March Games and Sensory Bins 2019

1.) Rainbow Beginning Sounds Letter Matching (Preschool only)
Credit: Playdough to Plato
This website is utterly amazing!  I highly recommend you check it out for wonderful, educational games.  I haven't used beginning sounds games yet with the preschoolers, so I wasn't sure how they would do with this.  They astounded me!  They didn't have any problem at all with it, so I'm very excited to branch out and do more phonic games with them.  I taped down the letters to the table, and put the pictures inside a bin filled with butterfly petals.  The preschoolers love the sensation of feeling the petals and digging through them.  Below is a picture of the sounds that we did. (A, B, D, N, R)

2.) Flower Sponge Ball Push

I've gotten my kids used to always have a sponge ball push game every month.  So, this month we had flowers!  I made three flowers and put out the corresponding balls to go along with them.  I truly think the kids would have done this game and nothing else the whole time!

3.) Frog Shape Matching

Credit: Frogs-and-Fairies

This was a really fun game to make, and both groups did really well with it!  I hope to use the frogs in a future storytime hopefully.  For the two's I taped the frogs onto chairs, to make them easier to reach.

4.) Counting Knockdown

I wanted to include our big boxes somehow, since this month we had a storytime called "Building Blocks".  But, I just didn't want to stick out my boxes and say, "Here you go!".  I love to try and incorporate a learning them without the kids know that they are learning.  For this game, each box is numbered.  Not only can the kids stack and knockdown the boxes, but my goal is that they can stack them in correct order first.  Did this happen?  About a third of the time, but at least I tried!

February Games and Sensory Bins 2019

1.)  Cupcake Counting and Matching
I've seen many variations of this game online, so I had two versions of this.  The preschoolers could choose to count out the correct number of candles for each cupcake or just match the correct candle to each cupcake.  For the two's, I just flipped the cupcakes over and they matched the candles.

2.)  Snowman Sponge Ball Push
Pretty much every month I have some kind of game where the kids get to push the sponge balls through my box.  The main reason? They adore it!  Truthfully, this is a wonderful way to help teach them so many things, depending on what you decide to onto your box.  The kids just love getting to grasp the squishy sponge balls and squeeze them.  They don't realize that they are learning to match colors, or developing their fine motor skills too!  This month we matched the correct ball to the ears on our snowmen.  I got the idea for this from a website that had a similar idea.
Credit: Teachers Pay Teachers





3.)  Penguin Letter Matching (Preschool Only)
I apologize, I have no idea where I found this adorable game.  If it's your fabulous idea, then please let me know!




4.)  Feed the Frog Kisses
The only aggravating part about this game was that the kisses I had made kept sinking to the bottom of the bin.  I had paper kisses cut out and mixed them in with flower petals.  The kids matched the kisses to the crowns on the frogs.

December Games and Sensory Bins 2018

All of our games this month were centered around my favorite time of year...Christmas!!!

1.) Feeding Santa Cookies

This was by far the most popular game!  I wanted to make this a learning game, so I made different colored hats for my Santa, and most of the kids matched up the cookies to the right Santa without me telling them to.  The kids really loved taking the cookies off the baking sheet too!

Credit: Teachers Pay Teachers

2.) Christmas Tree Color Matching (Two's Only)

This game went over really well with the two's, but I apologize for the glare in the picture.  What I did was hide the presents in a big box, with cut up green and red streamers. (See picture below for the bin I used.)  I've learned that I need to use a big in to let the two's dig through, that way they don't tend to make too big a mess out of things!  The two's were able to dig the presents out of the box and matched them up to the correct tree.
Credit: Teachers Pay Teachers

3.) Christmas Tree Light Counting (Preschool Only)

For this game, there are little stars with numbers on them, one through five inside the bin.  Each tree has a certain number of lights on it.  The preschoolers would match each star to the right Christmas tree.  They did a wonderful job matching the numbers!
Credit: Teachers Pay Teachers


4.) Christmas Tree Pom-Pom Push

This is a wonderful game to use, and all it takes is a shoebox, construction paper and pom-poms!  
Credit: The Activity Mom

5.) Christmas Putt-Putt
I didn't save a picture, but I got this game here, if it's still available.  My kids adore playing putt-putt and this came with six things to putt through, along with four putters and balls!

November Games and Sensory Bins

This month our games centered around apples!  

1.) Apple Sponge Ball Push
I believe this was the most popular game!  All I did was use my box and place three apples I made on the front.  Then I took my corresponding sponge balls and placed them in my LEGO box lid.  All done!  The kids loved matching the sponge balls to the correct color.  I think I could change this out every month to a different matching game and the kids would never tire of it!

