Creative Learning Preschool, Inc, Linwood, NJ 08221

Category: Activities

Gourd Times Ahead: Fun Fall-Themed Activities For Your Preschooler

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Fall is here, and if you’re looking for ways to enjoy the changes of the season while keeping your preschooler engaged, there are a lot of activities you can do! From exploring nature to arts and crafts to fall -themed math and literacy activities. In this blog, we’ll go over a few fall-themed activities that you and your preschooler will love!

Nature and Outdoor Learning

The weather is cooling, and the leaves are changing! Fall is a great season to spend time outside and enjoy the changes of nature. Outdoor activities that aren’t just playing or riding bikes are a fun way to spend time outside while learning about nature!

Fall Nature Bracelets

You can make a fall bracelet by wrapping masking tape around your wrist. Place the sticky side face up. Then, as you walk around, you and your little one can place leaves, petals, small sticks, and foliage on the tape, making a fall bracelet.

Leaf Color Sorting

Whether it’s in your backyard or at the park, have your child collect a bunch of leaves. Then you can have them sort them by color! You can also use this time to talk about why the leaves change color in the fall!

Outdoor Scavenger Hunts

A nature scavenger hunt is a fun way to keep your young ones engaged while outside. You can find scavenger hunts and checklists online that you can print out and give to your child. If you are going somewhere specific or have certain items you want your child to pay attention to, you can make a scavenger hunt of your own!

Hands-On Arts and Crafts

If you love to do arts and crafts with your little ones, fall foliage provides great materials for fun arts and crafts projects. For the basis of these crafts, you can find most of them in your backyard!

Apple Stamping

Fall is apple season! If you’re going ot an orchard or want to grab a few from the grocery store, you can use them as stamps! You can cut them in half, then dip them in paint to stamp onto paper. You can also cut indents into the apple to create fun shapes!

Fairy House Pinecones

Head out into your backyard and look for a few pinecones. Bring them inside and set up some paint, glitter, and pom poms. Have your child decorate them to look like a small fairy house!

Leaf Rubbings

All you need for a leaf rubbing are some leaves, paper, and pencils or crayons. Lay out the leaves and place a piece of paper over them. Then your child can start rubbing a pencil or crayon on the paper. As they do so, the outlines of the leaves below will start to appear!

Early Math and Literacy

If you want to enjoy the fall season with your little one while working on math and literacy, there are a lot of fun ways to combine the two! 

Pumpkin Patch Counting

You can create a small pumpkin patch by using mini erasers, paper cutouts, or small decorative pumpkins. Then have your little one practice counting. If you’re going to an actual pumpkin patch, you can also use real pumpkins to count!

Acorn Letter Matching

Create acorns from felt or paper, then write lowercase and capital letters on them. Now have your child match the correct letter cases together. If your backyard has a lot of acorns, you can bring them inside and use real ones instead of felt or paper!

Fall Book Lists

Reading about the change in seasons is a great way to enjoy fall and focus on literacy. Our blog has some great lists of fall-themed books for you and your little one to enjoy reading together!

End of Summer Bucket List Activities To Do With Your Preschooler

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We’ve reached the point of summer where a lot of parents have exhausted the standard summer activities like days at the park, going to the beach, or swimming at the pool. As we start approaching the end of summer and the beginning of the back-to-school season, it can be fun to spend time doing unique activities that will keep your little ones engaged. In this blog, we’ll cover some fun bucket list activities to make the most of the end of summer with your preschooler!

Catch Fireflies & Pitch a Tent

If you’ve got the backyard space, a campout is a lot of fun! Pitch a small tent in the backyard, grab some flashlights, and roast some marshmallows. You can also search for fireflies in the evening and catch them in your hands. Show your child how cool it is to watch them glow!

Painted Fence

Do you have a wooden fence in your backyard? Give your preschooler a bucket of water and a few large, chunky paintbrushes. Let them “paint” the wooden fence—it keeps them busy, hones their motor skills, and dries mess-free. If you don’t have a fence, you can use this “paint” on your driveway or sidewalk.

Take a Nature Walk

On the cooler summer days, going for a nature walk is a fun and educational way to spend time outdoors. Look up the trail or park you want to go to in advance to see what types of animals, bugs, and fauna they have. Make a bingo card or scavenger hunt up for your little one to keep them engaged during your walk!

