Printable

Christmas Tree Counting Printable

I can’t wait to share my activity ideas and schedule that I am setting up for my little one, as well as another great giveaway on the way!

In the meantime, here is a freebie that I made for your little one to practice drawing sets of objects. Don’t just hand your little one a set of crayons/markers and say “get busy.”

First, lay the Christmas Tree Counting Printable on the table with something small and colorful (like skittles) that you and your little one can use to practice counting sets together.

Then, point to one of the trees and show your little one how you might “decorate the tree.” “Ooh, this tree has the number nine on the star, I’m going to decorate the tree with nine colorful skittles! One, two, three, four, …..etc.”

This is a great way to model the directions by showing your little one how to recognize the number and count out that given quantity, AND by modeling one-to-one correspondence (counting one object per given number).

After you have your little one complete the hands-on round of the printable, on their own (assisting and prompting where necessary), then explain that instead of skittles, this time they will draw the number of ornaments (circles, candy canes, snowflakes, or whatever shape he/she wants). Before they begin, model an example of how to do this on a separate sheet of paper. And that’s it; now you have purposefully used a printable 🙂

December 15, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

October Calendar!

Are we already a week into the month of October? Believe it or not, I am just now making and printing my October Calendar to post in my kitchen. So, go back and read my September Post about Weather Tracking for some of my thoughts on teachable opportunities with Weather Tracking and try to start October’s tracking (a little late thanks to yours truly).

Here is your October Calendar

If you would like to buy the entire year of this theme, check them out HERE!

October 6, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

Real or Make-Believe Stories

Little ones have the BEST imaginations; yet, some things that we define as make-believe may seem like a real possibility in a child’s creative little mind.

Still, it is important to start having “real” versus “make-believe” conversations with our little ones…..PLEASE don’t take this post out of context and start breaking their hearts about different heroes they may have that may or may not exist 😉

I am talking about asking questions about books and stories like “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”….

Asking questions like: “Could that really happen in real life? Can animals talk? Do bears live in cabins in the forest and act like people?” Etc.

IF your little one says “yes” say “hmmmm….I wonder if we could observe bears in the real habitat/home they live in to see how they really are.” Go to youtube.com and search for different real-life bear videos to show your little ones the reality THEN ask questions like: “What are some things that are the same? What are some things that are different?”

A great way to make a measurable chart contrasting real and make-believe is to

1) Print the freebie I made for you: Real vs make-believe printable (You could also make/use a venn diagram)

2) Cut out pictures from magazines and place them in the column under the category it falls into.

3) Talk about it….ask questions to get your little one to figure it out logically!

This teaches your little one critical thinking skills, introduces the concept of fiction vs. nonfiction, and allows your little one the opportunity to build on oral vocabulary and express their ideas about their observations.

September 26, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

What’s Missing?

Children can be really good at “rote” memory – they can sing their ABC’s all day, but that doesn’t always mean that they know their alphabet inside and out.

It is also very common for a little one to mistake a letter for a number or a number for a letter.

So, I made these ABC and 123 sentence strips using di-cut letters (hand-written looks just as good) so that I can help my little ones use their ABC skills to figure out which letter OR number is missing from the alphabet/counting order.

This is an activity that you want your little one using their problem solving skills to figure out. So, don’t fuss if they sing their ABC’s to get to the letter in order to figure it out (that is a resource for them). This is good practice for your little one to start recognizing letters and numbers with increasing observation.

I have made another FREEBIE for you, a printable for your little ones to practice as well. It is a fill in the blank of upper and lower case letters and one fill in the blank of counting. These are activity sheets with only ONE letter/number missing at a time. But I will make two letter, and three letter missing fill in the blanks soon. So, for now, start with the freebies below and see how well your little one can fill in those blanks! 🙂

ABC fill in the blank

123 fill in the blank

September 13, 2011 by Jessica | 0 comments

Simple Number Search Round 2

The other day I posted a template of the numbers 1-5 so that your little one could carefully concentrate on, and color, one number at a time. Well, I wasn’t lying when I told ya I’d post numbers 6-9 soon, and I even threw in “0” just because I love ya!

So, here are the simple number search “puzzles”:

Simple Number Search 6-9,0

If you didn’t get a chance to read the first Number Search Post for a little more explanation and directions- click HERE

And just a reminder….the “answer sheet” will look something like this: