Y is for Yo Yo

• Yo Yo Guessing Game
  1. Place a real yo yo in a bowl and cover with a cloth.
  2. Let the kids put their hand in the bowl and describe one thing they feel … maybe it’s hard, or round, or they feel a string. Can they describe what we do with this object?
  3. OPTIONAL: try this with a few other objects or toys first and save the yo yo for last.

• Play with real yo yos.
• NOTE: my kids had a hard time getting the real yo yos to work, but the dollar store had the kind that retract by themselves that were much more fun for them.

• Yo Yo Counting
  1. Cut out large numbers 1-5 from colorful paper and pin them to the wall.
  2. Have the kids write the letter Y on several dot stickers (we called them yo yo stickers!)
  3. Then, I yo-yo-ed (um, probably not a real word!) and had the kids count how many times the yo yo went down.
  4. Whatever number they counted, they ran over and stuck one of their yo yo dot stickers to the matching number cutout.
  5. Repeat!

 

• Make water balloon yo yos … this was the best part of the day. Even I had fun playing with these!
  1. Fill a small balloon with water and tie. I didn’t fill it very full, then blew a little bit of air inside.
  2. Attach a rubber band handle (just cut a large rubber band to make a long elastic and tie to the balloon)
  3. Bounce it up and down like a yo yo!

 

Y is for Yes!

 

• Read “Yes Day!” by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• How to Say Yes
  1. Teach the kids several ways to say “Yes” in other languages:
     • oui (wee) in French
     • si (see) in Spanish
     • ja (yah) in German
     • sea (shah) in Irish
     • hai (hi) in Japanese
     • da (dah) in Russian
     • aye (eye) in Scottish
  2. Read the story again, but have the kids use these new words to answer “Yes!” in another language!

• Read “No, David!” by David Shannon … a fun book to show opposite of yes!
• Yes or No Game
  1. Teach the kids the sign language for YES and NO. Click the link for a simple video tutorial.
  2. Ask them several yes or no questions and have them answer you in sign language.
  3. Or write YES on a paper and NO on another paper. Put these on the wall.
  4. Ask your preschooler a yes or no question and have her run and touch the answer, yes or no!

• Read “Yes” by Jez Alborough … it’s bedtime for Bobo. The majority of the text is Yes or No and the pictures explain the rest.

 

• Play our version of Hedbanz … this game is recommended for 6-years-old and up, but we modified it and this is our new favorite game. My kids love it.
  1. Use any set of simple, first words flashcards. Or draw some!
  2. Roll a piece of sticky tape (I love packing tape) and stick it to your forehead. Yep, my kids thought this was great
  3. Without looking, choose a card and stick it to your forehead.
  4. Ask yes or no questions to figure out “what you are”!
  5. Example: Am I an animal? NO! Am I a food? YES! Am I a fruit? YES! Am I orange? NO! Am I an apple? YES!
  6. NOTE: I suggested some questions if they got stuck. Very fun game!
• A New Tradition: Yes Day … I won’t tell my kids about this, but after reading these wonderful articles here and here, I am going to pick one day a week to be our “Yes” day. I’m excited to see how many times my kids faces (and my own) light up when instead of saying “no” or “maybe later,” I consistently say “Yes! OK! Sure! Let’s do it!”

Y is for Yellow

• Read “In My New Yellow Shirt” by Eileen Spinelli
  1. A little boy receives a new yellow shirt for his birthday and imagines all of the different things he can be wearing his yellow shirt … a lion, a daffodil, a firefly.
  2. As you read the title, point to each of the words.
  3. Can your preschooler point out the word “Yellow”
  4. Point out all of the yellow things you see as you read the story!

  

• Yellow Shirt Cut & Paste
  1. Cut out a simple shirt shape from yellow cardstock.
  2. Look through magazines to find yellow things.
  3. Let the kids practice cutting out any yellow things they like and glue them to their yellow shirt.

