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Valentine's Day Playdough Recipe

Strawberry Vanilla Valentines Playdough in The Kitchenaid

Whip up this easy homemade playdough recipe without turning on your stove and use your mixer to keep your hands clean and free of food coloring!  Amazingly scented and tinted homemade playdough is the stuff kids dreams are made of, grab a few pantry ingredients and let’s get started making it for your little Valentine.

This homemade playdough recipe also makes a great gift for the class party or just for one on one fun at home with you and your little one. Cut the dough in half before adding scent and food coloring and use strawberry and vanilla extracts, or other extracts and oils to create multiple scents and colors.

Ingredients:

  • 2 ½  cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 ½ cups of water
  • ⅔  cup of salt
  • 2 Tablespoons  Cream of Tartar
  • 2 Tablespoon coconut oil
  • 1 Tablespoon Strawberry extract
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla extract.
  • Red food coloring

Directions:

Place dry ingredients in mixer and combine on low.

Heat water in the microwave for 3-4 minutes or until boiling.

Slowly pour hot water into dry mixture and mix on low until everything is evenly combined, add a bit more flour if needed, mixture should be just slightly tacky but not sticky.

Mix in strawberry and vanilla extract along with red or pink food coloring until you reach your desired shade and scent strength.

Allow it to cool until it can be handled comfortably.

Include all sizes of heart-shaped cookie cutters, mini cookie cutters, plastic knives or craft sticks for cutting and rolling pins for  Valentines themed open-ended play.

This Valentine’s Day Playdough is super soft and when you scent it with strawberry-vanilla extract, your kiddos are in for a sweet sensory treat!

You can even make a bouquet of roses for Valentine’s Day! Roll dough into “snakes”, flatten and then coil them up to create these sweet little rosettes.

The open-ended play possibilities are endless! Your kiddos can even make hearts, roses, strawberry treats and more!

Store your playdough in the fridge in an air-tight container.

Pair up this scented dough with our Valentine’s Day playdough mats! We have over 60 hands-on activities designed to build fine motor skills available in our February Fine Motor Pack.

Sparkly Winter Mint Play Dough

Winter Spearmint Playdough

January is the perfect time to dive into winter unit studies. Learning about snow, snowflakes, ice, and all that entails from animal behavior to winter fun! The dough is soft and has a bright fresh scent that your kids will love ( I enjoy digging into it a bit myself!). Keep your dough in the refrigerator when not in use to keep it fresh longer and also give them a little cold feeling to their “snowy” playdough for at least the first few minutes!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 2 cups of water
  • ½ cup of salt
  • 1 Tablespoon Cream of Tartar
  • 2 Tablespoons oil- vegetable or coconut
  • Spearmint essential oil or spearmint extract
  • Glitter

Directions:

Place flour, water, oil, salt, and cream of tartar together all at once in a large saucepan.

Turn heat to just over medium and stir the mixture frequently with a wooden spoon.

Keep stirring until it begins to clump together on the spoon and looks like unrisen bread dough.

Remove from heat then stir in glitter and essential oil or extract whatever you are using.

Flip out onto the counter or another smooth surface. Allow it to cool until it is comfortable to the touch.

Once cooled enough to handle add more glitter if you desire and knead for 2 or 3 minutes until the dough is smooth and elastic.

While you’ve got out all your tools, why not whip up a batch of our Candy Cane Playdough? Or maybe even our Gingerbread Playdough!

Add any tools you have on hand and watch the winter fun unfold. Craft sticks, rollers, snowflake cookie cutters, winter animals, or anything else you can think of.

This simple recipe is so beautifully open-ended that there are many ways you can incorporate it into any winter theme.

My favorite is to incorporate a living book to read aloud while they play, this Over and Under The Snow by Kate Messner tells the animals are doing throughout winter above and below the snow you see.

You can make snowflake patterns by cutting lightly into the dough with a craft stick.

Create a winter wonderland for these arctic animals to hide in.

Make snowballs and work on those fine motor muscles!

Free Arctic Animal Printables & Games

Add buttons, cloves, sticks, and beads to create snowmen and more! Pair this hands-on activity with our Free Arctic Animal Preschool Printables! We’ve got some fantastic coloring pages, crafts, games and more.

