Mom on the Move: Teaching Tidbits

This is a great activity I created for your early pre-writers. They can use a pencil or crayon to help them work on their control. It's a free printable!
Butterfly Trace

Here is another free printable to practice tracing!
Transportation Trace

Today I have some cute Do-A-Dot art pages that are great for little hands. You can use these in a variety of ways.
1. The most obvious way is to use the Do-A-Dot art painters. They are awesome painters that come in a bottle that is easy for kids to hold and not messy for Moms! The kids can practice eye-hand coordination and hand control.
2. Another great way to use these sheets is to have the kids put different items on them. For instance use different colored pom poms. They can put them on with their fingers or if you want to challenge them, have them use tweezers!
3. You can also use stickers. You can label the stickers or the sheets and have the kids match numbers, letters, shapes, patterns. The possibilities are endless!
You can find a mitten printable at this link: Mitten Do-A-Dot Printables

a Valentine printable at this link: Valentine Do-A-Dot Printables
a Gingerbread printable at this link:Gingerbread Do-A-Dot Printables

Here are a few craft ideas for winter with your preschool age kids!

This first one isn't a craft but it's a fun activity to work on number recognition and counting. I cut out a penguin and glued it to a cereal box. I cut off the top of the box and cut a hole in the cereal box where the penguin's mouth is. The kids can roll the dice and feed the penguin that number of fish or the correct corresponding number on their fish. I have some foam fish but you could also cut out paper fish if you didn't have any foam ones. Use two dice to make the numbers a little harder!

This is an easy paper penguin craft. Circle head, two pointed ovals for wings, a large black oval body and a smaller white oval for the stomach. Then add feet, eyes, and a square beak folded in half to make the beak stick out!

Here is my cotton ball snowman! For this project I usually draw the outline for them to fill in, depending on the age. They glue cotton balls on to fill it in and then you can add buttons, paper hat, carrot and scarf. Some snow falling in the background would be cute too! Maybe add some painted snowflakes they could add with fingerprints or q-tips!

This is my paper plate snowman. Three small paper plates glued together. Add stick arms, eyes, carrot nose, and a paper hat.I would definitely add some buttons to him too! Not sure what happened to mine?!

This mitten project is a way way to let their creative juices flow! I cut out the mittens from construction paper. Then they are to design their own mitten and can add sequins, or fun foam shapes to it. These mittens are actually two stapled together with a string in the middle to keep them together.

This mitten project is so fun for practicing lacing! I printed out the mitten shape and the animals from the Jan Brett story The Mitten. I love this book! I read it to the kids every year! Jan Brett has a website with all these free printables on it. You can check it out at this link to the animals. and this is the link to the mitten.

So I printed off two mittens and cut them out together. Then I laid them on top of each other and punched holes along the edge. You can decide how close you want to punch them depending on how much lacing you want the kids to do. Then have the kids color the animals and cut them out (or you can cut them out). Then they can put them in and out of the mitten as the book is read!

Jan. 27, 2015
I always love an opportunity to let kids work on their number recognition and counting! Here are some fun FREE Valentine's clothespin cards. Just print and have them use the clothespins to clip on the correct number. I would print them using cardstock. They will last longer and be more durable! Using the clothespins is also great fine motor practice for those little hands! Go to Heart Clothespin Cards