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

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

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.

Fizzy Fun

We're half way through summer, and what can I say but that I'm starting to run out of my "regular" ideas to keep the kids entertained.  Some days they do great at playing alone, and the next day I am needed EVERY. SINGLE. MINUTE. or so it feels.

I saw this idea on Pintrest a while back and decided to finally try it.  It's a twist on the classic baking soda and vinegar volcano idea.  Simple stuff.

Here's what you'll need:

A shallow pan (glass 9x13 or baking sheet works great)

Baking Soda

Vinegar

Small bowl or cup

Pipette or Medicine Dropper

Food Coloring (optional)

I purchased some pipettes off Amazon.com a few months back, for this very thing.  I'm a chemist at heart, so pardon my nerdiness.  But yeah!! They're cool, and only about $2 for a hundred pack.

Place 5 or so big spoonfuls of baking soda in the bottom of your pan.  Drop with 6-8 drops of food coloring in various places.  I used blue and green since that's all I had, but you could use any colors and turn this into a great little lesson on how colors mix to make new ones.

Fill a small cup or bowl with vinegar.  We ended up using about a half a cup of vinegar...the baking soda lasted A LOT longer than I thought it would.  

Suction up vinegar and squeeze it onto the baking soda and watch it fizz.  Make colored bubbles and have fun!  Even after all the baking soda has been moistened there was still enough dissolved to make the liquid fizz when you dropped more vinegar on it.  Not quite as dramatic but still very fun!

We spent a good chunk of time doing this, and could have refilled the vinegar multiple times, but I cut it off after a while even though Violet would have gladly played longer.  Even as I type this she is looking and the pictures and saying "I want to do it".  So we might be heading back out for a round two :)

Tape, Rattle, and Roll

It's another scorcher outside, several day in a row of highs in the nineties and eat index of 100+.  I'm running out of ideas of what to do with the kids, even taking them 3 blocks to the library seemed dangerously hot in the van with the AC blasting.

So I whipped out an extra roll of painters tape and got to work.  We have probably a half dozen of them around the house since we bought TWO huge packs when we painted our last house, and...well...I'm not a hug fan of taping things off so we didn't really use it.  Anyway, get yourself a roll of the wide stuff, any color, and find a surface that is somewhat tape resistant.  I chose the kitchen as to not sticky-up our newly refinished hardwood.

Start by creating roads from strips of tape. Rip and stick.  Or just roll the roll until it feels right!  We created quite the network of highways from the trash can to the fridge.  Pulled out a few road signs, emptied the car bin, and we were in business. 

We even used some of the roadways as boundaries for farms, and put the sheep, horse, dog, pig, and cat out to pasture.

It's messy, so I'll say they had fun!

Playdoh

Ever since I was a child, I had seen and used home made play dough, but never before had I realized how EASY it is to make. 

We've been a name brand play-doh family since my daughter received her first tub a year or two ago with some dough crafting toys in a kit.  For whatever reason it always seemed very firm and not easily molded by her tiny hands.  Even after "working with it" for a while it never seemed to get better.  Then there is the drying, crumbling, clumping, and not moldable anymore, wear out factor.  After a few months we had little crumbly chunks of play-doh everywhere each time she played. Moms out there who can sympathize, give me a shout out!  

We found the recipe below and WOW I will never buy play-doh again.  It is so soft and malleable.  I found MYSELF playing with it 10 times more than I ever did with the store bought stuff.  It's simple to make, from a few all edible ingredients, and it makes a HUGE batch.

Huge!

At first I was wanting to divide it into several colors, but have discovered that having just ONE color to play with is also very beneficial.  We don't have arguments over which color to use.  We don't have the 2 year old, OCD, I'm gonna change my mind in 2 seconds, and now I want the color HE has.  I'm always a little tense about all the colors getting mixed together anyway...something I inherited from my mother and childhood I supposed.

Side note:  Just now, as I'm writing this, I can hear the kids out on the dinning room table playing with dad.   My husband JUST said, like as I'm typing this post, "I like this stuff, this is way better than play-doh" and he doesn't even know what I"m doing right now as I hide away in the office to "de-stress".

Which reminds me, my daughter plays with this home made recipe at least twice as long as the store bought kind.  It seriously keeps her attention longer and the sheer volume of one lump of dough greatly expands creative possibilities. 

Have I convinced you to switch yet?

Home Made Play Dough

2 cups water

3 Tbsp vegetable oil

food coloring

1/4 cup salt

1 Tbsp alum

2 cups flour

Combine water, oil, and food coloring in a saucepan.  Bring to a boil. 

(Don't add oil and water together after one has been heated, just a little something I learned from my chemistry days)

Meanwhile in a separate bowl, combine dry ingredients.

Once the liquid mixture is boiling, pour it over the dry ingredients and stir to combine. 

Knead on a floured surface to enhance elasticity.

Store in a air tight container or bag.

As a closing note, may I add that playing with the fresh, still warm dough, is very therapeutic.  You might just want to make a new batch EVERY time your kids want to play so you can enjoy it yourself.  I would assume you can half the batch if you don't want so much, or could split into multiple colors, but why bother when it's great the way it is!!