Preschool Monthly Themes

Need some fresh ideas for your monthly preschool themes in your classroom? Below you will find many FREE preschool themes for several months of the year! These creative preschool monthly theme ideas contain a TON of valuable resources and ideas to take out the guesswork for you throughout the entire school year!

Whether you homeschool or preschool teacher in a classroom, you’ll discover many preschool resources to give you a huge variety of ideas and strategies on how to make learning activities exciting and interactive. And, all of our resources will help develop strong fine motor skills and hand-eye coordination!

These monthly theme resources include lesson planning for handwriting pages, hands-on activities, printable charts, games, mini-books, activities, crafts and so much more! See below for each month’s themes to gain ideas on theme planning for a fun and engaging learning center!

April Preschool Themes

These April themes for the warmer month are Earth Day, Rainbows, Weather, Life Cycles, and Easter! You'll discover a ton of FREE resources including: printable charts, games, minibooks, hands on activities,books and much more!

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May Preschool Themes

With the month of May, we've got a bunch of May Theme resources including Mother's Day, flowers, gardening, Memorial Day, and Bugs!

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June Preschool Themes

You'll discover several fun activities for June's monthly themes including Father's Day, Beach, Bugs, Vacation Days, and Farmer's Market.

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July Preschool Themes

With the month of July, you are right in the middle of summer so it's time for Summer Picnics, Camping Trips, Fishing Expeditions, 4th of July, and Ice Cream!

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September Preschool Themes

September is a perfect time for Back to School, Acorns, Apples, Butterflies, and Calendars monthly themes! You'll find a ton of resources for many hands-on activities and learning centers!

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October Preschool Themes

Don't miss out on the fall season's October themes with Pumpkins, Bats, Harvest Festivals,Silly Monsters, and Truck and Treat!

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November Preschool Themes

November is a perfect time for gratefulness and these wonderful themes in the colder fall season: Thanksgiving, thankfulness, turkeys, owls, and leaves!

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December Preschool Themes

The December preschool themes are wonderful during the holiday season with gingerbread, Christmas, Candy Canes, Trees, and of course, Jesus!

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Preschool Themes for December: Christmas, Jesus, and more!

There’s nothing quite like the month of December. The anticipation of all that the season brings, including the presents, gorgeous trees, and delicious gingerbread cookies. Yet, all of this is possible because of the one we adore and celebrate — Jesus! Speaking about this wonderful time of year, let’s get to our Preschool themes for December: Christmas, Gingerbread, Christmas Trees, Candy Canes, and of course, Jesus!

Christmas Trees Activity Mats

Don’t you just love the fragrance of a fresh, live tree lit up with glowing bright lights and sentimental ornaments? And, with every ornament placed carefully on the tree, a flood of memories swoon in and make us smile. It’s one of my favorite decorations of the holiday season.

If you’re looking for fun holiday Christmas Tree activities for the kids, try these Christmas Tree Activity Mats. Why not celebrate the holiday season and get some schoolwork done with some preschool math skills. And, of course, nothing beats the sounds of free!

Plus, here are some free math printables that will not break the budget!

Christmas Holiday Printables

Oh, the joys of the holiday season are upon us and what better December Theme for preschoolers than the Christmas holiday?!! And, it’s even more special when you get to homeschool and celebrate Christmas all at the same time! Here are some fun Christmas Holiday crafts and activities, including many Christmas freebies, your kids will enjoy and cherish:

Gingerbread Activities

I guarantee these Playdough Christmas Mats will be a hit at the house this year! With Gingerbread cookie playdough mats and Gingerbread Man templates, your students will love to roll, cut and play with these their own gingerbread cookies. Of course, the play dough will smell just like gingerbread — sensory activities at its best!

Here’s another fun gingerbread activity if your child is learning to count from 11 to 20. This free printable hands-on Christmas Game will give your child lots of great practice with your preschooler’s budding math skills. If you are looking for resources to help your student begin counting, check out our Free Number Printables.

Jesus is the Reason for the Season

Thanks to an amazing man who lived on this earth sin-free and died for all of us, we can enjoy this special month of December. Jesus is the reason for the season. I have some wonderful Christian Resources for you to share with your children or students.

First of all, Jesus’ name is above all names and here is a fun activity to do with the kids, and it’s all free! Our Names of Jesus Advent Printables are 25 days of family activities, crafts, and devotions. You can print out the beautifully illustrated ornaments for decorations or gifts. Or, print out the black and white coloring pages of ornaments for your kids to color themselves.

