E is for elephant

We made a letter E into an elephant, read lots of great elephant books and made a handprint elephant. Some good books are: "Elephant on my Roof" by Erin Harris and "Half of an Elephant" by Gusti.

F is for Fall

I love Fall! And there are so many things to do with the theme of Fall! A great book about trees and fall is "Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf" by Lois Ehlert.



Pumpkin Pie Playdough from http://gironlife.blogspot.com/

F is for float

Disney Winnie the Pooh book called "Does it Float?" talks about things that float. Then you can have an experiment to see what things do float and write down your findings. We tested all different things at our neighborhood pond. We also made a raft out of popsicle sticks and floated all over the pond.

E is for Earth

Some good books for this subject are: Ecomazes by Roxie Munro, The Whole Green World by Johnston. We made a lowercase e to look like the earth but coloring it green and blue (http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/category/lowercase-e). We also made an earth out of a styrofoam ball. And made a collage of all the beauties of the earth we are thankful for.

More earth day ideas can be found here: http://www.thecraftycrow.net/2010/04/earth-day-crafts-treats-roundup.html

F is for Fish

For great games and learning activities that have to do with fish: http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2009/11/prek-letter-f.html

Some wonderful books I would love to have in our library are:
"Anansi Goes Fishing" retold by Erica Kimmel and "The Rainbow Fish" by Marcus Pfister. Both have great morals and are cute stories with good pictures.

Make a rainbow fish with glitter and aluminum foil. Talk about friendship.

Another idea to go with One Fish, Two Fish : http://www.obseussed.com/2010/08/1-fish-2-fish-interactive-printable.html

B is for Bird

For B we talked about birds. We read some nonfiction and fiction about birds that I got from the library. Then we made this picture using branches from our tree and pictures of birds from a magazine. We also made bird feeders from pinecones. This website has a cute idea for binoculars to go bird watching: http://www.amazingmess.com/2010/11/binocular-craft-for-birdwatching.html

Intro to preschool/alphabet

For our first day of preschool we read some fun alphabet books like "Alphabet Adventure" by Susan Woods. Then we made a cover for our alphabet book that we will be filling up with all the fun crafts we do for each letter. I let my son use my alphabet stamps to decorate the cover. And then we made sugar cookie alphabet cutouts with lots of sprinkles. Fun!

C is for caterpillar

We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" with the help of my magnet pictures from www.dltk.com. You can also find some great ideas, games, printouts from www.confessionsofahomeschoooler.blogspot.com. We also made a yummy fruit salad using the fruit from the story. Then we created our own caterpillars out of egg cartons.

I love this idea:  http://www.readingconfetti.com/2012/04/feed-very-hungry-caterpillar-printable.html

C is for chameleon

A great book to go along with colors and C is "The Mixed-Up Chameleon" by Eric Carle. They have some great ideas to go along with the book here: http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/09/once-upon-book-mixed-up-chameleon.html

This is another wonderful site to go along with the book: http://gironlife.blogspot.com/2010/05/preschool-corner-mixed-up-chameleon.html

We made these two crafts and talked about the book and how we all have different talents. On the back of the mixed-up chameleon craft we listed my son's talents.

Another wonderful book about chameleons is "Chameleon, Chameleon" by Joy Cowley.

Pop Up Pancakes

http://www.makeandtakes.com/pop-up-pancakes

Peaches and Cream Muffins

Peaches n’ Cream Muffins

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup canola oil
1 large egg
1/3 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup fresh peaches, peeled and chopped

Cream cheese filling:

6 tablespoons cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Cinnamon and sugar-for sprinkling on muffins before baking

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or grease well. Set aside.

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder, and cinnamon. Whisk in the sugar.

3. In a separate medium bowl or in a large glass measuring cup, mix canola oil, egg, milk, and vanilla together. Use a fork or whisk and combine well.

5. Incorporate the wet ingredients into flour mixture. Add slowly and gently stir, you don’t want to over mix. The batter will be thick. Carefully fold in the peaches.

6. In a small bowl, mix together the cream cheese, lemon zest, sugar, and cinnamon. Mix until creamy and smooth. Fill each muffin cup half way with batter. Next, add a small spoonful of cream cheese filling to each muffin cup. Cover the cream cheese filling with the remaining batter. Sprinkle each muffin with cinnamon and sugar.

7. Bake muffins for 17-20 minutes, or until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove the muffins from the pan and let cool on a cooling rack.

Makes 6 large muffins

Homemade Volcanoes

http://www.makeandtakes.com/homemade-volcanos-erupting-red-hot-lava

Lower case d

http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/06/now-i-know-my-abcs-d-is-for-daisy.html

D is for Dinosaur

Cute D dinosaur craft at Totally Tots: http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2009/11/now-i-know-my-abcs-d-is-for-dinosaur.html

Other activities can be found here: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TotallyTots/~3/wlPe--DXcDc/once-upon-book-all-aboard-dinotrain.html

I let my son pick out his favorite dinosaurs to color from this great dinosaur coloring page site

We also made a diaroma out of a shoe box and various things like egg carton bumps for volcanoes so he can play with his dinosaurs in it.

A book that my boys really liked was: "Science Works Monster Bones: The Story of a Dinosaur Fossil" by Jacqui Bailey and Matthew Lilly.

L is for lollipop

Cute lollipop to make: http://totallytots.blogspot.com/2010/09/now-i-know-my-abcs-l-is-for-lollipop.html

C is for cloud

Our Cloud Mobile- he counted out the cottonballs for each cloud from 1-5.

Little Tots has some great activities to do with the book "Little Cloud" by Eric Carle, including crafts, treat and games. They're found here: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TotallyTots/~3/ll5-3zkhYY0/once-upon-book-little-cloud.html

We also painted clouds with a sponge and white paint, made a cloud mobile, talked about how clouds dump rain with the help of a sponge and a container of water. I also made a flannel board story out of "It Looked Like Spilled Milk" and my son helped me tell the story a few times.

Another very cute rain cloud mobile is found here:http://www.thecraftycrow.net/2010/02/rain-cloud-mobile.html

C is for colors

We learned about colors today and had fun making a color wheel and talking about how colors can be mixed to make new colors. Then we talked about my son's favorite color and made a collage of things that were that color. I also like this circle color collage found at http://redbirdcrafts.blogspot.com/2009/04/circle-collage-garland.html. Finally we made musical colors by following this post: https://nettleknits.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/colourful-music/

Another site with great ideas to go with the book Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh is found here: http://www.amazingmess.com/2010/10/color-mixing-experiment.html

http://www.amazingmess.com/2010/10/color-mixing-in-plastic-bag.html

Paper Mache Town

Some rainy day my boys would love to make these paper mache buildings to create their own town. Looks like it would take a lot of time... http://www.artforsmallhands.com/2010/06/papier-mache-buildings.html