2.) Scarecrow Shape Matching
I found this adorable game online, so I had to make it!  I used three plastic baskets we had already, and placed my scarecrows that I had made on the front. The two's matched up leaves that had shapes on them to the right scarecrow.  The leaves were hidden inside bowls of cut-up streamers.  The downside?  The bowls were sitting out on chairs, and some adventuresome two's decided to play with the streamers!  Now I know for next month to find a giant box to hide my items in next time.  Live and learn!
Credit: File Folder Heaven




3.) Thanksgiving Word Matching
I was pleasantly surprised by how well the preschoolers did with this game!  Thankfully I had this already prepared from last year, so all I had to do was get hide the words inside a bowl of cut-up streamers!  Yes, the preschoolers were much better about not dumping the bowl of streamers!
Credit: In My World




4.) Apple Color Matching
For this game, just take two boxes and tape them onto the bulletin board for the apples to go in.  Then, just cut up streamers and place them into bowls to hide your apples in.  This is such an easy game to prepare, but the kids love being able to dig through the bowls and find all the surprises hidden inside.  One month I would like to have them match animals to their home.  If you've done something similar, please leave a comment!  I love sharing ideas!




5.) Acorn Matching
The kids love digging through my giant bin of items, so this month I had to use leaves!  I took my big green bin, filled it up with leaves (not real ones, I promise!), and put the acorn bottoms in the bin.  Then, I placed the acorn lids inside my LEGO tray, with the letters facing up.  The wonderful thing was if the kids haven't learned matching the upper and lowercase letters yet, the acorns matched with the colors.  I bought the acorn set online and the best part was each acorn also came with a small animal that fit inside.  For example, the letter "A" came with an apple, if I am remembering right.  So not only did the kids just have fun finding the acorn tops, and matching the letters.  You could turn this into another game and add the animals and teach them beginning sounds too!

August 2018 Sensory Bins and Games

Below are our games and sensory bins for August.  Most of them were centered around cars and colors.  All of the games went over extremely well!

1.) Castle Putt-Putt

2.) Popcorn Matching

*For this game I just printed out the popcorn kernels, which you can find many freebies online.  Then I made the letters for the boxes, printed them out and taped them.  I had no idea how much fun the kids would have with this!  I did change this to shapes for the two's, and some of them still had a little trouble matching the shapes.  Next time I will probably do color matching for the two's.  I highly recommend doing a matching game with the popcorn kernels, my kids had so much fun with this!

3.) Car Letter Matching

*The preschooler did so good with this matching game!  I'm thinking about doing some word matching with them next month. (To get this freebie, just google car alphabet matching and you'll see it.)

4.) Carrot Colors Matching

*For this game, the kids go to dig through the butterfly petals to find the different colored petals.  Then they matched the carrots to the correct pot hanging on the bulletin board.  The kids went crazy digging through the butterfly petals!

April Games and Sensory Bins

For April, I tried to make the games match up with the storytimes we did this month.  So most of my games centered around shapes, bugs and springtime.

1. Rabbit Shape Matching
The preschoolers did great matching the carrots to the correct shape!  Such a fun way to help them learn their shapes.
Credit: Totschooling

2. Caterpillar Pom-Pom Drop
As usual, the kids love dropping anything through our tubes!




3. Bumblebee Letter Matching
For this, we spelled out the word S-P-R-I-N-G.  I think the kids got confused because I had both halves of the bee taped down.  They dug out the matching letter from our sensory bowl.  Next time I will only put down one side of the bee on the table so that they can match the other side to it.
Credit: Modern Preschool

4. Butterfly Sensory Bin
The kids go crazy digging through the butterfly petals!  Today we dug out butterflies, of course!

November Games and Sensory Bins

This month our games were centered around autumn and Thanksgiving!

1.) Cornucopia Word Matching
I was worried the kids would have trouble doing this, but they were excellent at it!  Secondly, I was hesitant to use feathers to hide the words in, but no problems there either!  All the kids loved the texture of the feathers.  Only the preschoolers did this sensory game.
Credit: In My World

2.) Turkey Feather Matching
This was another fun matching game, and I hid the feathers in leaves.  The two's and preschoolers did a great job in matching the feathers!

Credit: In My World

3.) Scarecrow Knockdown
For this game, I just took empty boxes and covered them.  This scarecrow I bought years ago at a dollar store.  I took him apart and taped him to the boxes.  That's all it takes!  Your game is ready for the kids to stack and knock over again and again.

