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We kicked our home preschool year off last week with the awesome book "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and beach theme. I love starting with this book as an introduction or review (depending on age) of the alphabet. It helps me see what my kids know and what we need to work on.
I'm going to try sharing our lesson plan with you each week. I'll be honest I seem to over schedule and some times inspiration hits mid lesson so we don't always follow it exactly. Right now I'm just trying to figure out what works best for us. Also I have the sweetest little baby that thinks sleeping isn't really a priority and so we work around her mood as well:) This week's lesson plan actually took us more like two weeks-due to the sweet baby mentioned. Not a big deal that is one of the great things about teaching my kids at home we can go at our own pace. You can use our schedule as a basic outline or pick and choose what works for you :) I'm including my plan and a blank lesson plan.
Download them Here
(I can't figure out how to take off the 2nd page-use it as extra space for notes or skip printing it :)
Beach Number Hunt: Print the number cards and the I spy page. Laminate if possible. Cut the cards apart and hide them around the room. Let your little ones find them then locate on the "I spy page" page. Cross them off. You can also use the cards to for other games such as putting them in numerical order or print off two of the card page and use as a match game.
Coconut Shake-The idea for this game came from
here. Hers is adorable but made out of scrapbook paper. I decided to recreate the game digitally so it was easy to print.
Here's how to play: Print out the board games (one per person) and the page of letters. There are a few "chicka chicka boom boom" circles as well. Cut out letter and ccbb cirlces and place in a bag. Take turns drawing one of the circles. If its a letter-say the name. If correct place on your tree. If incorrect place it back in the bag. If you get a "chicka chicka boom boom" Shake all the letters off your tree. We set them to the side and not back in the bag. It was a lot of fun and one we played multiple times. I'm also keeping it out to use off and on through out the school year for practice.
Letter match (found in the download)-Print and cover the letters with the matching letter sticker.
counting mat
Counting Mats-You can find our original post on this
here. It was a favorite again!
color matching game: I recommend printing on cardstock
Monkey's in a tree file folder game-Anotehr fun way to practice colors. Print out the 2 pages of trees. Glue to the inside of a file folder or laminate. cut out the monkeys and laminate. You can add velcro or magnets. Match the color of the monkey's coconut to the tree with the same color of leaves.
Chicka Treasure Hunt-I found the idea for a treasure hunt in
this post (so many awesome ideas!). It was made for a school setting so I changed some words to fit a "home" preschool and created some cute cards to use for our treasure hunt. I hid a little treat by our ccbb book.
Crafts:
Coconut Tree Letter Craft: This is a simple craft that teaches cutting and gluing skills. I had the main pieces cut out. I had them cut the little fringes around the edges of the leafs. Then had them glue everything in place. Then use letter stickers to "climb the coconut tree."
Decorate a Letter-Print a letter from
here. We went with the first letter of their name. Use paint, crayons, paper, glue, feathers, etc.
Seashell Craft-idea from
here.
Rocking Crab-
Idea from here. We did simplify ours by using paper for the pinchers, legs, and eyes. I love how the rock! Such a fun and cute activity.
puffy paint star fish- idea from
here. We went with her suggestion and added a little more shaving cream. We also used glitter instead of pasta.
Other Activities:
Build a sand castle: We used
this Kenetic Sand . It does not come with a lot of sand but it was enough for my two kids and they LOVED the toys it came with. I'll be adding
this bag to our collection and is perfect if you want just a lot of sand. We've used similar products and this one was not real messy and it was super easy to clean up.
Puzzles- I pulled out anything Alphabet and beach. I was lucky to have a couple of cute Melissa and Doug ones and another I found at the dollar store a while ago.
We played ring a round the rosie but substituted the words. We would sing part of the ABC's then yell chicka chicka boom boom. On the last boom we would fall down. (we did A-G, H-P, Q-Z) It was a big hit.
Practice Rhythmn- slap (hit knees), slap, clap, clap or slap, clap, slap, clap. increase and decrees speed. We said chicka chicka boom boom over and over.
Interactive Tree from (Mother's Hubbard)-Free Pintable
here. (Its under Day 4). Used while reading the story.
Counting Coconuts Book also from Mother's Hubbard-found
here (towards the bottom under math). We used our fingerprints to make the coconuts
Letter Writting in sand-We tried the kenetic sand...it worked okay but next I'll buy
real sand.
Beach Party-wrap up the theme with a party. We read books and watched Moana on a beach towel. We decorated Alphabet sugar cookies (recipie and cookie cutters), played with a beach ball, and beach Simon says (ex. Simon says walk like a crab, move slow like a turtle, surf on a wave, etc.). And we went to a beach!
Dragon at the Beach-Play don't eat pete: While reading this adorable book I remembered our fun dragon "Don't eat Pete" game. It was for the movie Pete's Dragon but works.
You can find it here. My kids LOVE this game.
