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Showing posts with label toddler. Show all posts
Showing posts with label toddler. Show all posts

Recipes for homemade crayons using recycled broken crayons


With Earth Day, and Earth Month, fast upon us, I'm looking at ways to reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose .Making crafts with recycled materials from the recycle bin is an excellent way to teach Earth Day eco-friendly habits. Here's are activities to use up those leftover broken crayons. Repurpose them as new crayons with these simple science activities. 

Have students gather broken crayons and peel off outer paper. You'll be making new palm held crayons similar to the egg crayons. These are popular in special needs or preschool classrooms use to help children who aren't quite ready for the stick crayons. Palm or egg crayons help toddlers, preschool and special needs kids develop fine motor skills while still enjoying coloring activities. 

Once you have pile of peeled crayon pieces, spray old recycled muffin tins with cooking spray. Use mini muffin tins for preschool and older children and large ones for toddlers as mini shaped crayons might look edible to toddlers. Have students place assorted bits of broken crayons in each tin. Aim for a rainbow of colors in each cup. Help kids place muffin tins in oven and heat to 200. Heat till crayons on melted but still chunky. Swirl with toothpick while warm if you wish. Place crayon melts in refrigerator till hardened then turn out of pan and enjoy coloring.

Be sure to only use recycled muffin tins for crafts, and not cooking, once you've done this activity. This is a great way to repurpose old muffin tins and give them new life. Use these free printable rainbow coloring pages to make beautiful spring crafts. Print coloring pages and printables on scrap paper from recycle bin for green, Earth Day ecofriendly activities. 

St. Patrick's Day party lesson plans, crafts, activities to celebrate green

Here's a nifty unit of activities for St. Patrick's Day: lesson plans to celebrate all things green! I've tailored these lesson plans for classroom or homeschool, and ages toddler and preschool through grade 3. I've included St. Patrick's Day party activities, green themed food and snacks, games, crafts and printables. There are many earth science extensions for Earth Day too. 

Green themed snacks and food for St. Patrick's Day party: 

Make a green fruit and vegetable tasting tray. For hands-on biology science activities, explore plant parts of green veggies and fruits. Make a chart to show what plant part each comes from. Draw a large tree showing roots below the ground. The use these free printable coloring pages for fruits and vegetables to color, cut and paste pictures on the tree. 

Roots: sprouts, scallions (tops), fennel bulb
Stalk (trunk) celery, green onions, dill weed, asparagus
Leaves: lettuce, brussels sprouts
ts, kale, spring mix, arugula, spinach, cilantro, mint, watercress, 
Seeds: green beans, peas, edamame, 
Flower: Broccoli, broccoflower: flower 
Fruit: cucumber, kiwi, green grapes, green beans, zucchini, chayote squash (also called mirliton in southern states), green apples, pears, acorn squash

Students will enjoy making green lime yogurt pops by freezing yogurt in popsicle makers. Or freeze limeade or pistachio pudding. 

St. Patrick's party games: 

Play Red light/Green Light (basically stop and go). Extend with safety lesson plans. Discuss that green represents "safe" or "go" in online, cyber and traffic safety. Make traffic safety road signs to test children. Use these free printable traffic signals and road sign coloring pages. 

St. Patrick's Day green themed crafts

Discuss earth friendly ways to keep the earth green. Encourage kids to think reduce, reuse, recycle and repurpose. Challenge them to make "green machines" that are both eco-friendly and green in color, from the recycle bin. 

Toddlers and preschool students will like to color these free printable spring coloring pages. Here are free printable flower coloring pages too. Be sure to print on scrap paper from the recycle bin. Use low ink settings for the most eco-friendly printing. Assemble into a poster to display. 

Have children make collages from recycled magazines of pictures of things that are green. For really earth friendly green crafts, use materials from the recycle bin. Toddler and preschool children will love finding green items in magazines. 

Plant herb seeds in recycled jar or plastic dish (holes poked in the bottom for drainage) from recycle bin. 

Earth Day green outdoor activities

Go on a nature hunt and look for spring signs of new life: nests, buds on trees, green plant shoots, flowers beginning to sprout, grass growing, baby leaves on trees. Pay special attention to things that are green. Kids should bring a nature journal where they can draw pictures of what they observe. 

Collect litter and trash for proper disposal. Be sure kids wear nitryl gloves and masks when collecting litter. Adults should collect any glass. 


Lesson plans using recycled plastic Easter eggs and egg cartons


  I love repurposing and reusing stuff from my recycle bin in new and creative ways, especially as lesson plans. Recently, my one-year-old grandson has been discovering the fun playing with empty recycled plastic Easter eggs. This has inspired me to design hands-on activities, lesson plans and games using recycled plastic Easter eggs and egg cartons. I've includes some free printable activities to supplement. 

With Easter coming up, there will be many activities involving plastic Easter eggs: candy hunts, Easter crafts, etc. You might be tempted to throw them away, after use, but don't. There are so many educational activities to use recycled plastic Easter eggs. Save Styrofoam egg cartons as well. 

I blogged in an earlier post about using plastic eggs and egg cartons from the recycle bin as preschool learning center math, sorting and fine motor activities. The good news for homeschoolers is that these make great toddler high chair activities too. Activities are easily adjustable to age. My grandkids Juno and Emmett who are 1, love stacking or "nesting" plastic egg halves, just like blocks. We work on placing eggs in egg cartons, to practice eye hand coordination, puzzle skills and fine motor. 