Your child may also enjoy a coloring page of ‘Jesus Loves Me’ with our Jesus Bible Coloring Page. While it may seem appropriate for Valentine’s Day with hearts and love, this is also perfect for the Christmas season as well.

Candy Canes Printables

Speaking of Jesus, your children will adore these ‘J is for Jesus’ candy cane printables.  This exclusive candy cane activity is simply a mini book made into a story strip format you can use in a homeschool or classroom setting. You can include the purchase of candy canes to make a special treat.

While we’re on the subject, there are plenty of Candy Cane books for reading to compliment the candy cane theme. In addition, The Legend of the Candy Cane is such a delight around Christmas!  These books remind of his consistent love for us, not only our children but also we as parents! You may also consider J is for Jesus, another wonderful holiday story about how the candy can represents the gospel message.  

And, while you’re on the subject, grab a free Legend of the Candy Cane free printable and fun collection of adorable and amazing Candy Cane printables right here!

Christmas Tree Math Mat: Addition Learning Games

Free Christmas Math Printables

Once your preschool student has a good handle on their numbers, you might try working on simple addition facts. Addition is easily taught using objects or manipulatives to visually represent numbers. We’ve created a set of fun addition cards your student can use to visually represent the solution to a variety of addition problems to 15. Christmas break is coming up and this Christmas math pack is the perfect way to add some hands-on learning over the holiday.

While this set includes a HUGE varitey of adition cards with solutions up to 15. However, if this is your preschool students first introduction to addition, you might start by presenting the simplest equations first. Then, once your student has the concept down, you can add in more difficult addition cards.

Christmas Math Activity Mat

The Christmas Tree Addition worksheet can be used with various objects, such as play dough, pom-poms, and even peppermint candies. This pack includes one Christmas Tree mat, and a total of 96 math cards. There are four math equations per sheet, however, you can print multiple pages per sheet if you’d like smaller addition cards. We recommend printing on cardstock or laminating for durability.

Christmas Math Worksheet

You can introduce the concept of addition by first showing your child how to add the right amount of ornaments to the tree. So if you had an addition card that read 6 + 1, then you would first instruct the child to place 6 ornaments on the tree. Next, you instruct the child to add 1 more to the tree. Finally, have your student count up all the ornaments that have been placed on the tree and orally solve the equation, “6+1=7.” You might even have your student write the equations on a separate sheet of paper.

Christmas Ornament Addition Activity

Print these playdough activity mats and addition cards on cardstock for durability.

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Gingerbread Play Dough Recipe

If you are looking for a fun play dough recipe to pair with these Christmas Addition mats, try our free Gingerbread Play Dough recipe. This scented dough is super soft and will add some sensory fun to your learning.

Fine Motor Skills with Scissors

You’ve heard all about fine motor skills and the importance of practicing small muscle movements. It’s now time to use handy tools to get your child ready for writing skills. Here are some easy to use pre-writing fine motor skills with scissors including DIY scissor skills and activities!

If you have little ones that are the age of 2 and above, it’s time for some somewhat scary tools. That’s right — their little fingers are ready for fine motor skills with scissors. But, what scissors are safe, easy to use, and come highly recommended?

Safety Scissors and Usage

If your child is still practicing cutting skills, these round, plastic safe scissors claim to cut paper and playdough, but not hair or skin! The safety scissors are great for toddlers and preschoolers still in scissor skills training. Remember, learning scissor skills improves fine motor skills and hand and finger dexterity.

Some preschoolers that are ready for the next level or will be monitored while managing scissors should try blunt tip scissors. These small hands scissors come in a 2 pack and — you can even add their name! Plus, it has a handy measuring tool — a ruler. Recommended for ages 4 and up, your preschooler will love the design whether left or right-handed.

Cutting Exercises for Fine Motor Skills

Printing a few cutting worksheets makes it super easy for moms and teachers. Yet, here are some simple DIY tips on getting started on easy cutting exercises for fine motor skills. Using the image above, simply grab a fine tip marker and begin drawing a variety of lines for your eager toddler or preschooler. Some fine motor scissor examples are writing heart, square and circle shapes, zig-zag lines, and more.

