With the majority of the ocean still remaining unexplored, there is a never-ending amount to talk about! So many unique and interesting animals that young children have likely never seen before! In order to figure out where to even begin explaining the variety of animals that live in our ocean, the list below provides some great recommendations for themed sensory activities, art projects, fine motor activities, and more. Converse with preschoolers during the activities about these fascinating creatures, such as what the animals eat, where they sleep, how they move, and more....

Inside: Put together this simple toddler rainbow art activity to brighten your classroom or home! A fun way to work on color skills while putting pieces of the rainbow on sticky paper for an easy suncatcher. This week’s theme in our toddler classroom is rainbows, and it’s one of my favorites! I love bringing color into the classroom after a dreary winter. While our preschoolers work on the order of the colors in the rainbow, we keep it much simpler with our toddlers....

Inside: We’ve found the best collection of toddler and preschool color mixing activities. Each idea invites young children to explore using a variety of methods! We love exploring colors in our classroom, all year long. And what’s awesome is that there are so many fun, hands-on activities out there! When I put together this collection of toddler and preschool color mixing activities, I wanted a variety of ideas. After some careful research, I found some creative ways young children can explore mixing colors....

Preschool Name Recognition Discovery Bottle During our rainbow unit, our small groups made discovery bottles with letter beads. Not any letters, mind you. Letters in their names! Preschoolers LOVE their names. This is why we do so many name activities! One of the first written words they recognize are their names. We have them displayed all over the classroom, on their circle time stools, at the snack table, on the chart announcing who is class helper, and many other ways....

Inside: Put together a fun preschool St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin with small treasure chests and coins. A fun way to work fine motor skills, too! Have you noticed how young children love to open items, pour other items into them, close them, then open and dump out the contents? Over and over again? This was our thought when we put together our treasure chest St. Patrick’s Day sensory bin....

Incorporating water into your outdoor play time is a great way to keep your little ones from overheating during the summer. Parents and caregivers know that there is nothing worse than a fussy, overheated toddler or preschooler! These water play ideas range from color play to large motor to keep your children cool and engaged while also building skills. Alphabet Soup – Place foam letters into a water bin for toddlers to scoop out with ladles....

Parents and teachers love using toys that can be used over and over again. Especially when they can build a variety of skills! That’s why I love our rainbow counting bears. We use them in our classroom for color recognition, counting, sensory, literacy, sorting, graphing … and so much more! Today I am sharing 15 playful counting bears activities that you can try today! 👉 Make sure to scroll all the way down to get your free bears 1-10 printable counting cards....

I thought it would be easy to find toddler St. Patrick’s Day activities, but it wasn’t. Have you noticed that many ideas that are described as “for toddlers” really aren’t? Yep, I found this out. And so I took extra time to search for what I felt would work well with toddlers and put them in a collection for you. What I love about each of these toddler St. Patrick’s Day activities is that there aren’t a lot of instructions....

Inside: Check out this amazing collection of fun, free Christmas printables that you can use with your toddlers and preschoolers. Perfect when you need to put together a quick activity! Free! Who doesn’t like to get something free? When I shared my 67 free printable activities for preschoolers post, it took off like crazy. So then I put together a collection of free fall printables. That, too, became popular as soon as I hit the publish button!...

Inside: Creating a farm theme in our toddler and preschool classroom was easy, as there are so many fun activities. Come see how we set up each of our learning centers! We chose to have a farm animals theme because many of our toddlers and preschoolers visit the farm in October, when our local farms are busy with pumpkin events. The highlights included painting pigs with golf balls, dressing up as cowboys and cowgirls, and using our farm finger puppets when singing Old MacDonald Had a Farm....

The first day of preschool is a lot of work. I will not lie. Actually, the first few weeks are! But there are things you can do to help make these days end with smiles. From the children AND the teachers! Every single year, over 15 years’ worth, I forget how hard those first weeks can be. BUT, each year does get easier, because I have learned a thing or two....

When you ask a toddler or preschooler what sorts of topics they would like to learn about, the answer is commonly some sort of animal. Can you blame them? There are so many to learn about! Animals are an amazing topic to focus on because they are a large part of their natural world. Whether your children interact with their pets, observes wild animals while on walks, or simply sees animals in books or movies, they are likely to be thinking about this topic often....

One of the areas we have to cover in our preschool assessments is shapes. I am always looking for ways to build shape recognition skills, but I want them to be playful and authentically blend in with our other hands-on activities. I decided to put together my own collection of shape recognition activities by doing a little searching. After weeding out the results, I came up with over 16 ideas that I knew would be perfect....

Inside: Add a bit of fine motor to this pumpkin color sorting activity by using magnetic wands! Preschoolers love seeing how many pumpkins will fit on the wand as they are transferred into a container. You know when you see something that you just have to have for a preschool activity? And you purchase it and are so excited when it arrives in the mail that your family rolls their eyes as you excitedly tear open the package?...

Shape recognition is one of the earliest focuses from parents, alongside colors. It can be daunting to know where to start. As always, incorporating learning concepts into the child’s play is the most natural way to allow for progress. This compilation of shape activities focuses on using simple materials that you can easily set up within your own home. 55+ Fine Motor Activities for Home 25+ Color Activities and Printables for Home 20+ Easy Toddler Activities for Home 20+ Alphabet Activities for Home...

I’ve said it before and I will say it again: Open ended art is a must for children, especially young children who care more about the process rather than the outcome. As I was straightening our preschool storage room, I found a box of paint/dough scrapers that was hidden behind larger boxes. I happened to be planning the rainbow theme and realized these scrapers could be a great tool to pull the colors across a piece of paper....

Inside: Want to add some preschool squirrel activities to your science area? Here are some easy ideas that encourage hands-on exploration! We love to explore science year-round, but there is something special about fall. We start the school year with magnets, then move onto sunflowers. During the third week of school, the squirrels and acorns are very visible outdoors. We see squirrels scampering across our play yard with acorns in their mouths....

Inside: This painted valentines art is super easy for toddlers and preschoolers, and creates beautiful vibrant hearts! Spin art is a favorite in our toddler and preschool classes, so of course we wanted to do it for Valentine’s Day! After all, we had fun making Christmas ornaments from spin art. I love spin art because, while the finished product is nice, it’s the process that is most important. Our children are so intrigued as soon as they see the salad spinner....

10+ Toilet Paper Roll Activities for Kids CLICK HERE for Our Recycled Crafts Collection Don’t toss those paper tubes into the recycle bin! Seriously, there are so many fun ideas out there that use them. I know, because I just spent hours cruising the internet to see what was out there. I managed to narrow the list down to 10+ ideas that build a variety of skills in different ways. 10+ toilet paper roll activities that include letter recognition, counting, colors, science … and much more!...

Inside: This collection of preschool rainbow activities are amazingly fun! Lots of hands-on exploration that will build important color recognition skills, too. Add them to your rainbow theme! Hello color! After a month of winter activities and lots of white, we welcome color into our classroom with a rainbow theme. Learning about the rainbow is a fun way to build color recognition skills, especially if they are playful. These 9 preschool rainbow activities have been done by my students in the past few years and thoroughly enjoyed....