preschool | Penny Pinching Peach

March 3, 2014
by pennypinchingpeach 3 Comments

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

In honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday on March 2, we decided to read his whimsical books in a nook with a look for ideas to cook up for activities to do that go along with the stories. Today we read “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish”. That is one of my munchkins ‘ favorites! I didn’t want to do a bunch of printing and searching activities yesterday, so I just free styled it. Maybe it will give someone else some inspiration.

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One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish is a favorite read at our house!

One fish, two fish was simple. I drew a large one and a large two on each side of the picture with the word fish, and let her draw. She decided to go rogue on that one, so I’ll skip a picture, but she did understand the concept. LOL

Red fish, Blue fish

For red fish, blue fish, it was pretty easy, too. I grabbed some red and blue markers, using the appropriate colors to title and illustrate a coloring page. My little artist colored them opposite colors, but she enjoyed herself. 🙂

So that it wasn’t just about the fish on the cover, I chose another of my daughter’s favorite parts of the book for the closing activity.

By the light of a star, by the light of the moon…

I drew a moon and star, sketched a rudimentary sheep, grabbed a bunch of cotton balls, rolled pieces of tape and stuck them to each, and turned my little princess loose. Glue would be easier, but we have issues with glue, curls and an independent streak. 😉 My kiddo was pretty tickled with the results of her project!

Is anyone else doing any fun activities in honor of Dr. Seuss’ birthday? Am I the only lifelong fan of his books? I was actually excited to read them to my babies, since I enjoyed them so much growing up! 🙂 If you want to get your own copy to do these fun activities with, just head on over here: One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

January 11, 2014
by pennypinchingpeach 1 Comment

Newspaper ABCs

Hunting and Clipping

With the holiday season over, and the Christmas themed crafts no longer an anchor for our preschool activities, it’s back to ordinary projects for us. I decided to have my 4 year old review her alphabet a little differently, using random things from around the house, to make sure she really recognizes and can write each upper and lower case letter well.We’re a few letters in now, but I’m sharing what we did for the letter A, as well as what Baby Boy did for “baby school” while she was hard at work. 🙂

My hubby had brought home a newspaper with all those lovely coupon inserts, and there were some advertisements in there with large, classic block letters. I got out Princess Peach’s current preschool book and had her look at the letter A pages she had done previously. She then filled her dry erase board with as many upper and lower case (also known as mommy and baby) letter As as she could. After that, it was on to her fun project, with her book and dry erase board as her guide…

I gave her the advertisement page, and told her to find and cut out as many of the letter A as she could find. For every five letters, she would get a sticker. She had a blast hunting for and cutting out her letters and cashing them in for her stickers! 🙂

Of course, little brother wanted in on the fun as well, so Mommy pulled out some extra large animal flash cards for

Animal Identification and Sounds

him once sister was to the cutting stage. I set him up in the high chair next to her, gave him the flash cards and had him hold each one up and I’d tell him the animal and animal sound. He’d repeat them to me with interest, and sometimes tell me what sounds they made before he even held them up to show me. This kept him stimulated and happily learning with sister instead of trying to steal all of her letters. 🙂

All of this took place in our kitchen while I was doing dishes, by the way. I can’t get anything done if I can’t multi task at least part of the time! 🙂

Does anyone else use random household items for educational activities? It definitely appeals to the penny pinching, hate-to-waste-anything side of me, I have to admit! 🙂

December 20, 2013
by pennypinchingpeach 8 Comments

Christmas Bead Ornaments

Bead Ornaments

My 4 year old loves crafts and Christmas, so I’ve had to come up with alot of random crafty things for her to do that are Christmas related. One thing she has especially enjoyed is beading. She’s done ornaments, as well as making bracelets and necklaces galore. We even made a camo bracelet for her baby brother. I also had to come up with a way to include her 19 month old brother in her new favorite activity, which I’ll share in a second. 🙂

Concentrating on beading

She made a few candy canes and a wreath to hang on our little Christmas tree. I just twirl one end of a Creativity Street Stetems/Pipe Cleaners 12″ X 4mm 100-Piece Assorted Colors
to hold the Pony Beads Multi Color 9mm 1000 Pcs in Bag
on and shape the finished beads into whatever we are making. She enjoys making a pattern by laying out beads in the color scheme we are going to use, and then using that to remind her of the order her colors should go on her pipe cleaner.