Scissor Skills Checklist

While this isn’t a comprehensive scissors skills checklist, it will give you heads up on where to start scissor fine motor skills with your toddler or preschooler.

  • Age 2 – can cut one snip at a time
  • Age 3- gains the ability to cut in a straight line
  • Age 4 – mobility to cut with some accuracy a half of a foot with curved and straight lines
  • Age 5 – begins cutting in shapes like squares, rectangles, and triangles without help

Best Paper Materials for Scissors

The best paper material for cutting lines on paper is colorful cardstock, index cards, and foam sheets. And, all of these paper style cutting tools make it much easier to hold with smaller hands.

The paper or foam won’t bend and fold over itself as your child is cutting, which will help for a greater chance of a successful experience. Half of all teaching is really building confidence in our children.

As shown in the scissor exercises with images, draw some straight lines using a ruler, write a few zig-zag patterns, and add a couple of bowed lines across the paper medium. Get creative — your preschooler will be proud as he cuts to the finish line! Make them as easy or as difficult as your child is ready for, just pay attention to their enthusiasm or frustration levels.

Another bright idea — use some jar lids or circular type shapes to help form the circles on foam sheets or stock paper. Ask your child to cut along the lines for more fine motor practice.

Or, try zig-zag patterns for more variety in scissor practice for preschoolers. Your eager child may be ready for more independence with this simple yet extremely effective fine motor exercise with scissors.

Activities to Strengthen Scissor Skills

If you’re looking for simple, DIY scissor skills to do at home or in the classroom, try these easy and fun activities to strengthen scissor fine motor skills.

  • Cut Playdough – Roll different colors of playdough into a thin, long stick-type shape. Then, ask your child to use a pair of safe scissors to snip into 1-inch sizes.
  • Your child can even squeeze and pinch the play dough before cutting for some hand and finger strengthening fun!
  • Or, try a rainbow of colors with a plastic knife or safe scissors and cut in chunks for visually appealing activities!
  • Cut a rainbow array of straws and discuss the pretty colors as your preschooler has fun cutting straws in 1-inch dimensions.
  • With each color, ask your child to mimic 1-inch sizes with the appropriate safety scissors.
  • Or, teach your child more efficiency and double up the straws! This is a great opportunity to discuss colors, sizes, and of course, clean up time. Try to keep a bowl or box close by for quick pick up!

More Easy Scissor Fine Motor Activities

Just when you think you’ve exhausted all of the scissor fine motor activities, we have more safe scissor ideas! Try grabbing some supplies right in your back yard! Go outside with the kiddos and find some beautifully colored leaves for an outdoor flavor.

Or, if the leaves are few and far between, try some long grass for fine motor cutting! After a few minutes of running around outside, your child will be ready to sit down and relax while cutting his masterpieces, literally. He or she could even glue them down on cardstock and put in a book to flatten for safekeeping!

Lastly, if you have some leftover strips of paper, there’s no sense in wasting them! Ask your preschooler to go to town as they make fringe with the extra pieces of cardstock or paper. It would make a great skirt for a baby doll or hat for a little one. Just grab some tape to secure the ends together.

Scissor Skill Worksheets

There are so many ways to incorporate fun and engaging fine motor activities with scissors. If your child is ready to learn the alphabet, you’ll love the Alphabet Cut and Paste Packet!

Designed for preschool, kindergarten, and 1st grade, your student will be thrilled to color, cut and paste with these letter paper collages. Display them proudly in the classroom or use them as sound books or flashcards for recycling ideas.

These preschool alphabet scissor activities include 52 pages of fine motor cutting sheets. Both pages include uppercase and lower case letters with helpful beginning sound pictures.

How to use Alphabet Cut and Paste Worksheets

How do you use these alphabet cut and paste worksheets? First, your student will color the shapes, then cut out the picture shapes. Easy peasy, right? Teachers can use these colored pictures to play sorting and matching games.

All of these free and affordable fine motor scissor activities will keep your kids occupied for hours. So, grab some easy and enjoyable scissor cutting ideas and get going with your growing preschooler!

Preschool Themes for November: Turkey, Owls, and More!

As the colder weather taunts us with warmer clothes, it’s also a season of comforting food, a thankful attitude, and beautiful creations. With the brisk, refreshing season, it’s time for fall preschool themes for November including Thanksgiving, thankfulness, turkeys, owls, and leaves!

