Experience Early Learning

Build a Bird Nest Activity

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May 5, 2020 by Stacy Leave a Comment

Our days are filled with play, as they should be for young children. Setting up the environment that encourages children to test out new ideas through play free is the idea behind STEAM Stations. Our theme this month is Birds & Eggs from Experience Preschool. I set up these types of play centers and leave them up for a few days to a week in order for children to continue and repeat their play. This fabulous Build a Bird Nest Activity is wonderful for the block center.

Build a Nest Nest Making activity for preschoolers — Build a Bird Nest Activity

Build a Bird Nest Activity

Using a variety of loose parts and nature items, baskets, and stuffed birds, children can build a nest. My group loves to play with the stuffed birds. We have an eagle, robin, chickadee, and hummingbird.

Materials for Nest Building Center

Here are some ideas of materials to use for a nest building center. See what you have around the house and be creative!

shredded crinkle paper
feathers
sticks
string or yarn
baskets or bowls
wood eggs
rattan balls
pictures of nests
nest and bird books
fabric scraps
blocks

Build a nest STEAM Station table preschool activity

Our little center allows for two friends to work at a time and they’ve done well with keeping the materials at this table. Another idea is to create a group nest in the block center and add objects to it throughout the day.

Build a Bird Nest Preschool Activity natural materials

I’m always on the lookout for small baskets and bowls. I love using them in our play centers. This time they are our nests. Does your bird need a large or a small nest? We learned that eagles make really large nests!

baskets for making bird nests in preschool

When you put out natural items and loose parts, there’s no “right” way to play. Children are free to explore materials, ideas and methods.

Questions to Ask

While children play, asking questions expands their thought process and gives them ideas and context for the activity. Some questions you might ask are:

What animals make nests?
Where might you find a nest?
What do birds use to make a nest?
How could you make a nest that can safely hold eggs?

I find the more often you provide these types of play opportunities, the more children become interested in them and look forward to what gets put on the table. They are able to touch materials they might not get to use otherwise. Explore textures and shapes. Compare natural items to man-made. Experiment with size and shape. So many learning opportunities!

Colorful feathers make nest building enticing and fun!

Real photos of nests help children see what real nests are like.

We’ve really enjoyed this fun nest building STEAM Station! Set one up, your kids will love it.

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I received curriculum from Experience Early Learning for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. As a user of Experience Preschool for many years, I am pleased to share quality educational experiences. #sponsored #ExperienceEarlyLearning

Tadpole Sensory Bin

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March 10, 2020 by Stacy Leave a Comment

We’re starting a fun spring theme called Pond Life from Experience Preschool. We’re going to hesitantly say it’s spring in Wisconsin. It was such a beautiful day today we can’t help but have spring fever! During morning outdoor time, we played with this fun tadpole sensory bin.

Tadpole Sensory Bin made with penne noodles in water for Pond theme in preschool

Learning about tadpoles is part of the Life Around the Pond weekly theme. We’re also talking about turtles, snakes, frogs, and ducks.

Swiming Tadpoles is a sensory STEAM Station from week one of Pond Life. We love the STEAM Station ideas in the front of each teacher guide! They really make learning fun and hands on.

To make this sensory bin, just cook some penne noodles. You don’t want to overcook them and make them mushy so cook on the shorter side. I added a drop of blue food coloring to the water and gave them scoops and containers to put them in. You can add rocks or little plant pieces but my kids loved it just with water.

Tadpole Sensory Bin

We took our sensory bins outside since everyone was already dressed to get wet! It wasn’t too cold so they didn’t mind getting their hands wet for a bit.

Kids love water so no explanation needed – just play! However, we did talk about how tadpoles might feel.

They would be hard to catch so we might need to use a net. We used these sand sifter scoops but soon they were discarded to just use their hands.

It’s funny how cooked penne pasta is perfect for pretending we’re catching tadpoles.

Scoop them, catch them, dump them back in the bin and do it again!

Our noodles last for the duration of the activity, easily 30 minutes. I could see bits of starch in the water and some of the kids broke some of the noodles apart but in all, they held up well to the play.

It’s so fun to catch noodle tadpoles! They would also be minnows.

Enjoy this fun idea from Experience Curriculum Pond Life theme!

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Making Hot Cross Buns in Preschool

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March 10, 2020 by Stacy Leave a Comment

One of the most fun activities we’ve ever done is making hot cross buns in preschool. This activity was part of our nursery rhymes themes from Experience Curriculum. I’d say it was everyone’s favorite rhyme because not only did we get to “cook”, we got to eat a treat! What a memorable way to learn.

Making Hot Cross Buns in Preschool

I’m ambitious, but not so ambitious to make hot cross buns from scratch. It’s just not feasible with two infants in care plus 5 others. What’s most important when working with kids in the kitchen is that everyone gets some hands on experience and get to eat what they make.

I used this recipe from McCormick. It’s super simple and so yummy! To simplify the process, I measured out the cinnamon and brown sugar into little cups. The kids stirred it together and then spread it on their flattened biscuit.

