Free Preschool Activities

by Rachel Paxton

Preschool-aged children love to play with worms (at least my boys do!). You can turn their curiosity with worms into a science project with just a few items from your house and garden. Here is what you’ll need:

Empty two-liter pop bottle
Exacto knife
Dirt
Small shovel
Sand
Grass clippings
Kitchen compost (apple peelings, etc.)
Worms

Before you let your child loose in the garden, you will need to use the exacto knife to cut off the entire top of the pop bottle.

Help your child create a label for the container that has the child’s name and “worm farm” printed on it. You can make it by hand or on the computer. Tape the label to the front of the container.

Go out to the garden with your child and let he or she shovel a couple of inches of dirt into the plastic container. Pat the dirt down so the next layer of sand won’t filter through. Explain to your child that they need to be careful not to shake or jar the bottle or the sand and dirt will become mixed up.

Add a thin layer of sand, and then continue with a couple of inches of dirt and another thin layer of sand. The top layer should be dirt. Leave an inch or two of space at the top of the bottle.

Next add a few grass clippings on top of the last layer of dirt. The worms will need food, so add a few pieces of fruits or vegetables in with the grass, such as apple or orange peelings.

If you are lucky enough to have worms in your yard, help your child dig for a few worms for his or her worm farm. If you can’t find any, go to your nearest bait shop and buy a small package of night crawlers.

Let your child play with the worms before putting them in the worm farm. Help them make observations about their worms. Check out a book about worms at your local library or search for information online about worms. Talk to your child about how a worm’s job is to eat waste and mix it into our soil to fertilize
it.

After your child places a couple of worms into the worm farm, they will be able to see for themselves how worms mix up soil. When the worms dig through the container, they will leave a trail of sand behind them that your child will be able to see mixing into the dirt.

For the most worm activity, place the worm farm in a dark place or tape a piece of paper around the worm farm to keep the light out. Worms do most of their work at night.

Your preschooler will have a lot of fun creating his or her worm farm. From digging in the dirt, to playing with worms…what’s not to like!

Rachel Paxton is a freelance writer and mom of five. For resources for the Christian family, including parenting, toddler and preschool activities, homeschooling, family traditions, and more, visit http://www.Christian-Parent.com

Article Source: http://www.wahm-articles.com

Today the kids and I watched two ants carry a dead spider across our driveway. Those tiny creatures are amazing!

One way to watch insects up close is to buy a bug cage, or make one yourself.  Then you can watch those critters for hours. Remember to let your guests return home when you’re done watching them!

To make your own bug cage, you need:

copper wire screen

2 aluminum cake pans

Roll the screen so it fits around the cake pans. One cake pan will be the top of your cage, one will be the bottom.

Join the edges of the screens by sewing them together with a single strand of copper wire removed from the cut edge.

Here is a fun art activity to do with your preschooler while you’re studying insects - fingerpainting caterpillars and butterflies!

Get out your finger paints, or make your favorite finger paint recipe . Don’t forget the smocks!

Your child can paint caterpillars using the tip of her index finger. Place several finger prints in a row to make the body of a caterpillar. When the caterpillar is dry, you can add the legs and the antennae with a crayon or marker.

The caterpillar will one day become a beautiful butterfly! To paint butterfly wings, have your preschooler press the palm of his hand, including the fingers, into a tray of finger paint. Now make a handprint on the paper. You just painted a butterfly’s wing. Add a wing on the other side. When the paint is dry you can add the butterfly’s body and antennae with a crayon or marker.

Yesterday I wrote that insects have only 6 legs. After bug hunting, your preschooler might wonder why caterpillars have so many more than 6!

The answer is that all adult insects have 6 legs. A caterpillar is actually a baby butterfly - also called a larva. Here are some free activities to help your preschooler learn about the life cycle of a butterfly.

After your bug-hunting adventure, visit your local library to find some preschool books and videos about the insects you see. Maybe your child would even like his own library card! Our local library gives free library cards to children 12 and under as long as the parent has a library card.

Here are some of my family’s favorites:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

The Grouchy Ladybug

The Very Clumsy Click Beetle

Summertime is the perfect time to learn about insects with your preschoolers. All you need is a sunny day and a magnifying class. A magnifying glass like this one adds a lot of fun to bug hunting adventures!