Her brother was jealous after she’d made bracelets for herself and me, so I came up with a camo themed bracelet idea. He wears it proudly, and Daddy isn’t the least bit bothered by his son wearing a camo bracelet like he might be of Princess Peach’s suggestion of purple and pink for her brother’s bracelet. 😉

Camo bracelet

Of course, I couldn’t leave the little guy out of all of this Christmas fun! I was looking at his little face, which he would’ve stuffed with all of the pretty candy colored beads, and had an AHA!! moment. I strapped him in his highchair, handed him a pipe cleaner and dumped a handful of multigrain Cheerios on his tray. Tada! Edible beads for baby! He was thrilled to be doing what big sister was doing, and I was happy that both of my children were safely entertained. 🙂

Baby beading Cheerios

This is a super cheap and easy activity that will keep Princess Peach busy for hours, and my little squirt happily engaged for as long as 20 or 30 minutes. Anyone who has ever cared for small children 24/7 knows that a fun activity like that is priceless!

What are you keeping the little ones in your life busy with during the holiday season? Need another idea? Check out my popular Salt Dough Christmas Ornaments!

October 28, 2013
by pennypinchingpeach 2 Comments

Crafty Snacking

Smiling With A Smiley Face Cracker

Crafty Snacking

My daughter loves all things cutesy and yummy. Combining those two loves, I sometimes make her snacks or meals in cutie patootie delicious forms.

Princess Peach loves peanut butter on crackers. I take large round crackers, peanut butter and either craisins or raisins. I spread the peanut butter on the crackers, then make faces, flowers or sun designs with the craisins or raisins. She loves it!

Flowery Crackers

She also adores marshmallows, so that was an obvious one to make a crafty critter out of. I took eight small pretzel sticks, painted a smiley face on a flat side with one of the pretzel sticks dipped into a drop of Hershey’s syrup, then jabbed them in the sides of the marshmallow to look like spider legs. This would be a fun and easy snack for those who celebrate Halloween.

Happy Spider

We often have sandwiches for lunch. Sometimes I’ll cut it into triangle shapes and put a large cherry tomato in the middle, all arranged like a flower. I’ll also take a cookie cutter and cut three or four pieces out of the sandwich in whatever shape it is.

Flower Sandwich

There is an endless array of cool things you can do with food! I only do the quick, easy and cheap varieties myself, since I am actually chasing around the kiddos I’m feeding, but I’ve seen some “food art” that would break your heart to eat.

Does anyone else like to get creative with food for their munchkins sometimes for no reason other than making them smile? 🙂

For more great food for kids, check out After School Snacks!

October 22, 2013
by pennypinchingpeach 22 Comments

No Carving Pumpkin Family

Pumpkin Family

No Carving Pumpkin Family!

This is the first year my daughter has had a huge opinion about pumpkin decorating, and she wanted to do a family out of miniature pumpkins. She picked them out at the pumpkin stand (75 cents each- penny pincher insert 🙂 ), and was super excited to morph them into a pumpkin family to set out on our porch. I did not want to attempt carving pumpkins with two little ones. She wanted a happy family, not a spooky Halloween one, so I was thinking bright & cheerful things she could actually help with. So, I went to the Dollar Tree and got a few items I thought would work for decorating and for crafts later on, stretching my dollars further. We probably used less than $1.00 worth of supplies, so these pumpkins cost less than $1.00 apiece to make. Score!! 🙂
“Penny Pinching Peach is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com”

Read on to find out how to make your own pumpkin family without carving.

We used: Craft Pom Poms like these Pepperell Assorted Pom Poms, Hot Colors, 300 Per Package, Sparkly Pipe Cleaners like these Tinsel Stems 6mm 12″ 25/Pkg-Multi, Googly Eyes like these Watch them wiggle eyes, Black(500 PIECES) – BULK , paint and glue.

I was too busy creating our cute little pumpkin family with my four year old to take step-by-step photos. I let her pick what she wanted on each one and how she wanted it. She helped as much as she could with actually doing it, like sticking on the glued pom poms for hair & noses, helping paint the eyebrows, eyelashes and mouths, and sticking on the eyes.

Sister & Brother Pumpkin

We just made cute pumpkins without a knife!!

Above are the first two we made- the little girl and little brother. My little girl wanted her girl pumpkin to have curls like her, so I made her hair into curls by twisting each pipe cleaner around a pencil and sliding it off.

