Riley's Rhymes - Hey Diddle Diddle with free printable

If you have been following the blog, you may have noticed that I have a new section called Riley's Rhymes. What is Riley's Rhymes? It is a gentle form of tot school that focuses on nursery rhymes and songs while learning about shapes and colors. While I do not believe in formal education for my tot. I created this for my tot since he was always asking to do "school." Our new Riley's Rhymes mini unit is the rhyme - Hey Diddle Diddle. The shape we will be learning about is the crescent (moon) and the color white.

I included a visual schedule. I am a visual learner and it just helps to have pictures of what I want to accomplish.

I added clothespin cards - match the shape on the plate with the correct shape in the box. Have your child clip a clothespin on the answer.

 I included a two part puzzle that I will make magnetic and a sewing card. Riley likes the sewing cards.

There are spoon number cards. Have your child add glass beads or pom poms to the handle of the spoon while counting.

Sort the moons - large and small moon sort. You could even practice patterning if your child is ready. Enjoy the new mini unit.

Download Hey Diddle Diddle Mini Unit HERE.

Riley's Rhymes - 5 Little Pumpkins

I wanted to have a mini fall unit for Riley and I choose to work with pumpkins. These are a few of the activities that I did with Riley. If you would like the printable pumpkin mini pack, please see my post HERE.

I made a simple sensory bin with black beans and pumpkin erasers. I had Riley find the pumpkins with the tweezers. This fine motor activity is somewhat difficult for him but I have him keep trying.

I made a simple gate and aded velcro to the pumpkin stickers that I found. We added the pumpkins to the gate while reading the 5 little pumpkins rhyme.

We practiced shapes with this cute little pumpkin shape activity. Riley matched each pumpkin to the correct shape outline.

We played with orange play dough and made simple pumpkins adding green pipe cleaner stems.

I made simple shape puzzles that I attached to Mega Blocks. Riley matched the two pieces of the shapes.

Riley separated the color cubes into the correct pumpkin color cups. I had him use a spoon for more fine motor activity.

We practiced number recognition with the pumpkin number cards that are included in my mini pack. Riley added the pumpkin erasers to each number while we counted.

He played with an orange balloon, trying to keep it off the floor. He had fun with the balloon.

He made a pumpkin stamp picture. He stamped orange paint into each circle.

You can tell how much he loves to paint! Love that smile.

Lastly, he made a paper plate pumpkin cutting orange paper and gluing it onto the plate. It was a good unit for October. I hope you enjoy. Stay tuned for our next rhyme unit.

Riley's Rhymes - 5 Little Pumpkins

My newest installment for Riley's Rhymes is Five Little Pumpkins. I wanted to do a fall theme but I didn't want to include scary items so I found a non-scary version of the rhyme. I hope you enjoy my newest rhyme mini pack.

As always, I included a visual schedule. I am a visual learner and I like being able to look at the idea that I want to recreate. I found some mini pumpkin erasers at Target and I knew pumpkins just needed to be my next theme. (I hadn't planned on this, so it is a bonus unit!)

If you have been following Riley's Rhymes, we will know that we are focusing on shapes, colors, and nursery rhymes. I made some simple pumpkin shape puzzles that I would laminate and add magnets to for a cookie sheet activity. I also made a version of these puzzles for mega blocks, which is the activity I used.

I made color sorting pumpkins. These colorful pumpkins you can add to a 6 cup muffin tin and have your child use tweezers or tongs to separate colored pom poms. I also included a a pumpkin sewing card and Pumpkin numbers. Use the number pumpkins to add either pom poms or the little pumpkin erasers to practice counting and number recognition. I included a black and white version that you could print on orange paper to save ink. Enjoy our pumpkin unit. Riley in action will be posted later.

Download Five Little Pumpkins mini unit HERE.

Links

Owl Preschool - has a free mini book for the Five Little Pumpkins - the non scary version. This is the book that will be the base of our unit.

Riley's Rhymes - Itsy Bitsy Spider Activities

For the past two weeks, Riley has been working with the rhymes of Isty Bitsy Spider. We have had some spider fun using the min pack that I posted here. Riley insists that I do "school" with him first, before the other kids because he feels left out. I always keep his activities in a plastic bin, ready to grab and do:) Here are a few of the activities that we completed for our rhyme.

I included a fine motor activity of using the tweezers to pick up the spiders. This was slightly difficult for him as he had trouble squeezing the tweezers. We will revisit this type of activity.

I made a simple sensory bin of black beans, tp tubes, and spiders. He had fun having the spider slip down the water spout.

This activity is included in my printable pack - counting spiders. He used magnetic pom pom spiders to match the spiders on the cards while we practiced counting. He did exactly what I thought he would - he matched each color with the correct color pom pom magnet.

Another printable from my pack - matching the color spiders. I added magnets to the back and he matched the colors of the spiders together.

I found this activity at a consignment sale - magnetic bugs and spiders. He made a tower of the spiders and bugs to see how tall he could go.