Sidewalk Chalk Obstacle Course

If you have a cement/asphalt driveway or low-traffic sidewalks, a chalk obstacle course is a fun activity to keep your little ones engaged and can get some of their energy out. Draw a giant zigzag line, a mini hopscotch, and “stop and spin” zones for them to navigate on foot or with their bikes/scooters.

Make a Fairy Garden

If you’re looking to start an activity that your little ones can add onto every season, a fairy garden is perfect! Carve out a special spot in your backyard and have your little ones decorate it like a fairy garden. You can use items from their playroom or go to a craft store and find the perfect fairy decor. In the fall, they can add some autumnal or Halloween decorations to their fairy garden!

Miniature Car Wash

Set up a mini car wash station in your backyard! Use a water table or shallow tube. Take some toy cars and get them muddy. Then have your little ones clean them in the car wash with toothbrushes and soapy water. If they have enough fun with their mini car wash, upgrade and let them give your car a good cleaning!

Make a Flower Painting

Pick some flowers from your backyard or local park and use them to paint! Your little one can use them as a paintbrush or a stamp to make flower imprints. It’s a fun way to make painting different, and you can throw away the “paintbrushes” at the end instead of having to wash and try them!

Spend a Summer of Fun at the Linwood Library

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Summer is here, and if you’re already running out of activities to fill the days, the Linwood Library is here to help! The library has a variety of free activities every week for kids of all ages and families to enjoy. Take a look at some of the fun activities they have coming up on the calendar this summer!

Weekly Activities

Tuesdays @ 12:00 Tinker Tuesday STEMLAB – For ages 7 and up, join us for a different STEM activity each week.

Tuesdays @ 3:30 Hour of Code – Intro to block coding with Scratch and Microbits

Tuesdays @ 6:00 Family Night – Different weekly themes for the whole family to enjoy!

Wednesdays @ 10:30 Storytime – Join us for songs, stories, rhymes, and a craft!

Monthly Activities

First Tuesday of the month @ 4:00 Furry Buddies – Grab a book and join local dog trainer Donna Downs and her furry friends–German shepherds Frieda, Fritz, and English chocolate lab Kody–in our children’s section for reading with Furry Buddies!

First Wednesday of the month @ 3:30 Kids Board Game Club – For kids ages 5-12, drop in and join us in the children’s section for board games!

Second Monday of the month @ 6:00 Sign Language Club – Led by Alyssa Davis, the Linwood Library Sign Language Club is best suited for ages 4-12, but all are welcome. Learn the basics of American Sign Language to help promote communication, accessibility, and inclusion.

Third Tuesday of the month @ 3:30 Time Travelers Book Club – A book club for kids ages 9-11. Join us for a different genre each month

Tinker Tuesday STEMLAB Themes

07/14 – Dinosaur Build

07/21 – LEGO Block Printing

07/28 – Family Tree Picture Frame

08/04 – Rock Tumbler Workshop

08/11 – Treasure Chest

08/18 – Laser-Cut Puzzle

Interested in any of the activities being hosted at the library this summer? Check out their website to learn more!

Wonderful Winter Activities For Your Preschooler

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Winter is here, and while the season is beautiful, many parents find themselves running out of things to do to keep their little ones entertained! Whether it’s a snowy winter day or not, there are a lot of different activities you can do, including sensory play, creative & learning activities, and outdoor activities. In this blog, we’ll give you a few ideas to keep in your back pocket for a winter fun emergency!

Indoor Sensory & Fine Motor Fun

Snow Dough: Mix baking soda with hair conditioner or shaving cream to make the base for a sensory bin and add snow-themed toys like polar animals. 

Frozen Paint: Freeze paint in ice cube trays or yogurt cups and let your littles paint on paper or snow with them. 

Playdough Station: Use white playdough with glitter, buttons, or ribbon for making snowmen or snowflakes. 

Snowflake Crafts: Make snowflakes using pasta, coffee filters, popsicle sticks, or with finger paint.

Creative & Learning Activities

Winter Painting: Paint winter landscapes, use cookie cutters dipped in paint as stamps, or use white crayons on black paper to create a nighttime snowy scene. 

Snowman Building: Build indoors with playdough or craft materials, or use real snow outside with classic decorations. 

