early education

Unicorn name writing template.

Trying to get my preschooler to write her name can come with frustration. Often times she’ll tell me no she doesn’t want to practice writing her name. Often times I keep it simple and ask her to write her name on a drawing she’s done that way everyone knows she made it. Or outside playing with sidewalk chalk I’ll encourage her to write her name. Other times I make simple animal designs for her to color, cut out, and write her name on. Which works in scissor practice as well.

If you’re stubborn preschooler also loves unicorns then this is great template to print out to get them to practice writing their name to hang on a wall somewhere.

Unicorn name writing printable

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Unicorn Salon; Scissor Skills

I’ve been looking for practical easy activities for my youngest daughter to practice her scissor skills. She loves unicorns and cutting her dolls hair. I try not to encourage her to do the latter cutting her dolls hair because obviously it doesn’t grow back. Which is a concept she still doesn’t understand. Therefore I decided to make our own unicorn dolls out of paper that she could cut hair.

My daughters chose to use dot markers to color in their Unicorns. My oldest is 8 therefore she’s able to cut everything out herself. While my youngest is 4 and she still needs assistance when it comes to cutting. If you’re looking for a quicker process you can cut everything out yourself and thread the yarn yourself. My daughters hole punched several holes all over their unicorns however for a quicker approach you could place one hole at the neck and one hole at the tail. The more holes they punched the more fine motor practice my daughters were able to get in.

This is the mess I had to deal with at the end of the process. My oldest has a tub filled of craft supplies that she just dumps out during every activity. My youngest participated long enough to get in some scissor practice but had given up as her sister continued with her project. Just remember nothing has to be perfect the more we expose our children to the more they learn. A few minutes of scissor practice is better than nothing.

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unicorn-hair-salonDownload

Unicorn theme coloring pages for early readers.

Trying to keep my daughters interest in reading can often be difficult. Therefore I often turn to coloring pages with simple sentences to get her reading more without a traditional book approach. It allows her to color as she reads and feel less like a reading requirement and more like a fun activity. If your young learners enjoy unicorns like my daughters than these reading coloring pages are worth a try.

Unicorn smelling flowers coloring page.Download
Unicorn stargazing coloring pages.Download
Unicorn shape balloon coloring pages Download
Four unicorn balloon coloring page. Download
Big unicorn balloon coloring page.Download

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More Halloween themed coloring pages.

A fun way to add more reading throughout your young learners day is through coloring pages with simple sentences. The coloring pages below are kept simple to allow your young learners to use their imaginations and add their own flare to the pages.

Haunted house and three cats coloring page.Download
Unicorn hedgehog coloring page.Download
Zombie unicorn coloring page.Download

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3 Halloween theme coloring pages for early readers.

My daughters enjoy the Holiday of Halloween. They enjoy all the creepy, scary things about it. So I decided to make them a few coloring pages to get in the mood for Halloween and give them something to practice their reading skills.

Haunted house coloring page.Download
Silly face pumpkin coloring page.Download
Zombie kids coloring page.Download

I find by providing my daughters with coloring pages that have simple sentences on them keeps their interest more than a book when they’re not in the mood to read. That way we can color together and read at the same time. I tend to keep the pages simple and with empty space to allow growth for my daughters imagination because there is plenty of space for them to add in their own flare onto the page.

I hope your young learners enjoy the coloring pages as much as mine do!

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Art activity: Shape collage.

If you’re looking for a fun simple activity to incorporate shape learning then shape collages are perfect for teaching your kiddos to be creative and learning their shapes at the same time. I’m often looking for low prep activities with minimal printing. In which shape collages are perfect because we cut out our shapes on construction paper. We did it free hand, you could use stencils or cookie cutters to make perfect shapes. In our house perfect isn’t all that important rather we just enjoy creating and having fun.

My youngest daughter’s (age 3) shape collage.
My youngest daughter’s (age 3) other shape collage.
My oldest daughter’s (age 7) butterfly.
Shape path.

I had drawn with marker on construction paper and cut out several shapes before they woke up to lay out in a path for them to follow. Leading them to their art area in the kitchen to create their collages.

Another path.

My youngest daughter woke up first and to keep herself busy till her sister woke up she made her own path up the stairs with shapes that we cut out together.

Pattern practice.

I also drew simple patterns on a sheet of construction paper in order to touch base about patterns with both my daughters. That we later cut out to stick on collages.

My youngest practicing her scissor skills with my help.
Incorporating reading into the activity.
Red apple tree and blue eye guy shape collage.Download

I made a simple page for my oldest to read and my youngest to be read to. I try to incorporate reading into as many activities as possible because my oldest often doesn’t feel like reading books.

Supplies we used.

We used construction paper, sharpies, scissors, and stick glue. My oldest brought out more craft supplies we have on hand and added a little butterfly to her butterfly collage. The activity is extremely versatile. You can cut out the pieces or let your kiddos do it themselves. Let them make whatever. Just remember nothing has to be perfect and learning doesn’t need to be an overly serious event. Trust me I know what it’s like always feeling like it needs to be perfect honestly that is just our adult brains. Kids will learn even if the shapes aren’t perfectly pretty and it’s not printed out on fancy paper. It’s really just about learning and having fun. Being sloppy is perfectly fine.