They added raisins and then rolled up the dough into a ball. I recommend marking the pan and making a diagram of whose bun is whose. That way you don’t have to be so concerned about germs and everyone can eat the one they made.

Bake for 15 – 20 minutes. While you’re waiting for the buns to bake, make icing.

I put the icing into little snack size bags for the kids to squeeze their own icing on their bun.

Yum!

If you don’t like raisins you can leave them out. All of my kids were happy to have raisins.

This recipe was super simple and yet so good for my preschoolers.

Hot Cross Buns Icing Art

Making pretend hot cross buns with icing is fun too! We just used brown circles for buns glued to a paper plate. All the materials were provided by Experience Curriculum.

Draw on raisins if you want.

Then mix together shaving cream and some glue to make pretend icing. Put it in a plastic bag, cut the tip and squeeze! Icing the hot cross buns was so fun!

We used a lot of pretend icing but that was the idea of this project, to squeeze on icing. It’s a great activity for little hands and they don’t want to quit!

The glue and shaving cream icing dries puffy and then eventually quite flat as the air dries out of it.

Our awesome hot cross buns and icing activity.

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Humpty Dumpty Preschool Activities

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March 7, 2020 by Stacy Leave a Comment

Humpty Dumpty is a preschool favorite! We started out our Nursery Rhymes theme from Experience Curriculum with character rhymes including these Humpty Dumpty Preschool Activities. This rhyme is about an egg-shaped character who falls and breaks into pieces. Humpty Dumpty is a good rhyme that helps children practice putting together puzzles. Of course, nursery rhymes are all about literacy, literacy, literacy. So much learning takes place when we expose children to these short rhymes.

I Can Read Books

We love these books from Experience Curriculum. They are short little emergent reader books that focus on specific words. This month we were focusing on “look”, “and”, “at”. When we read these books, I’m not expecting my preschoolers to begin reading or even to memorize the book. It’s just exposure to letters, words and the enjoyment of reading.

It’s not long when they begin to match up letters and words to the pointers. If nothing else, they each get a book of their own to explore. Turning pages, looking at pictures, understanding that words have meaning is all apart of the reading process.

Each a month a storybook is included with our curriculum so here’s the Humpty Dumpty rhyme from the Nursery Rhymes book:

Humpty Dumpty Preschool Activities storybook from Experience Curriculum

Acting Out Humpty Dumpty

This is a simple little activity but kids just love to pretend they are Humpty Dumpty sitting on a wall of pillows. Stack up some pillows, Humpty Dumpty sits on the “wall”, recite the rhyme and Humpty Dumpty falls off the wall. They will do it over and over again!

Through these repetitions and fun actions, children can also learn about responding and caring for others.

Make a Humpty Dumpty Art Puzzle

Using an oval shape, draw Humpty Dumpty. Then cut him apart and put him back together again! So fun. I’d recommend cutting the pieces apart for the child to put back together or he/she may cut them into *many* small pieces making it difficult or impossible to put back together again.

Humpty Dumpty Art Puzzle Make & Play activity

Humpty Dumpty Preschool Activities art puzzles

Build Block Walls

One of our STEAM Station ideas for Humpty Dumpty was to build walls with various kinds of blocks. Add plastic eggs to balance on the walls. This is a good opportunity for children to explore making different kinds of walls, problem-solve ways to change the wall designs to hold the most eggs or even work together.

Humpty Dumpty Preschool Activities Block Walls

Fixing Broken Hearts

Humpty Dumpty can’t be put back together again and it breaks our hearts! This is a fun shape activity for Humpty Dumpty or Valentine’s Day.

taping together heart shapes Humpty Dumpty Nursery Rhyme Activities

Cut out some heart shapes (or any shape will work). Then cut them into simple pieces for the children to match back together and tape. We used Washi tape to tape our hearts back together.

Since ripping tape is challenging, I pull off some pieces and stick it to the basket so they can tape without frustration or waiting.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our Humpty Dumpty Preschool Activities! There are so many great ideas each month, we can’t wait to see what’s next.

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What’s in the Box? Pond Life

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February 19, 2020 by Stacy 1 Comment

Our Experience Early Learning preschool theme for March will be Pond Life. We’ll learn about life around the pond, pond plants, pond insects and life in the pond. We’ll learn about all of that through play, art, music and investigation. The focus will be on letters N, W, Z numbers 13 & 14, the star shape, color black, ABB pattern as well as some sight words, the -un word family and the responsible character trait. Read on to see What’s in the Box? At the Pond.

Theme Web for Pond Life Experience Early Learning preschool curriculum

Pack a picnic and meet us at the pond for a month of learning about frogs, ducks, fish, snails, turtles and more! Become scientists and build a pond habitat. Paint with algae, relax on a lily pad and count dragonflies as you observe pond life from different perspectives.
What animals and insects live in and around the pond? What plants grow there? It’s a place teeming with life and activity, and you’ll dig in and explore it all!