Free Preschool Printables

I love when I can find free preschool printables that are easy to use!  We've printed off several pages from different preschool packs made by Homeschool Creations and have really enjoyed them.  You can find all of her free printable packs here.

Here is Isaac playing a Robot Graphing Game from the Robot Preschool Pack and Amy playing with Animal Sorting Cards:

Typing Practice

It seems that any time I try to work on the computer when my son is awake, he wants to be right with me helping out. So we came up with "work" that he can do to: typing his name and the names of the rest of his family members.

This has been so good for his letter recognition skills! And while he used to need me to prompt him with each letter to type, he is now able to say all the letters in his name and at least the beginning letter for the rest of our names.

He still needs lots of supervision and occasional promoting, and our "typing" sessions last a max of 10 minutes each, but it's a time we both enjoy.

Blanket Training

Have you heard of blanket training? I recently was introduced to this through another blog written by a homeschooling mom. The basic concept is to train young children to play in a designated space (on a blanket) with a given toy (or toys) for a set amount of time as a way to create a safe place for the little one to play while you help another child or attend to something else.

Kind of like putting them in a play pen, but without the play pen. Sounds like a good idea to me.

From what I've read, the ideal age to start is before they can crawl, but since that's past in my house with both of my children I'll need to remember patience and persistence if we're going to get anywhere with this one. I'm hoping that having blanket time at home will help in other situations when children need to stay in a small space (such as at church.)

You can read more about blanket training here, here, and here.

Have you tried blanket training? Know anyone who has? I'd love to hear what your takes on it are!

Giant Venn Diagram

To practice categorizing I made a giant Venn Diagram (two large circles that overlap) on a piece of tag board. My son helped me pull out all of his little toys that were white, black or both. Then we set about sorting them. White in one circle, black in another, and those toys that had both black and white were placed in the overlap of the circles.



He caught on to this quickly and was able to complete the project with only a little intervention from me.

Other ideas for sorting with a Venn diagram:

-herbivore, carnivore, omnivore (although using these titles is up to you and the age of your child!)

-Animals are how they move (swim, walk, hop, run). A duck can overlap walk and swim because it does both.

-things that are smooth, poky, or smooth and poky

-other colors besides white and black

You can use actual object, clip art printed out, or sketches drawn by hand.

Sequencing Cards

After seeing sequencing cards on a few other blogs I thought I'd give them a try. My son (who is 32 months) struggled a little at first with them. I would have to put them in order, talking through what I was doing, and then he could repeat the process. We'll keep practicing with these.

Here are the 4 sequence groups I did:

Making cookies:

Building a house:

A person growing up: (This one was the easiest for him)

A Seed growing

What other sequences would you do?

Fun with the ABCs

Although I don't believe that learning the alphabet is a prerequisite for reading, eventually every kids must master the ABCs. I do believe that kids have a natural curiosity and desire to understand the language of letters and writing. Here are some fun ideas to encourage your little one's desire to learn the ABCs.

- Even before your child can write with a pencil, you can teach him or her to write the ABCs. Use a shoe box with an inch or so of sand in the bottom. (If you don't have sand, use wheat flour instead, or spray shaving cream on the table and write in that-it wipes off easily.) Use magnetic letters or blocks as templates.
-magnetic letters + fridge = ABC fun. You can usually find magnetic letters at The Dollar Tree. Buying a few sets will ensure that you can spell many words without running out of letters.
-Another Dollar Tree find that I saw just last week is a foam puzzle of lower case letters. The store has carried these before, and my sister-in-law gave me one last summer. We've loved it! It's great for giving kids exposure to lower case letters since many puzzles only show uppercase.
-Ask you child what words they want to learn. Common ones are their name and the names of family members, favorite toys, and things in the home. Write these words in large letters on paper and tape them to the fridge. Kids can learn these sight words quickly, and you can always add more. What joy they feel when they see one of "their words" somewhere else and recognize it!
-I'm not usually a huge fan of flashcards because I feel that they often take the fun out of learning, as well as taking reading out of context, but if kept as a game, letter flash cards can be fun. My two year old will actually bring me the bag of letter flash cards and ask to play. We usually get through about half the deck with him saying the letter on one side and the name of the picture on the other. He doesn't get them all right, but we just keep right on going until he's ready for a new activity.
-If you're feeling crafty, I love these rag quilt letters for kids to play with (the patters and tutorials are free). I'm working on a set right now, and they really aren't hard. I love that they are something to play with and learn with.

These are just a few ideas...please leave a comment and share what you've found to be fun!

Free Preschool Sample Pack

The company/website 123 Preschool Projects is offering a free sample pack of some of their materials. Although I'm not exactly sure what the pack includes, some of their products include: activities for each day of the month, pre-cut activities, 10-15 different textural materials, instructions, and parent newsletters. The materials and activities are geared for 2-5 year olds.

If you're interested in the free sample pack, go here.

Homeschool Freebies

I just ran across this site that I thought was neat, especially if you are homeschooling or plan to. Everyday the site posts another freebie, such as e-books, audio files, games, samples, etc. Sometimes they are only free for the day, so check back often if this is something that interests you!
Visit the site: Homeschool Freebie of the Day