Favorite Preschool Stuff! (Some of them)

I don't know about you but I am already thinking about next year and what I will need or re-use, etc. These are my "constants" in my cabinet. I will be REAL SAD when I do not need them anymore, REAL SAD! I have had these things for YEARS! I didn't realize just exactly how long until I remembered Bobbi Marie used these when she was in preschool (except for the puppets). Yikes! I would have to say that these are some of my favorites. So, I thought I would share. I do LOVE the language development cards from Abeka. They are pricey (like $50) but I still use these. I have gotten every penny out of it. It is basic information that little minds eat up! And on such random things and places. It takes maybe 10 minutes to do and then, if we want, we can do extra activities to remember everything we learned. For example, we read about the jellyfish, then some of the extra stuff is to make a jellyfish out of playdough, play jellyfish tag (one person is the jellyfish and the others are the fish they are tying to catch to eat), make a jellyroll etc. May seem silly BUT you would be surprised what they will remember! Then we will do a puppet craft if it is on an animal. Love the alphabet puppets book. You copy the animal in the back of the book, cut it out, color it and then glue it on a lunch, paper bag. So easy! The book gives you all info to do about the letter. For the letter J, the puppet is a jellyfish (there is always a little jingle to go with the puppet, so the kids can sing and make their puppet dance). These are some of the activities: 1. Jelly bean party (guess how many jelly beans are in a jar, cut out a paper J and have them line their jelly beans on it) 2. Jump rope games 3. Joke jar (have them cut out J's to decorate the jar - write jokes on pieces of paper and read throughout the week 4. Play jacks 5. make a J jump out of a cup for a jumping J and more! They even give you books to check out, but I have never done that. The other materials are the arts and crafts books by Abeka. About $8. Great investment. Super easy crafts and what I love are the crafts for all the holidays and seasons. The other cards are from Abeka. Special sound cards. I guess these are more for K-1st graders. Ava reads them every day. It helps with suffixes, prefixes, root words, all those "special sounds". These are rather expensive, also, but worth every penny. Of course, we do all sorts of things with these cards. She puts the words in sentences, I randomly put them on the floor and then she hops on it and says the special sound, hide the cards (when she finds it, she reads it) etc. You probably do the same. The other thing that works like a charm is plain old shaving cream (from the dollar store). This is how Bobbi learned each and every letter. At night she would trace each letter in the shower or tub in the shaving cream - EVERY NIGHT! She loved it. That was her favorite. For Cooper, I would make huge letters outside with chalk and then he would ride his bike on it, hop, throw rocks or whatever he could to be "active" and learn at the same time:) Ava LOVED the animal puppets, I mean LOVED them. Charlie, well, I am not quite sure what he will love or even like :) He is sharper than a tack, loves the big info cards but he is not thrilled about learning any letters (except his name). Guess that is a start.