Color Hunts: Look for specific colors sticking out in the snow or in nature and use them to create a drawing or collage. 

Read a book: Spend some cozy time inside reading a few books about winter, snow, or polar animals.

Outdoor Activities

Spray Paint Snow: Use spray bottles with colored water to splatter “paint” on the snow. 

Ice Block Building: Freeze water in containers and use them as building blocks or paint them with colored water. 

Scavenger Hunt: A fun outdoor activity for slightly warmer winter days is to have a scavenger hunt! You can find a premade one or make one that’s suited for the area you live in.

Hot Chocolate Picnic: Make some hot chocolate, pack a few snacks, and have a quick picnic outside!

Fun Fall Activities for Preschoolers: Exploring Autumn Colors and Nature

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As the leaves change color and the air turns crisp, fall becomes a magical time for preschoolers to explore and discover the wonders of nature. This season is rich with opportunities for sensory play, creative leaf art, and outdoor adventures that help children connect with the natural world around them. In this blog, we’ll give you a few ideas on how you can make the most of autumn with fun and engaging activities that celebrate the beauty of fall.

Sensory Play: Experiencing Fall Through the Senses

Leaf Sensory Bins: Create a sensory bin filled with a variety of fall leaves, acorns, pinecones, and small pumpkins. Encourage your child to explore the textures, colors, and shapes by sorting, touching, and even smelling the different items. Adding scoops, tweezers, and small containers can make this activity even more interactive, allowing children to practice fine motor skills as they play.

Pumpkin Spice Playdough: Make homemade playdough and add pumpkin spice to give it a fall scent. Preschoolers can use the playdough to create their own pumpkins, leaves, or whatever their imagination conjures up. This activity engages their sense of smell and touch, making it a delightful way to bring the essence of fall indoors. 

Nature Walk Sensory Experience: Take your preschooler on a nature walk and collect items like leaves, sticks, and stones. Once back home, create a sensory path by laying out these items and letting children walk barefoot on them (under supervision). This activity not only connects children with nature but also helps them develop sensory awareness.

Leaf Art: Celebrating the Colors of Fall

Leaf Rubbings: Leaf rubbings are a classic fall activity that never gets old. Collect a variety of leaves, place them under a piece of paper, and have preschoolers rub crayons over the paper to reveal the intricate patterns of the leaves. This activity is not only fun but also teaches children about the different shapes and textures of leaves.

Leaf Collages: Provide preschoolers with a variety of leaves, glue, and a large piece of paper or cardboard. Encourage them to arrange the leaves into patterns, shapes, or even pictures. This activity allows them to explore the beautiful colors of fall while fostering creativity.

Nature-Inspired Crown: Using leaves, twigs, and flowers collected on a nature walk, preschoolers can create their own nature crowns. Simply provide a strip of construction paper or cardboard as a base, and help them glue or tape their nature finds onto it. This craft is a fun way to celebrate fall and lets children wear their creations proudly.

Outdoor Activities: Embracing the Fall Season

Leaf Pile Jumping: Rake up a big pile of leaves and let your preschooler jump in, toss the leaves, and have fun. This simple activity never fails to bring joy, and it’s a great way for kids to burn off energy while enjoying the fall weather.

Outdoor Storytime: Take storytime outside to enjoy the fall scenery. Choose books that focus on autumn themes, like changing leaves or pumpkin patches, and read them under a tree or on a cozy blanket. The outdoor setting enhances the experience and helps children associate reading with the joy of nature.

Nature Bracelets: Wrap a strip of masking tape, sticky side out, around your preschooler’s wrist to create a nature bracelet. As you walk through a park or backyard, let them stick small items like leaves, flowers, and seeds onto the tape. By the end of the walk, they’ll have a beautiful, nature-inspired bracelet to show off.

5 Wintery Craft Ideas For Preschoolers

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Winter is a magical season filled with snowflakes, frosty adventures, and cozy indoor activities. Engaging your preschooler in winter-themed crafts not only sparks their creativity but also enhances fine motor skills and sensory exploration. In this blog post, we’ll explore five cute and easy-to-create winter crafts perfect for little hands and big imaginations!

