This blog has thematic ideas for toddlers and preschoolers!

Sunday, February 28, 2010


March is Reading Month!There will be lots of fun ideas on the way for the month of March!

Thursday, February 25, 2010

We went on a Safari!

I pulled the shades and turned up the jungle sounds and we went on a safari! We had to be very quiet so we didn't scare the animals away! We even survived the rain storm! We used our binoculars we made and I bought all of them a safari hat to wear on our adventure. They had so much fun!
Animal Cracker Box
This is why I said to save the animals cracker boxes. We say this little poem at circle time and the kids take turns picking the animals out of the box! If you click on the image you can read the poem.

Belle making circles on the little chalkboards!

Reegan working really hard to get the pegs in the lite brite!


Reegan and Belle using tweezers to pick up colored pasta noodles!

Belle enjoying our frozen banana snack! We put the banana on the stick and put it in the freezer. It only took them 30 minutes to freeze! Then we dipped the top in chocolate!

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

These are the binoculars we made for our safari. We painted two toilet paper tubes black. I stapled them together and added some yarn.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Mikey the Monkey
Mikey the Monkey came to visit us for Dental Health Month. He brought along his new toothbrush that he got at the dentist!

Wednesday, February 17, 2010


How to Make a Rainshaker!

You will need: empty plastic bottle, rice, food coloring or water color, ziplock bag

Fill a ziplock bag a quarter of the way full with rice. Put a few drops of food coloring or water color in the bag and close. Knead the bag until all the color has spread over the rice. Use a funnel to put the rice in the plastic bottle. Put this fun saying on the bottle:


Shake this rainshaker up and down,
To hear the rains pitter-patter sound.
Our rainshakers! When we took them in the jungle we shook them all at the same time and it really did sound like rain!


Belle being very careful to get all the rice in her shaker.


Reegan shaking her rainshaker!


Fruit Loop Graphing

I used these punches to make the fruit loops for the graphing chart!

Luke and Belle graphing their fruit loops. They ate them when they were all done!


These are fun foods to use for a jungle theme! You can sort, graph, match, or make a necklace with the fruit loops. The Animal Cookies are always fun for the kids to go through and look at the animals, but always save the box, I have a cute activity coming up with it! The Curious George fruit snacks are fun for the kids to eat because they all love George!
Fruits of the Jungle
We taste tested fruits that grow in the jungle. We tried pineapple, starfruit, prickly pear, baby bananas, kiwi, coconut, and papaya. We usually taste mangoes too, but the store didn't have any.

Belle examining the coconut. It ended up being rotten inside! Yuck!


Luke being silly with the top of the pineapple!


This is a papaya. The kids thought it tasted okay.


This is the inside of the prickly pear. It tasted like dirt!


This is starfruit. It has a sour taste to it. The kids loved it!

Monday, February 15, 2010

This is a fun game to play when your doing a jungle theme. However, I didn't buy it because I already have Chicken Limbo for when we do farm.

I Went to the Jungle
(sung to: London Bridges)

I went to the jungle one day,
jungle one day, jungle one day,
I saw a ________ on the way
and this is what he said,
(make animal's noise).
*Fill in a new animal and sound every time you sing the song*

Thursday, February 11, 2010

Reegan playing with the mix and match box of chocolates!

Luke doing some heart matching!


We played with heart-shaped ice cubes today!

Wednesday, February 10, 2010


Books About Love and Valentine's Day
Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney
Winnie the Pooh's Valentine by Bruce Talkington
Winnie the Pooh and Valentines, Too byLiza Alexander
Dinofours: It's Valentine's Day by Steve Metzger
Bear in the Big Blue House: Love is All You Need
The Night Before Valentine's Day by Natasha Wing
Arthur's Valentine by Marc Brown
My Love For You by Susan L. Roth
I Love You, Grumpy Bunny by Justine Korman
A Book of Hugs by Dave Ross
A Book of Kisses by Dave Ross
Bear Hugs by Karma Wilson
Happy Valentine's Day, Pooh by Isabel Gaines
Pooh Loves You by Fran Posner
Valentine Mice by Bethany Roberts
Elmo Loves You by Sarah Albee
How Do I Love You? by Leslie Kimmelman
Mouse In Love by Robert Kraus

Heart Sorting
The kids loved sorting all the hearts into the right colored buckets. I let them have one heart before they started and one heart after, and none of them were tempted to taste more!
Cookie Cutter Heart Art
Heart Matching

Tuesday, February 9, 2010




These are our valentine mailboxes!
Handprint Heart


Reegan is sorting out jungle animals!

Saturday, February 6, 2010



These are our paper plate snakes! The kids painted one side green and one side yellow. Then I cut them in a spiral, and added an eye and a tongue. We hung our snakes from our jungle vines!
Reegan brought this for show and tell! We had just read a book about elephants!

We talked about monkeys so playing with a barrel of monkeys seemed to be the perfect thing to do! They are great for fine motor skills!


Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Can You Guess Who?

We put on masks and pretended to be jungle animals. I took pictures of them and I put them on a bulletin board titled "Can You Guess Who?"




Luke making snow castles! The kids really like bringing the snow inside and watching it melt. Sometimes we sprinkle different things on the snow to see what makes it melt faster. We have used salt, sugar, pepper, bread crumbs, etc... So it's a little sensory and science all mixed together!