Pets Week for Preschoolers - Part 2

Adrian knows his pets very well but it's still fun for him to talk about them. Every time, he learns something new. For example, while working with the cat whiskers this week, we discussed how important they are for the kitties. Little facts thrown in here and there make it captivating and educational at the same time.

Fine Motor Skills - Pet Lacing Cards

Beautiful lacing cards with pets (made by Melissa & Doug). Adrian laced a new one every day. We tried these when he was younger (3 years old) and it was very difficult. This time, it was no trouble at all although the "under-over" pattern is something that sometimes causes trouble.

Science - Water, air or land?

I really wanted to make better looking water-air-land cards for this  but Adrian was sick this week and as such, time was mostly spent disinfecting and laundering so his little sister and us wouldn't catch the little bug that upset his stomach. In the end, simple construction paper had to do, along with a Toob of Pets to sort into their right category. We purchased this Toob on Amazon for about $10 a few months ago.

Outdoor Play - Sifting "cat poop" from the "litter box"

As yucky as it can seem, it's kind of a practical life activity if you ask me. If we had a cat, Adrian would now be able to sift through the box to scoop out the pees and poops! :) And being that he is a little boy, anything poopy-related is hilarious. So I cut 2 brownish pipe cleaners, and tried to shape them like cat poopies. I then buried then in the sand and asked Adrian to "clean the litterbox". He loved it and repeated the activity.

The pipe cleaners (aka cat poop) in the sandbox (aka litter box)

Outdoor Play - Doing tricks like dogs can do

The outdoors is where, ideally, Adrian would spend all his time. If it's nice out, I try to do an activity outside. He really liked this one. I put together a quick obstacle course he had to complete and the LOVED it. We discusses how dogs can be trained to do tricks, watched a short video and then, Adrian went though the circuit I prepared. He had to catch the ball, walk across a piece of wood while keeping his balance, jump into the hula hoop, walk in between the ladder steps and finally slide down the slide. I modified the course too to make it different because he kept wanting go through it.

Math - shortest to tallest cat whisker

Yeah...about that one. I think I need to make more "whiskers" next time. This was definitely the easiest activity this week. 

Math - Adding spots to the Dalmatian

A well liked activity. I printed a "spotless" Dalmatian (Color-Your-Own) and then asked Adrian to throw a die so we could get this poor creature some of its famous spots. He then had to draw the number of spots he rolled. He really likes our colorful dice (found at a dollar store) and decided he would throw each one once and do the quantity of spots required by each. This is the final version after rolling each die once.  The most difficult part for for him to draw small circles. He can draw circles but not small ones so I ended up drawing the small circles (he'd count for me) and he filled them in. Staying within the lines is also difficult for him so this was good practice.