D is for Dinosaur

When learning about the letter D, what could be more fun than turning it into a dinosaur theme?  I can’t think of anything better for a 4 year old boy.  Hunter loved learning the letter D and all about dinosaurs.  This was definitely his favorite unit all year.

 Hunter’s letter D bin was full of fun things for the week.  Harper kept taking her diaper out and putting it away haha, she didn’t understand why it was in the bin.

 I printed out this letter D page from these preschool printables and then Hunter had to make the D using pattern blocks.

He spent lots of time playing with the little dinosaurs.  We used them for some math games too, like sorting, patterns, counting, etc.

Hunter and Harper enjoyed using the dinosaur stamps.

Hunter loved this dinosaur mat!  He has spent hours playing with this.

Hunter working on some dinosaur puzzles.

Finding and coloring the letter D.

We used painters tape to show how long some of the dinosaurs were.  Hunter was pretty impressed with how big they were.  We weren’t able to do the really big dinosaurs because they were bigger than our house!

At the end of the tape I put a little fact card about the dinosaur the tape was representing.

We made dinosaur fossils by pressing little dinosaurs into modeling clay.

What would a dinosaur unit be without making a volcano?  Hunter liked doing the volcano but when the “lava” came out of the mountain and touched his dinosaurs he was not happy.  So, the rest of our volcano fun had to be done without the dinosaurs nearby.

A representation of big a t-rex footprint was.

We had a little fossil dig to look for dinosaur bones.

Hunter working on finding some bones

Hailey helped too, it was actually really hard to get the bones out.

Then Hailey and Hunter took turns hiding some dinosaur bones in the sandbox and then searching for them.

Learning about dinosaurs was our favorite unit this year!

Fine Motor Fun

This summer one of the things I am focusing on with Hunter and Anthony is strengthening their fine motor control.  We’re working on having neater handwriting and better scissor control.  Hunter also needs to work on his pencil grip.  I have tried all the tricks, but he gets frustrated when he holds his pencil correctly because he can’t write as well as he does when he holds it incorrectly. So, I am going to work on strengthening his hands to make it easier to write.

Here are the fine motor activities we did this week:

I put a little circle of playdoh on a paper plate, then stuck some uncooked spaghetti into the playdoh.  I gave the kids Fruit Loops and they had to put them on the spaghetti.

Hailey doesn’t need to work on her fine motor control, but she likes to participate in some of our activities.

Anthony really concentrated on getting his Fruit Loops on.

We played a game with mini muffins and a muffin tin.

We played another game with the bear counters and they had to pick up the bears with tweezers.

This was the favorite activity of the week- I gave them spray bottles and a piece of paper.  I set the spray bottles on mist and they had to keep spraying until their papers were soaked.  After they finished that, they just enjoyed spraying the bottles.

Who knew working on fine motor skills could be so fun 🙂

And We’re Done!

Hailey’s last day of 4th grade. How is it possible she’ll be in the 5th grade in the fall??
“When I grow up I want to be a dancer, actress, and artist.”

Hunter’s last day or pre-k. I can’t believe he’ll be in kindergarten in the fall.
“When I grow up I want to be a coffee man.”

Harper on her last day of Tot School… until September when she gets to do Tot School again.

Preschool Weekly Wrap Up- Letter M

We had a lot of fun learning all about letter M!  Here are a few of the activities we did during letter M week

Every week for Hunter’s letter of the week I try to create a bin full of toys that start with his letter.  Hailey usually loves to help me with this.

We had to have macaroni and cheese for lunch to go with the letter M!

Hunter loves learning about where all the states are, so he really enjoyed putting together this map puzzle with Hailey.

A cute little toddler who loves to be a part of everything we do!

Hunter put M&Ms onto this letter M paper… and then we had to eat some M&Ms, of course 🙂

He loves doing these letter finds.

(Both printables are from Confessions of a Homeschooler)

We read The Mitten by Jan Brett since we did the letter M during the winter.

After we read the book Hunter acted out the story using some animal cut outs and a mitten.  I have the animal cutouts from an old Mailbox Magazine, so I do not have a link to share for those.  Hunter loved retelling the story and was excited that he was able to get all of the animals into the mitten.

Hunter and Harper made some cute mittens by putting tissue paper onto contact paper shaped like a mitten.

The cute finished mittens.  They make cute sun-catchers too, if you hang them up on a window.

Hunter glued macaroni noodles onto the letter M.

It was a week full of fun learning all about the letter M!