Art is amazing for kids in countless ways.  It allows them to be creative, express themselves emotionally, and develop in many other ways.  One of the great benefits of many art projects is that they can also help children in many academic ways - but don't tell them!  

This is one of the BEST stories for fall time and apple picking!  It's great to include a quick lesson about how apples grow and the important role of bees along with this story as fun little unit.  Feel free to add how other fruits and vegetables grow, too!

You may want to add props, puppets, etc....you will DEFINITELY want to get a RED apple.  Be sure to cut it in half along the midline to see the "star" where the seeds are (it is opposite of the way you usually cut it!.  (Picture at the end of the story.)
​

Hi!  This is the third post in my handwriting made easy series.  I hope you have been learning and enjoying from the posts so far!  Little kids have so very many days of school head of them, so I think it is super important to keep the idea of learning as fun as possible while also setting up a great foundation for future success.

Up until now, I have only discussed activities that can help make those little fingers stronger and encourage the correct pincher grasp.  Today I would like to share some of my favorite ways to encourage fun, correct letter formation.

Of course, eventually little ones will need to make letters with a pencil and paper (and I will also share some great techniques for that, too), but let's first start with other letter formation methods to really teach the shapes and get kids thinking about lines.

​One of the most fun ways is...

In my first post about how you can make handwriting easier, I shared with you some simple activities to strengthen up those cute little fingers so a child will be able to successfully approach writing.  Before I move on to explain forming letters with ease, there is one more activity I highly recommend for little hands....

As preschool teachers, we often find ourselves saying hilarious things that you would never imagine a grown up would need to say at work...  It provides us with regular comic relief throughout our days for sure!  

Since these statements bring us so many big smiles and giggles, I thought it would be fun to share them with you.  Here is just a glimpse into some of the ridiculous things we find ourselves saying:

All kids need to eventually learn to write, but not all kids are naturally good at it!  That's ok - there are plenty of activities to help with this.  I am so glad you can join me for Part 1 of this series.  Be sure to sign up with your email so you don't miss the rest...

Before you even show your child a worksheet or a pencil, there are some wonderful, simple, activities you can do to set them up for success.

The main goal of most of these activities is to work on hand strength.  Without strong hands, handwriting will just be torture for everyone - so it's so very important to not skip this step!

One of the best (and simplest) hand strengthening activities that is kid and teacher approved is:

Learning letter sounds is the first step to being able to read.  Keeping it fun makes kids want to keep doing it!

In our preschool, we have great success with teaching letter sounds to kids by keeping it fun and making it like a game.  Zoo-Phonics makes it simple because they have created letter cards with animals in the shape of the letters.

However, any letter cards will do.  The most important part of the program is getting the kids to move while they make the sound.  I am excited to share with our preschool families, and anyone else who wants to make learning letters fun, the motions we use in our preschool.

Follow this link to watch it on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4skoTANMbM

And keep following us for the games we use for each letter!  Each day we learn a new letter, we have a fun little game to help the kids learn the sound.  Follow us on Facebook, or sign up for our newsletter so you don't miss out on more fun as we publish it.  Learning can be fun!