Musings of a Freelance WriterStephany Springer (15,834)     Summer Activities: Shoebox Of FunPosted Monday, May 12, 2008 (5 days 15 hours ago.) Viewed 94 times. School is almost out and summer is on its way. Prepare now to keep your child's brain thinking during the summer. What better way to keep your child actively learning than to fill a shoebox full of fun activities! Here are just a few ideas for the shoebox of fun. Math There are several games that will fit into the shoebox designed to keep their math skills up during the summer months. Place the following materials in the box: playing cards excluding the aces and picture cards, slips of paper with plus, and minus signs. Kids can work on their addition, subtraction and multiplication skills. Teach your child how to make number sentences out of the cards. For instance: 6+2=8. Then allow your child to flip it to make a subtraction. Kids can also draw two cards and multiply the numbers together. Writing Writing is an essential quality for kids to be able to process. It is a high-level thinking skill that will help your kid tremendously in school. There are several activities to get them thinking about writing and producing an end product. Fill the shoebox with pages pulled from old travel magazines, scissors, glue, writing paper and pencils or cutesy pens. Your child can choose a picture and glue it to the writing paper. He then can write a story about an adventure he had at that tourist spot. He can make up new tourist spots as well. Kids can also pull words from the magazines stories to cut and glue a new sentence or story. It is fun to watch their imaginations begin to church out stories. Reading Place some easy readers or letters of love from you to your child. Make sure you pick subjects that your child is interested in. You can also place a coupon for a book read aloud to them, if your child is younger and still likes the cuddle up with you and a good book. Place paper lunch bags in the shoebox with some craft eyes and string. Allow your child to make a puppet based on one of the characters of the book. Word Making Place two sets of magnetic alphabet letters in the box (these can be bought at the dollar store). Make up a word using the letters, then let your child see how many words he can create from the original word. Ask your child to make theme words for different days. In July ask for words that remind us of the holiday. Or ask for words that have to do with being cold such as ice or winter. Words that remind us of summer is also a suggestion. Be as creative as you want to be. Let your child make up nonsense words. Get working now on the shoebox and store it some place central in the house. When the summer days get long, you have a fun resource at your fingertips. 
Permalink Comments (0) Activities To Celebrate Mother’s Day In The Preschool ClassroomPosted Monday, May 05, 2008 (12 days 12 hours ago.) Viewed 153 times. Mother's Day is fast approaching and if you are like me you are scrambling this year to plan a spectacular week of lessons. Have no fear, here are some great ideas to celebrate mothers all across the preschool classroom. Muffins With Mom What better way to begin a day of class than to have muffins with mom. Mothers love to be involved in the child's day. Plan to have your camera ready for a photo of the children with their mom-it will come in handy later for a craft. Art Time: Moms love homemade gifts to treasure forever. Mother's Day is a time to load her up with cheesy crafts. The more handprints, pictures and flowers the better. Depending on your time constraints, art time can provide presents from the extravagant to the basic. Here are a few of those crafts. Handprints These can be done multiple ways. You can place handprints using fabric paint on totes, hand towels, t-shirts, etc. You can place a handprint on the back of a shirt and write, "My mom deserves a pat on the back!" Handprints can also make a cute card or placemat. Be sure to include the following poem that moms just love: Tiny Hands There used to be so many of my Fingerprints to see, On the furniture and walls and things From sticky, grubby me But if you stop and think a while You'll see I'm growing fast, Those tiny hand prints disappear, You can't bring back what's past. So here's a small reminder, To keep, not wipe away, Of tiny hands and how they looked, To make you smile some day. You can also take the time to make flowers out of handprints. Put the handprints in circular pattern, then draw a stem. Photo Art Take the picture from the muffins with mom breakfast or a individual photo and place in a foam or construction paper picture frame. Then allow the kids to glue puzzle pieces to the frame. Write the statement, "I love you to pieces. If you use the individual photo, allow the kids to glue buttons to the frame. Write "Cute as a Button." You can also glue a photo to a big piece of construction paper, place handprints and the poem above. Then laminate for a placemat keepsake. Jewelry Make jewelry out of beads or macaroni. Have children bead string for a necklace or bracelet. Music Time There are a lot of fun songs for the kids to learn about loving their mom. One easy one sung to the tune of Bingo is: I love her and she loves me And Mommy is her name-o M-O-M-M-Y M-O-M-M-Y M-O-M-M-Y And Mommy is her name-o. Another song sung to the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb is: Mommy is the one I love, one I love, the one I love. Mommy is the one I love and She loves great big hugs. Science A fun science center that will show how much mom is loved is to just take the kids out to pick wildflowers for mom. If your school does not have much flowers, allow the kids to pick pretty things from nature such as leaves and glue them on construction paper. Have each child match mother animals with baby animals as a science center.
