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Engage Families with a Moon Observation Printable for Preschoolers

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As I prepare for next month’s theme on space, I decided to create a Moon Observation Printable for Preschoolers to work on at home with their parents. I’m always looking for ways to engage parents and this is a new activity they may enjoy together at home and even better that it directly relates to our theme.

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Moon Observation Printable for Preschoolers

Observing the moon for a week and recording those observations is not “preschool homework”. What it is an opportunity for parents to participate in our curriculum and support the connection between home and school.

Learning together is a wonderful way for parents to connect with their children. It will only take a few minutes and yet, it opens up the opportunity for ongoing learning for the child. We want to support the parents in being their child’s first and most important teacher and family engagement activities support that belief.

Moon observation form for preschoolers family engagement space theme

I created the form to cover just one week because I believe that would be developmentally appropriate for preschoolers and parents are more likely to participate if it was for one week rather than the full month. If you wanted to observe for the full month, just print multiple pages.

>>> Download the Moon Observation Form

(with parent engagement text)

Moon Observation Form 2

(without parent engagement text)

More Space Themed Activities

preschool space theme

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

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Creating sensory bins is one of the most fun parts of planning my environment. Each one can be different depending on the theme we’re learning about. Nearly anything can go into a bin, just see what you have! I pulled together a combination of materials we already had to create our dinosaur sensory bin. For inspiration, I’ve included some other dinosaur sensory bins that might be of interest to you.

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

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Dinosaur Sensory Bins

There are lots of options for making dinosaur sensory bins. Ours is an excavation dig theme. The dinosaur bones set pictured was originally from the dollar spot at Target several years ago. I’ve included links to other dinosaur skeleton sets that you might consider.

Need Supplies:

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

Sifting sand and finding dinosaur bones is exciting!

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

Offering a variety of materials allows children to play in different ways.

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

The sifters that are pictured are no longer available but some are included in this Dino-Dig Excavation set. I wish they were more readily available. I bought mine on clearance from Discount School Supply and I can’t seem to find them elsewhere. A sand sensory bin staple!

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

There’s no end to the ways you can set up your dinosaur sensory bin. Use some creativity and make more than one.

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

Rotate your sensory bin often so children do not become bored with the contents.

Dinosaur Sensory Bins

Our Dinosaur Egg Sensory Bin was awesome too!

Dinosaur Egg Sensory Play Bin

Check out these great dinosaur themed sensory bins!

Be inspired by all the materials in this: Dinosaur Sensory Bin | Fantastic Fun & Learning

Try making some frozen dinosaur eggs: Excavating Eggs | Parenting Chaos

A colorful literacy and dinosaur skeleton themed bin:

Outrageously Fun Dinosaur Sensory Bin | Color the Moon

More Sensory Play Ideas

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

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We are well into our January theme, Dinosaur Dig. It’s been so fun learning about paleontology! Investigating the science of rocks and fossils, creating an excavation dig and making fossils. Using a dinosaur fossil clay recipe, we mixed up some dough that dries well and looks like a fossil!

Thanks for reading! Subscribe to Share & Remember or follow me via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This post may contain affiliate links which means I may earn a small amount of money when you purchase through the link. Full disclosure policy here.
  

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

The Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe uses simple ingredients:

  • 1 cup of coffee grounds (used grounds work well – I used several used K-cups)
  • 1/2 cup of cold coffee
  • 1 cup of flour
  • 1/2 cup of salt

Mix the ingredients ahead of time or invite children to help. Roll out a ball of dough. Press a small object into the dough. Bake the fossils at 200 degrees for 30 minutes.

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

They took turns stirring the mixture.mixing Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

I love that this little guy is “helping” his friend mix by holding his arm. So much to be learned through hands-on activities!helping mix Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Our dinosaur fossil clay recipe is coming together!Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Everyone was interested in helping. Can we eat it?  It’s safe to eat but it won’t taste good!

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Playing with Dinosaur Fossil Clay

Try this awesome STEAM science and nature idea: Fossil Press. Try various objects to test pressing them into the dough and seeing the impressions.  Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe STEAM Station idea

First, we played with the dough like play dough. The dinosaur fossil clay recipe has a rough, gritty texture. It’s different than we usually play with!Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

After exploring and experimenting with the dough for a while, we rolled our dough into balls. Then flattened with our hands, pushing down to make a flat surface for our fossils.

