I've been a little slow in getting this up, but here are some of the books we used during our T is for Truck preschool unit. It mostly became an overall transportation unit. We read a lot of books, but these are the ones we liked the best. Hope you like them too.

Freight Train

The pictures in this book are beautiful. It goes through each car on the train and shows them all in different colors. Then the train goes zooming through tunnels and over ravines, through the day and the night. It has very few words and is great for reading together.

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus
This may be a stretch for a transportation book, but who can resist the urge to read a Mo Willems book? The pigeon wants to drive the bus, but the bus driver has asked the reader to keep an eye on things. It's fun for the kids to get to tell the pigeon no over and over. You gotta love that pigeon. One of my favorite things about the pigeon books is the opportunity to read with so much expression. Reading with expression makes a decent reader a great reader.

Red Truck
This is a little board book about a little red tow truck that is able to make it through all of the snow and mud when other trucks can't.It's a short, cute book.

The Little Engine That Could
This is a classic story that every child should read. The train carrying food and toys breaks down before it can take its load to all the children on the other side of the hill. The big fancy engines won't help, but the little blue engine helps the train over the hill, all the while chanting "I think I can."

Away We Go
This was a great board book for learning about shapes. There are cutouts in the pages connecting the pictures throughout the book. We used this book with our foam shapes activity where we made cars, trucks and rockets out of different shapes. Very few words, but lots of colors and shapes.

Trucks Whizz! Zoom! Rumble! and Trains Steaming! Pulling! Huffing!
These were both great books showing different trucks and trains doing there jobs. We loved all of the pictures. There was so much going on to talk about.

Let's Go For a Drive
Another wonderful Mo Willems Elephant and Piggie book! Elephant and Piggie decide to go for a drive, but they need to gather everything they need. Once they have the map, sunglasses, umbrellas, and suitcases they are ready to go, until they realize they have no car for their drive. Sweet Girl loves this book. She has most of it memorized and can "read" it to me.

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Our second preschool unit was T is for Truck. But we expanded to include cars and trains too. I guess you could call it T is for Transportation. I don't know a lot about cars and trucks, but we still managed to have a great time learning about them and playing with them. We spent two weeks on this unit, and still didn't get to everything I wanted to do.

Math Activities

• Truck Sorting- Gather a collection of cars and trucks and sort them in different ways. We sorted by color.
• Pattern Block Pictures- We used these Melissa and Doug pattern blocks to make pictures of different types of transportation. Some pictures came in the set with the blocks, but you can print your own pictures for free from Prekinders.
• Delivery Truck- Sweet Girl picked a number card and then counted and loaded that many blocks onto the delivery truck and drove them to the "construction site."
• Color Delivery Truck- We used the same delivery truck, but this time we were delivering colored blocks. I laid out colored pieces of construction paper, and then gave  Sweet Girl some Megablocks to load on the truck and deliver to the matching color of construction paper. 
• Foam Shape Blocks- I cut shapes out of foam and gave them to Sweet Girl to make cars and trucks out of. She surprised me by designing her own rocket.
• Truck Measuring- We used unifix cubes to measure different cars and trucks and then compare their length.
• Truck Graphing- We sorted the cars once again by color, and then lined them up to form a bar graph. 

Literacy Activities

• T Writing- We started the unit by practicing the sound that T makes and by writing upper and lower case Ts.
• Car Lacing Cards- I printed off these free car lacing cards from Busy Little Bugs.IT's not exactly writing, but it's still good for developing fine motor skills.
• Transportation Word Spelling- I downloaded these transportation words . Sweet girl used letter tiles to spell the transportation words.
• Name Train- I cut out "train cars" and wrote the letters of the names for each member of our family. Then Sweet Girl lined up the cars to spell each of our names.
• Truck Letters- We lined up our toy cars and trucks to form letters.
• Letter Wheels- I cut out wheels for our car and wrote upper case and lower case letters on them. Sweet Girl had to match up the letters and put them on the car. 

Other Activities

• Stoplight- We made a stoplight out of construction paper. I traced the circles for the lights, and then let Sweet Girl cut them out.
• Red Light Green Light- We played red light, green light with the stoplight we made.
• Singing- We sang songs like "The Wheels on the Bus."
• Playdough Tracks- We drove a monster truck toy through playdough to make track marks. A side note, we had to push a lot harder than I thought we would to be able to make any tracks.
• Tire Track Painting- We did a similar activity the next day when we drove the truck through paint and then drove it onto paper to create a really awesome textured picture.
• Sidewalk Chalk Roads- We drew a set of roads and a town on the sidewalk and then drove our cars around town.
• Building Ramps- We experimented with building ramps and their steepness and rolling our trucks down. We ended up sending them down our fold up slide.
• Car wash Sensory Bin- This one we didn't get to, and I was really bummed. I thought it would be a lot of fun. The plan was to fill a bin with soapy water and sponges and wash our toy cars.

