Opening Table Time

We start each preschool day with a different gathering activity at the table. Some of our activities include watercolor painting, scissor practice, file folders, shaving cream, chalkboards, noodle patterns, and playdough.

The children love to paint with watercolors and get very creative. A fun twist on this has been dubbed "mystery letters" by the children. Use a white crayon to write letters and other pictures on a piece of white paper. When you paint over the letters, they show up. Today, we had the children make their own "mystery letters". They were given a piece of white paper with the alphabet printed on it. Then they circled the letters in their name and wrote their name with a white crayon. They were delighted to see their names show up when they painted the paper. This is a fun activity to try at home.

After we made colored noodles for letter N, we saved them to use for our pattern cards. The children match the colored noodle to the color on the paper. Some cards also have them fill in the next color in the pattern or count noodles. Just for fun, they can use tweezers to pick up the noodles. They are pretty good at getting those tiny noodles where they need to go!

Lacing cards were a fun practice for the Mother's Day cards.

We have an assortment of file folder games. After matching, sorting and comparing the pieces, half the fun is mixing it up again for the next person.

Recently we have used the chalkboards for writing practice. The children copy the letter cards that I hold up. They are all getting good at writing letters. Of course, it also lots of fun to draw pictures, too!

Shaving cream is a hit with everyone. These pictures are from the day we used vehicles (Letter V) to drive through the shaving cream.

Everyone's favorite table activity is playdough. They like to make cakes, cookies, snakes, and animals. Chandler made a person--can you see two eyes, arms and legs?

We've started giving out toothpicks with playdough because everyone likes to make birthday cakes and we didn't have enough knives for candles. (This cake must be for one of the teachers. Look at all those candles!)