Web Site: http://www.growingkidsministry.com
Posts by LindseyW:
- Construction Paper (any color)
- Crayons or Markers
- Heart puncher or scissors
- Why are friends so much fun?
- What is one way we can be a good friend?
- Do friends share with others?
- What does it mean to love others?
- What does it mean to love all the time?
- Green Construction paper for the background
- Glue
- Brown, Gray, Black and White construction paper (torn up into bits) for the wall
- Why did Mr. Angelo build walls?
- Who loved living in the walls?
- What happened to Pixie when she jumped out the window?
- What are some nice things that Pixie and Marc said to one another?
- In the end, what happened with Pixie and Marc?
- Chipmunk Tracks: What do they look like?
- Chipmunk Coloring Pages: Lots of realistic pages!
- Rodent Study: Free Printable Nature Notebook Page by Handbook of Nature Study (great resources here!)
- Chipmunk Nature Study Lesson Plan
- All About Printable from Kelli (the same one we used with the Polar Bear lesson)
- Chipmunk Lesson Plan for Pre-K Teachers
- Preschool Lesson Plan about Chipmunks
- Seed packets
- Potting Soil
- Starter container (old egg cartons work great)
- Water
C is for Cupcake!
May 21st, 2013Last week, while I was out in California for the Gathering conference, I discovered that EVERYTHING in the hotel gift shop was 90% off! Nevermind the fact that I had just bought an arm full of stuff at Ikea — surely I could squeeze a few more things into the suitcase, right? Especially these super adorable cupcakes!
I scooped up 7 of these little beauties, wrapped them in tissue paper and hoped for the best as I checked my very over-stuffed suitcase at the airport!
This week, we decided to capitalize on my new find and have a “C is for cupcake” theme all week. To begin, we set up a cupcake story in the playroom.
We put some quarters in a Stonyfield yogurt cup and each kid got 2 quarters to begin. There was plenty of counting and math skills involved in this dramatic play lesson as we exchanged quarters, counted cupcakes, switch roles, and had a lot of frosted fun!
On Tuesday, we decided to make some fluffy cupcakes with shaving cream and glue. You might remember when we made fluffy polar bears– same idea. You mix about 1/2 and 1/2 glue and shaving cream and add some food coloring. The kids LOVED this project and Chipmunk, my 3 year old, proceeded to paint every single piece of paper she could get her hands on. Apparently, she doesn’t have sensory issues!
Fluffy Frosting Paint
Finished Cupcake Painting!
I have to apologize for the crazy free-hand cupcake. Could you even tell that it WAS a cupcake?? Yikes! You could also print off some clipart if you wanted to go for a more realistic approach, but I think sometimes it’s best to use the imagination! 
On Wednesday, we made real life cupcakes. Yum-o!
When will they ever be done?
On Thursday, we made playdough cupcakes! I grabbed my playdough recipe over at Mommy Footprint.
As always, the kids loved this activity!
To round-out the week, we started working on letter sounds, not just letter identification, so we learned sounds for “C” “U” and “P”.
What about you? What are you up to this week?
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Love One Another {Preschool Project and Free Printable}
May 15th, 2013I’ve been loving Kelli’s free Bible verse, printables — how about you? It’s the perfect way to review some Bible verses and get some hand writing practice in at the same time. My little one is just starting to write letters, so practice is always in order!
Anyway, we decided to do a craft project to coordinate with the John 13:34 printable (you can find it here!). Want to follow along?
What You Need:
What You Do:
Before inviting the children to the craft table, punch out hearts or pre-cut hearts from construction paper.
We wrote “A Friend Loves at All Times”, but you could also do “Love One Another” to coordinate better with the verse. We’ve been talking a lot about how to be a good friend, so this was a good fit for us.
Next, have your child draw a picture of a friend or someone who is important to them.
I loved seeing all the different ideas and I simply cannot get enough of the cute people blobs! I love how preschoolers draw!
