Preschool activities for April center around the theme of “Rain, Rain, Go Away.” It tends to be a rainy month here in Texas which also means it can be a very dangerous time of year because we have intense thunderstorms with high winds, large hailstones, and tornadoes. This is a great time to ensure that flashlights are operating with good batteries and placed in optimal locations in case of a power outage for those child care providers that operate in their home. Also, practice getting the children to a safe room such as an interior closet or bathroom. It is important to plan your evacuation route and practice it especially if you have babies and young toddlers that will require 100% of your assistance to get them to safety in the event of an emergency. Make sure that this safe room is equipped with any necessary supplies.

Below you will find preschool activities for toddlers and preschoolers. These activities include science and social studies ideas, imagination play, arts and crafts, reading and math activities, coordination and movement games, and social skills ideas.

Theme: Rain, Rain, Go Away
Letter: R, U (rain)
Number: 4
Color: Blue
Shape: Oval (Raindrop)

1. Holidays:
April 1- April Fool’s Day (wear something silly)
April 12- Easter
April 22- Earth Day

2. April Preschool Activities: Science
Teach the children how to use recyclables to make a compost in celebration of Earth Day. Explain the importance of recycling paper, glass, and plastic and how it helps our environment and planet.

Make April Fool’s Silly Putty. In a bowl, add some corn starch. Mix in some water until the mixture is the consistency of paste. Teach the children about how the mixture goes from a liquid to a solid. (Optional: Add food coloring to mixture. The color of the month is blue.)

Use the rain gauge made in arts and crafts to record the levels of rain on different days.

Go on a nature walk and see what plants, flowers, trees, leaves, and insects you can find to celebrate Earth Day. Collect some of your findings along the way.

3. Social Studies:
Research when the umbrella was first invented (about 4 thousand years ago). Who used them and for what purpose (Egyptians, Greeks, Chinese for the purpose of shade)? The Chinese were the first to make them of waterproof material.

4. Imagination:
Have the children put on raincoats, rain boots, and grab an umbrella. Pretend it is a rainy day and put down blue carpets or blue paper for puddles. The children can go around the room jumping from puddle to puddle.

5. April Preschool Activities: Arts and Crafts
Make your own Little Cloud using blue construction paper and white cotton balls. Let the child make an outline of any cloud shape, then pull-apart some cotton balls and glue them to the cloud shape.

Make a page of leaf rubbings from leaves collected on your nature walk.

Make a rain gauge using plastic soda bottles or plastic water bottles. Remove the cap and discard. Cut off the top of the bottle about 1/4 of the way down. Place the cut off top upside down in the top of the bottle. This will allow the rain to travel inside the bottle to be collected. Mark the outside of the bottle using a permanent marker in 1/2 inch increments.

Use stickers to decorate plastic Easter eggs.

6. Reading:
Read “Little Cloud” by Eric Carle. Talk about what cloud shape each child would like to be and what they like to do on a rainy day.

Read “The Velveteen Rabbit” by Margery Williams. Talk about bunnies and what they like to eat and where they live.

7. April Preschool Activities: Language:
Sing “Rain, Rain, Go Away” and “It’s Raining, It’s Pouring.”

Introduce the letters and letter sounds for R and U. Have the children use blue finger paint to practice tracing over a pre-written R,r and D,d on a piece of paper.

Use an umbrella to teach the opposites of up, down and open, shut.

8. Math, Thinking Skills:
Sort plastic Easter eggs by color or have the children match halves of plastic Easter eggs to make a complete set.

9. Math, Shapes:
Place several shapes on the floor in a circle. Be sure to include a lot of ovals. Play music, as the music plays the children will walk in a circle along the path of the shapes. When the music stops, if the child is not standing on an oval, he or she will have to sit out. The game continues until there is only one child standing on an oval. You may need to remove the number of ovals as the game progresses to reduce the chances of landing on an oval.

10. Math, Counting:
Introduce the number 4 and show everyone how to hold up 4 fingers and count to 4. Let the children string 4 beads, pieces of cereal, or other objects onto a string.

11. Coordination and Movement:
Practice hopping on 2 feet like bunnies. Then challenge the children to hop on one foot at a time. This will require some good balancing skills.

12. April Preschool Activities: Social Skills
Hide the plastic Easter eggs that the children made during arts and crafts. Have each child pair up with a friend to find the Easter eggs. The children will have to cooperate to work together to find the eggs.

Why do you blog? Is is to share personal information, a daily diary of sorts? Is it to share the most current and up-to-date news about your topic? Is it to reach the masses with unique content related to a topic with which you have a lot of expertise? Is it to promote an e-business or an affiliate program?

There may be many reasons why you blog, but there are only a handful of reasons that make blogging a perfect platform for anyone trying to create genuine web presence or establish a true e-business. For example, blogging is a good foundation if you have a news-oriented site or like to post your thoughts for the day. Blogging also improves the web presence and can help to drive traffic to an established theme-based content website.