4.) Pumpkin Soup Dipping
I didn't take a picture of this, but it's simple to do.  I took two of our plastic cauldrons and filled them with water.  Then I dumped some foam gourds, pumpkins and acorns into them.  I laid out some slotted spoons and bowls.  I put a plastic tablecloth underneath all this to help with the cleanup.  The preschoolers loved this, but only a few of the two's came over to play with it this year.

Bug Games and Sensory Bins

Today we were buggy for books!  After storytime we had lots of fun games to play!  The preschoolers played everything I have listed below.  The two's played ladybug pom-pom matching, ladybug puzzles, caterpillar push and the ladybug matching sensory bin.  By far the two's enjoyed the ladybug matching sensory bins the most.  What I did to help them reach the bowls better was tape the colored leaves onto the seats of our chairs and put the four bowls of Easter grass in the chairs.  I think I could have had double the amount of bowls out for the two's to dig in!  The two's also thoroughly enjoyed the caterpillar push.  They didn't seem to enjoy playing with the ladybug puzzle matching or pom-pom matching, but loved the other games.


I tried to do games a little differently this month, to help the flow a little better.    Instead of having the same game on both sides of the table, I put out different games on each side of the table.  Unfortunately it didn't help the kids move around easier, so back to the drawing board!


1.)Frog Alphabet Matching Sensory Bin

My original plan for this game was to spell jump on one side of the table and frog on the other.  That way the kids could dig through different sensory bins, find the frogs and match them to different letters.  But somehow my frogs that I made to spell out F-R-O-G decided that they didn't want to play, and some of the letters hopped away!  You can find the full frog and lily pad alphabet printable here.

2.) Caterpillar Pom-Pom Push

I found the idea for this awesome game online, but the link is no longer working.  Thank you to the wonderful person who came up with it, the kids had a blast!  We stored our pom-poms in the lid that the LEGO's came in, which works out great if you need something to keep your pom-poms in.

3.) Ladybug Pom-Pom Colors

For this game, the kids matched each colored pom-pom to the correct ladybug.  I got this idea from an alphabet ladybug printable, which I plan on using next time.  You can find the ladybug alphabet printable here.

4.) Bug Counting

This was a great idea in theory, but let me warn you...don't use foamies!  I had to walk away from this game, and when I came back all the cute little bug foamies were stuck to my leaves!  Aaahhh..lesson learned!  This is a printable that comes with cute little ladybugs with the correct number of dots on their backs to match up to the leaves, and you can find it here, along with a lot of other wonderful learning centers for spring.

5.) Ladybug Color Matching Sensory Bin

The kids did awesome with this sensory bin, and we used green Easter grass to hide our bugs in.  The last time we did color matching with the color word printed out it seemed to confuse the kids but today they didn't have any problems matching up the bugs to right leaf.  I found this wonderful printable here.

6.) Ladybug Puzzles

I found the idea for ladybug puzzles here, so I made my own.  I used a full sheet of paper, made the ladybug then just cut them in half!

Animal Countdown Games

This month our games were centered around animals and counting.  Below are what we played!  

1.) Animal Matching
The first game was so much fun!  We taped down one set of animals, and hid the others inside some shredded paper we got at the dollar store.  The kids did great in matching the numbers together.  I found this adorable set of animals here.

2.) Caterpillar Matching

For the second game, we taped down two sets of caterpillars.  The kids then matched the right numbered circle to each caterpillar.  I apologize, but the link to the website where I found this adorable idea isn't working.  I included a pic of what ours looked like.

3.) Shadow Matching
I've never done a shadow matching game before with the kids, and they did awesome with it!  I plan on doing more shadow matching games with them, now that I know they enjoy it.  I found this by searching for animal shadow matching.  

4.) Feed the Penguins
This game was so much fun to make!  Plus, I adore penguins so that didn't hurt anything either.  I ended up taking old boxes I was going to recycle, and turning them into penguins.  Then all I needed was numbered fish for the kids to match up to the correct penguin.  I am looking forward to using the penguins again, and changing out the numbers with letters so that it can still be educational and fun at the same time.  I found the idea for feeding the little penguins here.  

Winter Games

This month our games were centered around winter.  Below are what we played!  The first three games are pictured below.


1.) Snowman Toss
For this game, I found some great yarn pom-poms that the kids could use instead of beanbags.

2.) Snowman Cup Knockdown
I found this idea here, and instead of using styrofoam cups, I filled clear cups up with tissues.  I let the kids stack them up and knock them down with their hands.

3.) Snowman Kleenox Box Stack and Knockdown
I took some square Kleenox boxes and covered them with white paper and made each one a part of a snowman.  Then I let the kids to stack them up and knock them down.  Its a great way to teach the kids what part of the snowman goes where and they always enjoy getting to knock things down.

