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

It has been difficult for me to keep up with posting of late. I have been distracted planning for the upcoming preschool year.  I told myself I had more time then I do and I am feeling the pressure of having everything ready. I found a great resource for lesson planning early in the summer and was very excited to use the lessons as a base.  They focus on God's word which is important to me.  Lessons here . Last year was my first year doing preschool.  I started without many resources or research.  I just wanted to get started with something. Since I began this journey I have found many other moms who do similar things as me and have found many great inspiring ideas! Towards the end of the school year I was much better at planning, prepping, and conducting lessons but still felt there was room for improvement. I am proud to say I am where I want to be now with my planning.  Instead of planning once a week for a whole two weeks I plan to have (am on wee...

7: Shapes I made the shapes that matched the song (red circle, orange oval, etc.) for the shape monster activity. I used the same idea for the reading as in previous folder games. With no other inspiration I just took some construction paper cut it in half and wrote shape instructions that popped in my head. Like, Draw a big rectangle and two small circles.  I did this with a variety of shape instructions.  Then I drew half of a shape with instructions to finish the picture. For more file folder games click  here!

 Letters Inside the folder on the left I wrote the different activities there are for the folder.  Example:  Match Dino hangman Find the missing letter Spelling Another printable I thought would be perfect for a file folder game from  http://www.makinglearningfun.com .   Match the pictures to the beginning sound.   I have a set of alphabet magnets I bring out when this folder is being used for matching uppercase to lowercase letters.  Dino Hangman is more advanced but great for beginning readers and elementary aged kids during summer break.  The dinosaur has every letter on him.  There are 2 dino's one with uppercase one with lowercase.  These are in page protectors so you would play this game with a dry erase marker.  The child guessing would have the Dino with the letters in front of them.  They would 'x' off a letter after guessing and write the letter on the bottom of the page if correc...

Gumball There is not a list of activities in this folder because this just one game. I found this activity on  http://www.makinglearningfun.com  where there are many other ideas you could make into file folders.  (I have a stack of 'to do' folders I haven't gotten around to making yet.) I colored the gumball machine, cut it out and glued it to construction paper.  I printed out all the cards, colored them, cut them and glued them to construction paper then placed them in the Ziploc. I only printed 2 of the graphing sheets.  I currently have 2 kids and don't need more then that but you could print as many as you would like. I placed them in page protectors.  What is great about that is they are pretty much dry erase.  Washable markers also wipe right off! To play this game you place all the cards face down in a pile.  The kids take turns pulling a card to see how many and what color of gumball they got. Play until the cards are gone or det...

 Math I simply took some scrap paper wrote 'Math' on it and taped it on the folder.  This is how I titled all of the folders.  Inside the folder on the left I wrote the different activities there are for the folder.  Example:  Domino Math Addition Substraction Equation Building For some reason this one was the hardest for me to come up with.   The activities for this one are more interactive for younger children.  They may need help from an adult to start off.  Domino math I found the printable in the picture below (I do not recall where) and made my own domino's to fit out of card stock.  I didn't want to buy a whole set of domino's.  For this activity you pick a domino and place it on the picture.  You write the number of dots on the left side in the place provided below it and the same on the write.  In the = space you write the total number of dots.   This can be done with both addition and subtr...

Numbers I simply took some scrap paper wrote 'Numbers' on it and taped it on the folder.  This is how I titled all of the folders.  Inside the folder on the left I wrote the different activities there are for the folder.  Example:  Matching Counting Reading Spanish After Easter I had these egg shape/number worksheets left in the packets.  I was going to throw them away then realized they would be perfect for number matching and color matching.  I outlined each shape in a different color.  The double of this sheet I outlined the same shapes in different colors then the first sheet so the kids could not just match the number by color and giving me two different matching sets.  Then I made flash cards out of card stock.  I wrote the number on the front and drew the number of circles on the back. Thus giving them number recognition and some counting practice. (Also a cheat if they can't recognize the number they can count ...

Animals I simply took some scrap paper wrote 'Animals' on it and taped it on the folder.  This is how I titled all of the folders.  Inside the folder on the left I wrote the different activities there are for the folder.  Example:  Matching Categorizing Reading Spanish I placed all the magnets in a zip up Ziploc bag and labeled it.  I only had double of one animal page for matching so not all of the animals have a match.  I bought a couple packs of foam stickers at Joanne's on sale last year and used a bunch of those.  Because of the variety of animals I had I had the idea to sort the animals by where they live: Land vs. Water, type: insect vs. animal, how they move: flying vs. walking.  There are many other category's you could go into with this file folder but those are all I have now.  I did the divided multiple pieces of paper up into 9 sections and wrote the English and Spanish name for every animal magnet I have...