Thanksgiving Activities for Preschool

Thanksgiving is one of the most cherished holidays in American history for bringing families together. As you start thinking about the Thanksgiving table, why not use these free Thanksgiving placemats! You can print them, gather a tub of crayons, and place it at the dinner table. Keeps the kids busy and educationally distracted while you get the turkey ready!

If you are looking for a treasure trove of preschool Thanksgiving activities and printables, grab this Thanksgiving packet of goodies! My Thanksgiving unit study covers all subjects including science, math, art, reading, and more. You’ll find a week’s worth of terrific Thanksgiving crafts for preschool, easy science experiments, and hands-on math games. It’s designed for Kindergarten, but can be easily adapted to fit your preschoolers developing fine motor skill sets.

Thankful Preschool Activities

Speaking of THANKSgiving, it’s a perfect time to teach our children how to be thankful and appreciate our gifts from God. These wonderful Christ-centered activities have thankful scripture memorization, thankful preschool crafts, and ideas on how to give back to their community! It includes a whopping 35 pages of Thanksgiving activities, games, worksheets, and thankful songs for preschool.

Plus, you’ll find thankful preschool crafts and more for multiple ages. And, of course, it’s designed to keep you in mind — low prep steps, hands-on activities, and engaged hearts and minds. These thankful crafts for fall make a wonderful theme activity for November.

Preschool Turkey Coloring Pages

Now that we’ve covered Thanksgiving activities for preschool, let’s march right into some special turkey preschool crafts and coloring pages. Looking for some preschool turkey printables? I’ve got sweet and adorably designed turkey coloring pages with Thank You Jesus across the top. This is a simple coloring page is perfect for tiny hands this Thanksgiving. Your child can color the turkey and even write or draw anything they are thankful for and appreciate.

Plus, try these pumpkin coloring pages with bible verses for extra fun and practice coloring! And, of course, learning ‘thankful’ scripture throughout the Thanksgiving holiday is perfect timing!

Preschool Owl Crafts

Owls are so sweet and adorable, why not get the kids excited about making a preschool owl craft?!! It’s super easy to make, fun for all ages, and uses very simple craft materials. You can use pine cones from the yard or at a craft store, and in just a few minutes, your children will be playing for hours! This can be done as a solo activity or in a group setting as well.

You’ll also find my suggestions for many top-rated owl book resources you can use to complete a preschool owl unit study.

Looking for even more hours of fun with a little owls preschool theme? Grab many preschool owl craft ideas right here at Crafty Classroom. You’ll discover a ton of free and frugal owl resources including owl coloring pages, owl dissection labs, owl lapbooks, owl games, and SO much more!

Leaf Crafts for Preschool

You can’t end November without learning and making leaf crafts for preschool! Remember pressing leaves in wax paper with your mom? Brings back gushing memories, doesn’t it?!!! Let’s make some more precious memories with our preschoolers!

Here are some fabulous fall leaf preschool crafts — two autumn leaf art tutorials for kids! They are easily adapted for multiple ages including preschool, kindergarten, elementary, and even middle school and high school ages!

If you’d like to combine education and art, these leaf crafts for preschool are perfect for preschool kids {and older!}:

What’s on your fall bucket list? Have you added a few new items after seeing all of these amazing and adorable preschool monthly themes for November?!! Don’t miss out on these fabulously fall activities your children will love and want as keepsakes for years to come!

Preschool Themes for October: Pumpkins, Bats, and More!

It’s that beautiful time of year again. October is a wonderful month to still enjoy warmer weather while gazing at the autumn colors. While you may need your jacket, enjoy that comforting sunshine outdoors with your exploring little ones. It’s also time for Preschool Themes in October: Pumpkins, Harvest Festivals, Silly Monsters, Bats, and Trunk and Treat!

Pumpkin Projects for Preschool

As beautifully colored fall leaves drop, pumpkins make their grand entrance on porches and patios everywhere. It’s also a gentle reminder that kids love to carve out a pumpkin with their parents. What a great way to introduce themed activities like the Parts of a Pumpkin?!! Or, why not discover the Life Cycle of a Pumpkin, Pumpkins Games, Pumpkin Crafts and more!

In addition, grab these free Fall Pumpkin Math Mats that are perfect for preschoolers. It’s a great math tool with just the pumpkin printable provided, counting items (candy, coins, etc), and one or two dice.

