Recommendation: Web/Blog - Great sites for activity ideas & free worksheets

Here are two websites for activity ideas and free worksheets.

Activity Village

Lots of free colouring pages, crafts, worksheets, printables of all sorts and even sudoku for children of different ages. It also features themed activities for selected holidays and seasons such as Christmas. I like that it is jam packed with resources that I can quickly download and print for EV, and AA in future. The preschool section is where I frequent most, and it has numerous templates for early learners, such as handwriting sheets, and materials for learning the alphabet and numbers.

DLTK

Don't underestimate this seemingly bare looking site. It has a lot of resources for home schooling, and lots of craft ideas too. What I like about this site is that it also lists the recommended ages for the various activities, so I can decide whether a particular activity is too difficult for EV to undertake. It also has loads of downloadable mini books that are good for early readers, or just for reading with the young one.

C for Cat

Alphabet

EV and I got down to another Tot Club session with the letter of the week - C. We started off with the greeting song, followed by a run through of the C feely card, which EV could identify extremely easily now. After listening to the 'Crocodiles Creeping' phonics song, where we pretended to be creeping crocodiles again, we pasted C images - cat, cherry, cone, car, crow and clock. I then asked EV if she wanted to trace the letter Cc and write the words of the six images with me, and she said yes. We did that as a team, and EV was very attentive throughout.

Art

We did a toilet paper roll cat today, which I improvised myself. I first cut out paper to cover the toilet paper roll, to make the cat's body. Then using a round piece of paper and two pieces of triangular paper, we pasted the cat's face together to the body. I drew the face and the whiskers. EV was so delighted with the result, that she happily posed for pictures with it.

Handwriting skills

EV has definitely grasped the concept of writing horizontal lines very well. She immediately knew what to do when I handed her this sheet of cats from 1+1+1=1 Tot School. Her lines are still a little wavy, but much better than before.

Opposites
Something new for EV to try today - the concept of opposites. Using a worksheet from TLSBooks, I explained to EV what needed to be done, and the concepts involved. Obviously, she was unsure, but I believe with time, she will get it. She already has grasped the concepts of big and small, long and short, so it's just a matter of introducing more 'opposites' to her.

Music
We ended today's session with the rhyme 'Pussy Cat Pussy Cat', a rhyme that we often sing to her.


Story Time
Tonight, we read 'Have You Seen My Cat'. It's one of EV's favourite Eric Carle books.

Books: 'C' books

The letter of the week is C, and here are a few recommended books.

Written by Bonnie Lass & Philemon Sturges, illustrated by Ashley Wolff

A book based on the popular rhyming game, it follows the adventures of a skunk who discovers that his cookies have disappeared from his cookie jar. He goes around to various animals such as a little mouse, a rabbit, a squirrel to find out if they have taken his cookies, and in the process discovers about their daily habits. It is also a tale of discovery for little ones, and they read that a mouse eats cheese, a squirrel eats nuts, a rabbit hops and a turtle is much too slow. This book uses a lot of repetitive words, so it's also great for reading with little ones. I also like the colourful illustrations which show each animal in its habitat vividly, allowing me to describe the environment to EV easily.

Written by Norma Simon, pictures by Dora Leder

This is a beautifully illustrated book in black & white, and it manages to bring out the liveliness of the cat and its owners in a different light. The story begins with the author's complaints about Max, who persistently meows until someone opens the window to let him out, and similarly persists in his scratching of the glass until someone lets him into the house when he returns. Max doesn't do anything and spends the whole day doing silly things like hiding inside the laundry, chasing shadows, sitting on a chair with his belly up and thinking that the whole world revolves around him. He goes around making everyone mad. Oh that cat! But despite this, the author loves Max for his endearing and fun personality, and gets extremely worried when Max returns home late one evening. I like the way the antics of the cat are vividly illustrated; you can even see funny or shocked expressions made by Max. A good book to describe the characteristics of a cat in a story format.

By Eric Carle

A classic, this book is about a boy who is looking for his lost cat. He meets many people from around the world, such as a gentleman with a top hat, a cowboy on a horse, a red indian in a tent, and also meets many different types of cats, such as a lion, leopard, panther, persian cat and so on. The text is very simple, and is based on two main sentences, making it a good book for reading to and reading with the little ones.

By Eric Carle

Another classic. You can read more about my story time with EV here.

Craft Fun: Egg carton caterpillar

We had quite a bit of egg cartons left over from baking Chinese New Year goodies. So we did some recycled craft fun and made a egg carton caterpillar. It's extremely easy to make, and it involved an activity that EV simply loves - painting. She painted only one of the egg cartons, we both worked on two together and mummy ended up finishing up the remaining three, but that's teamwork. EV was more interested in painting on paper after a while, as I guess that was easier for her. Plus, she had a lot of fun choosing the colours and painting all the colours in one single patch on the paper, such that the result was a mushy, mish mash of dirty greenish brown paint. Well, as long as she had fun. 

Once the paint on the egg carton dried, I stuck goggly eyes and pipe cleaners as the antennas.

We also did another quick letter C craft - C for crab (inspired by Totally Tots). I drew the C and claws free hand on a piece of red paper, then got EV to paint waves on a piece of blue paper. Then we stuck everything together.

I realised after everything was done that I left out the eyes of the crab. Oh well, never mind. It's still C for crab. ;-)

Story Time
We had just the perfect book - The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. It's a great book that talks about a caterpillar and its gastronomic adventure over seven days. It teaches about the seven days of the week, how the caterpillar eats too much junk food and gets a stomachache, and how it eats a green leaf to make itself feel better.

As I read it, I used the egg carton caterpillar to dramatize the story, complete with sound effects. At the end, as the caterpillar transformed into a butterfly, the butterfly that we made in our last Craft Fun session made an appearance. EV enjoyed this very different story time, as she was smiling and giggling in delight, and of course, saying 'fly fly' as well when the butterfly appeared.