FREE Alphabet Art Resource!

I love creating resources for Zeke to use! I have an Etsy shop where I sell loads of digital products, such as toddler curriculum, dot marker pages, clip cards, and flashcards. I also sell a few busy bags right now. I did have quite a few different options, but when Zoey came along I removed most of them for now.

I have decided to start offering some of my resources for free here on my blog! Some of these resources are listed in my Etsy shop already and some will be new resources that I offer here for free for a limited time before I list them on Etsy.

Today I'm offering these Alphabet Art templates! This set comes with the Toddler Curriculum Bundle or you can buy it separately for $3.00. Every letter becomes an object that begins with that letter! A becomes an apple, K becomes a kite, T becomes a train track, and Z becomes a zoo! 

You will need a few supplies to complete some of these crafts, like ribbon, pipe cleaners, or googly eyes. Most of the templates don't require anything extra though! 

This is a great way to get in some letter review this summer before school starts. It's also great for a letter of the week program or to add to a unit study.

If you decide to download this resource, please leave me a comment as a thank-you! And I would love to hear how you are planning to use it. 

To download the Alphabet Art package, just click the link below!

Alphabet Art

Blogging From A to Z: Learning Journal for Preschoolers

Today I'm going to plug for my own product - but at the bottom of this post, I'm giving you a great deal on this!

Zeke is going to be using The Gentle + Classical Preschool this year, but I wanted to add in a worksheet a day to his curriculum. He loves worksheets, and I like having a record of how much he is learning. I designed this Page-A-Day Preschool Journal for him to use in conjunction with his curriculum, but I also made it where it can be a free-standing preschool journal for any preschooler! This would be an excellent supplement to any preschool curriculum, and it would also be great to use on its own for a quick lesson time with your child. You could also use it as a great jumping-off point and add in books, crafts, and other activities if you wish. 

There are four worksheets for each week. The first three focus on a letter-a-week, and the fourth worksheet is a math worksheet. These math worksheets touch on different early math topics and skills such as counting, number recognition, shapes, colors, and patterns. 

The first three worksheets for each week focus on a letter and follow a predictable pattern. The first worksheet has the letter to trace and a picture to embellish. 

The second worksheet has uppercase and lowercase dot recogniton and pictures to color that begin with that letter. This is great for speech and vocabulary building!

The third worksheet has a large letter outline with an idea for filling the letter and tracing lines at the bottom. 

Zeke's curriculum will not go through the alphabet in order, so I made these worksheets where they don't have to be used in order. This Page-A-Day Preschool Learning Journal is 104 pages and prints in black and white. I have it for $10.00 in my Etsy shop (link in sidebar!), but I have it for 70% right now! It's only $3.00. Check it out!!

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Blogging from A to Z - Essentials for Preschool

This is my sixth time going through preschool with my kiddos! It's so hard to believe Zeke will be 4 late this fall. We are doing a very gentle preschool with him this year using The Gentle + Classical Preschool curriculum. I've been going through all of our preschool books, resources, and supplies trying to pare down to what we will use and need the next two years. (I plan to do another preschool year next year, as his birthday is the end of November.)

One thing I know for certain - you don't have to have a preschool curriculum to homeschool preschool. I have done it several times without any written curriculum! However, the season of life I'm in now (homeschooling a 7th and 5th grader and having a newborn in September/October) calls for something already planned out for me. I chose The Gentle + Classical Preschool for many reasons - wonderful book lists, handicraft and activity guide, art and music scheduled in, memorization work, and short lessons are just a few. If you're looking for a preschool curriculum, a few that I've tried or read many good things about are:

• Before Five in a Row and More Before Five in a Row - both of these programs are amazing! You will read so many good books. The guides provide plenty of discussion and jumping off points, and I always added extra worksheets and activities.
• ABC Jesus Loves Me - this is a free curriculum for ages 2, 3, 4, and 5 year olds, but you can also purchase a printed version for pretty cheap! I used this with Silas (my now 12 year old) when he was 3 and 4 years old. 
• My Father's World Voyage of Discovery - we have never used this program, but it looks fantastic. It's a bit more expensive, but you do receive lots of educational toys! We use My Father's World for Kindergarten and it's just terrific. I have no doubt this would be great!
• The Peaceful Preschool - I didn't finish using this, but it's a wonderful and gentle preschool program for moms who don't want a lot of worksheets. There are plenty of book suggestions, life skills, and fine motor work scheduled it.
• Heart of Dakota's Little Hands to Heaven - this is a really gentle Bible based curriculum for ages 2-5; tons of games and hands on activities; few worksheets

There are so many more options to choose from! I don't consider a curriculum essential, so I'm going to move on with my list of Essentials for Preschool.

