Free Printable Worksheets

These are some of my favorite sites for getting free printables.  Of course I'll update and add more as I come across them, but these I have found to be great starting places, and hope you do too!

Planning Playtime
Twisty Noodle

Loopy Love Crochet Hats

I have been on a crochet baby hat marathon over the last couple months.  I ran across this pattern on Pinterest and it is so simple, and quick.  I can usually finish a baby size hat in a couple hours.

I first started making baby hats for our soon-to-be son or daughter, then matching ones from my older kids as a gift for when the baby comes. Since we aren't finding out the gender I had to make one of each color...just in case.  It then expanded to making hats for several friends who are having babies, a couple of Christmas gifts, and...well, you get the picture.  

You can get the full pattern and directions from Moogly.  I modified the pattern just slightly,  the two things I did differently were:

1)  Instead of doing only three chains in Round 2.  I just skipped the second step and went directly from 6 sc in the magic ring to six loops (which is what you have at the end of round 3) by doing one [sc, ch 3, dc] in each of the original 6 stitches.  I found this to make the top of the hat lay flatter.  I followed the directions for my blue hat and made the improvisation in the pink hat.  The blue hat seems to have more of a "bump" of bulk at the start.

2)  The second change I made was that I didn't change my hook size for the brim.  I just used the same hook the whole way...makes the hat less of a beanie and more straight through the end. On some of the hats I left the brim off completely and just ended with a scalloped edge (below).  

Happy Stitching!  

Let me know how it goes...

Preschool - November Week 2 - D, diamond, color matching

Core:

Letter "D" (p.*)

Shape "diamond"

Color matching

Activities:

Dinosaur Popsicle Stick Puzzle(s)

Letter "D" File Folder Matching Game (below)

Song:

Ten Little Ducks - Fisher Price Little People Counting Song (we have the DVD)

Printables:
Missing Letter "d" - to simplify for children who cannot yet write.  Pre-make small paper squares with the letter "d" written on them, and have children place the squares in each blank.

Letter "D" File Folder Game

To play this game, print graphics and words that start with various letters, some with the letter "d".  Have the child place a marble on each of the pictures that starts with the correct letter.

Color Matching 

To make our color matching sheets reusable (and more like a game) I laminated them back to back like a placemat.  Now they can either use a washable marker to circle the correct color again and again, or a token (such as a marker) to place on the correct colored square.  This page was taken from a book about colors I purchased at the Dollar Tree.  See THIS POST for more information.

*all page numbers are taken from "My Big Preschool Workbook" published by School Zone.  Find it HERE.

Follow my 3 Year Old Preschool Pintrest Board for week-by-week ideas!

Home Tour - Bunk Bed Room

Welcome to the Bunk Bed Room!

First up in our home tour is the bunk bed room.  Vague title I know, but since both of our children sleep in this room from time to time, it isn't really the sole property of our son or daughter, although it is our son's primary resting place.  It also doubles as a play room since we have not other official space to put the toys. 

A few features of this room include: a misc. frame collage that I made by painting mis-match frames I picked up at Goodwill and garage sales; an IKEA organizer, and a Target clearance rug.  The dresser (below left) was a $20 craigslist.com find that I spray painted and updated with new nobs.  It's amazing what I coat of paint can do.  Surprises me almost every time.  The bookshelf wall (below right) is my pride and joy.  It was over a year in the waiting, until I finally bought some wood and got to work this summer.  It is one of the first woodworking projects I have done completely from scratch and I'm so happy with how they turned out.  This little nook  between the door and the closet was otherwise wasted space, with the floor vent below we couldn't really put anything there.  This makes corralling the books a little easier and the lower shelves are easy for my toddlers to reach and put the books away by themselves.

  

       

Off the one side of the bunk bedroom is a little sitting room.  At one point it appears to have been a very tiny room of it's own.  When we first moved in, we used it as a small play room, but I found toys were being dragged out into the larger space so we converted it into an honorary "nursery".  My son's crib was in here until he eventually graduated to a toddler bed, and now the bottom bunk (which he calls "top").  We've left the crib up in case of visitors and to be ready when we have our new baby in March.  

