Fun and learning don’t have to be difficult for the teacher to be effective! This super-simple science experiment takes only a few supplies to set up and will engage your students…all while sneaking in some science and fine-motor skills. It’s truly “magical!” Materials needed: plate, bowl, or foil trays (link to amazon) boxes of baking…
fine motor
Confetti Leaves
Scissor skills are an important part of preschool. Beginning with a highly successful task, such as cutting strips of paper into confetti, help them develop familiarity with scissors and how they work while being extremely satisfying. As a bonus, the confetti they create is easily converted into beautiful seasonal art! Confetti Cutting Practice The Importance…
Flower Art on the Light Table
Bring the outdoors inside with light table flowers! Sometimes, the rain that is so necessary for flowers can make it impossible to play outdoors. These cheery light table flowers will lift the gloom off of any rainy day, and provide some essential learning skills as well! Light Table Flowers Skill: Fine Motor Practice Grasping and…
Halloween Bead Towers
This Halloween bead center is all treat! Children love the themed beads and don’t even realize all the skills they are practicing while they use them! A bead center does not need to be expensive. Simply use some thin dowel rods pushed into heavy duty craft foam. Large pony beads work well. Find them at…
10 Chip Clip Poems
Young children are natural learners who form ideas about math when they experience it in their daily lives. Setting the table for snack, counting the friends in their class, using a timer to share a toy, and measuring sand at the sensory table are all ways that children begin to understand mathematical concepts. One of…
10 Hands-On ways to practice the Alphabet
One of the main goals of preschool literacy instruction is to teach young children the alphabet. For some children, this comes very easily and naturally but for many others, it takes a lot of time, energy, and practice. It is tempting to think that sit-down practice with paper and pencil is the best way for our…
Fruit Loop Graph
Fruit loops are a great learning manipulative! Students who are otherwise unlikely to work at a math center will jump at the chance to sit and play with cereal. I like to buy the big generic bag at the dollar store for this center. For this activity, I paired it with a foam block and…
Band Aid Fine Motor Practice
Band-aids — kids either love ’em or hate ’em! (Personally, they g.r.o.s.s. me out! But I know that my preschoolers love them, so I put on a brave face.) Usually, the kids ask for a band-aid for a little tiny (sometimes invisible) cut. I know that they just really like the novelty of it! So…
Alphabet Push Pins
A good preschool learning center is one that the students really want to do. It grabs their attention when they walk through the door, and the center is full of children all day. A great preschool learning center is one that helps them practice a skill (or two!) in a developmentally appropriate way. A perfect preschool learning…
Muffin Tin Color Sorting
We are always looking for ways to practice fine motor skills and we love learning centers that serve more than one purpose. It might be a sensory table that incorporates literacy skills or an art activity that also teaches about shapes. We get “more for our money” so to speak, when children practice multiple skills…