Hey 👋
The Cali Ghost Preschool
Heeeey! My name is Elizabeth and I’m a full-time single mother trying to do my part to create a better world. Due to the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of little ones are forced to stay home from school and follow along in their academic journey through virtual/distance learning. Although I appreciate my son’s preschool’s efforts to continue meeting virtually, I did not want my son to miss out on the excitement and creativity that comes with being hands on in preschool.
So, I decided to dive in and use everything I learned during my time as an Early Education student and preschool teacher to plan out learning, engaging, and creative activities for my little human. With the help of Pinterest (a lot of help) and some creativity on my part, I would like to share what I come up with and the resources I use to help my little one have the best at-home preschool experience possible.
Hopefully what I share will be useful to you and your little humans! We are all doing the best we can!
Love,
The Cali Ghost Mama 💜👻
How I Categorize My Activities
✏️TRACING
-Helps little one learn how to move fingers, hands, and arm to eventually begin writing
-Helps little one develop fine motor skills (ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists)
-Helps little one learn how to direct their writing utensil in different movements/directions
✍️FINE MOTOR SKILLS
-Helps little one learn how to use their small muscles in their tiny hands
-Helps with writing, buttoning clothes, zipping, picking up small objects, etc.
🔠ABC’s
-Recognizing both uppercase and lowercase letters
-Recognizing letter sounds
-Recognizing what objects begin with what letter
-Tracing/Writing uppercase and lowercase letters
🔢Numbers
-Recognizing numbers 1-20
-Counting from 1-20
-Tracing/Writing numbers
-Counting from 1-10 in Spanish
-Matching number to quantity
🎨Arts & Crafts
-Fun for little one
-Can help with fine motor skills such as cutting, gluing, picking up craft materials, etc.
-Helps tie in theme of the week
📚Books
-Usually themed book
-Helps little one understand how to pronounce words
-Expands little one’s vocabulary
-Encourages speaking skills
-Helps little one recognize words
-Helps build listening skills and imagination
-Encourages critical thinking skills (cause and effect, logic, chronological order, etc.)
-So many benefits to reading to/with your little human!
✏️Other categories not main focus:
-Colors and shapes (fortunately my little one has his colors and shapes down so we only occasionally touch on these).
-Learning to recognize first name
-Learning to say first and last name
-Learning about places (city, state, country)
-Learning about animals
Cute Playful Posable Leaf Sprites by Handmade Charlotte (FREE)
You will need:
-Free printable on website mentioned above
-Printer
-Scissors
-Tape
-Pipecleaners
Jamesey and I loved creating these little leaf friends. He had so much fun that he decided to share the fun and took his leaves outside to let his friends make their own leaves. They ran around with them, threw them in the air, chased each other… Who knew this easy craft would be such a fun time for little humans?!
Tracing Leaves (FREE)
James loved finishing these leaves and coloring them!
Perfect to help develop those fine motor skills and writing skills.
Fall Themed Tracing Uppercase and Lowercase Letters (PAID)
Have your little ones practice their tracing with these cute fall themed uppercase and lowercase acorn letters.
These worksheets are not free but luckily they are super affordable and so worth it!
Fall Leaves Counting Cards (FREE)
Have your little one practice their number sense by counting and matching the number of leaves to the number on the bag 🍂.
Fall Themed Sensory Bin (IDEA)
I cut out some leaves that I printed and hid them in the popcorn kernels. Then I had James dig for them and collect all the leaves. He had so much fun he asked me to ‘hide’ the leaves again when he was done. He also spent hours (yes, hours) burying his cars, legos, and toys in the bin. In the end it was a little bit of popcorn kernels everywhere, but it was so worth it! He helped clean too haha!
Fall leaves printable I used to hide in the sensory bin (FREE)
https://kikicomin.com/fall-leaf-garland/
Fall Leaves Poem (FREE)
Tie in the theme with this cute leaves poem to help your child recognize words.
I got this hanging chart from Dollar Tree.