4.) Snowflake Soup
The other game we played was snowflake soup.  I took our big cauldron and filled it up with water and snowflake foamies.  Then I took two slotted spoons and let the kids dip out the snowflakes.  This was probably their favorite game, because of the water!


5.) Penguin Matchup
For this game, I printed out the letters to spell PENGUIN.  I hid the penguins in rice and let the kids dig them out and match them to the letters I had taped to the table.  The kids really liked this, but made a mess with the rice, which is to be expected.  You can find the full set of the penguin alphabet letters on this website.

6.) Penguin Color Matching
All you have to do for this wonderful game is just print and cut it out!  I thought the kids would really like this, but they seemed confused with the color words on the penguins. You can tell this by the picture below, but I still think it's a really cute game!  You can find it on this website.

6.) Snowman Patterns
This game is super easy to prepare, just print, cut out and you're ready!  The kids seemed to like this one.  You can find it at this website.

7.) Snowman Putt-Putt
I forgot to take a picture of this game, but I made a snowman head, and cut out a round hole for his mouth.  I taped him to a box, and stood him up.  We have a kids putt-putt set that I will pull out periodically.  I rolled out white paper, and set my snowman at the end.  You can roll out some red paper for the tongue, but I didn't do that this time.  I think this and the snowflake soup were tied with the rice for top games with the preschoolers.

Christmas Games & Sensory Bins

This month our games were centered around Christmas.  Below are what we played!


1.) Here is the website where I found the game pictured below.  You can download all of them for free, and then just cut them out and have fun!  I picked up the little bows at the dollar store, and sat them out in a container.  Then the kids could place each number of bows on the Christmas tree.



2.) Here is the website where I found the two games pictured below.  You can download all of them for free, and then just cut them out and have fun!  For this game, the kids matched the right numbered tree to the one opposite.  It's a great one to help with their number recognition.




For this game, the kids matched the ornaments to the correct one.  Both of these games were a big hit with the kids, and they came from the same website, which I included the link above.

3.) Here is the website where I found for this next game, and I turned it into a sensory bin.  The kids seemed to enjoy it so much!  I decided to spell out gingerbread, and hide the gingerbread men inside shredded paper I got at the dollar store.  The kids got to dig out the gingerbread men and match them up to the correct letter.



4.) For our last game, we had a pom-pom push with a Christmas tree.  I didn't include a picture of ours, but here's a link to the website with all the details.  The kids seemed to enjoy this and the gingerbread matching the most.

T is for Tractor (Preschool)

Preschool Storytime

"T is for Tractor"

Opening Fingerplay: Big Books

Book: "Dog Wants to Play

*This book was the favorite pick by far!  All through the story, dog is wanting to play.  When?  Today!  Every time I read today, I had the kids shout it out with me.  By the end of the book, everyone had caught on.  Dog getting to meet all the animals on the farm was a big hit too.

Fingerplay/Flannel: This Little Chick

*The kids went crazy shouting out the colors of my chickens. You can get your copy of this great flannel at this website.

Book: “Do You Know Noses”

*I was really excited to use this book, and the kids enjoyed guessing what animal nose was being shown. It wasn't the favorite book read out of the bunch, but it feature all farm animals but the last one, which was a koala.

Fingerplay/Guessing Game: “Animal Farm Sounds”

*For this game, I used this free app through amazon.  I told the kids it was time to guess what farm animal they heard.  The turkey had all of them confused except one little boy, who yelled it out right away!  This app is okay, but next time I will probably look for a different one to use.

Book: “Cindy Moo” (With Puppets)

*This book takes the traditional nursery rhyme about the cow jumping over the moon and turns it into a great rhyming story. The kids enjoyed it, but not as much as I hoped they would. Still a great read-aloud.

Flannel: “Animal Match-Up” (Below is what mine look like.)

*For this, I decided to make a flannel game for the kids. I took three farm animals that I made and cut them in half. *GASP* It wasn't fun! I paired them up not correctly, and then presented them to my kids. Right away they started screaming out that I had messed all of the animals up. It was a lot of fun getting my animals right, and the kids had to correct me multiple times.

Book/Music: “Driving My Tractor”

*This books is so adorable! A great CD will play music and sign the whole book for you. We ended up doing something a little different with this one. To see what we did, you can view it at this page.

We got our craft idea from Oriental Trading, and below is what ours turned out like.  We decided to add some mud to the craft also.



Once a month I try and do games after storytime and you can check out our farm themed games by clicking here!