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Using our dinosaur figures, we pushed the dinosaurs feet, tails or heads into the dinosaur fossil clay.

pressing dinosaur into play dough

It was fun to see what kinds of imprints they made.Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Some were not quite ready to make fossils. Instead, they played with the dinosaurs and dough.

feeding the dinosaur

Feeding the dinosaur!

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Eventually, everyone made fossils.

making dinosaur fossils

This T-Rex’s feet were awesome for making fossil prints.

dinosaur feet in play dough

The whole time we worked with the dough and dinosaurs, the children were developing hand strength.

Baking Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

After making imprints in the dough, we carefully moved the fossils to a pan.

dinosaur fossils

After baking them at 200° for 30 minutes (or longer), they were done! The completed fossils are quite durable. Not too crumbly. I put them in baggies for them to take home.

make your own dinosaur fossils

When we looked at the completed fossils, we could find the dinosaur and match up the footprints or part of the dinosaur that we used to make the prints. The dough did not shrink up.

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Try this amazing dinosaur fossil clay recipe! You won’t be disappointed.Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Can you guess what dinosaur made these prints?

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

What was this dinosaur doing? Walking around in the mud? Eating off a plant? Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

Can you see the footprints? The neck of the dinosaur? What about the tail?Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

This STEAM play idea allowed the children to test out their ideas and repeat actions through free-play.

Dinosaur Fossil Clay Recipe

More Dinosaur Dig Fun

MGT-Blog-Transparent200.pngI received curriculum from Mother Goose Time for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. After using Mother Goose Time for about 10 years, I am pleased to promote quality educational learning experiences through play with Mother Goose Time! #sponsored #MGTblogger

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Freezing & Melting

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This week we learned about freezing & melting. It’s a perfect time of the year for us in Wisconsin to learn about freezing and melting. We’ve had some warm, warm days for November and into December! Like 60° and then back down to 30°! So mostly freezing, but then a little melting too.

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

Thanks for reading! Subscribe to Share & Remember or follow me via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This post may contain affiliate links which means I may earn a small amount of money when you purchase through the link. Full disclosure policy here.
  

Dripping Water Art

We started with Dripping Water Art. When water melts, it drips. This can be demonstrated by boiling water and collecting the steam and watching the condensation drip down the container.

Dripping Water Art

We could actually see this happening on our window, so we went with that.

Dripping Water Art

Instead of putting up the large easel, we put blocks under the trays to angle them so the paint would drip on the paper. A simple fix that made the watercolor paints really drip! I’m a big believer in using what you have and making what you have work. It’s the name of the game in family child care!

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

Using liquid watercolors in blue and purple with silver glitter paint mixed in, we squeezed watercolors from pipettes onto our paper and watched it drip.

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

I showed them how they could tilt their trays to make the paint drip even more.

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

Dripping water makes beautiful designs!

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

My Little Journals

On this day we also started working in our Mother Goose Time My Little Journals. On the front page I encouraged them to draw snowmen.

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

This month our shape is the square so this little guy is using the shape stencils to draw squares.

stenciling square shape

We will be focusing on numbers 7 and 8 this month so she’s tracing number 8 on her page with the hands on numbers from Mother Goose Time.

tracing number 8

Circle stencils to make a snowman.

tracing circle stencils

Inside the My Little Journals is a page of prompts for each page but usually, I let my group do what they will in their journals. I make suggestions but as long as they are writing, drawing or coloring, I’m happy! With a mixed age group it’s a bit difficult to get everyone on the same page – literally!!

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

Freezing & Melting Science

Using a couple empty Voss bottles, we melted and froze some water. I partially filled one bottle with water and marked the level of the water with a dry erase marker. I noted the time on top of the bottle that we put it in the freezer. In the other bottle, we put several frozen watercolor paint ice cubes inside to observe while they melted.

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

It took about 2.5 hours to melt the ice cubes and around 4 hours to freeze the water. It was fun to open the freezer and check on it!

Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

Reading about Freezing & Melting

Freezing and Melting is a wonderful book to learn about liquids and solids.

freezing and melting book

It’s full of terminology and beautiful images that give a close look at freezing and melting. There is an experiment suggestion in the back of the book as well. We went outside and looked for our own examples of freezing and melting.Freezing & Melting science art and literacy for preschoolers Mother Goose Time preschool curriculum #MGTblogger

Materials We Use

MGT-Blog-Transparent200.pngI received curriculum from Mother Goose Time for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. After using Mother Goose Time for about 10 years, I am pleased to promote quality educational learning experiences through play with Mother Goose Time! #sponsored #MGTblogger

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All Kinds of Weather

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Our first week of Weather & Changing Seasons was about all kinds of weather. Learning about different types of weather allows children to look outside of themselves and investigate the world around them with their peers.

Thanks for reading! Subscribe to Share & Remember or follow me via Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest. This post may contain affiliate links which means I may earn a small amount of money when you purchase through the link. Full disclosure policy here.
  

All Kinds of Weather

Sun

Sunny Shapes: This tabletop math activity uses linking shapes and a shape design mat. Mother Goose Time sends the best manipulatives with their curriculum. They can be used for matching, creating patterns, and games like this one.

All Kinds of Weather sunny shapes

After rolling the Pocket Cube the child finds the matching colored link. The game continues until all the shapes on the mat are filled. If the child rolls a cloud, he doesn’t take a link.

All Kinds of Weather sunny shapes

Sun and Moon: Our creative art for the day was a Sun and Moon Make & Play project. One side of the paper plate is a sun and the back is black with glitter craters for the moon. When we see the moon, we can’t see the sun. It’s a great learning project!

All Kinds of Weather Sun & Moon

Wind

Fan Experiment: Wind is air that can move things. We can’t see it but we can feel it.  The fan experiment allows children to explore technology.  We used scarves to play with the wind.

All Kinds of Weather wind

It’s fun to feel the wind from the fan and hold up scarves and watch them blow when we let them go!

Wind Art: We used “wind” or air blown through straws to blow sequins on paint mixed with glue.

All Kinds of Weather wind art

We played outside with rainbow ribbons in the wind too.

All Kinds of Weather wind Ordering Kites: our small group math activity: sorting counting bears by size – small, medium and large. The medium and large bears are quite similar in size so it was a little tricky. Some of the toddlers matched the colors of the bears to the colors on the kites, which worked too.

All Kinds of Weather ordering kites

Clouds

Heavy Clouds: We learned about clouds through a STEAM station. I love how simple this experiment is. Fill a cup with water, spray shaving cream on top and then use a pipette to drop colored water onto the “cloud”. The colored water drips down like rain. The kids loved that they could do it on their own.

All Kinds of Weather - Cloud Experiment

Counting Clouds: rolling the Pocket Cube and counting out cotton balls to put on the sky scene.

All Kinds of Weather - Counting clouds

Cloudy Art: Using pipettes, white and blue paint, we made cloud art.

All Kinds of Weather - Cloudy Art

Snow

Ice Cube Coloring: we used frozen watercolor paints to paint our letter Cc page. C is for cat, cloud, cube, and cold.

All Kinds of Weather - Ice painting

All Kinds of Weather - Ice painting

Writing letter C in My Little Journals:All Kinds of Weather - letter C journals

Snow Dough: cornstarch, baking soda, oil, and water. It wasn’t a super successful recipe but it was a pleasant texture and kids always love messy!

All Kinds of Weather - snow dough

Coffee Filter Snowflakes: painted with pipettes and thinned paint.

All Kinds of Weather - painted snowflakes

Rainbows

Rainbow Bears: sorting bears by color or rolling the Pocket Cube and finding the same color bear and putting it on the rainbow mat.

All Kinds of Weather - Rainbow Bears

Rainbow Bracelet Beading: beading on pipe cleaners.

All Kinds of Weather - Rainbow Bracelets

Rainbow Sculptures: sculptures made with paper strips and paper plates

All Kinds of Weather - Rainbow SculpturesRainbow CDs: I hung CDs on our mobile over the light table to make a rainbow light center. Our Spacesaver light table is from Lakeshore Learning.

All Kinds of Weather - Rainbow Light Center

A video shows it better:

This was a great STEAM station for the kids to explore light, colors, and rainbows with flashlights and colored toys on the light table.

What a great week learning about all kinds of weather!

MGT-Blog-Transparent200.pngI received curriculum from Mother Goose Time for honest and authentic stories resulting from my daily experiences using the curriculum. After using Mother Goose Time for about 10 years, I am pleased to promote quality educational learning experiences through play with Mother Goose Time! #sponsored #MGTblogger

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