puzzles and games

Magnetic marble tubes for the preschool classroom

January 22, 2012

Collaborating and communicating with each other as the children explored our home made marble run!

Creative Challenge: Holiday magazine puzzles

December 5, 2011

Joining in on a creative challenge by making these fun holiday magazine puzzles for my preschool classroom!

Pumpkin vines on the sticky table

October 17, 2011

Exploring pumpkin vines in preschool through a variety of activities…

This is a little frog game for preschoolers

May 9, 2011

Dawn is always so busy making wonderful games and activity boxes for the children at preschool and this is one of her latest games she put together…. She added lili-pads, frogs, and a dice… The children will make up their own rules of how to play the game… The dice is included to promote a [...]

Exploring all four seasons in preschool

March 30, 2011

Through out this week, the children have been exploring the four seasons. For one of our activity boxes, we set out laminated trees and symbols to go on the trees that represent each of the four seasons… Before playing with the four season items, the teacher brainstormed with the children about which season each symbol might [...]

Colorful and educational rice bottles for preschoolers

March 21, 2011

I have been playing around with rice bottles to see what I can do to make them both fun and educational. I love all the different versions of rice bottle, also called “I Spy” bottles, I have seen on other blogs and since I whipped up all that colorful rice a few weeks ago, I [...]

Craft stick rainbow puzzles in preschool

March 14, 2011

I first saw this idea on Almost Unschoolers and then shared it with the teachers… We are exploring rainbows and in one of our activity boxes the children have found these rainbow craft stick puzzles. At first all the craft sticks were all mixed up into one pile and because there were three sets of [...]

Fun with skeleton bones in preschool

October 30, 2010

Today the children had their Halloween party and there were all kinds of activities the children participated in. These children worked together to build a skeleton. They started with the head and worked their way down the body adding arms and hands and legs. The discovered that each arm and leg and two bones. I [...]

Making game mats for preschool

October 13, 2010

Many preschool teachers and stay at home moms spend hours on making games and activities for preschoolers. When I make a game mat, I like to make it colorful, simple, self explanatory, and as open-ended as possible.. I like to laminate most of my game mats so they can be used over and over again. Sometimes, [...]

Helping young children solve puzzles in preschool

August 28, 2010

I can’t remember who taught me this little technique for teaching preschoolers how to manage a puzzle but it is a technique I have used for many years with much success. When a very young child takes a puzzle and dumps all the pieces out, chances are he or she will have a little trouble [...]

Bright and colorful home made puzzles and games

March 31, 2010

Did you know that you have all the supplies you need to make bright and colorful games and puzzles for your preschoolers right in your own kitchen? Here are some ideas for you to try… Puzzles Don’t throw away the panels of your cereal boxes! Turn them into puzzles. Laminate them before cutting apart for [...]

Create a name game for your preschoolers

February 27, 2010

Some names are long and some are short. Play this little concentration game to help your preschoolers recognize their own name and the names of their classmates. To prepared the game… Print each child’s name (upper and lower case) on a two separate sentence strips. Cut one name apart leaving one letter of each child’s [...]

Create a name puzzle for your preschooler

February 26, 2010

Help your preschoolers recognize the letters in their name with this little puzzle activity. Write each child’s name on a sentence strip using upper and lower case letters. Write each child’s name on a sheet of construction paper and add a rectangle with the same number of columns under the child’s name. Create a second [...]