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Inside: This bear color recognition printable activity is a fun matching game for toddlers and preschoolers. Cut the cards in half and match by color! We love activities that can be adapted depending on the learning level of our children, and this bear color recognition printable activity provides that opportunity. For toddlers, the cards will be placed on top of each other, building simple color recognition skills. For preschoolers, you will cut the cards in half, working on symmetry and balance....

Inside: This easy angel craft is made from pegs and doilies and can be used as ornaments on the Christmas tree. They are a nice keepsake for years to come! December is busy with making Christmas ornaments! Some favorites are our simple snowflake ornaments and our gingerbread ornaments ….oh, and our fillable ornaments. This year we put together an easy angel craft that can be turned into a keepsake ornament – and I love how they turned out!...

Inside: This toddler Valentine’s Day sensory bin is filled with fine motor fun. The dyed rice is fun to scoop and pour, especially with the cute paper mâché heart boxes! Toddlers love to scoop and pour rice. In fact, if I were to pick a favorite sensory bin, it would be anything that has rice in it. So when I found the cutest paper mâché heart boxes, I knew exactly how I’d use them....

Pressing anything into the playdough is especially fun for this age group. This is why I provided twigs. I also love to use popsicle sticks, big and small. If you are like me and have a collection of themed cookie cutters, you know how fun they can be at the playdough center. Provide rolling pins to press the playdough flat and then stamp leaves. We’ve added twigs, too! This was a lot of fun during our fall theme....

More: Sensory Table Activities for the Entire Year October is the month to explore pumpkins, and that includes sensory play! I’ve created a super simple pumpkin sensory table that includes one of our favorite fillers: dyed rice. Then I added small party favor pumpkins, assorted bins, and scoops for some fine motor fun. Perfect for the pumpkin theme! Language Development Fine Motor Development Cognitive Development Mathematical Skills Spacial Awareness Problem Solving Exploration Creativity...

Inside: Here’s a fun end of school gift that the children can make themselves. This picture frame can hold a class photo and will be a fun keepsake for years to come! I love giving my students an end of school gift that will remind them of their year in my class. For many years I put together a class photo album, but I did all the work. Plus, now that I send home weekly digital photo albums, the families already have access to photos taken in the classroom....

Inside: It’s so easy to create a preschool ocean activity that includes playful learning! Add aquarium rock, ocean creatures, and nets to a sensory bin filled with water, and you’re set. Super fun! You know those sensory bins that are so easy to put together, and end up being a favorite? That’s what this preschool ocean activity is all about. Fishing nets. If you have not tried these with your children, go and do....

In our toddler and preschool classrooms we make sure to balance quiet and active times. Young children’s attention spans are shorter and their bodies just want to move. In addition to recess, we make sure to provide music and movement activities for our preschoolers. As I’ve shared in my preschool schedule post, our designated music and movement time is after snack. However, we’ve also used instruments in the gym during indoor recess and at other times in the day when we could see that the children just wanted to move....

I read an ocean book and then brought out my basket of assorted shells. We noticed how they had different textures. Our last theme of the school year is the ocean. Of course, the best way to teach this would be to actually take them TO the beach, but it’s not close enough for us. Plus, our families are fortunate to visit the coast, making our preschool ocean theme that much more meaningful....

Place paper, paint, and sponges on a table and invite your children to use their hands to transfer the sponges to the paper, stamping paint onto them. This week is Red, White, and Blue Camp and my daughter, Rachel, put together this fun idea. Toddlers and preschoolers love to stamp with various objects and paint. We’ve used empty spools, sea sponges, and bubble wrap, just to name a few. So, when she cut kitchen sponges into sparkler shapes, the children couldn’t wait to get started....

Inside: Create simple fall art for toddlers using leaf cookie cutters and assorted paint colors. Young children love the stamping action while strengthening their fine motor skills! This truly is one of the simplest process art activities out there. In fact, you can do this year round by simply changing out the shape of the cookie cutter. There is little preparation work involved (hooray!) and the only directions are: “Press the cookie cutter into the paint and stamp on the paper....

Put the lid on the salad spinner and make it move! If you haven’t added a salad spinner to your art center yet, you just might want to consider it! We use ours year round, making fun art projects such as: Spin-Art Hearts Spin-Art Shamrocks Spin-Art Trees But last spring I decided to experiment putting a 3-dimensional object in our salad spinner. That was a game changer! Our spin-art Easter eggs were fun to make and adorable!...

More music resources: 25+ Music and Movement Activities for Toddlers and Preschoolers Music can be a magical, yet soothing, thing. Especially those first few weeks of school, when you might have some children who need the comfort of familiar songs. They might be dealing with a bit of separation anxiety and one of the only remedies is singing. Or, you have the busy toddler who is running around the classroom, nearly falling over other children in his path....

Inside: These paper plate fall crafts are fun for toddlers and preschoolers, plus they build creativity and fine motor skills! There are so many cute craft themes available during the fall time. Spiders, pumpkins, apples, leaves, bats, scarecrows, and so much more! It’s such an exciting time of year for activities. These fall crafts all feature paper plates for easy preparation, and provide fine motor practice for little toddler and preschool hands....

Abstract painting with kids is really so simple and fun, and can be done with one child or a group of children. Preschoolers love to paint with just about anything – there are so many options besides paint brushes! In this art activity, we painted on the same canvas for 2 days, using different tools each time. In this particular activity we used a large piece of canvas, just like when we made our purple canvas art....

As summer is winding down, I thought I’d put together a collection of back to school ideas for parents. As a teacher, I’ve already gotten a few e-mails from parents asking about supplies and tips for making the start of the school year more successful. While I had preschool in mind when gathering these ideas, most of them can be adapted to elementary school, too. Even though it’s been quite awhile since I’ve dealt with the parent side of back to school, I still remember them vividly....

Inside: Cooking with kids can be fun when you have easy and delicious recipes! This collection is filled with favorites that can be done at home or in the classroom! Cooking with kids might seem a bit overwhelming, but truly, there are a lot of fun and simple recipes out there! One of my fondest memories as a young mother was cooking with my own children. They loved being beside me at the kitchen counter, measuring, stirring, and pouring....

One of the many things I’ve noticed in my 20+ years of teaching two and three year olds is their love for painting with cars. Year after year, whenever I put cars and paint on the art table, it is loved by my little friends! Here are some examples: Driving Cars on Hearts Making Rainbow Roads Painting with Matchbox Cars Using Duplo Vehicles with Paint Painting with Firetrucks Creating Rainbow Roads with Shaving Cream Making the Color Green with Cars...

When I was planning our family theme for our toddlers and young preschoolers, I was frustrated. As I searched for activities, nothing seemed developmentally appropriate for this age group. Actually, I encounter this with many of the activities I see on Pinterest. They might say they are for younger children, but they really are not. I knew I needed to simplify things, so I came up with my own idea....

How many times can a teacher use her salad spinner? And I’m not talking for lettuce! I’m talking at the art table. With paint. Last week was our spider theme and I put together a fun preschool spider craft I knew they’d love. Fun because even though it looks like a craft, it’s mostly process art. And it involves squirting paint. Fun because you get to push a button or flip a lever (depending on what style salad spinner you have)....