Below are the mommy and daddy, which we did last. I just curled the very bottom of the mommy’s hair, since she wanted it to be pretty much straight and long like her own mommy’s. She chose all of the colors for everything herself. 🙂

Mommy & Daddy Pumpkin

Did anyone else decorate pumpkins this fall? Any other parents squeamish about knives, carving and small crazy people? 🙂

For a fun story time activity this fall and Halloween, try The Teeny Tiny Ghost and the Monster!

September 14, 2013
by pennypinchingpeach 1 Comment

Cupcake Wrapper Flowers

Want a busy time activity for little ones? How about making cupcake wrapper flowers? I originally saw the idea on another blog somewhere, but adapted it to the materials we had on hand at our house and the way my daughter wanted to do it.

We used:

Cupcake wrappers
Twigs
Twisty ties (like come on loaf bread)
Buttons
Sweet smelling body spray

Feel free to make substitutions on any materials. Remember, we just used whatever we had on hand.

Stringing buttons

Stack the buttons in whatever pattern you want or even just use one button, stringing them on the twisty tie. Poke holes in the cupcake wrapper (I used an ink pen with a button as a template). String the twisty ties through the holes, attach the twig to the back and twist the ends around it firmly.

Smells yummy!

My daughter loved the next part. I let her pick out a sweet smelling body spray, and spritz all of her new pretty flowers. She loved smelling them, and had me reapply it every week or so to keep them smelling like delicious.

Tada!!

My daughter was so proud of her handiwork. She’d had so much fun gathering up twigs that were just the right size, selecting the perfect buttons, and helping me put it all together, she could hardly wait to show them off.

Baby food jar vase

Of course, with such gorgeous blooms to display, I had to come up with a vase to showcase them in. What else would I use in a house with little ones other than an empty baby food jar? I let my daughter decorate the jar with sparkly jeweled sticker things, which she thought was just the right touch. She set her beautiful bouquet proudly on the shelf at the head of her bed, ready for sniffing and seeing at any time. 🙂

This is such a simple, sweet craft with materials most of us have around the house. It definitely works for both my penny pinching side and my creative side. What are some things you have lying around your house that you’d love to find a creative use for?

April 24, 2013
by pennypinchingpeach 5 Comments

Egg Carton Caterpillars

My 3 1/2 year old, Princess Peach, loves to do anything cute, creative and crafty. I love anything that will keep her content, busy and not destroying anything for an entire hour at a time. I went on a quick internet browse for some things to fit the bill the other day when I felt a migraine coming on and needed her quietly occupied. I saw something kinda similar to this, and did my own thing from there with the materials I had on hand and the age of my munchkin. This little egg carton upcycled caterpillar project made us both happy! 🙂

First, I took an egg carton and cut the bottom off of it, then cut the two egg holder rows apart.

Curliques

Next, I poked a hole in each side of the end I designated the head of each caterpillar. I had a green pipe cleaner that I cut in half, threaded one half through the head of each little critter’s head and twirled the ends into cutsie curliques.

At this point, I would’ve put some googly eyes on the caterpillars for best results, but I didn’t have any. I thought about gluing small black buttons on for the eyes, but did I mention I started this whole project ’cause I had a migraine coming on? Yeah. So, I wound up just doodling eyes and a little cartoon mouth on each with markers and calling it good.

Princess Peach’s Project

From here, Princess Peach took the reins. I laid out her markers and a few different types of stickers for her to choose from to decorate and left her at the kitchen table while I laid on the living room couch trying to keep the migraine from coming on while being able to keep an eye on her and my little Bam-Bam baby boy. (Didn’t work, by the way. Worst migraine in forever!) For older kiddos or when you’re in a more hands-on mood, you could definitely add some glitter glue, buttons to be glued on as spots, macaroni art designs or anything else your little hearts desire.

My little artist had a great time creating her little critters, and when she was done she had just as much fun playing with them. She dubbed them brother and sister, and had them going on adventures together all over the house. It was pretty stinkin’ cute, even though part of her adventures took place making them fly around the bathroom telling me to feel better while I was throwing up from the migraine pain & pressure.

Want a rating on a scale of “zero” to “you’ve gotta do this”? Honey, if you’ve got preschoolers who need a rainy day or busy time activity that costs you nothing you don’t already have on hand and could even be considered “green”, I’d call egg carton caterpillars a “gotta do this” kinda activity. 😉