Letter S:S is for sunflower:Sunflower math mat

Free counting game to download from here at Making Learning Fun.  Print one board per child.  Have them roll the dice and then cover the appropriate number of sunflowers with sunflower seeds (or any other appropriate manipulatives) First one to cover all their flowers is the winner.  Good for a flowers/gardening/summer theme.

Related Pinterest Boards:
Homeschool
Numbers
Maths
Seasons/Plants

Letter S: s is for snowman: playdough mats

Free to download resources from prekinders.  The file contains pages to laminate (or place in a page protector for a cheaper alternative).  There is one set with numbers already printed (image shown above) and another set with the numbers missing.  Although the blog suggests the numberless files are for younger children who are not ready to count yet I think our personal preference will be to print one of the numberless pages and use number "tiles" instead - this way I can use dots, numerals and words to match with the manipulatives and save on printer ink at the same time.

Supply plain white playdough or add glitter to the mix to give a fine motor workout, or for just counting use cotton wool balls, "snowflakes" cut from doilies or white bottle tops.
Good for any winter theme maths centre as well as our S for snowman letter practise.

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:

Playdough Mats - resources for download master list (last update 15 Jan 2012)

Playdough mats are perfect for combining learning with fine motor skills.  A is the kind of learner that these would have appealed to when he was B's age - hates writing, loves fiddling with clay/dough or anything mucky; if only I had known then what I know now etc. etc. etc.  Before I head off to make my own I thought I would do a general round-up of those already out there, If I can avoid doing the work myself it makes sense right?  For my playdough recipe I'm going to stick with the one from Prekinders (the link is included in this post).
Of course since the simplest playdough mats are images with circular spaces for balls of playdough you could also use any of the magnet pages or bingo marker pages out there as well.
Just a word about making these re-usable.  Most of the ones I've seen images of are laminated.  If you choose to go down this route and your little one really likes these kind of activities then it could get very expensive; I'm paying 20 Eurocents per pouch myself (plus of course the cost of inks).  Instead of laminating I'm using document pockets- the kind of page protectors that you can pop into a ring binder, it is faster than making a laminated sheet, can be reused and can also be filed away easier.
Anyway onto the master list (I'll be updating this post as I find new resources):

Numbers and counting
1-10 by Tired Need Sleep (autumn theme - scroll down for link)
11-20 by Tired Need Sleep (no particular theme)
Counting playdough mats on a food theme from sparklebox
Rocket playdough mats 1-10 and 11-20 from sparklebox - make the playdough stars to go round the rocket
Christmas counting mats from sparklebox
Winter counting from sparklebox
snowman counting
Number words to 10 from sparklebox
Ladybird numbers 1-10 from TES Resources

Simple addition
crocodile dice game from sparklebox - roll the dice and make playdough teeth to add to the croc's mouth
flower petal addition from sparklebox

Alphabet and letters
playdough snake letters from Make Learning Fun
our own a is for astronaut magnet page
our own a is for apple magnet page
our own b is for balloon magnet page
our own c is for cat magnet page
our own c is for car magnet page
our own d is for dinosaur magnet page
our own f is for frog magnet page
our own l is for ladybird page
our own p is for panda
our own r is for rabbit magnet page

spelling and words
Brown bear mats from Make Learning Fun

Misc
Make a face from Sparklebox
Cherry Pie (part of Thanksgiving theme ) from Prekinders - playdough mat is halfway down the page
Transport themed playdough mats from Sparklebox

letter e: e is for egg: Easter Egg Matching Activities - our homemade version

After writing Muck Monsters: letter e: e is for egg: Easter Egg Matching Activities for download we had a change of heart.  Instead of using our printer ink we decided to make our own easter Eggs.  

First a plastic lid was cut to shape and then we used this template to draw around to produce our eggs.  

Then we coloured them in - a group effort which all the children helped in- each one is unique to make the puzzle a little easier for B.

A helped me laminate the eggs.

R cut them out and A cut them in half.

Here is the finished result.

B enjoyed cracking the eggs (complete with sound effects) and then putting them back together!

letter e: e is for egg: Easter Egg Matching Activities for download

Looking forward to Easter this is a free download from the people over at Sparklebox to match upper and lower case letters.

I would save this one for older kids as although there are a couple of egg backgrounds they are reused for multiple letters and so not unique.

Another free download this time for numbers rather than letters is from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  (lots of activities on this page - the Easter Number match is about halfway down)

We tried this one last year but it was counting so B would have none of it!  This year at the grand old age of three we will try again but i won't hold my breath. Again the backgrounds are not unique so the very littlest ones may struggle.