Since it is fall, I thought I’d pull out my Pumpkin Preschool Printables for the Teeny Tot! If you aren’t familiar already, these printables are part of my Letter of the Week curriculum.
With the harvest coming I reminded my children about the real harvest. We learned Matthew 9:37-38 “Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”
And of course we sang our “P says pu, the P says pu, every letter makes a sound, the P says pu” song. Well, it’s not exactly “pu” but I wasn’t quite sure how to spell the sound p say…pi, pa, pu…oh forget it!
Math Skills:
Everyday we count our calendar, and just for fun I purchased themed calendar day numbers. Of course we were excited to pull out our pumpkins with fall here! I still have to help direct her counting, but she doesn’t miss a day doing this one, usually she has a pointer to make it more fun.
Size Sorting: The Teeny Tot is working on learning Large, Medium, and Small in relation. At first she was just putting all of the sizes onto the game board, but as we worked together she started to get the hang of which went where. When we were all done, I asked her to point to the smallest pumpkin, then the largest, then the medium one.
One-To-One Correspondence: This is my pumpkin magnet page. It’s wonderful for working on one-to-one correspondence skills along with dexterity. Of course the object is to place one magnet in each white dot. You can also use this activity with Do-A-Dot Markers, see-through plastic disks, cheerios, or whatever you have on hand!
Pumpkin Counting: I used some large pumpkin cards I found at Lakeshore Learning for this activity. On each pumpkin I added some dots, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 dots etc. I instructed her to count the dots, then put that amount of mini-clothes pins on the pumpkin. She did a great job counting these, and adding the mini-clothes pins as well! (Mini-clothes pins can be found at most hobby stores!)
Pumpkin Puzzle Skills: Puzzles are great for logical thinking skills! This one was a little difficult for her since I’d cut it into 12 pieces instead of 6, so she needed a little help.
Color Matching: I cut these cute little pumpkins in half and had her match them back together. I also instructed her a little bit by saying “Let’s do the blue one next, how about the pink one, etc”. It’s great for logical thinking (having to match the shapes together to form the whole pumpkin shape) and for color recognition as well.
Fine-Motor-Skills & Dexterity
Pumpkin Lacing: This is by far one of her favorite ideas. She loves to “sew”! She skipped a few holes here and there, but she did a great job over all! The lacing is great for eye-hand coordination practice as well as dexterity.
Cutting Practice: What toddler doesn’t love to cut! I’m amazed at how much better the Teeny Tot is getting with this activity. She was previously holding her scissors upside down with her fingers up instead of her thumb. She’s now holding the paper successfully with her left hand and using proper cutting technique with her right. She doesn’t always stay on the lines, but with repetition she will make improvements.
Do-A-Dot Page: Here we are working on P for Pumpkin do-a-dot page. She absolutely LOVES these Do-A-Dot Markers, it is by far one of her favorite activities. And it’s not just fun! You can direct your child to use a certain color, also show them to do 1 dot in each circle which works on one-to-one correspondence as well as fine-motor-skills!
Good ole’ fashioned Coloring! Everyone loves to color, and the Teeny Tot is no different! She actually does quite well at this, she’s very meticulous and careful when coloring. And I can definitely say she’s getting better at staying in the lines and controlling her hand movements so she’s not “scribbling” anymore, but instead coloring purposefully.
Art Project:
I didn’t get a chance to do this myself, but wanted to share it with you because I thought it was such a great idea! The pumpkin seed tree craft is so easy! Just use a little food coloring to dye some of the seeds, then glue them to construction paper in the shape of a tree!
Pumpkin Reading: Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch by Alyssa Capucilli. This is a cute little story about Biscuit the puppy, who ventures to a pumpkin patch! Of course he gets into a little mischief and finds some fun surprises along the way! The Biscuit books are a series of stories written by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, I encourage you to check out her others in the series! They’re great for toddlers ages 0-4.
Click here to download my Pumpkin Preschool Printables!
Thanks for these printables 🙂
You have really helped me in my homeschooling journey and if it helps …
The P says /p/ 😉
Love them! Thanks!!
adorable
Just a quick question..I have started doing the LOTW with my daughter. When I used the dry erase markers on my laminated pre-writing pages, it was almost impossible to erase???Any suggestions?
Squirt some hand sanitizer on the laminated page, then wipe with a paper towel. Should come off lickety split.
Jenn,
Expo makes a spray for their Dry Erase markers. You can buy it alone or in a set with markers and eraser. It only takes a little, I’ve had the same 2oz. spray bottle for almost a year.
Debbie
http://www.childcareland.com also had an activity for colored pumpkin seeds . She had colored her seeds like you do eggs, vinegar and food coloring. I typically color my pasta/rice and such with rubbing alcohol and food coloring so thought I’d give it a try…but, didn’t work out so well. So now I have two more ways to try coloring pumpkin seeds. My oldest child suggested we just glue them onto paper and color them with marker. I think the seeds are too smooth for that but he’s more than welcome to try. We’ll probably experiment with the paint and vinegar/food coloring also.
I need to know how I can download your printables. Do I need to install something different on my computer for me to do this? I really like the printables I see for your pumpkin theme but I can’t seem to download them. Thank-you
It can be difficult to know where to click unfortunately. You click the small download button on the first screen, then the one that says “free download” . Then you have to wait for the download clock. After that you’ll get a link to “download now”. I’m so sorry they make it so hard! It didn’t used to be like that, but unfortunately they’ve sold out to advertising…
If you don’t want to deal with downloading them all one at a time, you can download the whole thing from my store:
http://store.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=70_71