Well-Stocked Art Cabinet

This probably tops my list for any elementary grade level! Having a well-stocked art cabinet will be so handy for homeschooling preschoolers. It's so easy to complete fun projects and hands-on activities when you already have everything you need right there. I keep two tall plastic drawer systems and one smaller one in our laundry room stocked full of supplies. It's not beautiful in the least, but it's tucked out of the way (nobody ever goes in my laundry room you know!) and easily accessible by me and the children. Here are some of the things I keep a supply of year-round:

• paper plates
• paper bags
• stickers of all kids
• dot stickers in all colors
• ribbon, yarn, and string
• craft sticks in all sizes and colors
• pom poms in multiple sizes and colors
• clothespins
• pipe cleaners in all colors
• wooden dowels and skewers
• construction paper, cardstock, and printer paper
• foam and felt sheets
• googly eyes
• beads and buttons in many colors and sizes
• paper brads
• masking tape and scotch tape
• hot glue gun and glue sticks
• dot markers
• markers, crayons, colored pencils
• modeling clay and playdough
• paint and paintbrushes
• 
  
  
• It looks a little messy, but I promise everything is organized!

Puzzles

Puzzles are so fun and versatile - here is a post I wrote recently on the types of puzzles Zeke has worked from ages 1 to 3. Puzzles are great for critical thinking skills, problem solving, fine motor, and focus. We have puzzles that help Zeke learn his shapes, colors, numbers and counting, upper and lowercase numbers, animal names, and more. I like to keep a nice supply of puzzles that we can pull out when Zeke is bored or needs a little bit of quiet time. He works them on his own and sometimes I will sit with him, naming letters or counting objects. 

Zeke loves these 24 piece wooden puzzles from Melissa and Doug.

These two piece puzzles are great for teaching how to do jigsaw puzzles.

Lots of Books

We have so many bookshelves in our homeschool/playroom! Zeke has one shelf just dedicated to his special books, but we also have many other picture books on another shelf. Books are such a great way to teach preschoolers! Zeke has lots of favorites that we read and reread. He has already learned beginning narration skills just from being read aloud to daily. He has learned animal names, letters, numbers, and so many vocabulary words from books. I like to keep plenty of classic books and high quality picture books, but we also have our share of 'twaddle' books - silly books, cheap books, and character books. If you're not sure about which books to stock your library with, there are lots of great lists online! Check your library, too. We have checked out many books that I purchased afterwards because they were so great.

This shelf is dedicated to board books, Before Five in a Row, More Before Five in a Row, and Five in a Row picture books, and some of our other favorite picture books.

Pattern Blocks and Cards

Pattern blocks are a great math tool for elementary children. They are so much fun to play with - I remember being a kid in public school when the teacher pulled out the pattern blocks for us to use! It was so exciting and I always wanted a set at home. Pattern blocks were one of the first homeschool resources I ever purchased! You can do so many things with them - colors, shapes, patterns, building pictures, counting... I printed off and laminated these free alphabet pattern block cards. I had a copy with my older kids but misplaced them over the years. You can also purchase pattern block cards with pictures, numbers, and more!

We love using these cards from Tara West on TPT.

Blocks

We have wooden blocks, Legos, Duplos, Magnatiles, and linking cubes. All of these blocks are great and can be used for so many things. Wooden blocks are perfect for imaginative play and fine motor skills (building tall towers). Legos and Duplos are also great for fine motor skills (snapping those little blocks together and pulling them apart!). Following directions to build is also a critical thinking skill. Zeke can put his sets together, take them apart, and put them back together again without even thinking about it! And linking cubes are great for counting, patterns, color matching, fine motor skills, and other math skills. Keeping a wide variety of blocks is a great idea, but even if you only have one type you'll be able to do many different activities!

We use linking cubes for many things, even building letters!

We stamped wooden blocks into playdough to see the shapes!

Counters

We have lots of counting bears, bugs, and vehicles that work great for so many different activities - sorting by color, sorting by type, patterns, and counting. We also have quite the collection of small plastic animals and dinosaurs that we use for the same activities. It's not necessary to have so many different kinds of counters, but it does keep the activities fresher and newer when you're counting dinosaurs one day, bugs the next, and cars another. It also makes it easy to coordinate with themes if you're doing that. You could always just use dry beans!

These insect counters have been used for so many activities!

We have lots of different small plastic animals, like these dogs.

Flashcards

I don't use flashcards for drill-and-kill activities, but they are really nice to have for hands-on activities. You can lay out alphabet flashcards and have your child put them in alphabetical order, match uppercase to lowercase, or build the letters with blocks or craft sticks or playdough. You can lay out number flashcards and ask your child to place the correct number of counters on each card or put the numbers in order. There are so many games you can play with a really durable set of alphabet and number flashcards!

We use buttons or counting bears for each of the numbers on these simple flashcards from The Peaceful Press.

We use these alphabet matching cards for lots of games!

Fine Motor Tools

Working on fine motor skills is so important, and if you've been reading my blog for long you know that I'm always trying to find new and interesting ways for Zeke to work on these skills. Lacing beads and other items for threading, tweezers and tongs to transferring, and syringes for squeezing are just a few of the items I keep on hand for setting up these activities. You can also use many of the things from your well-stocked art supply for these - pom poms, beads, craft sticks, buttons, and cotton balls are just a few.

These wooden lacing beads are a favorite around here!

Toothpicks and styrofoam blocks make a simple fine motor activity.

Transferring pink water with a syringe!