Finally to wrap up our truck unit we had a pizza movie party where we watched Disney's Cars. Sweet Girl had never seen it before, and it was a major hit. We had so much fun. Now onto the next unit.

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To go along with our F is for Farm preschool unit, I wanted to share some of our favorite farm books. We read a whole bunch of books, but these were the best.

Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type

This is by far our favorite book. It is so funny and the pictures are adorable. Definitely a must read for every farm unit. If you aren't familiar with it, Farmer Brown's cows find an old typewriter in the barn and write him a letter requesting electric blankets. When Farmer Brown refuses, the negotiating begins. Hilarious!

Big Red Barn

This was such a simple story about a day for the animals that live in the big red barn. I just loved the pictures. 

Cindy Moo

Cindy Moo lives in the barn and decides she wants to be able to jump over the moon. Despite the fact that none of the other cows believe in her, Cindy never gives up, and finally finds a creative way to achieve her dream. It's kind of a silly story, but I liked the message of don't give up. 

When Cows Come Home

This was another silly book about what the cows do when the farmer isn't looking. It's fun to pretend that the cows are all out dancing and playing when we aren't watching.

We Love the Dirt

This is a great addition to your farm unit if you are talking about growing things. It is very simple, perfect for beginning readers. 

Farmer Brown Goes Round and Round

In this story Farmer Brown gets sucked up in a twister along with some of his farm animals, and when they come back down there has been a bit of a mix up. Very funny.

Funny Farm

This is a short story about city dog, Edward, on his first trip to the farm. He helps out with all the chores and meets new friends while he's at it. I love Mark Teague books, so this was an obvious choice for me. The illustrations are so cute and unexpected.

There you have it, our favorite farm books. Do you have any good recommendations? 

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We just finished up our farm unit in preschool. It was awesome. I found lots of great ideas, and came up with a few myself. Altogether it made for 2 weeks of great preschool time. Here are some of the activities we did along with links to some of the printables we used.

Math Activities

• Sorting Animals- Farm Animal or Not?-  I collected a bunch of toy animals, some found on a farm and some not found on a farm. Sweet Girl sorted out which animals are from the farm and which aren't.
• Sorting Animals- This time I gathered a bunch of different farm animals and told Sweet Girl to sort them any way she wanted. She sorted them by what kind of animal they were, as you can see in the picture on the top right. We didn't have time to explore further that day, but there are lots of different ways to sort them.
• How Many Animals in the Barn?- I printed off a cute little barn and laminated it for durability. You can see it in the picture on the bottom right. Sweet Girl drew a number card and then counted the many animals into the barn.
• Cow Spot Counting- I used the blank cow printable from 2 Teaching Mommies. Sweet Girl rolled the dice and then counted out spots (black beans) to put on the cow.
• Farm Patterns- I also used the farm pattern cards from 2 Teaching Mommies. Sweet Girl sorted the pictures and then practiced making different patterns.
• Animal Size Sequencing- I used the cards you can see in the bottom left of the picture. They came from a great farm packet from Creative Preschool Resources. 

Literacy Activities

• Handwriting- We start each unit by introducing the new letter and practicing writing it. There are a million handwriting pages you can download, but this one is my favorite. It's free from Teachers Pay Teachers.
• Prewriting and Scissor Practice Pages-I found some great pages from the farm packet on Creative Preschool Resources.
• Play dough Letters- As seen in the top left corner, I drew a capital and a lower case F, and Sweet Girl made the letters out of play dough.
• Feather F- We talked about how chickens have feathers and feathers starts with the letter F. So I cut out a large F and gave Sweet Girl some feathers to glue on. You can see the finished product in the middle bottom.
• Colored Eggshell Name- I wrote Sweet Girl's name on construction paper and then helped her trace it with liquid glue and the cover it in crushed colored eggshells. 
• Hidden ABC Eggs- I placed foam letters inside plastic Easter eggs and hid them around the room. Sweet Girl went on an egg hunt to find them. When we opened them we named each letter and made their sounds. We didn't do every letter in the alphabet. I tried to pick some of the most commonly used letters and ones I know she still struggles with.
• Farm Animal Spelling- Also from Creative Preschool Resources, I found a printable of farm animal names. We used foam letters to spell the names out.

Other Activities

• Build a Barn- We used Mega Blocks to build a barn with spaces for the animals. (It didn't look very much like a barn, but it's the creativity that matter.)
• Animal Hand Print Pictures- We traced Sweet Girl's hand to make a cow. Her thumb became the neck and head and her fingers were the legs. We added a tail and used a stamp pad to make spots. We also made a sheep the same way, but instead of adding spots we glued on cotton balls.
• Farm Animal Puppet Show- We used some puppets I made awhile ago to do a puppet show. The pattern and instructions are from Just Another Day in Paradise.
• Animal Charades- I used this farm animal printable from Buggy and Buddy. We took turns choosing cards and then acting like the animal while the other guessed what we were being. I was surprised at how much Sweet Girl loved this activity.
• Farm Animal Memory- I printed a second set of animal cards and we played memory.
• What Come from Cows?- I cut out pictures of things we get from cows from a grocery store ad. We talked about each of them and the glued them onto the same blank cow pictures from the counting spots activity.

