Dr. Seuss

Dramatic Play

Dr. Seuss Land

Truffula trees, decor, and stuffed animals and books. It was pretty open for the kids to interpret and play as they wanted, and they had fun! There were often animals and things in the blocks that wandered over to this forest. They also loved the Dr. Seuss stuffed characters.

Blocks

If I Ran a Zoo, Dr Seuss' Book of Animals and toy animals


McElligot's Pool and 1 Fish 2 Fish Red Fish Blue Fish and fishing poles


Dr. Seuss' ABCs and ABC blocks


What Pet Should I Get? and pets (forgot a pic)

Art

Bartholomew and the Oobleck, and oobleck! (cornstarch and water)


Marble painting
They dropped the marbles onto the papers and rolled the marbles around in the tray.


Baking soda tray with colored vinegar and eye droppers. Fun science activity, and great fine motor skills with the eye droppers!


Glue and pom-poms

Small Manipulatives

Hat Matching, Cat in the Hat


Wikki stix


Circus puzzle, If I Ran the Circus


Horton Hears a Who and Horton Hatches the Egg and Horton counting links




Writing

Dr Seuss stickers, these were a hit!


Dr Seuss stamps


Reading Center


Snack

Cat in the Hat fruit kabobs (bananas and strawberries). They had fun making them and worked on their patterns, and strengthened small motor skills.

Colored goldfish, sorting and counting (1 Fish 2 Fish)

Green Eggs and Ham


Large Group

We learned the words author and illustrator.

Day 1, we read Cat in the Hat and painted our own hats, practicing patterns.

Day 2, we read Horton Hears a Who, and sorted pom-poms balls by color and size.

Day 3, we read My Many Colored Days and did an art project. I traced a person onto contact paper, then they got to stick colored tissue paper squares onto it.

Day 4, we played rhyming bingo to practice rhymes.

Small Group

Week 1, my group played rhyming memory.
The other group practiced counting with the Horton counting links.

Week 2, my group read Wocket in my Pocket, then made up funny rhymes in our journals and illustrated them.
The other group played with the pattern blocks pattern cards and made patterns.

Merry Christmas!

I'm really hating that I tried to cram all this Christmas fun into 2 days instead of 4, but it was still so fun and magical, and that leaves me lots of activities with no repeats for next year!

Dramatic Play

Christmas tree! I only decorated out of reach, so they could finish the bottom half. I want them to know they can touch something they might be told at home that they can't (and I get that, but at preschool, it's theirs, so I want them to feel some ownership).  They could hang up some of my shatter proof ornaments, or had 2 options to make their own.





I also have Christmas masks and hats, plus presents they can open and shut and add things too, and bags and stockings. Their turn to play Santa! It's fun to watch them fill and deliver the gifts to each other.




Their finished tree and ornaments:









Blocks

Christmas Duplos. Aren't they the cutest? I found them last year when my then 3-year-old threw me for a loop and asked for a reindeer toy. He treasures these so I was excited he offered to let the preschoolers play with them.




Magnatiles and jingle bells. It's so fun to play with magnets and metal!


Art

We made waffles for snack, then had these beaded Christmas trees to decorate. It's a great fine motor skill!


Christmas stamps


Small Manipulatives

Christmas puzzles


Beanbag toss. It's obviously more of a large motor skill than the fine-motor skills I usually keep in this area, but an important skill either way!


Fun Christmas magnets


Reading Center

2 stuffed animals dropped by for reading time!



Writing Center

Christmas cards. I could NOT believe how popular this one got! They all attacked it at the same time and were so dang excited about envelopes. And the fact I said they could take them home, but mostly because there was a little mailbox by the tree they could put them in. They used every card I had. I had to refill the center a few times.


Snack

Day 1, we had Christmas tree waffles with blueberry ornaments. A huge hit, inspired by Pinterest!

Day 2, we had hot chocolate and graham crackers.

Large Group

We learned about the word celebrate and sang Jingle Bells with real bells.

Day 1, we read Llama Llama Holiday Drama. Then we played this fun movement game where they got to move their bodies around the room like these Christmas objects or characters. It's from this blog.

Day 2, we read Polar Express and did our small group centers with mom helpers.

Small Group

Day 1, I helped the kids make "name trees" to review the letters in their names.

A mom helper did ornament counting with the other group.

Day 2, my group made candy canes with red and white beads to learn an AB pattern, and practice the letters in their name with letter beads.

Another group with a mom helped practiced their letter names on a Polar Express coloring page. She helped them add puffs of smoke with the letters of their name in the right order.

The other mom helped the kids make bead patterns on bell necklaces.


Also, I hope you enjoy your ornament gift! I was inspired by these on Pinterest, and found supplies at Dollar Tree to make them work. Their pictures were adorable. I just used clear plastic cups, foam snow, and added a character eraser, and a little sequin ribbon to jazz it up. They were so excited to take their pictures when I showed them what it was for. Hope you liked them as much as the kids did! I let them help put them together (besides the hot glue), but they got to watch that part.

Oceans

This was a short theme, but I think one of the kids' favorites so far! We had 1 day spent on our field trip to Seaquest (thanks to a great preschool mom for getting us passes!), and then another short week because of Thanksgiving. Here's the fun things we did:

Dramatic Play

An ocean! And beach!




It changed a bit each day. The first day, we had the blue blanket for the ocean with lots of big and small ocean animal toys. There were beach towels, floaties and goggles for kids on the beach. The highlight is the sensory table with kinetic sand and seashells.


The next day, I added a few more dress-ups.


The last day, my son had requested pirates, since pirates sail on the ocean, so I added pirate costumes and a treasure chest. They had a lot of fun with it! Also, the small ocean animals were now in the water on the art table, but we happened to find another awesome bag of ocean animals at the store this weekend, that had a few animals we didn't have yet. So, more ocean animal fun!






I think my favorite part of their play at this center this week was wanting to learn all about the animals they were playing with. They wanted to know their names, what they ate, etc. So we spent a lot of time checking out the reading center to find books about their favorite ocean animals, so they could learn more about them.

Blocks

The sensory table was in the block area, but we had all these fun ocean-themed puzzles and games too! They're really starting to like puzzles and get them out often.

Art

I forgot a picture, but I have seashell rubbing plates they used the first day, before we left on the field trip.

Ocean animal sponge painting


Tub of water with toy fish


Small manipulatives

Folder game and book


Ocean animal lacing cards

Flat marble animal pictures from totschooling


Magnet board



Writing table

Ocean stickers


Ocean stamps
I made these with foam stickers and milk lids and they've held up great for 6 years now!


Snack

We had Jello from ocean animal molds, with some blue "ocean" Jello

Of course, Goldfish crackers!

Large Group

Our song was 5 Little Crabs from Dr. Jean. We focused on the counting and numeral recognition.

Our word was ocean and we talked about the difference between oceans and lakes on our big world map.

Day 1 was our field trip to Seaquest aquarium.

Day 2 we chose ocean animals from dramatic play and sorted them by their beginning sound. This is new to them, so I was really focusing on them isolating that first sound and hearing what their animal started with. Then I'd tell them which letter card it went by that makes that sound.


Day 3 we read Rainbow Fish and made our own Rainbow Fish by gluing sequins on a fish picture.

Small Group

Week 1, my group played an ocean treasures counting game. The other group played ocean dominoes.

Week 2, my group worked on counting and putting our ocean 1-10 puzzles together, while the other group drew their favorite ocean animal in their journals.