Stop Lights and Box Cars

I did a little preschool activity today.  My plan for this month (whether done in a preschool group or just by myself) is to focus around a theme (Transportation) and then using the theme incorporate basic learning like colors, letters, shapes, and numbers.  Last week was walking, this week will be about cars, next week is trains, then airplanes, then ending with boats. My biggest problem with preschool is that I put too much time in planning and putting together cute crafts that I don't actually do the lessons with the kids.  So when Hailey starts playing red light, green light with Hannah and the linen closet door, I decided it was a good time to put my ideas to work right then.

We first made stop lights (mostly Hailey's idea).  We brain stormed a little on how to do it.  I wish I put in a little more thought into it and made the circles smaller so they could fit on construction paper without overlapping but the kids didn't mind. (Also Aunt Katie can to visit us for the weekend and helped Hailey cut out her circles.)

 We talked about the different colors and how they are all circles.  Hailey worked on tracing the bowl to make the circle.  Robert really likes the gluing part.  The neat thing about their finished projects is that I didn't help them put the colors in order at all.  They have been observant enough to know it's red, yellow, then green.

 Then we went outside to paint cardboard boxes that we will later turn into cars. 

 Hannah was a bit dangerous with the paints and got me pretty messy.

 Hannah's box (that I also doodled on)

 Robert's box.

 Hailey's box.

 Later in the afternoon, we put wheels on and I offered the wii mario karts wheel to Robert to use as a steering wheel.

He liked playing in his car for a while.  (Hailey was out with Aunt Katie so she didn't complete her box.)