However, professional bloggers, and professional promoters of blogging, usually fail to mention the “dated-content treadmill” that they so desperately run upon every day. What happens when you stop blogging? You watch your traffic melt away. Why? Because Search Engines know that blog posts are like newspapers… good only for wrapping fish after a few days.

And, according to Google, blogs deliver a poor quality visitor. The following is a direct quote from Google Analytics 101, written by Google in April 2008…

“Blogs usually have high Bounce Rates no matter what since
normal visitor behavior is to read the newest post and then leave.”

Human visitors instinctively know that, too. Most visitors do not want to read 6 month-old news (i.e., a blog post). Theme-Based Content Sites, however, are totally different. How? To find out the answer to this question, read more and decide, “Do I Blog or Build?”

Check back to read my next post about my theme-based content site that I developed with SBI! and how I use this blog to promote it.

Applesauce cinnamon dough is a fun, creative activity for young children to explore. With just some plain applesauce and ground cinnamon, children can make play-doh that can be shaped into anything especially if they use cookie cutters.

To make the applesauce cinnamon dough, you need equal portions of plain applesauce and cinnamon. In a mixing bowl, start with 1 cup of plain applesauce. Slowly mix in 1 cup of cinnamon, a little bit at a time. If the dough is too sticky, add a little bit of flour or additional cinnamon.

After mixing the dough, let the child play with it or use cookie cutters to create certain shapes. The child’s creations can be set in a warm location such as on a paper towel placed near a sunny window to dry over the next 24 to 48 hours. However, depending on the size of the creation, it can take even longer. Be sure to allow it to thoroughly dry.

After it is completely dried out, it can be embellished in many different ways. Just use care and caution as even a dried creation can be very fragile. Consider letting the child paint, paint with glitter paint, glue on buttons or rhinestones, or use stick on foamies. The possibilities are endless. These can even be made into ornaments at Christmas time.

Not only is applesauce cinnamon dough fun to play with and make, it will continue to smell delicious for some time.

*Remind children that the dough is not for eating. Although not harmful, it will be very bitter with all the excess cinnamon.

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Preschool activites for January center around the idea of winter. Read through all the activities below to find which ones, if not all, you would like to do with your young child. There are a variety of activities in each subject including science, reading, math, social skills, imaginary play, and more.

Theme: Penguins and Polar Bears
Letters: A, P
Number: 1
Color: White
Shape: Circle
Activities:

1. Holidays:

January 1- New Year’s Day
January 19- Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Birthday

2. Science:

a. Show how to freeze water into ice (Predict how long it will take, then compare predictions to result).

b. Research about arctic animals including penguins and polar bears (discuss size and color of the animal, what it eats, and where it lives).

3. Social Studies:

Teach the children about Martin Luther King, Jr. and why he is an important historical figure. Have the children tell what their dream is.

4. Imagination:

Make a playhouse with a table and a white blanket and pretend it is an igloo.

5. Arts and Crafts:

a. Make a pair of mittens out of construction paper, then connect them with a piece of yarn. Have the child decorate, paint, color the mittens with whatever materials you provide and deem age appropriate.

b. Use spray adhesive to coat a styrofoam ball, then let the child roll the ball in a bowl of glitter to make a snowball.

c. Either provide pre-cut snowflakes or, if children are old enough, allow them to cut out their own snowflake pattern. Then, apply spray adhesive and sprinkle with glitter.

6. Reading:

Read “The Mitten” by Jan Brett and “The Three Little Kittens Who Lost Their Mittens.”

7. Language:

Introduce the letters and letter sounds for A and P. Give each child a plate with enough salt on it to use his finger to practice writing the letters A and P in the salt. Ask parents to have their child bring in a picture or object that represents something that starts with letter A or letter P.

8. Math, Thinking Skills:

Play sorting games with winter clothing items. Have children put all the scarves together, all the boots together, all the mittens together, all the hats together, and all the socks together. For more precise sorting, have the children match up individual pairs of mittens.

9. Math, Shapes:

Use 3 circles (small, medium, and large) cut out from white construction paper to create a snowman. Talk about the circle and how it is round with no edges. Then, provide other pieces (hat, carrot nose, buttons, eyes, mouth, scarf) to decorate the snowman.

10. Math, Counting:

Introduce the number 1 and show everyone how to hold up 1 finger and count 1. Provide a worksheet that contains groups of items such as 8 stars, 5 squares, 3 triangles, 7 hearts, etc. In each group, have the child circle only 1 item and again count 1.

11. Coordination and Movement:

Have the children pretend to walk like a penguin, then show them how to crawl like polar bears.

12. Social Skills:

Have the children sit in a circle. One child picks another child to say something nice to. Each child must pick a child that has not been chosen so that everyone has a fair turn.

If you like the Preschool Activities for January and want to jump ahead, go to February Preschool Activities at A to Z Childcare Directory to see what is planned for your preschooler.