He is practicing his shapes with this button activity. Riley is super-dinosaur crazy right now. That was his favorite puzzle to do.

Another printable from my pack - matching the shapes. My goal for this year is to have him learn his shapes and colors. We have been working on the color black and circles so far.

He is singing the rhyme while playing with the pieces from my pack.

Riley is making a simple foam spider with pipe cleaner legs. He is threading the pipe cleaners through the holes on the spider body.

I made a painter's tape spider web and gave Riley some cotton balls. He had to throw the cotton balls onto the spider web. They all had fun doing this. I kept this activity up for a week. They just kept reusing the cotton balls and by the end of the week, the web was all fuzzy.

I added a spider web to my floor and had Riley walk it. He also played cars with it, running on the roads. We left this for several days as well.

He painted a plate black and added google eyes. Then I painted the color circles and a few clothespins. Together, we made a spider match game - he had to match the colors of the pins to the colors on the spider. The hardest thing for him was pinching the clothespins to get them on the plate. We practiced this all week.

We are onto pumpkins for the rest of October. Stay tuned for my pumpkin mini pack. Enjoy your day.


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Riley's Rhymes - Itsy Bitsy Spider

A new unit is ready for Riley's Rhymes - Itsy Bitsy Spider. It is the month of October and it seemed like a good time to pull out our spider rhyme. If you haven't heard of Riley's Rhymes - it is a gentle tot school with a focus on nursery rhymes and songs while learning about shapes and colors. I want you to know that I am not pushing "school" on my tot. He asked me to do school and this is what I came up with ;)

Today, I am offering the spider min unit download.

Here is my visual schedule for Itsy Bitsy Spider. I an a visual learner and I love the picture schedule. If you notice, there is only one activity planned for each day. I didn't want to overwhelm Riley so I only planned for one a day. Riley usually wants to do more so I have other activities in his basket. I place each activity into a ziplock bag with all of the items needed to complete it. So it is just grab and go. After we read the book based on the rhyme, Riley will choose a bag and we will work the activity.

In my unit, I have included 2 part spider puzzles to reinforce color recognition. I laminated these and placed magnets on the back.

Another activity in my download are spider number cards. I am only focusing on counting, not so much as number recognition. But, if I know Riley, he will want to match the colors of the pompoms to the colors of the spiders. We will be using our pom pom magnets with these cards. These are just a few activities included in the download. There are also shape two part puzzles and a shape game as well as the coloring page for the bag book. Enjoy.

Download Itsy Bitsy Spider Mini Pack HERE.

Riley's Rhymes - Wheels on the Bus

In case you missed the explanation - Riley's Rhymes is a tot school based on rhymes and songs with a focus on colors and shapes. My tot is just about three years old and he asked to do "school" just like his brother and sister. It is a gentle "school" and we do what Riley wants. I do not force him to do it - if he asks, then we will.

Our first unit was Wheels on the Bus - fitting for the first month of school. We took a month to complete it because of hurricane Irma and no electricity for 14 days. But that's okay - we were flexible:) Here are some of the activities that Riley did for our unit.

The Wheels on the Bus unit was based on the song. The focus color was yellow and the focus shape was a circle.

At the beginning of each session, I sang the song while looking at our books. I took this time to point out circles and the color yellow. After a day or two, I noticed him singing the song on his own (loved it:).

My plan was to begin the unit with a new sensory bin. The sensory bin that I had planned was a wagon wheel pasta bin. But I was unable to find the pasta so I made the color yellow sensory bin. I included everything I could find that was yellow - counting bears, blocks, linking blocks, circles etc...

I made some simple 2 part puzzles of circles (included in my download). I laminated them and added magnets to make them easier to assemble. He also had a 3 part bus puzzle that he did. I kept the activities simple as to not overwhelm him and to make it fun.

He was really interested in the lacing bus card (in download). I showed him once how to do it and then let him "sew" away.

He worked on a q-tip painting picture of a circle. He used the bingo markers in the color yellow. He went around and dotted each circle which surprised me. I thought he would get tired of it - nope:)

 He worked on a torn paper bus which will go into his paper bag book pocket. I thought this activity would have been easy but he had some difficulty tearing construction paper. Maybe next time I will have him tear printer paper. He glued not he pieces himself with a large glue stick.

He stacked yellow blocks into a tall tower.

He matched the tire colors using pom pom magnets, a cookie sheet, and my printable.

He painted a bus using the tires of a bus. He wasn't sure about this - he kept asking me to clean off the tires of his bus. He didn't want it dirty.

Here is the beginning of our paper bag book - as you can see where I got the large paper bags (thanks Publix!). All of his crafts will be placed in the pocket of the bag book. They all fit except for the big bus which I will have to fold. You will also notice that I have included extra activities that aren't on my visual schedule. The reason for this is that Riley wanted more than just one activity. So, I had to get creative and add a few items.