Letter S is for scarecrow:Size sort

From the fantastic resources blog "2 Teaching Mommies" this is part of a whole scarecrow unit available for download here.

Click on the image on their blog post to download all the resources in one zip file.  The size sort is one single pdf - the first page is the scarecrow and birds, the second is a sorting mat for "small" "medium" and "big".  If yours is a littler tot (B falls into this category for some tasks!) there is a related tot pack to download further down the same post.  Great for a farm or autumn theme as well.

Numbers and Counting Meets Fine Motor Skills:Clip Cards

Clip card games are those where you clip a peg (or clothes pin) onto a corresponding number/letter/word to match the picture on the card.  These are ideal for B since he has now developed the finger skills to clip pegs onto things; aided and abetted by the fact that since he and his brother managed to bend the steel post that held up the washing line by swinging on it there are lots of pegs around the house that are not in use at the moment.

In this case we used one file from Play 2 Learn Printables "Fall Leaves Clothes Pin Numbers" available for free download from here. We also found this site called Preschool Printables that is nothing but free printables with lots of sets including this kind of activity.  We decided to use the Road Emergency set and printed just the clipcards.

The files were printed and cut into separate cards and then laminated.  This leaves us the option to do as many or as few as we like.  Probably the latter since B's battlecry is still "No Counting!" :) - we have tried one or two so far but B is more interested in making patterns around the edge of the card rather than working out any learning problems.  Never mind at least I have a resource for future use. Two steps forward, one step back is still progress even if sometimes it doesn't feel like it.  Naturally the cars set was more popular than the leaves but we can re-use them for an autumn theme later on this year.

Linked to:

Cutting and Sticking: Leaf Wreath

Paper plates make the perfect thing to stick objects on to make a wreath.  We made ours using leaves cut from paper but we could have used real leaves (Germany isn't big on the poop scoop as a result I am not big on using anything from where people walk their dogs! - parks and pavements included; we have already come a cropper in the three months we have been here -yuck!).  It also gave us the opportunity to practise scissor skills, something A as a left-hander needs.
I put together a page of leaf outlines (cut and paste from activityvillage.co.uk) and printed these on plain "autumn" coloured paper as well as white paper so the kids could do their own colours.  The yellow went down especially well with A for whom this has become an all time favourite colour ever since he found out it was the favourite colour of his best friend Rebekah.
All the kids had to do was cut them out and stick them on.

We made a chain of wreaths so they could all hang on the front door, that was infinitely more fair than banishing one wreath to the garage door and the other round the back of the house.