Love the animal print blanket and valence?  The "theme" of this room was originally elephants.  As we've transitioned over time it's more and more difficult to tell, but you can get this fabric HERE.  It's called Zoology by Michael Miller.  It comes in a variety of color schemes, but I chose "sea" because it's so gender neutral. Use left over pieces of fabric to fill the frames in the collage. Take a closer look in the upper right below!

Paper Bag Puppet Printables

Yesterday, at a birthday party, the hostess had paper bag puppets for the kids to make.  I thought they would be a great little preschool project.  Why had I not thought of them before?

A quick Google search and I ran across this beautiful website by Scholastic.  Seriously, I am so excited!!!  A printable for every letter.  We are definitely going to be doing some of these this year.

Check them out for yourself!!!

PAPER BAG PRINTABLE PUPPETS

Home Hunt- Spouts

As I sit here eating breakfast with my three year old on a lazy Sunday morning, we are enjoying cups of tea together with our yogurt and cereal.  My french press is sitting between us, and little girls asks, "Mommy, what's that?" pointing to the spout on the front of the pitcher.

This lead me to an explanation of what a spout is and what it does, and then a search for other items in our kitchen that also have spouts for pouring.  I find practical activities like these to be such great learning opportunities, and a way to incorporated exploration into every day.  It's practical learning with life application all around us.

How about you?  Why don't you go on a spout hunt today?  Search your home for things with spouts. What shapes do they come in?  Triangles?  Circles? Are they for liquids?  Gels? Dry goods?  

Here are some places to start:

Cartons (milk, juice, goldfish crackers boxes, etc)

Boxed dish detergent

Salt container

Coffee Creamer

Measuring cups and spoons

Pitchers

Tea Kettle

Watering Can

Condiments

Soap

Instant rice or potatoes

Spices

For an added activity, perhaps with older children, have them try to pour certain objects (say water, rice, salt) from a container without a spout into a cup with a smaller opening.  Then have them try it again from a container with a spout into the same cup.  See if they can pour more successfully without spilling.  Can they pour the same amount without spilling, just more quickly?  Talk about how spouts help us.

Rummy Mommy

My daughter is all about the games.  Make something a game and she'll almost always be on board...for a little while at least...until it's time to clean up. Right? However, she also LOVES games that are wwaaayyy too old for her.  She regularly pulls out our Sorry, Dominoes, Bananagrams, and Rumikub from the game cabinet to "play a game" with the pieces.

Recently in preschool we have been working on number recognition, and my little guy is just starting to catch on to a few of the basic colors.  

Tools for teaching you kids can come from ANYWHERE.  For me it largely depends on how much "mess" I'm willing to let them make with something clearly above their age level.  Yesterday we played with the tiles from our Rumikub game.  We did number and color identification and sequencing.  Little girl practiced her numbers, little boy practiced his colors. 

As with all preschool activities, it didn't last long, but I have to remind myself they are learning and they are having fun.  The pieces in our set are durable and easily washable so they really aren't going to hurt anything or themselves.  

From one mom to another, think out of the box, and use what you have to do the best you can with your kids.  They clearly prefer this to a box of preschool flashcards.  Your kids may too.

Bubble Cups

Kids love blowing bubbles in their drinks, right?  Come on!  Be honest. You did it when you were a kid...maybe as an adult you still do.

This project is a flashback to my childhood.  Specifically, my younger cousins birthday party way back in elementary school.  Thank you Aunt D. for giving me, yet another thing, to carry from my childhood into my future.  

This spring my kids have loved blowing bubbles, yet we're just not quite old enough to handle the "big kid" style of making bubbles.  Unless I was planning to purchase a large bottle of bubble solution weekly, I needed a better option.  Hence the Bubble Cups!

Supplies:

Large plastic cup or jar

Old t-shirt or washcloth

Sturdy straw

Rubber bands

Scissors

STEP ONE

Cut a section of t-shirt large enough liberally cover the opening of the cup or jar.  If using a washcloth, you may want to just use the whole thing.

STEP TWO

Add a quirt or two of dish detergent to the bottom of the cup/jar, cover with and inch or two of water and add the straw.

