Picky Penguin Valentine Freebie

I just added a new Valentine freebie to my Facebook page.  It's a cute little matching game I made to be used with those darling little mailboxes from the Target dollar section or any cute box or bag.  Each Valentine card features a fussy penguin who requests a specific heart for his or her Valentine.  Students find the heart that matches, sticks it on the card and puts it in the mailbox to be "sent".  Here are some of the Valentine cards:

It's a great activity for matching colors, following directions, and other speech and language concepts.  If you'd like a copy, all you need to do is go to my Facebook page, click on the "Like" button, and then click on the Free Downloads tab.

*Update 2/8/16: Facebook no longer supports freebies on individual pages. You can find this freebie at its new home at my TpT store.

Enjoy!

Right to Left, Left to Right? Mitten Story Revision

Some very savvy readers left some great feedback on my previous post stating that my Mitten story pages needed to be reversed so it could be read from left to right.  I took their comments to heart and reversed the order.  The finished product now looks like this:

You can find the revised version at my TpT store here.  See my previous post for instructions for assembly.  Thanks for understanding!

More Fun with The Mitten

Here's another great activity I've been using with my preschoolers this week.  It's a simplified version of The Mitten by Jan Brett made into a printable book that the kids can take home.  It has repetitive text, so little ones can quickly join in with retelling the story, and it's folded accordion-style so the mitten gets bigger and bigger and BIGGER as the story progresses.   It's so fun!   I made two versions.  One with the animals printed on each page, and one with animals to cut and paste on each page.  Here's what the pages of the printable look like:

I'm going to show you how to put it all together to make a book.  Cut out each of the story strips and one mitten.  Cut the mitten in half, following the dotted line.  To assemble the book, I always start from the left side and work my way to the right.  Glue along the left edge of the strip that has the mole on it. Place the left mitten piece on top of the strip, matching up the edge of the mitten with the dotted line of the tab that has the glue.  Be sure to glue the story strip in the center of the mitten.  It should look like this:

Next, fold the rabbit page to the left, like this:

and fold the hedgehog page behind the animal page to the right, accordion-style.  Be sure to fold directly on the dotted lines between the pages.  It should look like this when you're finished with the first strip:

Next, glue the right edge of the hedgehog page, and glue the story strip that has the owl on it on top of the glue tab, matching up the dotted lines.

 Continue to fold these pages like an accordion, folding the owl to the left, the badger to the right, etc.  It should look like this:

Repeat for the remaining two strips, gluing on the tabs and folding in alternating directions.   At this point, if you collapse your accordion strips into a stack,"The End"  should be facedown on top of the animals in the snow.  Open the page and fold back the glue tab to the right of "The End" along the dotted line like this:

Glue along the edge that is folded back. Place the right side of the mitten piece on top of the glue tab, making sure that it's centered, like this:

When it's all folded together, it looks like this:

It looks harder to put together than it actually is.  It's just a little folding and a little gluing.  You'll get the hang of it pretty quickly!

My little ones and their mommies have LOVED this one.  If you love it, too, you can find it at my TpT store here.

Stay warm and cozy!

Mitten Craftivity for Preschoolers

This week at Small Talk, we're all about one of my favorite winter stories, The Mitten by Jan Brett.  It's a great story about forest animals who all push their way into a cozy mitten that was dropped in the snow.  I thought I'd share one of the activities we'll be doing with you.  It is this easy mitten "craftivity" that your little ones are sure to love and you can use to cover a variety of goals.

Start by tracing a large mitten shape onto white card stock and cut it out.  Next, cut a smaller mitten shape out from the inside of the mitten, leaving a 1/2"- 1" frame.  Trace the outline of the mitten onto the grid side of a sheet of clear Con-Tact paper and cut it out.  Peel off the grid paper, exposing the sticky side of the Con-Tact paper.  Place your mitten frame on top of the Con-Tact paper mitten, matching the edges.  Place the grid paper back onto the mitten, protecting the sticky surface until you are ready to use it.

Gather up some pieces to stick on your mitten.  I used some snowflakes I made with a paper punch, some squares of white tissue paper, and some pictures of the animals featured in The Mitten.  The animals I used are from a darling graphics collection by KPM Doodles.

Stick the snowflakes and mittens onto the sticky side of the mitten.  Be sure to place the animals face down.

Then, put squares of white tissue paper over the animals and the snowflakes, making sure to cover all of the sticky spots.  Turn it over to see all the animals inside the mitten!  I love this!  It's so easy and so CUTE!

I plan to use this for a variety of goals, including following directions, articulation, vocabulary, basic concepts, and a simple story retell.

What do you think?  Check back later in the week to see what other activities I have planned for my Mitten theme.  Until then, stay warm!

Don't Break the Ice Game Companion for Winter Clothing Vocabulary

We've been having so much fun using the Winter Clothing Vocabulary Cards from my Indoor Snowball Fight that I decided to make a companion activity that can target a bunch of goals based on the same theme.  My kids go BONKERS for Hasbro's classic Don't Break the Ice Game, so I made some materials to use while playing it.  And I was right...it is a HIT (no pun intended)!

Here's what you do:

Then, decide if you want to use these game cards...

...or these!

The players take turns turning over a card and tapping a matching ice block until it falls.  Play continues until all the ice breaks and everyone laughs!  And then play it again.  And again.  And AGAIN, if the kids get their way!!!

