Horse Valentine's Day Party Lunch

We are a little obsessed with horses here in this horse!!!

 

 Two weeks ago, a certain 4 year old began planning (she's a planner!) a Horse Valentine's Day Party Lunch, so...

 We made cookies and collected ALL the horses we had.  My husband found all the Breyer horses on clearance at a Meijer on night and bought all he could! :)  We had all the Schleich horses already in our collection.

 "Kitties should be invited too, because kitties and horses are friends and kitties hang around the barn all the time." -G

While she was at preschool for the morning, Little Sister and I put this together.  Well, Little Sister rearranged everything. twice. I can't wait to see her face when she gets home.

Have a fun & playful day!
Mel

Math Games Monday - Love Birds

 Happy Monday!

I decided to do a series of Math Games Mondays for preschoolers.  I was talking to a former classmate who is in the international banking field.  She said, "I think I like preschool math the best - you get to "subtract" M&Ms. Sounds yummy to me!"

Preschool math is sooo important and easy to come up with ideas.  I saw these bird cutouts at my local Dollar Tree dollar store along with the acrylic hearts and an idea sparked!

I simply added a large number to each one and the number word under it.  Add a cup to contain the hearts and wa-la! you have the Love Birds math game.

Easy peasy, right?  You could do duplicate this game a million zillion times using any kind of cutouts that you find.  I had a set for each letter (monkey cutouts for M day, frog cutouts for F day, etc) when I taught preschool.  They got beat up some by all the little hands using them, but these games are cheap to make.

So the child takes a Love Bird. He can read the number or you can read it to him.  Then, he takes one heart at a time and places it on the bird cutout until he reaches the right number.  It is important for the child to count each heart that he places on there and physically slides or places the heart on the bird.  This is one-to-correspondence - an important preschool skill.

The child may need help and that's okay - it's bonding time.  He may want to add too many or not enough.  Just say, "Let's count together."  You can model counting each heart individually.  Children learning by watching us.  :)

Play as long (or short) as he wants.  The idea is to keep it fun and light.  It'll be so fun that they won't even know they are learning.  That is how children learn - by playing.

This game teaches number recognition, number word recognition, one-to-one correspondence, the value of each number, and counting.

Happy Monday & Happy Playing!
Mel

Valentines

Can I get a drumroll please?
Ddddddd...
Ta-Da!
My Valentine's are done!

After spending several hours photographing these Incredible Creatures from Safari Ltd toys, I fell in love with the end result.  I printed the photos as 4x6s at my local CVS with a white border to give it more of a postcard feel.

 I think the recipients of these Valentine postcards are going to smile.  I mean, who couldn't smile when you see this Baby Chameleon holding a heart?

 I know the 'whooo loves you' is kinda punny, but I couldn't resist.

 I love the expression on the white mouse - it's almost like he is covering up a smile.

 This little hedgehog is oh-so cute - the perfect Valentine.

 The flying squirrel just makes me smile every time I see it, like he is ready to leap and fly with his outstretched arms.

 The hermit crab just lends himself to being a Valentine, right?

 Okay, the guinea pig is my absolute favorite, because I used to have guinea pigs in my preschool classroom and at home.  Look at this sweet little face.

Valentine's Day is less than 2 weeks away.  I cannot wait to mail out my special Valentines.

Mel