Learning About Dads in Preschool

After we opened all the new learning toys we got in our Christian Book.com shipment, I spent some time setting up some fun for Adam 2.5 and Cody 3 almost 4 years old.  There were two activities I grabbed to get us started and they fell under the topic of "Dads".

The first was an Invitation to Create with a picture of shiny keys as the inspiration.  I thought it was neat that they had us talk about how Dads keep us safe, then correlated that to keys.  Mother Goose Time provided us with plastic keys, the key picture, gold glitter, and a plain piece of white card stock paper. I added glue, crayons and scissor for them to choose from.  Then I did a quick demonstration of how to do a rubbing of the plastic keys and how to trace the keys.  This was for Adam who is only 2.5 so he doesn't know these types of techniques yet.  But again, all I do is demonstrate and let him choose.

He chose to simply put glue on the paper and sprinkle glitter over the top.  Still he had tons of fun and loved it!

Once most of the glitter was on the paper he poured more glue on top.  I didn't stop him because well, it's his art and I am trying to allow him freedom.  But here is the problem I discovered.  When you stand the paper up to dump the excess glitter off, the glue that was poured on top of the glitter just rolls off and mixes with all of the still good glitter and makes a huge mess.  This wouldn't be such a bad problem if I didn't have another kid waiting in the wing to make his picture.  When it was Cody's turn he was able to get some of the good glitter out of the glitter glue mix and sprinkle it on his page but it was a mess.  So next time, I might intervene.

Adam also got a good amount stuck to him.  But of course he didn't seem to mind.

Cody was at the other side of the table working to put buttons on his T-shirt.  I first asked Cody if his Dad every wore a shirt with buttons.  He wasn't quite sure and since his Mom and Dad are both farmers, fancy button up shirts aren't part of their every day attire.  Although his Grandpa wears a lot of flannels.  Anyhow, he rolled the die and placed that many buttons on his shirt.  These are hard plastic sticker buttons, which are pretty awesome.

This was a great little math lesson.  My older boys walked up and saw that he had 3 on this shirt and that he had rolled a 6 and added them together quickly to tell me that he will now have 9 on his shirt. After they were each done with their project I had them switch.  Now it was Adam's turn with the buttons and he did it "all by myself".  

 Love this facial expression and his concentration.

 Here he was happily counting along with me as I counted out the number he rolled.

 He now had some more work to do.

While Adam was working on the buttons Cody was working on the glitter.  Look at how focused he is.

He made about three pretty distinct blobs of glue that were roundish on one side with a thinner area sticking out.  So he really was trying to make the shapes of the keys.

What is neat about this is that it carried over to the next day and of course I don't have a picture.  But I left the plastic keys, and the paper I had used to demonstrate out on the table.  Adam picked it up at one point when the boys were working on something and he wanted a task too.  He very carefully put the keys on the paper and traced them.  Of course this meant big circles around where the key was sitting.  But he knew exactly what they were and he called Daddy over when he got home to show him the keys he had drawn.  Now that is awesome.