Bat Books for Boys and Girls

Got a boy or girl who loves all about bats? Here are some fun bat books your preschooler or young one will love to read with you.

But, before we show you — here are some fun facts about bats. Did you know that bats are well-groomed, considered pollinators like bees and eat lots of pesky bugs? Plus, they are great for the environment and we need them on our planet.

Here’s a simple starter list of bat readers your preschooler will enjoy:

Silly Monster Printables

Monsters don’t have to be scary — in fact, there are a lot of funny looking monsters your kids will think are super silly! Plus, throw in some learning love including the alphabet, numbers, and sizes.

You’ll find a ton of silly and free monster preschool printables with marvelous monster books, monster games, and monster math mat.

Harvest Festival Ideas

Speaking of math, you’ll have plenty of October Preschool Theme ideas with our Harvest Math worksheets!  These three fall-inspired math printables are designed to add fun activities in your classroom. Some of these harvest-themed number worksheets include tally marks, addition and following directions.  

Need some ideas for Sunday School or Bible Club around the fall season? Grab these free fall bible printables your kids or classroom will enjoy as you discover adorable bible verse cards, parts of a pumpkin, and more!

Trunk and Treat Ideas

Whether you celebrate Halloween or not, the fall holiday presents a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel.  As an alternative, many churches provide a Harvest Festival or Truck and Treat event.

A Truck and Treat time allows a safe environment and alternative to Trick or Treat. Many families drive to a designated parking spot and open their trucks filled with treats, toys, and tracks.

A fun way to spread the good news is providing bible verses to trunk party goers. We have some Fall Festivities worksheets, Fall Building Bricks activities and Halloween Bible printables including bible verses, coloring pages, pumpkin prayers, and more!

Preschool Themes for October

Take advantage of the fall month of October by helping your preschooler learn about the color of the leaves, unique animals that are really not “spooky”, and of course, anything pumpkin-related!

Regardless of whether you are planning for a classroom of preschoolers or at home with one, find innovate ways to incorporate learning using these wonderful October themes for preschool.

And, don’t forget, fine motor skills can be ‘fine tuned’ for lesson planning with my Fine Motor October preschool packs! They are super inexpensive, fun for kids, and they’ll have fun while practicing writing, ABCs, and building their cognitive abilities. Grab these learning activities for a fun filled day of pumpkins and spiders!

September Preschool Themes: Apples, Back to School and More!

While September is your ‘back to school’ month, it can also be a blast as you kick off many new fun activities. Need some fresh ideas to liven up your school theme? Try these inspiring thoughts for your September Preschool Themes: Apples, Acorns, Back to School, Calendars, and Books.

Apples Printable Resources

As autumn leaves fall, so does delicious and crispy apples! It’s a special time to go apple picking at local farms with a wide variety of types to choose from. Plus, afterwards, use these fabulous fruit resources for an awesome apple unit study!

Acorns Activities for Preschoolers

What else starts to fall from the trees besides leaves and apples in the beautiful month of September?!!! I’ll give you a hint — squirrels love them and they tend to make them a bit nutty. Yes, you guessed it — acorns!

Acorns can be used in a wide variety of ways — try these affordable hands on crafts and acorn activities for your preschoolers! These engaging and free September theme activities include coloring pages, fall art, accessory bins, painting, and more!

Plus, don’t forget to read to your little ones all that each week of September brings! Here are some favorites to add to your growing list that the kids will enjoy:

Back to School Preschool Activities

We can’t get through September without thinking about Back to School Activities and Ideas for preschoolers! Looking for some back to school year inspiration, teachers?

I have a huge selection of open and go resources that makes your busy life a whole lot easier — all you need is a printer! Try these perfect for preschool printables including: fine motor skill activities, Letter of the Week printables, and marvelous math games!

DIY Calendars

If you’re like me, you keep a calendar in your preschool classroom to help with lesson plans and activities in the months ahead. Calendars are a great way to get organized and create a stress free environment for teachers, moms, and students!

With this free and fabulous 12 months calendar, your children learn how important it is to plan. They can design their own special calendars with just a few colorful writing utensils. Plus, it’s so adorable and features many fantastic families themes and of course, holidays!

Or, if you are looking for preschool resources to teach the days of the week, try my preschool calendar printables! In addition, you’ll also find daily worksheet activities, special days of the week bookmarks, and even a days of the week song!