Challenge kids fine motor skills in egg assembly activities. The plain colored recycled plastic eggs are easier than the shaped ones like the ice cream ones shown in the picture which can be a little tricky. But it's important for development that some tasks be difficult, especially for special needs and students with autism. We teach to fear failure and frustration when we make things too easy, or do it for them. Children need challenges, to have to work at something and to try new approaches, to learn patience, perseverance and vital problem solving skills. 

Use assembled Easter eggs in science learning centers and preschool sand and water table to explore water displacement and floatation concepts. Give toddlers scooping tools to practice fine and gross motor skills in high chair activities. Special needs students will love "fishing" for Easter eggs too! 

Have kids "hide" little items or non-messy foods in recycled plastic Easter eggs. Or hide them yourself and have students predict what's inside. This teaches math skills of size estimation. 

Sort eggs in egg cartons, by color or design. Last year, when my husband and I visited our grandkids, we brought each child a set of individualized themed Easter eggs (dinosaurs, fish, desserts, sports balls and insects). Then we played an Easter egg hunt game in which each child had to find eggs in his pattern. The 3-year-olds, Lucian and Milo, were able to identify eggs that belonged in their pattern. And Ezra, who was almost two, was able to find his fishy Easter eggs by their color. Extend pattern lesson plans with free printable animal dominoes

Do an Easter egg hunt, using recycled egg cartons to place found eggs. Each child brings a dozen and finds a dozen. Once her 12 spaces are filled she "wins." A homeschool mom friend of my oldest daughter came up with genius plan. It prevents kids taking too many eggs and best of all teaches math skills. Have older kids group their eggs by two, three, four and six, to learn skip counting, multiplying and dividing. Reinforce with these free printable math flash cards

For more hands-on lesson plans and recycle bin activities stay tuned to this blog. 


Recycle bin Easter egg crafts to teach early math--with free printables


With Earth Day (now actually Earth Month) around the corner, I'm sharing lesson plans to make crafts from your recycle bin. Today we're making recycle bin Easter egg crafts to teach early math activities of sorting and matching, plus fine motor skills. These Easter egg crafts were inspired by my toddler grandchildren, Juno, Ezra and Emmett. 

As a homeschool mom, I was always looking for toddler high chair activities to keep the youngest busy learning while I did lesson plans with the older kids. Use these Easter egg crafts in math learning centers, as high chair activities or at a toddler picnic table for older more mobile preschoolers. I used one of the small Little Tikes picnic tables with our youngest. I rotated different preschool crafts and hands-on activities for her to work on. You could use the sand and water table also. 

For toddler Easter egg crafts (ages 1-2)  you're only going to need two things, which can be found in your recycle bin: plastic refillable Easter eggs and empty egg cartons. Assemble eggs for 1-year-old children and let them practice sorting into egg cartons. As they get older, children can begin assembling Easter eggs. Then at age 2-ish, they can match egg halves by color or pattern (we have some really cool ones shaped like sports balls, fish and ice cream!) These are great for developing fine motor skills. And saving Easter eggs from year to year is environmentally friendly so prefect for Earth Month. 

Also at age two, or whenever they no longer put things in their mouths, they can begin filling Easter eggs with tiny objects or shapes. Children might cut shapes from recycled cardboard or paper, to practice scissors skills. They might also use shape punches. Extend this into a fun preschool snack craft by giving them little snacks to hide in eggs (fish crackers, letter pretzels, etc.)

Here are free printable Earth Day activities and here's my page of free printable Earth Day lesson plans, crafts and activities. Lastly, here's my collection of lesson plans for Earth Day trash crafts Stay tuned for more Earth Month activities! 




Free Printable Preschool Valentines Day Lesson Plans

With Valentine's Day right around the corner, Pinterest, email, and blogs overflow with valentine crafts. Alas, many are also costly. So, don't pay. Here are free printable preschool valentine worksheets, games, crafts, learning activities and lesson plans. Fru-gals and fru-guys, use these for Valentine's Day fun.
Over the Big Moon is a mom-blog with 31 pages of free printable preschool Valentine's Day worksheets. They've added an extension pack with even more free printable preschool Valentine lesson plans for children. These kits are perfect for little ones ages 30 months to six. The activities are mostly for pre-readers and emergent readers. All the activities have a valentine theme.
To practice literacy and writing skills, there are letter tracing sheets focusing on the letter "V", vocabulary cards, phonics activities, word and sound matching and shadow letter tracing activities.
For early math skills reinforcement, there are valentine-themed counting worksheets, sorting activities, pattern extensions and sequencing games. There are several activities to develop visual acuity and eye hand coordination, including spot-the-difference games, coloring pages and four-piece puzzles. There are also several pages of cutting lines in different patterns to help children practice scissor skills.
The packets are free to print from the Over the Big Moon website. Or here's an alternate website with the same valentine printables. Directions are available. Valentine graphics could be reused as DIY valentines. Have children cut out pictures and glue on construction paper hearts.

For preschool classroom use, print activities in the craft center. Or put printed activities in a folder. Use as homework or vacation activities. Give as Valentine's Day gifts. Roll in recycled paper towel tube. Add a cute valentine pencil, a few crayons, scissors and glue stick. Wrap in recycled paper that children have decorated and tie the ends. Use for Valentine party favors. Senior citizens may enjoy these activities too,