Red Light, Green Light

This week in our toddler/preschool co-op class, we talked about cars and traffic lights. Homeschool Creations Transportation Preschool Pack was the inspiration for this week’s theme.

We read Toot! Toot! Beep! Beep! by Emma Garcia. This is a simple book that has various colors cars moving around town with its own sound. The kids love to repeat the various sounds.

After we read the book, we talked about traffic lights. I pointed to the light in the book and showed the three colors. We discussed what they meant and then sang a traffic light song.

Of course, the next thing we just had to do was play Red Light! Green Light! One student was the traffic light and said either red light or green light. The students moved when it was green but had to stop when it was red. Oh boy did the preschoolers love this game!

Next we made a simple traffic light craft. The students glued three circles, each the colors of the traffic light, onto a piece of cardstock. ( I forgot to take pictures)

I usually have the students work on individual activities. After awhile, we switch. By the end of the class each student has had the opportunity to do each of the activities. This fine motor activity had students placing the traffic light color pipe cleaners in a parmesan cheese container and then placing the right color buttons on the pipe cleaner.

  The kids have really shown an interest in pom pom activities. I brought various trays and the students picked which one they would use. Some students just had fun practicing using the tongs to pick up the pom poms and place them into the tray.

Other students were able to do some simple patterns.

We used the number clothespin clip game from Homeschool Creations' Transportation Preschool Pack.

The students did a transportation magnet play/easy patterns activity.

And we played the Parking Lot Game by Sara from Happy Brown House. Could you believe that I could not find any match-box cars at my house? They are probably all buried in our sandbox. We used transportation erasers instead.  Technically, I needed two die, but I couldn’t find the other one, so I improvised. Be sure to see Sara’s post on how she plays this game.

Another busy, yet fun day in tot school/preschool co-op class!

Planes, Trains and Automobiles- Magnets

As I was wandering down the aisles of my local Dollar Tree, I came across a pack of transportation erasers. At first I passed them up because I have girls, but then my mind started thinking toward Tot School stuff, so I threw them in my cart. When I got home, I decided to jazz them up by adding magnets to the back.

The first activity we did was patterning. This is still a new skill for my 2yr. old. I placed the pattern above and we worked on copying the pattern underneath.

We also counted each type of vehicle.

Then we parked the cars at their homes.

I was very surprised at how much my 2yr. old and 4yr. old daughters loved playing with this homemade magnet set. I drew a couple of scenes on the fridge and they played with the magnets. Later in the day when I walked by the fridge, I found a whole story illustrated with the vehicles and dry-erase marker. Even my 11yr. old son enjoyed playing with them! Such an easy way to make a custom magnet set.

Apple Tree Number Match

Today I was cleaning through some old files when I came across this felt tree set I had made for my oldest daughter several years ago (I'm afraid to admit how many--lol!) This ended up being a great activity to do with my 3yr. old daughter today.

I traced tree tops onto green felt and tree trunks onto brown felt. Then I numbered the tree tops and trunks. Next I had my daughter match the numbers.

Then we worked together putting the trees in numerical order.

Next we placed pom-pom "apples" on the tree to match the numbers.

Another extension would be to have an apple shape and use position words such as:
"Place the apple behind the number two tree" or "Place the apple on top of the number 3 tree" etc.

I created two options for this activity: 1) print the trees onto cardstock or 2) trace onto felt. Both are included in the download.

Here's a download I made last year that would also go perfectly with an apple theme.

 And here's an apple collage we did last year which was posted at 3 Boys and a Dog