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As of last week, it was business as usual for us. We continued on with our day to day activities as we became increasingly aware of the rapidly spreading COVID-19 through social media, friends, and family (we don’t watch the news). Finally, I did some research. The more I read, the more I felt I had a responsibility to heed the advice of doctors, scientists, and officials, and stay home.
For most of us, this is a tall order. But when I think of my 70-something mom who has asthma (not to mention other people’s moms), I know I could sit at home for months if it would help her.
One snag in my plan – my four-year-old. The idea of keeping her in the house for two solid weeks, and possibly longer, is daunting, but I’m resourceful. I’m big on downloading freebies for kids and researching activities anyway, so now I’m kicking it into high gear.
Here are a few activities we’ve had fun with so far:
“Walking the Line”
This Let’s Move CD from the Caspari Collection is great for getting kids moving indoors. It includes 23 songs that kids can dance along to in specific ways, such as marching, skipping, running, and stomping. At the end, there are five songs that kids can play along to with percussion instruments.
This is perfect if you have limited outdoor space or during bad weather – or just to keep the kids focused and engaged.
In typical Montessori fashion, the CD teaches kids to control their bodies and understand rhythms while engaging the whole body in a fun way.
Walking on the line can be done on an actual line using a piece of string or painter’s tape, but in our house we just freestyle it.
Skip Counting with Pennies
I threw this activity together in 5-10 minutes with some colored paper and pennies. I cut out squares of paper and wrote numbers to practice skip counting – 2, 4, 6, 8, then 5, 10, 15, 20, etc.
I then showed A how to keep adding more pennies to see what the next number would be. For example, start with two pennies. Then ask, “What happens if you add two more?”
Once she adds them, I have her count them up then hand her the four card. Keep going like that, then move to fives, tens, or any other number she wants to try.
Common Birds Handmade Book
At my daughter’s preschool, she makes a lot of books, so I thought a book project would be right up her ally. I found these great quality three-part cards from Trillium Montessori and printed them. I chose to print the black and white line drawings on regular printer paper, and the full-color matching cards on card stock.
We cut them up and colored them based on the included pictures, wrote the names, then made a cover from construction paper and stapled them together. By the end of this project, A was so proud of the book she made.
Now that she’s familiar with some of the birds, I’ll have her work on matching the pictures and eventually matching the pictures and names of the birds. We may make more books too depending on her interest level.
And of course, all activities are better in a homegrown fort, hence the sheet hanging over her head.
Count to 100 Beaded Sculpture
A has recently learned to count to 100 and is super excited about it. To tie in with that skill, I found this beaded sculpture idea.
We didn’t quite make it to 100, but we were inspired to create these beaded creatures with some googly eyes I had leftover from another project. They had a pretty deep conversation about counting by tens.
Need worksheets and other printables?
These are a few of my favorite resources:
This site has some really good quality worksheets and they’re all available to print without signing up. What I love about this site is that they have worksheet packs where you can print five or ten pages from one download – more bang for your time!
Trillium Montessori Resource Library
This school offers excellent Montessori materials to download and print. Signup is required, but it’s worth it. We love their Common Birds 3 part cards shown above and alphabet matching cards.
This site has hundreds of worksheets, all available to download and print for free, with no signup. I like that this site has such a big library of worksheets, and it’s very well organized.
I will continue to update this page as I come across new resources or ideas that work for us.
If you’re looking for things to do with your preschooler at home (some of these will work for older/younger kids too), pin this page and check back periodically for more.
Know of a great activity or project kids can do at home? Let me know!
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