Q Mini Book

Q is a great week to make one of these Mini Books from First School! I’m posting this now because they’re available for every letter. They’re great little extras … simple, printable, ready-to-go. Great tracing, cutting, gluing, letter & sound practice! Love them.  

1. Print out all three pages.
2. The first is the worksheet. The stickers at the bottom will be used to glue into the mini book.
3. Cut apart the mini book pages. Stack them and staple to make your book.
4. Color each of the stickers, then cut them out (great cutting practice!)
5. Have your preschooler match the sticker to it’s correct page in the book. Glue it!
6. Read your new Q book together.

Nursery Rhyme ABCs

I absolutely LOVE this!

 

Education.com has free nursery rhyme worksheets to download. What I think it so great is that they have matched up a nursery rhyme with each letter of the alphabet. As you read through, you and your preschooler can identify the letter you’re working on. I love that the font is clear and simple, they show both the upper and lower-case letter examples on the page and they’re cute!

   

1. Click here to download and print each worksheet.
2. Slip each one into a clear plastic page protector (keep them altogether in a binder or 3-prong folder)
3. Use a dry erase marker to circle, underline or trace the letters.
4. Count the letters and write the number at the bottom.
5. Erase and repeat later.
6. Love it! Learning letters and nursery rhymes at the same time!

Q-Tips

• Glue Q page … Draw a large Q on your paper. Line the Q with glue, then slightly bend the Q-tips so they fit around the curved letter Q.

 

• Q-tip painting! … This was actually a lot of fun and I loved how bright the colors were.
  1. We used a muffin tin and I let my 3-year-old pick which colors he wanted for each spot. I use the Crayola Washable paints.
  2. Add a little bit of water (maybe 3-4 Tbls) and mixed them up with a Q-tip.
  3. Use the Q-tip as a paint brush. They worked great for quite a while, then started to get a little soggy, so we just switched those out for new Q-tips.
  4. We painted letter Qs and other colorful pictures. They turned out great!
• Guessing Letters
  1. Wet the end of a Q-tip.
  2. Draw a letter on your preschoolers palm and see if they can guess what letter you drew.
• Colors Science Experiment
  1. Fill a shallow plate with milk.
  2. Drop 2-3 drops of yellow, red, and blue food coloring in each corner of the plate (you know, just spaced apart like a triangle)
  3. Dip a Q-tip in liquid dish soap. Let it soak up a generous amount.
  4. Then dip the Q-tip right in the middle of the plate in the milk.
  5. Watch what happens!

Snack Idea: My 3-year-old calls them “Q Snacks”.

1. Use a round Ritz cracker for the round part of the Q.
2. Add a piece of cheese sliced in a skinny rectangle for the Q tail.

Quarters

• Examine a quarter.
  1. Notice the face on the front (George Washington) and the eagle on the back (presidential coat of arms).
  2. Learn a little about the history of the quarter here.

 

• Earn Quarters
  1. During Q week, we started earning quarters each day by doing our morning and evening chores.
  2. We made this simple chart (our goal was to earn enough to go see Toy Story 3 in the theater and buy a treat there … you could earn a little less and get a treat at Dairy Queen).
  3. We simply stuck them on our chart with a rolled up piece of tape each time they earned one.
  4. I put them in columns of four on purpose. We learned that 4 quarters makes $1.00 and it was easy to count them that way. It took about a month to earn them all, but it was great for the kids!
• Set a bowl with quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies on the table. Use a muffin tin to sort the money. Quarters in one cup. Dimes in another. Pennies in another. It’s harder than you’d think at first. Show the kids the bumpy vs. smooth edges. Notice the colors and sizes.
• Coin Rubbings …
  1. Hot glue several quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies to a piece of cardstock.
  2. Give the kids a piece of white paper and a crayon.
  3. Show them how to lightly rub the crayon (on it’s side works best) to reveal the money underneath.
• Quarter Machines … For a little bit of fun, if you happen to be at the grocery store with your kids, give them a quarter and show them how the candy machines work (we never do this with our kids, so they would be totally amazed and excited)  I would tell my kids it is just a special Q week treat.
• 10 Quarters
  1. Set out a pile of 10 quarters
  2. Line them up and count them.
  3. Put them in sets of 2 and count them.
  4. Divide them into 2 sets (5 quarters in each).

Good Night Gorilla (or Quiet)

We actually used these ideas during Q week for Quiet, but you could use them for G week as well. We had a fun time with this great book "Goodnight Gorilla" by Peggy Rathmann. There are not many words in the book but the kids love it. The gorilla sneaks around behind the zookeeper and opens up all the animal's cages as he's saying good night to them.

   

 

• Paint your own gorillas!
  1. After reading the story, we painted our own gorillas. The little wood cutouts were at Michael's for $0.29 each and the little foam brushes worked perfectly.
  2. Once they dried we added googly eyes (googly eyes make everything more fun) and a popsicle stick. Then we used our little gorillas to read through the story again.
• Zookeeper Locks & Keys
  1. My 3-year-old’s favorite part was when I pulled out the locks and keys. The gorilla in the story opens the locked cages with keys, so I collected a few locks that have color coordinating keys.
  2. Once he figured out how to get the key in and turn it the right way, he absolutely loved doing it over and over again.

Snack Idea: Bananas! (If you notice in the pictures, the little mouse is pulling a banana around with him on every page!)

QUILT

• Easy Mini Quilt ... give each of the kids a square piece of colorful paper. Supply small fabric shapes and let the kids glue the fabric to their square. When dry, punch holes in each corner and tie them all together with yarn to resemble a quilt.

snack idea: Cracker Quilt ... give kids 4 square crackers, arrange in a square. Let the kids spread jam on 2 diagonal crackers and place a banana slice on the jam. Spread peanut butter on the remaining 2 diagonal crackers and place a lunch meat strip on top. Enjoy your edible quilt
(The Mailbox, 2006-2007 Yearbook, Preschool, pg. 69 ... has cute picture recipe cards that the kids can "read" and follow the directions)