I’m sure some of you have already had your kiddos write a wish list and a letter to Santa, but I haven’t yet!
So, today’s printable is the wish-list templates. Tomorrow’s is a Santa Template… both sets Free! 🙂
The first page of the template has the numbers 1 to 3 because I made a decision early-on that I was going to give each of my kids three gifts every year (just like the Wisemen 🙂 ).
But, I also included a blank template for all of you big spenders.
I was itching to do some q-tip painting with the kids but I didn’t feel like googling to find a good turkey art template.
So,
I made three turkey art templates –
1) I made a plain template that you can color, decorate with feathers, glue and glitter, etc. Or, just use any other material you have in your house that you don’t have to shop for.
2) The next template is a turkey that is easy to fill with larger circular materials like pom poms (cotton balls), dot paint, big circle stickers, etc.
3. And, my inspiration for making these… the turkey with feathers perfect for painting with q-tips. Small incentive stickers also fit in these circles if you want to use it more that once!
[Click HERE to become a member to get unlimited access to ALL The Mommy Teacher Printables including this one!
OR CLICK HERE to purchase these Turkey Templates individually from my TeachersPayTeachers Store.]
And here is what some of our time looked/sounded like:
First, I asked Sean Patrick which turkey he wanted to paint first. He told me that he wanted to paint with dot paint first.
So, we put the template with the large circles in front of us first. He picked “blue” paint and I encouraged him to fill in the circles on each tail feather, one at a time. I demonstrated how he could do this on my template in front of me quickly.
(Notice we have already discussed colors, shapes, parts of a turkey, and one-to-one correspondence; your children are learning even when you don’t realize it).
Then, I asked him questions like “How many more do you have left to fill your whole turkey?” “Can you find any feathers that have three circles?” “Which feather has the most circles?” And “What do you think this turkey would say about his new blue tail feathers?” (That last question was just for fun but it gets him thinking outside the box.”
Before moving on to the next template, I encouraged him to color in the other parts of the turkey so he learned/reinforced (beak, wattle, feet, feathers, wings, and I had to google “snood” – the part on top of the head – because I had no clue what it was called).
For the q-tip painting we worked on patterns. I always treat patterns as if I have never taught him about what they are by saying something like, “Oooooooh let’s make a pattern. A pattern is something that repeats itself over and over and over and over and over again.”
“If mommy makes a red and orange pattern I would sing my song red-orange-red-orange-red-orange the whole way through so that I don’t forget my pattern or what comes next.”
If he doesn’t want to do a pattern I don’t stress about it…. this is his time to express himself. I’m just close enough to build on what he is learning.
Finally we did some finger painting to experience the sensory exploration of smearing paint all over, and the science exploration of seeing colors mix together.
Most importantly, we had fun! Isn’t that what it is really about after all?
I’ll never forget the day when I was packing lots of monkey puppet printables and crayons on our way to Kennilworth park and my husband said “Jess, no kids are going to be coloring while they are at the park.” And as I recall I said something along the lines of “We’ll see.”
Mmm Hmm… I think you know where this is headed…
Every last printable was colored and taken home, of course.I set it up on a picnic table under a covered awning and the kids re-visited the craft bit by bit.
Now, don’t get me wrong… I FULLY believe that parks are a place to take advantage of the gross motor skills (balance, coordination, running, jumping, climbing skills, etc.) that naturally take place in that setting.And there are SO many great parks in Baton Rouge to wear out your kiddos ;).But, if you are like me, you might pack snacks and other carry-ons that can make your playdates vary and LAST!
Today, I am sharing a printable that could be a great way for kids to observe, record, and note the differences of their local parks.
This printable has different uses for different stage kiddos:
For Toddlers:
Introduce the vocabulary…. “Look!Swings.Where are the swings?Yay! We found the swings.Do you want to swing?”
For Pre-schoolers:
Observe the details…. “Does this playground have swings?What color are the swings?Lets color the swings green so we can remember that this park has green swings!”
For Pre-Kinders:
Record the details….Put an “x” on the line under the equipment that is not at the playground, try to write the beginning sound or all the sounds you hear on the line under the equipment that is at the playground.
For Kinders:
Write about the details…. “Can you write what you like about the {slide, swing, etc.} at this playground?”“I like to push my friends on the swings so I am going to write that under swings.”
For Kinder Grads:
Compare and Contrast the different playgrounds by making their own scavenger hunt specific to their own local parks/playgrounds.
My final bit of advice for using these:bring clipboards… kids feel so official when they are “recording information” on a clipboard.🙂
I hope you like this little freebie that you can tote along to the park OR have it out on a table at home after going to a park for some unwind time.
The other day I made a simple template for a zoo trace and color to tote along in our wagon for down times, I am going to re-make it using my own clipart soon, but for now it looks like this:
Well, the VERY next day we were going to Boo at the Zoo so I wanted to mix it up and I had already made seasonal clipart so I toted this one along in the wagon…
I decided to make it a combined printable even though Halloween is right around the corner.
I thought you might want to tote this one around tomorrow on a walk and make it a scavenger hunt for decorations in the neighborhood so I figured I would go ahead and give ya this printable today! If you don’t use it this year, bookmark TheMommyTeacher and you can always keep it for next year !
Recently in my mom group we were talking about how we are more likely to pin, than to DO the activities with our kids.
I admitted that this was a tendency of mine too but that I had recently committed to make a habit to plan on DOING at least one activity from my Pinterest boards a day… which may mean that I need to pick one the night before to make sure I have what I need.
The activity I’m going to share today isn’t one that I had on my Pinterest Board “October Activities” but it will be added today because it was always one of my favorite activities in the classroom and I had fun doing this activity with Sean Patrick.
I read this book so I could show the kids a jack-o-lantern and we could talk about the colors, shapes, and function of a jack-o-lantern
(If you do not participate in halloween you can still make this craft asa Fall pumpkin).
First, I pulled an orange sheet of construction paper, a brown sheet of construction paper, a black sheet of construction paper, a yellow sheet of construction paper, a white crayon, and a glue stick…. these materials can vary (if you don’t have one of those colors then COLOR a white sheet of computer paper (that is what I did for the stem of the pumpkin).
Yellow piece of construction paper not pictured.
Next, I drew a pumpkin shape with my white crayon onto the black construction sheet of paper. I drew triangle eyes, a nose, and a mouth that you can fill in with yellow construction paper or leave blank. Great time to talk about shapes 🙂
Then, together the kids and I tore the orange sheet into lots of pieces, and we used the glue stick to cover the inside of the shape on everything that we wanted to be orange.
And, we covered the pumpkin (or jack-o-lantern when you glue around the facial features).
Finally, we filled in the stem with brown, the facial features with yellow, and hung it up on our playroom blinds with a clothespin to take pride in our Jack-o-lantern! (If I did it again I would start with the yellow facial features then do the orange).
We had fun, we accomplished something together, and they “worked out” their little fingers which is always a great way to prime them for writing.
This craftivity would be best for a four and up child in my personal opinion, but we didn’t finish this in one sitting and mommy helped A LOT!
After sharing one of these pics on my Instagram, a mommy teacher friend of mine took this approach….
And I LOVE LOVE LOVE that she used what she had, she made an activity geared toward her girl’s interests, and she inspired me to do this spin on the activity too! Thanks Allie!
