Big Energy-Little Learners...Can I do it all?

Recognizing uppercase/lowercase letters that belong together is important.  It is a key   oint in reading.  I have a few activities for this specific type of letter recognition but I don't do it often enough.   Little Dragon recently received a flyer from his out of home preschool showing what he needs to know for Kindergarten and capital/lowercase was listed.  I knew I hadn't worked on this often so I made sure to implement it in this weeks lessons.  This week was Easter week so we did the letter matching using plastic eggs.  They are there and I was trying to find as many ways to use them as possible. I also didn't have to dig through my past preschool things to find other matching activities.  This was right in front of me.  We grabbed the egg bin and I wrote the alphabet on the white board. Doll Dragon joined in this activity so I wanted to make it a tad more challenging and figured Little Dragon would be able to...

To give a different spin on stacking games we played this version which used dice.  We stacked eggs on the same stack using the dice to determine how many pieces we would stack on our turn.  When the stack fell it ended the game.  Having to stac k three or more pieces in a row was nerve racking and made it seem like your turn was  never going to end! The pressure was on trying to keep the stack from falling on your turn from one of the many pieces you have to stack on.  We played this game multiple times my dragons love to play games with dice. 

We did this game with our egg unit which you can see here  This is a fun game of competition that quickly gets everybody fired up and ready to win.  Rules: Everyone sits by the bin so it is easily accessible  Set a timer for 1 minute Each player stacks as many egg pieces as they can  When the timer goes off the person with the tallest stack or most egg pieces in a stack wins  That's all! 

This was the first game we played for our Easter theme which you can see here Materials:   plastic eggs 4 plastic cups masking tape Rules:   tape the four cups together.  I put number stickers inside the cups for point value place tape on the floor for a starting line place the cups desired distance from the starting line Each dragon had 3 tries to get an egg into a cup.  They had to stand behind the line and toss the egg into a cup winner is the person with the most points.  We did not play for x amount of rounds or time, we played until the dragons were finished playing.  Little Dragon and Summer Dragon were fairly good at this game.  All 3 dragons impressed me with their math skills.  Adding 3 and 4 points to their current score was very easy for them.  I thought they would use their fingers for counting but they would collect their eggs and give me their new score with out missing a beat.   They didn'...

This is a fun game to play with multiple people! We played this game during our Easter theme week.  You can see our other activities here . We played this game a few times because the dragons loved it!   Rules:  Have 1 person pick an egg piece and place it on the ground then continue around the circle giving everyone a chance to lay down an egg piece.  Continue taking turns adding a piece at a time to your stack. You may only use 1 hand to stack a piece. If your stack falls you are out.  Continue going around until there is 1 stack left, that person is the winner.  Taking turns placing egg pieces made the anticipation grow and grow.   Doll Dragon was bouncing waiting for her turn and Little Dragon was watching closely to e ach person place their egg hoping their stack would fall.  Testing if it will stay.... CRASH! Little Dragons stack falls It was a quick game that can also be used for multiple ...

This activity went with our letter E, Easter theme you can find here When I saw this activity I really liked it.  It is super easy to make and it is open for many different levels of learning. When creating your symmetrical egg you can make it as easy or as hard as you like.  Materials paper pencil/marker Before we got started I explained, by example on the board, what we were doing.   I had two older dragons with me when we did this activity.  To make this more challenging and to take up a bit more time because I knew they would finish fast, I had each of them design half an egg for the other person.  Together we brainstormed some ideas on what they could do for their egg designs and they were quickly excited to start.  This activity is great for fine motor skills and extra pencil holding practice.  For the Little Dragon I tried to do designs he may see in his letter practice and I also threw in some challenges.  He i...

Little Dragon worked on his double digit numbers with this This was an easy activity to make Materials paper with an egg drawn on it and numbered an extra paper with numbers for reference plenty of stickers The reference guide was a saver for Little Dragon.  He has numbers 1-10 down but needs a practice with 11-20 which is why I made this activity.   He was able to get through it alright and he did a lot of counting to make sure he had the right number or how many more stickers he needed.  He was very proud when he finished and focused during the activity.   This could easily be modified for many themes or lines on a paper just to practice numbers.  Thanks for checking out my blog!  I would love to read your comments and feel free to share!       

I know I know a typical Easter letter choice and theme.  But Little Dragon hadn't quiet mastered letter E yet and Easter was the perfect time to reiterate this letter, plus I thought it would help him remember.   We started the week of with our bin of eggs You can call it a sensory bin because there are some sensory experiences here, but none my dragons hadn't experienced before. This week We played some egg games  Stack 'Em Don't Crack 'Em Egg Toss Minute to Win It Roll and Stack We practiced handwriting and reading on the white board The older dragons unscrambled the words and Little Dragon had to read the unscrambled word. And fixed sentences Little Dragon had to find all of the letter e's in the sentence He also did some standard letter E handwriting Little Dragon worked in his red binder In the red binder we go over what day it is the number of the day (the date) before and after  cl...

Identifying emotions is important for preschoolers.  It helps them identify how they are feeling then they can learn to handle their feelings appropriately.   Some feelings were new to The Dragons, such as jealousy, annoyed, and grief.  They may have felt them before but didn't know what they were called. Bible  The Dragons acted out some different emotions then using the whiteboard together we drew some emotions Jesus may have felt after resurrecting from the grave, how his disciples may have felt. Using the felt board The Dragons retold the story of Jesus dying on the cross then resurrecting.  During the time we were focusing on E our church held a Passover meal.  We attended the meal, which was really neat, and The Dragons recognized some of the aspects of Jewish traditions from our bible readings.  Using our plastic Eggs we made an Easter anagram that us under crafts below along with a resurrection craft.  Crafts ...

I am posting this late, as you can tell from all of the Easter Eggs.  We did this lesson plan Easter week.   The bible focus was Jesus conquering the grave.  E is for Emotions Bible What better to focus on for Easter then Jesus?  The story of Jesus being crucified and rising again is amazing!  I always get excited talking about Jesus, especially what he did for me.  Bible verse : "He is not here, He has risen!" - Luke 24:6 There are many steps leading up to the crucifixion that are important to go over.  Through the course of the week we focused on the emotions of those involved in the different stories.  Day 1: We read about Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane and being betrayed by Judas.  We discussed how Jesus may have felt, how Judas may have felt, and how the other disciples may have felt.    Day 2: We read about Jesus's trial and carrying the cross.  We discussed how Jesus may have felt an...