Snowflake Flurries

Help your child create their own unique snowflakes using simple materials like white paper or paper plates, scissors, glue, and optional glitter. Discuss the concept of symmetry as they fold the paper and cut out intricate shapes. Hang the finished snowflakes around your house or their bedroom to create a winter wonderland.

Cotton Ball Snowmen

Let the little ones build their very own snowmen indoors using cotton balls, construction paper, and googly eyes. This activity not only allows for creative expression but also helps in developing fine motor skills as they carefully place each cotton ball in its place.

Penguin Pals

Dive into the world of adorable penguins with a craft activity that involves black and white construction paper, glue, and orange markers. Your preschooler can cut out penguin shapes, glue them onto a snowy background, and add beaks and feet using the orange markers. You can also pair this craft with a book about penguins, like Little Penguin by Julie Davey.

Mitten Masterpieces

Explore the concept of warm winter clothing with a mitten craft using colored paper or felt, yarn, and decorations. Children can trace and cut out their hands on paper, decorate the mittens, and even practice lacing with yarn around the edges. This craft is a creative practice of fine motor skills and gives you an opportunity to talk about the importance of warm clothing in the cold winter months!

Sensational Snow Globes

Create mini winter wonderlands inside clear plastic cups or glass jars. Your little ones can fill the cups with cotton balls as snow, small winter-themed figurines, and a dash of glitter for that magical touch. Seal the top with a lid, and voila – they’ve made their very own snow globes!

 

Outdoor Activities For Learning About And Exploring Nature

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November provides a wonderful opportunity for parents to engage their preschoolers in outdoor activities that encourage a sense of wonder and exploration. Despite the cooler weather, there’s much to discover in the natural world during this transitional month. We’ve got a list of some exciting outdoor activities that you can enjoy with your preschooler, fostering their love for nature while working on their fine motor skills. These activities are great to do throughout the year as well to discuss the differences and similarities from season to season!

Leaf Scavenger Hunt

November brings a vibrant display of autumn leaves. Create a simple scavenger hunt by giving your child a list of leaf shapes or colors to find in your yard or a local park. This activity not only encourages observation but also enhances fine motor skills! If you want to look for more than just leaves, we recently posted a fall foraging scavenger hunt on our Instagram page!

Nature Art with Fallen Leaves

Collect a variety of fallen leaves from your yard or local park and use them to create beautiful nature-inspired artwork. You can make leaf rubbings, leaf collages, or even dip them in paint to create leaf stamps. If you’re looking to keep your little ones occupied even longer, have them catch the leaves you’re going to use as they’re falling from the trees!

Bird Watching

If you have a little one who is interested in animals, get involved in bird watching! You can set up a bird feeder in your yard and observe the different bird species that visit. You can visit your local library to find a simple bird guidebook or download an app to identify them with your preschooler. You may also even get a few different visitors like squirrels and chipmunks!

Nature Journaling

Give your preschooler a small notebook and some crayons or colored pencils. Encourage them to draw and write about the things they observe in nature. This can be a fun way to document their outdoor adventures and improve fine motor skills. This is a fun activity to do every month or every season so your little one can go back and see all of the changes that happen in nature throughout the year!

Nature’s Sound Safari

Close your eyes and listen to the sounds of nature around you. Encourage your child to identify the different sounds they can hear, such as chirping birds, rustling leaves, or flowing water. This activity hones their listening skills and awareness of their surroundings.

Create a Nature Collection

Collect small, interesting natural items like rocks, sticks, or pinecones during your outdoor explorations. Create a “nature collection” together. This can lead to discussions about different textures, shapes, and sizes while also promoting conversations about nature about changes you might see throughout the seasons.

Adorable DIY decor ideas for your kids room

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Kids rooms change so often – colors, themes, layouts – that it can be very costly to have to purchase new decorations and wall art each time you switch things up. A simple way to change the look of your kids’ room, and to have them help in decorating their own space, is to create some DIY decor from inexpensive items, or things you already have in the house! Below are a few cute DIY decor tips for your childs room:

