. Add food coloring in the basic colors to a few spaces.
  3. Give the kids eyedroppers and let them suck up the water and mix it together in the clear spaces.
  4. Then give them a plain paper towel.
  5. Let them suck up the colored water and squirt it onto the towel to make a picture.
• Walk around the house & find your reflection ... in the TV, window, oven, mirror

     

• Use a magnifying glass to read an "I Spy" book. I love these Level 1 Scholastic Readers found hereor at the library. They are much more simplified with pictures than the bigger books. Perfect for preschoolers.

snack idea: chocolate eyeball candies (E week is close enough to Halloween, you can find them in stores) or “eyeball snacks” … slice up a banana and put a raisin in the middle.