 

• Twinkle, Twinkle Yellow Star … my kids loved this. We played it over and over again. I love these washable paints.
  1. Paint a wooden star cut out with yellow paint and let dry. Or simply cut out a star from yellow cardstock. I just traced a star cookie cutter on cardboard and cut it out.
  2. TIP: Paint your star before reading the story and doing the yellow shirt activity so it will be dry!
  3. Write your preschooler’s name on their star.
  4. Hide the stars somewhere in the room.
  5. Sing the following song to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star”
  6. Have the kids search for the star with their name on it!

• Yellow Snack
  1. Fill dessert cups with vanilla pudding.
  2. Add sliced bananas and a little dollop of whipped cream!

• Yellow Storytime
  1. Have your preschooler look through the bookshelf and pull out all of the yellow books.
  2. It’s great color practice and makes storytime a little more fun

Y is for Yarn

• Read “Farmer Brown Shears His Sheep: A Yarn About Wool” by Teri Sloat … I loved this rhyming story about how wool becomes colorful yarn! The sheep are cold and want their wool back, so they follow their wool through the entire process until Farmer Brown realizes they’re cold and knits them new sweaters.
• Before you read
1. Pass around a soft ball of yarn.
2. Ask the kids to describe it.
3. Cut off a length of yarn for each of them and let them unravel the yarn.

• How a sheep is sheared … we watched part of this video and my kids were totally in awe.
1. Explain that shearing sheep is just like giving them a haircut. The clippers look just like the ones we have for cutting hair. Well, pretty similar.
2. We noticed how the sheep go from being big and fluffy, to little and skinny after their haircut.
3. Sometimes the sheep are stubborn and don’t want to move, so they had to carry them over to the shearer.
• Sandpaper Yarn Art … inspired by Polwig.com
1. Give the kids a sheet of sandpaper. I’d recommend anything 100 grit or lower (rougher), the yarn will stick better.
2. Have the kids cut different lengths of yarn.
3. Use the yarn pieces to make letters or pictures on their sandpaper!

• Simple yarn weaving … I couldn’t believe how well my 4-year-old did with this. A little trickier for my 2-year-old, but still fun.
1. Cut a piece of cardboard about 4”x6”
2. Cut 5-6 slits about 1/2” long along the top and bottom of the cardboard.
3. Wrap the yarn around the board and through the slits. Tape each end so it will not loosen.
4. Cut several lengths of ribbon. We used a few different kinds.
5. Show the kids how to go over and under, over and under the yarn to weave the ribbon.
6. Repeat, this time going under then over, under then over.
7. Use a piece of tape (we used packing tape) to tape back all of the loose ends.
8. My 4-year-old did a great job and he was very proud of his creation!

Yogurt

• Try different flavors of yogurt.
• Sprinkle fruit, granola or sprinkles on vanilla yogurt.
• Make YOGURT POPS
  1. Mix 2 cups yogurt, 1 1/2 cups orange juice and 1 tsp. vanilla in a bowl.
  2. Pour into a popsicle mold, cups, or an ice cube tray, cover with foil and insert a popsicle stick or toothpicks.
  3. Freeze and enjoy!
• Go out for frozen yogurt as a special treat!
• If you give a cup of yogurt to your 1-year-old, you might end up with something like this …

Yo Yo

• Make a Paper Yo Yo
  1. Draw or trace a circle on a piece of yellow (or whatever color) paper.
  2. Let your preschooler practice cutting it out.
  3. Practice writing the letters Y-O-Y-O on the circle. My 3-year-old loves to trace dot letters right now, so that’s what we did.
  4. Tape a length of string on the back and hang up your Yo Yo!
• Play with Yo Yos
  1. I picked up a couple different yo yos at the dollar store.
  2. One was a light-up yo yo and the other was a bouncy yo yo. It would bounce down, then retract the string all by itself. Much better for young kids!
  3. We had fun trying them out and even more fun when they broke … go figure with dollar store toys … and we got to take them apart to see what was inside!

Yellow Day

Having a yellow day during Y week is simple and fun. Here are some things we did for yellow day.