STEP THREE

Place the cloth over the top opening of the cup/jar, and secure with a rubber band.  Make sure to secure the areas around the straw well to avoid any "stray" bubbles coming up around the straw and near your mouth when blowing.

STEP FOUR

Blow!  Be sure to remind your kids NOT to suck, which is going to be their natural tendency.  The bubbles will pile and pile.  Even smaller children can make a lot of bubbles.  Of course the cups aren't spill-proof so they will dump if tipped, but in my opinion these are a lot easier for little hands to hold than traditional bubble jars and wands.

Tissue Box Banjo

I'm all about making toys that can be "fun and done".  Kids seem to get bored with things very quickly and I'm not one to spend a lot of money on toys.  This is a quick little project that's easy, cheap, and "disposable". 

Supplies:

An empty tissue box

Rubber bands

Step One: gather supplies

Step Two: stretch bands around box

Step Three: play and make music

Preschool - September Week 3 - S, Square, 0-1

Little Violet is running through these pages so quickly, I'm going to have to beef up my lesson planning from here on out, because she clearly loves workbook pages.  Yesterday we bought two more workbooks at Target since she has been wanting 'somebody to be her teacher' everyday and I'm running out of things to give here...plus the printer was out of ink.  Target does have some great little books and TONS of flash cards in the red dot one spot area right now.

Here's what's on for this week:

 Core:

Letter “S” (163-166*)

Shape “square” (40-41)

Numbers “0-1” (215-216)

Activities:

Scissor Activities 

Smiley Faces

Sun Printing – SolarGraphics

I found these SolarGraphics sheets at a garage sale a couple years back.  However, it looks like you can find several different sun printing kits through Amazon.

*all page numbers are taken from "My Big Preschool Workbook" published by School Zone.  Find it HERE.

Follow my 3 Year Old Preschool Pintrest Board for week-by-week ideas!

Preschool - September Week 4 - B, Blue

When we started this adventure mid-August I promised I'd get us back on track by mid-September.  With some morning sickness and less than school worthy three-nager attitude we are 'behind' and back on track.  Here are this weeks lessons. 

Core:

Letter “B” (83-86)

Color “blue”

Friendship

Activities:

Sing the B-I-B-L-E song

It's Game Time (319*)

Read “Little Blue Truck” by Alice Schertle

*all page numbers are taken from "My Big Preschool Workbook" published by School Zone.  Find it HERE.

Follow my 3 Year Old Preschool Pintrest Board for week-by-week ideas!

Preschool - November Week 1 - G, Green

Core:

Letter “G” (107-110)

Color “green”

Good vs. Bad

Activities:

Red Light, Green Light Game

Printables:
Green-Verde Frog Coloring Page

Song:
G is for goofy (below)

Something new we've added in the past couple weeks are the letter circling stories.  My daughter loves to circle things, and these worksheets are a great way for her to work on her upper and lower case letter recognition.  This week is "G is for Gumball".  I read her the story and she then circles every letter "Gg" that she sees.  These were part of some preschool resources given to me by my sister-in-law, but they are original from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com.  Her printables weren't up and working when I checked out the site, so I'm not sure if they were part of her downloadable archives or not.  I still have to do a little more exploring of what she has to offer, but I've begun using more of her stuff and have really been benefitting from it.

A second thing I've been using recently are these laminated writing practice pages.  They came in the crate of preschool stuff my sister-in-law gave me.  I wasn't planning on using them this year, since we're working mostly on letter recognition, but when we did the letter "P" my daughter surpized me by tracing them perfectly.  We just use Crayola ultra clean markers on them, and they wipe clean with a damp cloth.  The letter "G" was still a little too hard, and I don't think we'll use them every week, but for some of the easier letters, or letters in her name I think they will be helpful.  I'm confident they will defiantly be helpful when we start hand writing in the next couple years.

Find more resources like these from Jan Z Olson and Handwriting Without Tears.  I wasn't able to find the exact product that these handwriting pages (above) came from, but it looks like she has a library of great resources for handwriting and keyboarding.  Unfortunately, they aren't free.  Makes me feel extra blessed that these were given to me.

