Author: halverd

Materials
Baby Bear Counters
Dot Stickers
White Construction Paper
Small Bowl or Basket

Directions
Place dot stickers all over a piece of white construction paper.  Make sure you have the same color stickers as you have baby bear counters. Place bear counters in a small bowl or basket. Invite your child place a bear counter on each dot matching the colors.  Count the different color bears.  How many red bears? Blue bears? Purple bears?

Your child is practicing:

• One-to-one correspondence
• Color matching
• Eye-Hand Corrdination
• Counting

Materials
Various colors of construction paper
Scissors
Glue
Circle Shapes in various sizes
Construction paper cut in six-inch squares
Pencil

Directions
Invite your preschooler to trace around the different size circle shapes, using different colors of construction paper.  Then have your child cut each circle out. Next, have your child glue the circles onto a square piece of construction paper from largest to smallest, placing each circle inside of the one just glued. Continue making new squares with colored circles until your child loses interest. Display in a quilt-like pattern.  

Materials
Q-Tips
Non-sharpened pencils with erasers
Circular Sponge Brushes
Tempera Paint (three colors)
Small containers – one for each color of paint
White construction paper
Newspaper to cover surface of table

Directions
Cover the workspace with newspaper. Tape a piece of construction paper to the surface. Pour one color of tempera paint into each small cup or container. Provide a cotton swab, circular sponge brush, and pencil for each color.  Invite your child to create their very own masterpiece using dots! Your child may also enjoy exploring the different painting tools or mixing the colors together, which is just fine. This activity encourages creativity.

Pointillism – the technique of using dots to create art

 

Materials:
Pom poms
Kiddie pool
Various kitchen utensils

Directions
Fill a small kiddie pool with various colors and sizes of pom poms. One large bag will do. Place a variety of kitchen utensils in the pool (spatulas, tongs, scoops, plastic cups, etc. Invite your child to sit right in the pool and explore with the pom poms – scooping, filling, pinching, tossing, sorting. This is such a fun activity to do on a rainy day! 

Materials
Do-A-Dot Markers
Large White Construction Paper

Directions
Tape a piece of white construction paper to the table surface. Invite your child to explore the dot markers.  He may choose to make lots of colorful dots all over the table or experiment with making lines.  These markers are fun to use and the ink dries quickly.  Reinforce the names of the colors as your child uses the different markers. 

Materials

• Dot stickers
• Construction paper
• Giant Sharpie marker

Directions

Draw one basic shape on each piece of construction paper – circle or oval, square, triangle, diamond. Briefly talk about the different shapes and their attributes – How may sides does each shape have? How many points or corners? Are all the sides the same length? Your child is being introduced to a lot of new vocabulary. 

Provide your child with a few sticker sheets and invite her to place dot stickers on the lines of each shape. 

 

Materials
dot stickers
construction paper

Directions
Tape the four pieces of construction paper to the wall or place them on the floor – each coordinating to a sticker color. Give your child a sheet of dot stickers and invite her to stick the dot stickers onto the same color construction paper. 

Sorting is a complex skill that asks children to identify similar characteristics in a group of objects, make decisions, and analyze data. It is one of the first math concepts grasped by young toddlers.  They love to sort colors, shapes, objects, etc.  Invite your child to Sort buttons, keys, silverware, stuffed animals, socks, mittens, etc.  

In this activity, your child is working on:

• Sorting
• Fine motor skills
• Color words / vocabulary

 

Materials
Dot stickers
Giant Sharpie
Butcher paper

Directions
Hang a long sheet of butcher paper on the wall or tape it to the floor.  Using a large Sharpie marker (be careful that it doesn’t leak through the paper!), draw “bubble” numerals 1-5 for toddlers or 1-10 for preschoolers  on the butcher paper.  Write numerals 1-10 (or 1-5) on a few sheets of dot stickers. Mix up the the numerals to make it more challenging to sort and match. Invite your child to match the numeral on the dots to the bubble numerals written on the butcher paper. 

Lesson extension:
Provide your child with 2-3 sheets of dot stickers. Invite him to place the correct number of dots on each numeral drawn on butcher paper (e.g. numeral six will have six dots, numeral three will have three dots, etc.)

This activity provides so learning:

• fine motor skills
• numeral recognition
• sorting numerals
• hand eye coordination
• visual discrimination

Materials
Dot stickers
Markers
Empty paper towel tube

Directions

Color six red dots, six blue dots, six yellow dots, and six green dots on an empty paper towel cardboard tube. Give your child a sheet of dot stickers and invite her to place dot stickers on the matching color dots on the tube.  Reinforce the names of the colors.  Find and count all the red dots, blue dots, etc.

This is a great take-along activity for the car, airplane, or restaurant. 

Children are practicing:

• Fine motor skills
• Matching colors (sorting)
• Identification of colors
• Counting 

Materials
Box of Trix cereal
Six small bowls

Directions
Pour Trix cereal into a child-size cereal bowl. Invite your child to sort the cereal by their colors into separate bowls. Preschoolers may like to count the different colors.  Which color has the most? Which color is the least?  Enjoy eating the cereal as a fun, colorful snack.