Of course there are tons of other resources that I don't think are essential for preschool, but are really nice to have on hand. I do think you can homeschool preschool with just this list of essential items, and even less than I've listed! What are your preschool essentials? Is there anything I left off that you would add to this list?

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Preschool Picture Book & Art - Birds and Feather Painting

I'm starting a new series on my blog called Preschool Picture Books & Art. Each week I'm going to do a craft with Zeke based on picture books. I know this isn't a unique series, but I do want to do some fun activities with him over the summer, especially before the baby comes in September/October! 

This week our book is Birds by Kevin Henkles. This is actually one of my favorite picture books of all time. I would definitely consider this a true living book under Charlotte Mason's definitions. It presents factual information in such a fun and beautiful way. Zeke loves to be read this book. 

I even did a week-long study on this book with him when he was not even two. The study is in my Etsy shop as a digital download if you're interested! 

The page in the book that inspired this painting activity was this one:

"If birds made marks with their tail feathers when they flew, think what the sky would look like."

I took four feathers (just the first four colors I grabbed from our bag) and matching paint. We talked about how the feathers could have made streaks and squiggles in the sky. Then I showed him to how to take the feathers, dip them in the matching paint, and make lines in the sky. 

At first he was making lines and streaks on his paper. Then he decided to paint 'water' with the purple. 

Next he added a yellow rainbow above the water.

Then he put some orange fish by the water.

Next he added green birds to the sky.

It wasn't exactly how I pictured the final product, but I was so proud of his creativity! He loved every minute of it. I enjoyed listening to his narrations of what he was painting with each color. I didn't prompt him or give him suggestions. Plus - it's always fun to paint with something other than a paintbrush!

Have you read this book? 

Tot School Tuesdays: Using Trays

We've always used trays in our tot school activities! When Zeke was around 16 months old, we began tot school. I would have one activity per day for him to explore and I always presented these activities on trays. There are several reasons I think using trays is helpful for toddlers and preschoolers.

Presentation

I know you think your child is just a toddler so why would they care about presentation? Trust me - it matters! When Zeke would wake up to a beautiful tray full of an inviting activity, he was more excited to sit and engage with that activity. Interesting presentations always grabbed his attention and spurred on his creativity. 

The first tray I used was from the Dollar General that I purchased for around $5.00. It worked so well that I purchased another! I have also bought some from Amazon and repurposed Melissa and Doug wooden trays from our toys. Some of the Melissa and Doug trays make really great sorting and classifying trays with their different compartments! I've also picked up some plastic trays meant for chips and dip from the Dollar Tree that we have used for sorting.

Containment 

Besides an aesthetic element, the tray does have a helpful purpose. It keeps the activity (mostly) contained to the tray. Instead of being spread all over a table or the floor or both, your child will likely keep all of the pieces inside the tray. When Zeke began using his tot trays, one thing I taught him was that the activity needed to stay on the tray. It didn't take long for him to understand, even though he was a year and half old. This really cut down on the mess and made it easy to put everything back when we were finished.

Availability

Having the activity contained on a tray allows me to leave the activity out for most of the day. Zeke will usually come back to an activity several times a day. When he is finished playing, the pieces to the activity are still on the tray so I can leave it on a table or move it to his shelf. He knows he is able to go back to the activity to play some more whenever he wants to. I don't feel the need to clean up the activity because it's on one tray and I don't have to worry about leaving a mess just so he can repeat an activity at his leisure. 

As we have moved more from tot school into a modified preschool, I still find the trays helpful. I love setting up tray activities for him to do and he loves having the activities on the trays. I usually put several trays on a shelf for him now as opposed to the one tray a day he did when he was younger. I feel like learning how to use a tot tray when he was younger has really helped prepare him for a shelf of activities now that he's a bit older. He knows he is allowed one tray at a time and that he must make sure all of the parts go back on the tray if he takes them off before placing the tray back on the shelf.

Tot trays are so much fun to set up and so helpful for keeping your toddler busy. Do you use tot trays with your child?

The Peaceful Preschool - Letter F

We didn't do as many activities this week as we have been doing, but Zeke still really enjoyed learning the F is for Fish!

Our book this week was Fish is Fish. Zeke used fish stamps to decorate his letters. 

He also sorted fish by type. We used these fish and a sorting tray - this is an old Melissa and Doug tray that works really well as a sorting tray! He had fun with this activity.

I also picked him up this alphabet and number fishing puzzle. He loved it! It's been played with quite a bit lately.

We used the counting cards from The Peaceful Preschool and goldfish to do some counting. He is getting really good at counting to ten. I didn't get a picture of this.

I also made a few worksheets for Zeke to use. He matched fish shapes, put matching fish in the same colored bowls, traced his letters, and counted fish, putting dot stickers with that number on the box.

We also worked on the /f/ sound, which is what he is working on in his speech therapy right now. He has started making the /f/ sound, but hasn't put it with the words yet. So fish is still /i/ since he can't make the /f/ or the /sh/. He built the letters with playdough.

I also put out his wooden Matchimals game. He matched the animals and named them all.

He loves cutting paper, and he is really getting good at being precise! This is such a great fine motor activity as well as keeping him quiet and busy for a good chunk of time.

Next week is G!