G is for Goofy Song
an original masterpiece by yours truly
(to the tune of 'C is for Cookie' from Sesame Street)

G is for goofy, that's good enough for me (3x)

Oh...goofy, goofy, goofy, starts with G

Preschool - October Week 1 - L

After hitting the Target after school clearance I am fully stocked with extra Bendon workbooks and cards. I'll try to denote them when able.  This week's come from the 'Same or Different' workbook.

Also on for this week, the letter 'L'.  Since our leaves haven't really turned yet we'll have to see how successful the leaf pressing will be.  Not that we can't press them green but the colored ones are so much more fun to pick out!

I am also planning to have my daughter start practicing her name using a highlighter tracing technique.  A link is on my Pintrest board.

Core:

Letter “L” (131-134)

Spelling Name

Same and Different  

Activities:

Collect and press leaves

Spanish “libro”

Highlighter Name Tracing

Welcome Boards

This little project was actually inspired by a "front porch makeover" themed Christmas package I'm putting together for my sister-in-law.  A few weeks back I pinned a cute board sign that said "Rejoice" which was the inspiration for these welcome boards. These really could be used indoors our out, but I made these with the vision of them setting attractively propped up by the front door to welcome guests.  Ironically, the last name of the recipients of these gifts makes a great pun for a variety of uses.  With a few simple tools I whipped both of these up in an afternoon.

SUPPLIES

Boards: these are reclaimed 1x8 boards in approx. 4 ft lengths.  We had to repair a section of our fence this summer and I have a whole pile of them behind the garage.

Stencil: My Cricut came in perfectly for this.  If you don't have one I'm sure you could either buy some, or make your own with and exacto knife, but seriously for simplicity sake, just find someone you know who has a Cricut or Silhouette and ask if you can borrow it.  I cut my letters out of regular card stock at a width of 5 inches.  Height varries by letter.

Spray Glue/Adhesive

Paint: I used leftover exterior paint from our garden shed, but depending on indoor or outdoor use you can really choose whatever works best for you.  This project took a very small amount of paint so anything you have should do fine.

Sponge Paint Brush: you know, one of those little black spongey ones you can get really cheap.  I think I used a 1 inch brush.

DIRECTIONS

Prep the boards by scraping off any loose paint with a flat edge and rough wire bristle brush.  Also removed any nails or other dangers.  If not using reclaimed wood you can paint or stain your board for desired look.

Lay out your stencils on the board until you get the spacing and look how you'd like it.  Apply spray adhesive to the back of your stencils to make them like a giant sticker, and stick them down.  They don't have to be perfect, but you want them to stay in place.

Select your font color, and dip the sponge brush lightly into the paint.  Until you know how your board absorbs the paint you don't want to put it on too thick.  For crisper edges try a thin layer and do multiple coats if desired.  My first try I overdid the paint on the word "THE" and it leaked under the stencil.

Allow to dry and remove the stencil.  That's it! Now you have a great little decor piece for wherever you choose to put it.  You could also do it double sided for multiple seasons or phrases.

Happy Painting!

Memory Verse Psalm 119:160

"They word is true from the beginning..." (Psalm 119:160)

Sing to the tune of "Pop Goes the Weasle"

Thy word is true from the beginning
Psalm One Nineteen, One Sixty
Thy word is true from the beginning
Psalm One Nineteen, One Sixty

AWANA Jumper Celebrations Bear Hug #8

Memory Verse 2 Timothy 3:16

"All scripture is given by...God..." (2 Timothy 3:16)

Sing to the tune of "London Bridge"

All scripture is given by God, given by God, given by God 

All scripture is given by God, Second Timothy Three Sixteen

AWANA Jumper Celebrations Bear Hug #7

Memory Verse John 1:3

"All things were made by Him..." (John 1:3)

Sing to the tune of 'Jesus Loves Me'

All things we-re made by Him
Jo-hn One Verse Three
All things we-re made by Him
Jo-hn One Verse Three

AWANA Jumper Celebrations Bear Hug #5

Preschool - October Week 3 - O, Orange, Oval

Core:

Letter “O” (144-146)

Color “Orange 

Shape “oval” (45-48, 56)

Activities:

Make doughnuts

Water painting - orange pumpkin