All of these are just suggestions that I have done over the years. Feel free to add more in the comments section if you have an idea that has worked in your own class as well.
Permalink Comments (0) Teacher Appreciation Week: Personal Gifts To Show AppreciationPosted Friday, May 02, 2008 (15 days 17 hours ago.) Viewed 308 times. The first full week in May is Teacher Appreciation Week. The Tuesday of the week is National Teacher Day. The Parent Teacher Association created the week as a day to show Teachers that they are appreciated. If you are like me and want to be able to show your child's teacher they are appreciated, but don't have the budget for a whole week of extravagant gifts-look no farther. There are several small ways to show a teacher you care for how they take care of your child and mold your child for little pay each day that are small personal sentiments. Here are some suggestions. Make A Class Book This is an easy task for a photoshop whiz. At least one parent in each class is one. Spend the day taking pictures in the classroom. Make sure you get pics of everyone. Then print out a page for each child with their picture on the top half. On the bottom half, have the child fill in the blanks. I love Mrs. ____ because she always ____. My favorite activity this year was ____. The questions can be personalized to fit the teacher. Then allow the students to draw a picture on the back. Have each page laminated and bind the book at your local printer. You may also be able to see if you can do the laminating and binding in the school workroom. A Week of Breakfast Make an homemade invitation that asks the teacher to save room for breakfast all week. It can read something like this: "You are invited to a week's worth of breakfast delivered to your room every morning before school. Save room because it is sure to be yummy!" You might also have in small print a tear away portion of the invite that states, "please list any food allergies or dislikes." Then plan a week of small breakfast meals. You can start the week off with a muffin and coffee or tea. This is where knowing the teacher is of great benefit. You can send a small fruit plate, breakfast casserole, breakfast tacos, cereal basket with a small bag/box of cereal, individual milk and a cute bowl, etc. All of these can be creative and fun. An easy recipe for a breakfast casserole follows:
Each day you can give the teacher a different personal office supply decorated, made or bought by you. Personalized stationary can be a great gift. If you have the ability to print color, this can be a fun activity. Find a pretty font for your teacher's name. Type it in her favorite color and then print some sheets out. You can tie this with a ribbon. For an added special touch, buy some envelopes that match or print her name on the envelopes as well. Another day you can have your child decorate a clipboard with her name, glitter pens and glitter. Be sure to include the message: "You make a school sparkle." Personalized pens are a great gift and usually can be purchased for under $15. Teachers love school supplies so why not send a basket of supplies such as cute pencils, post-its, markers, cool pens, etc. You can even do it in school colors. Nominate your teacher for an award These can be made up or for real. Create certificates on the computer such as Most Creative Teacher, etc. You can also go online and help your child nominate their teacher for an award, http://www.teacherscount.org/teacher/awards.shtml#general . There is an award designed for every teacher. Movie Week This is a fun way to celebrate Teacher Appreciation Week if your teacher loves movies. Start the week off with a bag of popcorn with a card to the "Most Pop-ular Teacher." The next day bring in some movie candy. The next day bring a coke or some hot chocolate. The next day you can do a DVD or a book that was made into a movie. On the last day give a gift card to the local theater. Have fun seeing if your teacher can guess the theme during the week. These are just a few suggestions. You can also do a small beach item each day. The key is to break the gifts into much smaller gifts. If your kid has more than one teacher, you might think about purchasing or making a cake for all the teachers. Showing you care will mean the most to the teacher no matter how you choose to do so.
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