So there is our F is for Farm preschool unit. We had a great time. I hope this is helpful.

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This fall Sweet Girl will be headed off to preschool. She is so excited to go to school, and I'm excited because I know how much she is going to love it, (and it doesn't hurt that it will give me some free time in the mornings). I have been collecting preschool ideas on Pinterest for awhile now and figured we should start doing our own at home preschool to get her ready to go. So we started a few weeks ago and it has been so much fun. I love getting to spend time together and I especially love how excited Sweet Girl gets about preschool. She even decided totally on her own, to call me Mrs. Mommy during preschool. How adorable is that?

I like to keep it pretty simple. After all how much flash does a preschooler need? Mostly it's just about us spending time together and learning a little on the side.

So here is how preschool has been playing out for us:

I choose weekly themes to guide our learning. For example our fist week was I is for insect. We did all sorts of insect activities. Sometimes the theme lasts for just one activity and sometimes it lasts for two. I have found two weeks is about the max for us before we both start to get bored.

First preschool only lasts about 20 minutes four days a week. We do it while Little Brother takes his morning nap.

We start with Calendar Time. I made a sad looking little calendar on my bulletin board. I just cut out 2 inch circles and wrote the numbers of the month on them and then hole punched the top so I could hang them on a straight pin. I am hesitant about posting a picture of it because it really isn't fancy, but I do want to show how simple it can be.
We use a pointer (Okay it's the drumstick to our Rock Band drums.) to count the days so far in the month. I also have three circles to show the weather; sunny, cloudy and rainy. That about covers the weather in our area.

                                               

Next we have Story Time. We just read a book to go along with our theme.

Math Time come next. We do a simple math activity. We count, do patterns, sorting, shapes, colors, etc.

Then we have Literacy Time. Here we practice letters and their sounds, writing, and words.

Finally we have an Activity. This one varies a lot.It's everything from science to singing to using scissors to dramatic play.

Yo help me get started I used the Mommy School packets from Oopsey Daisy blog. They are really great. It was the perfect way to start, because everything was in one place. But after a few weeks I wanted to start picking my own themes. Now I get lots of ideas from Pinterest. My hope is that I can start sharing what I have collected.

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The start of preschool is just a couple weeks away, and I am busy trying to make sure everything is ready. Our first unit is all about apples, so I made these apple bean bags to go along with it. Sweet Girl has already tested them out so I know they are super fun. After I finished them she placed each apple into a separate tupperware container. Then she put them into a bowl and then back in the containers, then she moved the containers around. It all looked very methodical, but I was not following very well.

These bean bags are very simple to make even if you don't sew well, and they are perfect for fall which is creeping up on us very quickly.

Here is what you need:
Felt- I found sheets at Walmart for $.23 each
Matching Thread
Filler- I used some leftover popcorn kernels I had
Apple Template

1. I cut a 5 1/2 inch apple template on my cricut. I'm sure you could easily find a picture online that would work. Then I pinned and cut out my felt apples. In this picture the stem and leaf are still on. Before I cut out the felt I just clipped the stem and leaf off and cut the out in brown and green felt.

2. Pin two apple pieces together with the stem and leaf pinned at the top.

3. Sew around the edge. I back stitched over the leaf and stem to make sure they would stay in place. Leave an opening to pour in the filler.

 4. Add the filler until it is as full as you want, but don't overfill or you won't be able to sew up the opening. Stitch up the opening.  You can turn it inside out before this step to hid the edges, but I don't mind the edges showing. I did trim them a little to make sure both sides met up perfectly.

Let the playing begin!

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A few months ago at play group some of the moms were talking about looking for a preschool for their kids this fall. I mentioned that I wanted to start up a preschool someday. Turns out someday came sooner than I thought. This fall the kids from play group will be coming to my house for a little preschool. I have to admit I am super excited. It's going to be kind of low key because my house is very small, but I already have a whole bunch of great lessons and activities all planned out.

Since this isn't going to be a big money maker, I have been saving money by making things myself instead of buying them. One thing I wanted was cards to show our daily schedule so the kids would know what to expect each day. I made up these simple cards. They aren't fancy but I like them. I printed them on cardstock and laminated them for durability.

I love free stuff, and I love when people are so willing to share the things they make. So, if you are interested in these preschool schedule cards, you are more than welcome to print them by clicking the link at the bottom of this post. Please just be respectful in how and where you use them.

 

Here are the preschool schedule cards in PDF format for easy printing.

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