• Wear yellow clothes
• Yellow Walk
1. Go for a walk and find yellow flowers.
2. We also saw bright yellow birds in the tree!
3. If you collect a few dandelions, pop the flowers off, then slice the stems at either end and float in a sink of cold water. The stems will curl up and look so neat!
• Have vanilla pudding and banana slices for snack.
• Find anything yellow in your house. Wyatt loved running into his room to find the yellow toys and bringing them out to show me.
• Play with yellow playdoh, make Ys
• Go on a yellow hunt. Use a notebook and yellow crayon. Draw pictures of the yellow things you find.
• Try this song to the tune of “Old McDonald Had a Farm”…

I see something that is yellow

Do you see it too?

I see something that is yellow

Hop there if you do

With a  hop, hop here, And a hop, hop there.

Hurry up! Hop it up!

Hop as fast as you dare!

I see something that is yellow.

Do you see it too?

Yucky vs. Yummy

This was pretty fun.

We had a Yucky vs. Yummy taste test for our snack time!

1. I got about 8-10 different, new foods from the bulk section at Winco that we had never tried before.
2. Then we tried each one to see which ones we liked (YUMMY!) and which ones we didn’t like (YUCK!).
3. I made a simple chart to keep track of who liked what. You could use tally marks or write “yes” in the box or a sticker. Feel free to use the chart below.

Some of the things we tried were: dried mangos, dried pineapple, roasted soy beans, chocolate-covered gummy bears (yes, seriously), wasabi peas (sorry but I even spit that one out), dried apricots, toffee peanuts and chocolate-covered bananas.
Very fun snack time!
*I also got some different kinds of cheese to try for another snack time. We tried goat cheese, Havarti, smoked gouda, mozzarella, and asiago.

Mr. Yuk

I love pulling out the Mr. Yuk stickers for Y week. I can’t remember exactly where I got these but I have a stack of them and I know they were free. I looked it up online and if you just google “Mr. Yuk stickers” and your state you should be able to find them for free from the Poison Control Center. It also said that you can ask at your local pharmacy for free stickers.
My 3-year-old can get into any child-proof, sealed anything, including vitamins and medicine. So this was good for us to talk about again. I put 3-4 cleaners on the table (Windex, 409, Pledge, whatever you have under your sink) and 3-4 healthy foods (banana, crackers, honey, yogurt cup).
I showed him the Mr. Yuk stickers and asked him what the sticker face was saying (it’s a pretty obvious “YUK” face.) We talked about how some things are good for our bodies and some things are YUCK and can hurt our bodies and make us sick. I had him pick out either a healthy item or a YUK item and we talked about how we should never put these in our mouths.
He loved putting a “Mr. Yucky” sticker on each cleaner. Then we looked for any others under the sink and in the bathroom. We even put one on the Neosporin and Tylenol bottle. Even though we use them when we’re sick, we should never open them unless Mom or Dad gives it to us when we’re sick. I think he really got the idea that those things are not good for us.

Yellow Yarn

• Glue Y Page … Start your week by gluing yellow yarn to your letter Y alphabet page. I had my 3-year-old help measure the yarn to fit on the three Y lines, then he cut them.
• Cutting Yarn
  1. My 3-year-olds favorite activity was actually using his little scissors to cut, cut and cut little pieces of yellow yarn.
  2. It’s great cutting practice for those little fingers.
  3. Then we glued some of them onto our letter Y.

• Make a yarn puff ball. So easy and the little ball you end up with can be used for all sorts of games. Image from Art Projects for Kids.
  1. Cut a piece of cardboard about 2”x4” (the wider your cardboard, the bigger your puff ball)
  2. Start winding the yarn around and around the cardboard. Not too tightly or it’s hard to get off. The more you wind, the thicker and puffier the ball will be.
  3. Carefully slide the yard off, keeping it looped.
  4. Tie a piece of yard tightly around the middle and knot it a couple of times.
  5. Cut all of the loops and you have a puffy yard ball!