Concepts For Kids

Throwback post! Now that I am totally back on a roll with blogging, I thought it would be a good time to write about a program I did back in November but never blogged about called Concepts For Kids-- admittedly not my most creatively named program, but fun and definitely worth the blog post.

Concepts for Kids is really just a very specific version of an ongoing program I did for a long time (but stopped about a year ago) called Books n Play for Pre-K. Each week, in Books n Play for Pre-K, I would do a different theme--anything from winter to colors to food to dinosaurs. Generally, the time was broken down like this:

~15-20 minutes: Hello song, two/three books, two/three songs
~15-20 minutes: Open play time with craft table and activity table (with music playing)
~5-10 minutes: One more book or song, Goodbye song

I modified my plan a little for Concepts for Kids, but at its heart, this was the same program, except with four very specific weekly themes: Colors, Numbers, Letters, Shapes. You know, concepts!

Here's a week-by-week breakdown of the books, songs, crafts, and toys that I used each week:

Week 1 – Theme: Colors

Books:
Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh
Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin

Song:
Picked a Strawberry (not color-related but fun Pete the Cat tie-in!)*

Craft Table:
1. Color hand prints**
2. Rainbow print outs + dot markers
3. Thanksgiving turkey craft ***

Activity Table:
1. Farm sorting (similar to this)
2. Bee hive game (seen below)
3. Rainbow discs-- CDs with flashlights ****
4. Light table with colored blocks (seen below)

* Picked a Strawberry: This is a cute song that comes from--you guessed it--Jbrary! It's not a color song but it's just SO perfect for pairing with Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes that I broke the rules and sang it during the color-themed week anyway! Here it is:

** Colored Hand Prints: These are an ongoing craft favorite of mine, but (in my opinion) too simple to be a stand-alone activity. However every time I have a colored-themed-anything, for preschool aged kids, this one makes an appearance. It's totally simple. The picture below sums it up nicely, I think.

And this picture, seen below, is the one I found online years ago that originally inspired this activity:

*** Thanksgiving turkey craft: This one was a total last minute add-on when one of my other crafts fell through (due to my supply-checking negligence). I made the simple template seen below, and had the kids color it, cut it out, and glue on pre-cut feathers that I made from construction paper. It was nice and I think people enjoyed having something to do for Thanksgiving.

**** Rainbow discs: These were literally just some old CDs with flashlights to shine on them-- nothing fancy at all. I borrowed everything from our library system in a big Science Buddies kit (that came with other things too, including the light table seen above), but any CDs and flashlights would work just fine! Parents and kiddies enjoyed shining the flashlights on the CDs and exploring the rainbows that were made together. It's a cute, quick, age-appropriate little science experiment!

Week 2 – Theme: Numbers

Books:
Dog’s Colorful Day by Emma Dodd
10 Little Kittens by Megan Borgert-Spaniol

Song:
Five Little Monkeys

Craft Table:
1. Dogs Colorful Day sheets and dot markers *
2. Cotton ball cloud gluing collage **
3. Flower petal finger paint counting sheets ***

Activity Table:
1. Early Math Activity Center (this from Lakeshore Learning)
2. Peg boards (these from Lakeshore Learning)
3. Smart Snacks Number Pops (these from Oriental Trading)
4. Dough boards (seen below)

* Dogs colorful day sheets and dot markers: These were were simple and fun and have been a hit time and time again. They can be downloaded here and seen below:

** Cotton ball cloud gluing collage: Using the picture below (which I made quickly in Publisher), I had the kids glue cotton balls on the clouds and then count them. Also, of course, color the sheets. Basically, I left this totally open ended since the parents were doing it side-by-side with their kids. I figured they could make of it whatever they wanted!

*** Flower petal finger paint counting sheets: I made this craft myself (see below), again using Publisher, but totally stole the idea from this unattainable link on Pinterest.

The idea was to finger paint the correct number of flower petals one each stem. This craft was a little less obviously open-ended than the cotton ball cloud gluing collage, but the kids and parents made of it what they wanted anyway... which is always ok! Here are some hand-printing twins:

Week 3 – Theme: Letters

Books:

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr.
ABC T-Rex by Bernard Most

Song:
ABCs with parachute and balls *

Craft Table:
1. Letter Stampers + paper (these from Learn365) **
2. Letter foam stickers + foam sheets (similar to these from Oriental Trading) **
3. Letter stencils with pictures that match + paper (these from Oriental Trading) **

Activity Table:
1. Dough boards (like the number ones used above, but letters!)
2. Play dough and letter-shaped cookie cutters
3. Melissa & Doug ABC Letter puzzles (these from Amazon)

* ABCs with parachute and balls: This is pretty self-explanatory, but a little funny. I had a hard time coming up with a song this week at first. I kept thinking, "why aren't there any good songs about the alphabet?" And then I remembered there's a VERY FAMOUS song about the alphabet that kids this age all know and are happy to sing. So, to make things a little extra exiting, we bounced balls around in the parachute as we sang the ABCs together. Everyone liked it!

** This picture shows all 3 crafts for this week at once! So all-encompassing!

Week 4 – Theme: Shapes

Book:
Perfect Square by Michael Hall *

Song: 

A Circle is a Shape **

Craft Table:
1. Gluing collage craft with pre-cut shapes
2. Shape stencils + colored pencils and paper (these from Oriental Trading)
3. Shape worksheet ***

Activity Table:
1. Flower magnets ****
2. Shape sorting bins (similar to these)
3. Blocks

* Perfect Square by Michael Hall: This wound up being the only book that we read for our last week of Concepts For Kids. I wound up with a younger, more restless group this week and decided to call it quits after only one story because there was just no way they were sitting through another. To be honest, I had a hard time choosing my second book for the week anyway and wasn't 100% happy with my choice in the end, so it was just as well!

** A Circle is a Shape: This is to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus and, yet again, comes from our friends at Jbrary. Here it is:

*** Shape worksheet: While, I guess, this was a bit half-hearted, I wanted a simple, age-appropriate activity to partner with college and stencils and this fit the bill. This is the sheet that I used:

**** Flower magnets: The kit we have can be found here (although I have no idea where we originally found it!) and the kids always seem to really like making their own little flower garden. Check out how the flowers in the second picture match the chart in the first picture! 👏👏

What worked least: This program just didn't wind up getting the kind of attendance I'd hoped for. Ranging from 2-6 kids per week, it required lots and lots of planning and set up, for a minimal reward. I'm not sure that there's anything I would change about the program itself, just maybe try it at a different (morning) time in the future.

What worked best: The craft/activity time was certainly the highlight of each week. In fact, I sort of felt like the kids were just politely sitting through my (relatively short!) story time so we could get to the good stuff. I think the open play format really works for toddlers.