  1. Door Basketball Hoop: What a cute idea for the little one that loves to play sports! Paint the back of their door with black chalkboard paint, attach a cheap basketball net that you can get from Five Below, hot glue a plastic tub to the door for chalk, and you have an instant basketball court for your little ones to play with!
  2. Activity Table: If you have an old table laying around, or even an old, smaller kitchen table that you can cut the legs down on, grab some paint and a round metal bowl, and get to work. You can paint the table with your child any color that you want – you can even decoupage it or the chairs for a really cool added detail – and if you cut a hole in the center of the table and hot glue a metal bowl into the hole, you have an area to hold pencils and art supplies! What a great idea!
  3. Silhouette canvas art: Don’t purchase expensive canvas artwork for your child’s’ room – download free stencils instead and have your little one create their own artwork! They will be excited to paint, and even more excited to hang their beautiful creation on their wall! Simply tape the stencil to the canvas, and paint the entire surface. Once dry, remove the stencil and you have a cute piece of artwork that you can hang on your child’s wall that they will be proud of.
  4. Photo Collage on a Letter: Kids love this project. It is simple, cheap, and a great way to encourage gross motor skills. You can head to any arts and crafts supply store and purchase a large foam or wooden letter, print a bunch of important photos of your child and your family, have them choose which ones they like the best and use double-sided tape to stick them to the letter, making a collage. You can apply decorative stickers for an added effect and a hint of extra cuteness. Once you have placed all of the photos where you want, paint a layer of Mod Podge overtop, wait for it to dry, and then paint a second layer to seal in the photos. Instant letter-shaped photo collage!
  5. Checkerboard table: If you have a smaller table and chairs for your child (The IKEA’s LACK table is the perfect size and price, about $10), you can transform it into a checkerboard table with some paint, tape, a ruler, pencil, and some creativity. Once you have laid out the tape and created the squares, you can use small cork rounds that fit inside of the squares on the table. Use googly-eyes, paint, markers, and other items to decorate the 24 round pieces so that you can a creative, cute checker set!

These are just a few ideas that we found over at HGTV’s website. For a full list of DIY decorating tips, head over to their website and get full directions for the ideas listed above as well as more! It doesn’t take much to make a kids room look completely different, and with the creativity and items that you may have laying around the house, you can encourage your child to think outside of the box and help make their room a space that they love.

Unique Spring Activities

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Spring is here and summer is quickly approaching! Your days are probably starting to fill with bike rides, walks to the park, and trips to the beach. But if you’re looking for a little variety in your warm weather activities and want your little ones to learn some more about nature and the world around them, we have the perfect activities for you! Thanks to aokyouth.orgwe have some unique, and thought provoking spring and summer activities!

  1. Create a scavenger hunt! A fun way to help little ones learn about all of the amazing changes that happen from winter to spring to summer is to create a scavenger hunt. Come up with different things they should look out for in nature and then make your own scavenger hunt sheet!
  2. Do a floral science experiment! Fill a few mason jars with water. Put a few drops of different food coloring into each jar. Then get some white flowers and place them, petals first into the jars. Your children can watch as the petals absorb the colors, then afterwards, you have a fun flower arrangement to display!
  3. Recycle Playdoh lids! If you have lots of lids without containers lying around use hot glue or cut a hole into the lid to hang a string from it. Then, coat the lid in peanut butter and roll it in birdseed. It’s a great way to repurpose some plastic and bring more birds into your yard for your little ones to watch and learn about!
  4. Growing beans! A super cool experiment that will let your children see how things grow, is growing beans in a glass jar with moist cotton balls. The beginning stages of the beans’ growth can be seen without the obstruction of soil which really allows your children to see how a bean sprouts! You can click hereto see a full explanation of the experiment.
  5. Create a small garden! Take a corner of your yard or a windowsill if you have less space, and create a small garden! Plant low maintenance flowers, fruits, and vegetables if you are first time gardeners. Get your little ones involved in planting and watering so they can learn how plants grow!

If you liked these activity ideas check out the full article for more ideas just like these! As always leave us some comments and click share on the side of the blog to show your friends and family these fun ideas!

Winter Boredom Busters

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Winter brings a lot of wonderful things when it comes like fun holidays, an excuse to drink hot cocoa in excess, and beautiful coatings of snow. But with all of these delights come shorter days, freezing cold, and ultimately, boredom. When the nipping cold doesn’t allow your children to ride their bikes or go to the playground after school, the cabin fever starts to set in. So we’ve come up with a list of five fun activities to keep kids’ of all ages boredom at bay until the warmer weather comes back!

Continue reading “Winter Boredom Busters”

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