It can be hard to get a preschooler to sit quietly for anything, but when you go insect watching, see if you can get him to sit for a few minutes and count how many different insects he can see.

What does an insect look like? Adult insects have these characteristics in common. (See how many creatures you can find that fit this description!)

• All adult insects have 6 legs. (Spiders are not actually insects, but arachnids.)
• Some insects have wings, but not all of them do!
• Insects have two antennae attached to the head.
• They might be hard to see, but insects have compound eyes. If you can look closely, you’ll see that their eyes are made up of many lenses put together.
• They have an abdomen. This is the segmented tail area that contains the heart, reproductive organs, and most of the digestive system.
• They also have a thorax. The thorax is the part that connects the insect’s head to the abdomen. The legs are attached to the thorax.

There are so many more ways to have fun in the garden than just growing plants and flowers!

Here are some more activities you can do in the garden with your preschoolers at home or with or your preschool class.

Make plant markers.  The kids can draw pictures of the flowers or vegetables, and you can write the names on the markers. It’s a good way to help them start reading, and they can also learn the names of flowers.

Make homemade planters out of milk cartons, coffee cans or empty yogurt cups. The kids can paint or decorate them anyway they want. If you have a dayhome or preschool class, you can even let them take seedlings home in their planters.

Decorate your garden by adding a rock edging. Let your preschoolers paint rocks and place them around the garden.

Make a rain gauge to measure rainfall. It probably won’t be exact, but that doesn’t matter. It’s a good way to help your preschooler learn his numbers, and show him how numbers can be used in real life. Add markings to the inside of a container to measure the rainfall.

Add a birdhouse to your garden! You can buy a kit at a craft store, or make your own.

Make a scarecrow to keep the birds away, and keep your preschoolers smiling. Fill up some old clothes with straw, use a bucket for the head and paint a funny face.

As Memorial Day approaches, our thoughts are with our American friends and readers.

Here is a free eBook to help you share Memorial Day the whole family, including your preschoolers. It has Memorial Day activities, crafts, coloring pages and recipes.

As promised, here are some of my favorite flowers to grow with preschoolers.

Marigolds.  This is an inexpensive annual plant that can be found in your local garden center or nursery. They bloom almost continually, and are bright and cheerful. Easy to grow, marigolds do well in moderate soil and full sunlight.

Butterfly Garden. Look for butterfly garden seed at the garden center. All the flowers in this mixture are attractive to butterflies. Spend the summer watching butterflies dance through your garden! Use in conjunction with teaching your preschooler about butterflies.  You can leave out pieces of orange for the butterflies to eat during their visit. Or you can mush up fruit for a butterfly feeder.

Sunflowers. Sunflowers are easy to grow, and fun to eat afterwards.

Sweet Peas. These grow quickly. A fun project could be to make to teepee from bamboo poles, then plant sweet peas to grow up around the poles. Preschoolers can enjoy their garden and they get a cool place to hide.

Nasturtium. These bloom in the summer, grow quickly and make excellent hanging basket plants. The flowers attract butterflies and hummingbirds. Consider creating a nasturtium basket and hanging it outside a window where your preschoolers can watch the butterflies and hummingbirds visit.

What’s your favorite flower to grow with preschoolers? Leave a comment and let me know!

Gardening with preschoolers can be a pain… or a fun time for everyone!

Here are some tips to enjoying gardening with your preschooler this year.

• Give them their own garden plot, so you don’t need to worry about them mistaking your prize winning tomato plant for a giant weed!
• Let them grow things they like to eat - peas and carrots are good choices.
• Buy preschool-sized plastic gardening tools.
• Put on sunscreen and a hat before you work in the garden.
• Help them make labels for each row they plant, so they’ll remember what they planted. This is also a good way to help them learn to read.
• Decorate the garden! Help your preschooler collect and paint rocks to sit among the rows and keep your preschooler company
• Plant a pizza garden! Tomatoes, onions, green peppers, basil, oregano, etc.

Tomorrow I’ll tell you about my favorite flowers to plant with preschoolers.