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Reading coloring pages with shape monsters.

I often find adding in coloring pages within our school curriculum helps encourage my oldest (age 7) to read more throughout the day. It also gives my youngest daughter (age 3) more fine motor practice. Coloring pages are perfect on days in which the kids are just not interested in workbooks. My youngest is currently working on shapes which inspired the fun shape monsters.

Circle shaped monster reading coloring page.Download
Rectangle shaped monster coloring reading coloring page.Download
Triangle shaped monster reading coloring page.Download
Square shaped monster reading coloring page.Download

Enjoy these reading coloring pages with shape monsters. I kept them simple with free space to allow for creativity. My oldest often enjoys adding her own shapes and drawings into the coloring pages. The sentences I used a font in which would allow for the kids to color in the words for letter practice.

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Shapes board games for preschool age.

Game board using toys as each players piece.

My youngest is learning her shapes. She often mixes up the square and rectangle. Therefore I made three different boards each covering three different shapes. I kept the rectangle and square separate so she could focus on each separately.

How to play…
1. A player rolls the dice.
2. Move that number of spaces.
3. Call out the name of the shape they land on.
4. At the finish the player names each shape in the finish spot.
A super simple quick game. It keeps my daughter’s (age 3) attention span and helps her quickly identify her shapes.

What you need to play…
-Game board (laminated optional)
-dice
-game pieces (we used small toys, you can use bingo chips, game pieces from another board game, whatever you want.)

circle, heart, triangle, and square game board
Circle, heart, triangle, and square game board.Download
octagon, diamond, oval, and pentagon game board
Octagon, diamond, oval, and pentagon game board.Download
trapezoid, hexagon, rectangle, and star game board
Trapezoid, hexagon, rectangle, and star board game.Download

I made the board games to encourage a more fun approach then just looking at a poster and reading off shapes with my youngest. Board games encourage turn taking and patience a quality I try to instill in my children. I hope the shape themed board games can help switch up your routine with your preschooler as well. Enjoy : )

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Teach my preschooler kit above is a helpful tool when it comes to teaching the basics because several subjects are all in one place easy to find and bring out when needed. I don’t know if any one else goes through the same struggle of trying to keep track of all their learning tools and toys and keeping their space neat and cluttered free. I certainly do and I can say that it helps having several basic skills in one place (numbers, alphabet, shapes, and colors.)

Click image above for more shape learning fun.
Click image above for more learning through play ideas.

Sight word board game with Nana Hedgehog and friends.

Teaching sight words can be a struggle. I often get stressed out trying to keep a system in which I can keep track of which words to introduce while going back over other words my daughter has already learned. Sight words are words that are best memorized because they’re words most often found in written text also they can’t all be sounded out properly. To hold my daughters attention I made 11 sight words boards. All the same color and same design to avoid them from memorizing each level and board rather than memorize the actual words. By turning each list into a fun game board it gives me the opportunity to bring out each list one at a time and easily go back to older lists for practice. When my first grader isn’t in the mood to play the game I have her read the words out of order. That way I’m sure she’s not just memorizing the list rather she is memorizing each word.

Playing the game is simple. We used counting bears as our game pieces. You can use whatever you like cereal, toys, and more. We roll the dice move that many spots and say each word leading up to the spot we land on.

Sight word list 9 game board.
How to Play the sight word game.Download
1- sight word listDownload
2- sight word listDownload
3- sight word listDownload
4- sight word listDownload
5- sight word listDownload
6- sight word listDownload
7- sight word listDownload
8- sight word listDownload
9- sight word listDownload
10- sight word listDownload
11- sight word listDownload

I hope you enjoy the fun sight word inspired game.

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Monster shape art.

My oldest daughter is currently enrolled in an online school for First Grade. Working alongside her to keep her on track can make it difficult to devote time to my youngest daughters (age 3) preschool activities. In which often times I turn to simple art based activities that give both my daughters a chance to create as my youngest daughter can practice basic skills. In which we recently made shape monsters in order to incorporate shape learning, creativity, colors, alphabet recognition and scissor practice all within one fun activity.

My oldest daughters shape monsters; using rectangles, squares, and ovals.
My youngest daughter and I worked together to create our shape monster.
The shape monster got hungry, we fed it alphabet letters.

My oldest made her shape monster whichever way she felt. I often don’t give her strict rules when it comes to creating art because I allow it to be a place in which she can freely create and express herself. My youngest is still learning how to properly hold scissors therefore we created the monster by working together. I asked her what shapes she wanted to use for different body parts. Then we added a pipe cleaner to the top so she could hold on to it, in which she ran around the house flying her monster all around. When it got hungry we cut out the letters that make up her name and fed them to the monster.

I have found the simplest of activities tend to be the most useful for us. As a parent that works alongside her children I often get flustered trying to make every activity the best it can be. The truth is regardless how fancy or sloppy an activity is put together it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that they’re learning. In which I often turn to simple activities I can slap together last minute that don’t always have to be printed out. I also found that my children work best when they’re not given strict rules and are allowed to create what that want rather than an exact replica of something. Such as lets make a shape monster and then they decide what shapes they want to use and what their monster will look like.