Best Preschool Books

Did you know that September 6 is Read a Book Day and National Literacy Day is September 8th? The cooler season is a perfect month to ignite a love a reading with additional indoor activities.

The library is a great source to ignite your child’s interest in books. Plus, many libraries offer story time, crafts, and other activities. These preschool events will guarantee a child’s engagement in the wonderful world of reading.

Or, if it’s a busy month, here’s a short list of fabulous reading resources to grab online:

Lastly, try this easy but memorable keepsake craft with these free preschool bookmark printables.

Preschool Themes for September

What special September themes would you like to see during this pre-winter season? While it’s a busy time of year, it’s also a time of refreshment and wonder with new schedules, school books, and students!

Looking for more ideas that are skill based but fun for kids? Try these affordable, hands-on, and absolutely adorable Fine Motor Skills pack for the month of September! You’ll get 60+ pages of mazes, crafts, connect the dots, and more!!!

July Preschool Themes: Camping, Picnics and More!

As we head into the middle of summer, let’s go over your summer bucket list! Have you planned out your warm weather picnics and barbecues with friends and family? Or, what about that camping trip you and your kids have been discussing over dinner? There are SO many opportunities this month in July to get moving and have fun with your family!

We’ve listed 5 Themes for the month of July below. What’s wonderful about these themes is two fold. Some of these activities can be actually combined into one weekend. Or, they can be spread over 30 days as their own special occasions. Plus, all of these celebrations can be enjoyed outdoors with your family and/or loved ones.

Summer Picnics and BBQs

These warm and sunny days are the perfect climate for summer picnics and barbeques. Yes, there are a few more bugs and creepy crawlies, but it’s worth the precious time with family.

Planning a picnic can be quite simple — it doesn’t have to be a huge production! Kids are happy just being outdoors. One of your best memories may just be a torrential downpour picnic with kids in their bathing suits. Kids love flying down slides, jumping in puddles or large tubs of rain water! Don’t let weather stop you if it’s going to rain! Except, of course, if it’s calling for thunder and lightening.

Make a list to ensure you got it all covered like: blankets, books, grab and go foods, and thirst quenching drinks. Check the weather, plan a date, and start gathering up supplies. During errands, grab paper plates, cups, and finger food on sale .

Camping Trips

Special memories are made with camping trips in the outdoors. There’s just something spectacular about a cozy fire with hot dogs and smores! Camping trips can be in the backyard or on a campground close or far from home.

Finding a campground including amenities like pools, kids activities, and convenience stores. And, it’s fairly cheap to rent a plot of ground for your tent.

Yet, if its an impromptu camping idea, the backyard is a perfect place to get started! You can buy or borrow a tent, gather some games, and a scavenger hunt. But, don’t forget to write a list of mess free food, blankets and supplies.

Fishing Expeditions

Kids of all ages love to fish! It’s such an exciting moment when your child catches their first fish! Plus, it gives parents a great opportunity to bond, learn how to fish, and build their life skills repertoire.

And, I have a FREE resource you can download and print that allow your child to write what they’ve learned in a fishing journal. Or, you can use fishing copywork pages to give them practice with sentences.

Fourth of July Celebrations

Fourth of July seems to inspire us to think of fireworks, freedom, and family gatherings. Why not use this opportunity to plan a party with red, white, and blue!

In addition, grab all or some of my free Fourth of July printables! Your preschoolers love to learn about the American freedoms we enjoy today. They include a TON of Fourth of July resources such as number worksheets, patriotic coloring pages, patriotic crafts and activities, Fourth of July Lapbook, Star Spangled Banner printables, and more!

July Quest for the Best Ice Cream

This grand idea is guaranteed to bring the entire family together! Each week in the month of a July, pick a night to go on a quest for the best ice cream in your home town! Choose 4 ice cream shops you’ve been wanting to try and come up with a weekly plan of attack. Then, at the end of July, all family members cast their vote for the best ice cream in town and see who wins!

Need some extra fun activities to get the kids excited for the special night? Try this counting and number sequencing ice cream game your preschooler will love!

The special month of July brings out so many precious and cherish memories that will last a lifetime. So, seize this opportunity and get the kids involved in planning July with a ton of activities. And, if inclined, use this list of themes for July to get your creative juices started!