Once the drawing is complete, talk about how friends love each other and do nice things for one another. Hand the precut hearts to the preschoolers, one-at-a-time, asking them to think of nice or loving things a friend might do. Once they’ve answered, have them glue the heart onto the project and continue with another idea and heart.
After 5 or 6 ideas, hand over the rest of the hearts and have them glue away!
Finished!
Questions to Ask:
Happy Crafting!
About the Author
Lindsey Whitney is a blogger over at Growing Kids Ministry. A blog designed to help parents, teachers, and Children’s Ministry workers who want to help the kids they love grow in their faith. You can connect with her via twitter or on facebook.
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Building a Chipmunk Wall
May 14th, 2013Have the Chipmunks been running wild in your yard lately?
We’ve been noticing a lot more in ours, partly due to my 3 year old daughter’s new obsession with the book, Marc and Pixie by Louise Fatio. This is one of those books we picked up at a yard sale for a quarter, and she instantly fell in love with it. You can find it used on Amazon, but it’s pretty tough to locate.
In this book, a man named Mr. Angelo built walls for Mrs. Jones and then a whole family of Chipmunks moved into the nooks in the walls, including one little chipmunk named Marc. Everything was going swimmingly until Mrs. Jones got herself a cat named Pixie. In the end, Marc and Pixie ended up friends, but I won’t ruin the story line for you — it’s a cute little ending. It’s a great book about helping others, appreciating others, and making new friends.
Since we’ve been reading this book so much, we decided to build a “Chipmunk Wall” just like we saw in the book. This craft would be perfect for any book about a wall or any book about chipmunks for that matter, because chipmunks like to build their burrows in little crevices such as those found in a stone wall. Shall we get started?
What You Need:
What You Do:
Once all your pieces are torn and ready, hand over the glue and let your little one get to work. If you’re still working on colors, this is a great time to review as you go along. I know my daughter has some trouble with black and brown when she first got started, so this would be a great opportunity to go over those colors again.
If you have an older kid, you could also count the number of stones in each row or even challenge them to find stones that fit pretty well together — sort of like a puzzle.
My daughter was really excited about this craft, even though it was pretty simple. She just kept saying, “Look at the wall I built!”
Gluing! Gluing! Gluing!
It just keeps getting taller!
My 1.5 year old son also attempted this project, but as you can see — he doesn’t have the diligence of his sister just yet! :)
Finished! A perfect wall for little chipmunks to play in. If you wanted to take it one step further, you could use some tiny chipmunk stickers and put them all over the wall to represent Marc and his very large family. Stickers are great for fine motor practice, but I couldn’t find any little chipmunk stickers myself.
Follow-up Questions to Discuss with Your Little One
More Chipmunk Freebies to Check Out:
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5 Ways to Teach Kids Patience (and free Psalms printable!)
May 8th, 2013Waiting! Waiting! Waiting!
Patience is a tough skill to learn, even as an adult. I know I often find myself praying for more patience, though I don’t exactly want more opportunities to practice my patience skills! We’ve been talking about patience at church and we’ve been doing some practicing at home too. If your home needs a little improvement in this area, check out some ideas below for teaching kids patience.
Mail Yourself a Letter!
I loved this patience-building activity idea from Doing Stuff with Kids. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, we’ve been reading through Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! recently. At the beginning of the book Buddy Bear receives a package from grandpa and at the end of the book, Buddy returns the favor. Naturally, now my daughter is really interested in sending mail, so she would love this activity! Doing Stuff with Kids also suggests mailing a letter to a family member and asking for them to write back. Building relationships and patience — it’s a win! win!
Pass the Parcel
This idea comes from Children’s Ministry Vault and it gives kids some hands on practice with patience. In order to prepare for this activity, wrap one piece of a puzzle in some paper (24 piece puzzle or smaller). Place another piece on top of the wrapped piece and wrap again. Continue in this way until all the pieces are wrapped. Gather the kids up and have them unwrap one layer and then pass the parcel to the next child. Continue in this manner until all the piece are unwrapped and then work together to assemble the puzzle. Kids will learn patience as they SLOWLY unwrap the package and as they work together to complete the puzzle.
