Montessori Preschool Frog Theme

So excited to be typing this while I look out on a beautiful, sunny day that is supposed to be WARM!!  Yay!  Finally!  This last week was still a bit chilly and didn't seem like spring would ever get here.  

The big kids were learning about parts of an amphibian, so we did our own frog and amphibian themed activities.  

Books this week

There are TONS of great books on frogs for little ones.  These were some of our favorites this week.  Frogs by Gail Gibbons, Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Joy Cowley, About Amphibians by Carolyn Sill, and Once There Was a Tadpole by Judith Anderson and Mike Gordon.  

Frog themed trays

Matching Frogs.  I picked this one for Explorer because she loves matching and loves frogs.  She tried this for about 3 minutes and was done.  At least Mini Cooper liked it.

 This is a freebie from Montessori Print Shop. 

This tray had different activities on different days.  The first day, the idea was to attach the correct amount of links to the card.  This work was only for Mini Cooper.  It is too hard for Explorer.

I found the idea and free printable from Mudpies and Makeup.  

Another day, the idea was to match flies to the cards.  This wasn't as much a counting exercise as it was a hand eye coordination activity.  The girls LOVED this one.  They have been playing with the flies ever since.

Another fun color matching tray.  The printable is free from File Folder Fun (minus the file folder).

This one took her a LOT of effort, but with some encouragement, she finally finished.  

Montessori Materials

Mini Cooper is still working on her teens numbers, and I wanted a fun way to work on them.  So, I found free calendar card numbers with frogs on them.  I printed out numbers 11-19 and then mixed them up.  She is getting much better at her layouts.

She loved moving on to the tens board and getting to use LOTS of beads :).

Parts of an amphibian cards and puzzle.  The cards were free from The Helpful Garden.

We purchased our parts of an amphibian puzzle from Kid Advance (not an affiliate link).

More Frog Fun

Thanks to lots of yard sailing over the years, I have a ton of frog themed learning manipulatives.   I made sure to get them all out this week.

Both of these were a big hit.  The stamps are from Lakeshore Learning, but I found them for $2.00 (brand new) at a yard sale.  The models are from Hobby Lobby, purchased with a coupon, that made them around $4.00.

Both girls (and actually Charger, too) really enjoyed the stamps and the models.

This was supposed to be a cutting and pasting activity, and it was.  But, it also turned out to be a sharing activity.   Explorer had started first and she was not too pleased when Mini Cooper joined in and I told them to share the glue.  See Explorer's face?

She decided to 'fix' the problem by taking the glue away.  

Thankfully, the sharing resolved itself and they finished their papers.  Explorer was very pleased to show me her work.  This printable is free from Mudpies and Makeup (link above).

Our Leaping Frogs game was kinda fun.  Thankfully, it only cost me $1.00 at a yard sale because it was a very hard game.  The girls (and the big kids, too) loved trying to play it, though.

One of the best 25 cents ever spent!  This frog puzzle was a huge hit.  For some reason, it really appealed to Mini Cooper.  She proceeded to put this puzzle together about 3 or 4 times a day for the entire week.  It was almost a joke.  If you couldn't find her, she was probably busy putting together the frog puzzle!

Frog Prince

Because you can't talk about frogs with little girls and leave out the frog prince, we switched gears on our last day.

We watched a recording of the Frog Prince on YouTube (this is the one we watched and it is okay).  But, it was the first time we had read this story, so it was still fun.

So, of course we HAD to do some princess activities.  P is for Princess from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Princess shadow matching and princess puzzle free from 123 Homeschool for Me.

I pulled out our felt Disney princesses scene.  This was a freebie I picked up at one of our yearly homeschool swaps.  So much fun!!

And, Mini Cooper FINALLY got to decorate her Melissa and Doug princess that she received for Christmas.  She LOVED this!!

Whew!  That ended up being a LOT longer then I realized it would be!!  Thanks for reading the whole thing!  I hope you enjoyed our week and found some ideas for yours!

God Bless,
Lisa







Items we had (or wish we had) this week.  This widget contains Amazon affiliate links.

Preschool Totschool Wrap Up: Montessori Fruit Themed Trays

We've been continuing to be hermits this winter.  In fact, due to cold, snow and illness, at least one of my children hasn't left the house in two weeks!  The rest of us haven't gone out much more then that, either.  It has made it a little easier to stay with our routine and get school work done, though, so there are some pros!

One of the lessons we had for the big kids this week was parts of fruit, so I thought it would be a great time to pull out some fruit themed trays.  

Tot Trays:

I set out trays geared to Explorer (2y 5m), and some for Mini Cooper (4y 6m).  They are free to try each other's trays, but a lot of times there is no interest since they are not at their level.  

Explorer is really into colors right now.  She absolutely loves any activity that will allow her to talk about them.

Printable is FREE from Boy Mama Teacher Mama.

Fruit matching from 1+1+1=1.  I used this as a chance to have her try and say the names of the different fruit.

Explorer also loves matching puzzles.  This was a hit.

This printable is (free) from Kidsparkz.

Preschool Trays:

Sorting and counting fruit.  She doesn't love these types of trays, but when she tries them I know she needs them.

I printed 2 copies of the file folder game pieces from Christian Preschool Printables, and then cut out different quantities of the fruit.  

Types of fruit 3-part cards free from Montessori for Learning.

We also read the parts of fruit cards together with the big kids and she tried making a little booklet.  These are available (free) from The Helpful Garden.

Montessori Materials

Mini Cooper had her third presentation of the teens board.  She could quickly set it up and put the correct amount of beads on each number.  However, I suspected that she wasn't truly understanding the concept.  

Turns out I was right.  I gave her little slips of paper with just one number at a time.  She just started randomly taking beads.  It took a few numbers, but in the end she was finally understanding the concept.  I plan to do a review of individual numbers this week and move to the tens board.

I encouraged Explorer to try the pink tower again.  I am not exactly sure if she understands it or not (I guess that's a trend).  She wouldn't build it the way it was supposed to be built, but she did keep teasing like she knew she was doing it wrong.  She preferred to build Wall-E on the right.   She may just be bored, so we will try adding in the brown stair this coming week.

She also requested a presentation of the bead stair.  Mostly, this was because Mini Cooper had just been working with the teens board and Explorer wanted to work with the pretty beads, too.

Food Preparation:

Since our theme for the week was fruit, I thought it would be an excellent time to try some fruit prep.

Cutting a banana went pretty well.  

I think this was the first time we had ever given Explorer a knife (she started trying to use it before I got to show her how-note to self, don't put ALL materials out right away).  She did a pretty good job.

Of course the eating part was lots of fun :).

Apple prep was harder, but she stuck with it and was successful!!  I didn't have Explorer try this one.  

Peeling an orange was, by far, the hardest of our activities.  She gave it a very solid try, but in the end I finished slicing the peel so she could peel it herself.  She broke the slices in half so she would have more.  

 Probably the favorite activity of the week was getting to play with all the kitchen items-the REAL ones.  We also used the classification cards from the 1+1+1=1 E pack and matched the objects with the pictures.  But, mostly, they just played...for a couple of days!

Certainly, this week was a lot of fun!  We are looking forward to this coming week of F is for Frog :).  I hope you had a great week, too!

Thanks for stopping by!

God Bless,
Lisa