I've used this game this week with kids ages 2-12.  Did you catch that?  Two-year-olds were able to play this without smashing all the ice blocks in at once.  I think having the pictures on them really helped to slow it down.  Here are some of the goals I was able to target:

*  articulation:  CVC, CVCV words for my younger kids; /th/ for "this" and "the"  as in "This is the match; final /s/ in "ice", and the list goes on.

*  receptive vocabulary:  finding items based on attributes comes to mind immediately, but also matching pictures and identifying items by their names.

*  expressive vocabulary:  winter clothing words, adjectives such as warm, cozy, stretchy, itchy

*  third person singular verbs:  when using the attribute cards, I had my students respond using complete sentences that included third person singular verb.  For example, "A hat COVERS my ears."  "A snowman MELTS".

*  use of have/has:  "Boots have laces."  "Hot cocoa has steam."

*  following game rules and turn taking.

That's just a start.  Be creative and I'm sure you'll find many ways to use this with almost all of your kids.

Do you love it?  You can find it at my TpT store here.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Let's Have a Snowball Fight!

It all started with a bucket of snowballs...

I saw this online a couple of weeks ago and just had to get them!  It's a bucket of six, soft, fluffy snowballs whose sole purpose in life is to be thrown.  I mean, come on, who doesn't want that???

So of course I've found MULTIPLE ways to use them.

I've got several little preschoolers who struggle with following simple directions, so my first thought was to use this with them.  Here's what I did:

I made a set of cards for following simple directions that include snowmen throwing snowballs and Christmas vocabulary.  I also made matching vocabulary cards that were a little larger, which I taped to some cardboard blocks to use as targets.  I set up two blocks at a time at the edge of the table, and separated the cards into two stacks and placed them face down on the table.  Next, we turned over the top card of each pile and read the direction together.  In the example above, we said, "Throw a snowball at the elf."  I gave the child one snowball and she threw it at the corresponding block until she knocked it down.  Then we repeated the steps with the remaining cards and blocks.  This game was a big hit (pardon the pun!)!!!

I was thinking you could do this, too, even if you don't own a set of snowballs like these.  You could roll up white socks to make your own snowballs, or you could use Styrofoam balls that you can find at a craft store.   You could use tissue boxes instead of cardboard blocks.  And you could use these, too:

Just a little freebie for you to have a little fun with this last week before Christmas.

You can find it right here,  at my TpT store.

So of course, I couldn't just leave it at keeping this activity for Christmas.  I want to use it all winter long!  And I wanted it to be useful for a wider variety of preschoolers.  So, I made another set, this one for working on following directions that include size concepts, prepositions and winter vocabulary.

Now we have six choices for actions.  The basic set...

...and at the request of faithful reader, Maria, a second set for more complex directions.

We also have...

...two sizes of snowballs to throw ( I added a bucket of cotton balls to the mix)...

...twelve winter vocabulary words on object cards...

...and 12 vocabulary cards to be used as targets.  This is what it looks like when we play:

Of course, the target blocks are not really this close to the picture cards when we play.  I just had to move them together for the picture.  Sometimes I even move the target blocks to various places in the room for bigger throws.  It just depends on the age and ability of the child.

I also decided to add preposition cards to this set.  There are five different prepositions in all and 4 blank snowball cards for you to customize according to your needs.

When using the preposition cards, I remove the action cards from play, because in this version, the child does NOT throw a snowball.  The child puts the snowball in the correct location as described by the action and object cards.  Like this:

You can increase the level of difficulty by adding the size cards, or by adding a second object, and by combining cards in a variety of other ways.

Do you like this one, too?  Find it here.

Here's another idea for your toddlers:  

Sorting snowballs by size!  With a little bit of throwing them thrown in for fun.

Early Speech Sounds Spinner Christmas Freebie

I'm so excited to share this Freebie with you!  I call it the Santa Sound Spinner -Final K edition.  It is part of a complete set of spinners and lotto boards that I'm almost ready to publish, but I just couldn't wait to share just this one piece with you!  My kids and I have been playing with it all week and loving it.

So what's it all about?  It's a spinning disk with 10 target words that fastens to the back of the Santa page.  Kids get to "open a present" and look inside to see a picture that goes with their target sound.  Here's what the disk looks like:

And here's the Santa page:

See those dotted lines around the green present?  You cut along each side and the bottom to create a peek-a-boo flap that the kids lift to see a picture.  Kids spin the disk by pushing the picture to the left or right to reveal the next picture.

You can play this game two ways.  If you're playing with more than one person, give each person a lotto board, and as the pictures are revealed, players cover the matching picture on their board.

Single players can spin the disk, say the word and then cover the dot on this Santa page using a dot marker or a chip (or maybe even a cotton ball, which might be really fun...you could have a "snowball fight" with the cotton balls after the game is finished!)  (I'm trying this TODAY!)

This freebie includes four lotto boards and spinner for the final /k/ sound.  If you like this one, be sure to check back soon for additional sound sets, because I've got a Princess and Superhero set that includes P, B, T, D, K and G in the initial and final position almost completed, and I might even make a few more Christmas sets.

Newsflash!!!  I had some extra time this afternoon and pulled together a Christmas Set for P and B sounds.  This set contains 4 lotto boards for each sound in the initial and final position...16 boards in all!  It is available in my TpT store.

If you'd like a copy of the freebie, visit my TpT site here and please be sure to leave feedback!

Merry Christmas!