Develop Strategies for Waiting
As Daniel Tiger reminds us, “While you wait, you can sing, think or imagine anything!” During a recent episode, Daniel had to wait quite frequently, so he came up with some great distractions and built up his patience skills. You can do the same with your kids by having a “go-to” list of songs or simple word games you can play while you wait.
Timers and Turn-Taking
Patience is especially hard to practice when it means waiting for a coveted toy. In our house, we set the microwave timer when turn-taking gets especially heated. When the timer buzzes, it’s time to pass the toy along. Using a sand timer might be even more helpful because it would also the waiting child to see the passing of time in a tangible way.
You could also use a timer in a game like we did in the Hibernation Game from this post.
Song to Sing
When all else fails, having a little ditty goes a long way in producing desirable behavior. Why not try making the following song a part of your regular routine and see what happens?
“I Am Learning Patience”
(Tune: Ten Little Indians)
I have learned to wait my turn,
I have learned to wait my turn,
I have learned to wait my turn,
I am learning patience!
I have learned to sit and listen,
I have learned to sit and listen,
I have learned to sit and listen,
I am learning patience!
I have learned to stand in line,
I have learned to stand in line,
I have learned to stand in line,
I am learning patience!
BONUS: HANDWRITING PRACTICE
Keep up the learning with this great Handwriting Free Printable of Psalm 27:14
Grab your copy today: Psalm 27.14 Handwriting Practice!!
You can also find more Bible Verse Free Printables here!
Happy Practicing!
Lindsey Whitney is a mom of two, home day care provider and blogger over at Growing Kids Ministry. You can connect with her via twitter or on facebook.
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Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!
May 7th, 2013Seeds! Seeds! Seeds!
Recently, we picked up the book Seeds! Seeds! Seeds! by Nancy Elizabeth Williams. Even though it’s a rather long and detailed book, my three year old daughter loves it and requests it every night at bedtime. In this book, Buddy Bear gets a package from his grandpa and with 5 mystery bags inside. He is to open one bag each day and then do the coordinating activity. Of course, all the activities are about seeds and by the end of the book, Buddy has learned all about the growing process and has a mighty fine seed collection to boot! Very cute and educational too!
Of course, my little Chipmunk became super interested in seeds after reading through the book four nights in a row, so we decided to plant a few seeds ourselves. We planted carrots in a plastic bottle and flower seeds in an old egg container. Want to follow along?
What You Need:
What You Do;
To start with, we took a look at each seed as we opened up the packets. Some seeds were really funny looking, like these cornflower seeds which had “fur growing out the top” (my 3-year old’s words). After we looked at them all, we placed them back in the packets and got the containers ready.
I used some old applesauce containers to scoop out soil for the kids. Then, they dumped the soil into the 1/2 water bottle. This seemed to work out pretty good. Even my 1 1/2 year old did a pretty good job!
Pouring! Pouring!
After the bottles were about 2/3 full, we put the seeds in (carrot) and pushed them down just a little bit. Then I sprinkled a little soil over top.
At this point, the boys were off running again, but Chipmunk wanted to do a little more planting.
We started by filling each little egg-holder with a little bit of soil. We also labeled each row, but writing on the little nubs between rows. Yes, I’m pretty sure nubs is the official word for those. :)
After everything was “planted”, I misted all the seeds with the garden house and set them in the sun!
They have been outside for about 2 days now and the packages say we should see some green in about 7 days, so not too much longer! I’m hoping to be able to see the roots for the carrot through the clear water bottle, but we’ll see how it turns out!
Happy Planting!
Lindsey Whitney is a mom of two, home day care provider and blogger over at Growing Kids Ministry. You can connect with her via twitter or on facebook.
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