cotton ball painting ice cream craft
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Cotton Ball Ice Cream Painting

Get creative with your paintbrushes and try cotton balls with a clothespin for painting a picture of an ice cream cone. Pinch a cotton ball in the clothespin and then dip it in paint to make a fun paintbrush! Cotton ball ice cream painting was a lot of fun! My son enjoyed using the cotton balls as a paintbrush and it remined him of his dot pens.

Cotton Ball Ice Cream Painting
Cotton Ball Ice Cream Painting

Supplies needed:

  • cotton balls
  • clothespin
  • washable paint (I like to use Crayola Washable Paints )
  • paper plate
  • paper (preferably card stock or construction paper)

How To:

Painting the Cone

First, pinch a cotton ball in your clothespin. I knew we were going to use 3 different paint colors, so I had my son use 3 cotton ball clothespin brushes. If you only have 1 clothespin, it is easy to change out the cotton balls.

Pick a paint color for your ice cream cone. Pour a little paint on a paper plate. Pinch a cotton ball in a clothespin to use as a paintbrush. Gently dip the cotton ball into the paint and then stamp it onto the paper in a triangle-shape to make the cone. If your child is having trouble with this step, lightly draw a triangle shape for them to fill in with paint.

Next pick a color for your first scoop of ice cream. My son chose blue, which is also the color of the ice cream he usually picks! I poured a little blue paint onto the paper plate and he stamped his cotton ball into the paint and then onto the paper. He made his first scoop pretty big and we didn’t have much room for the second scoop.

For his second scoop, my kiddo chose purple paint. He had to squeeze his second scoop onto the top of the first scoop and quickly ran out of room on the paper. His cotton ball ice cream painting still turned out cute, even if his second scoop wasn’t very tall.

Cotton ball ice cream painting preschool craft

OPTIONAL: I think it would be fun to add fingerprint “sprinkles” onto your ice cream cone.

For more ice cream fun, check out my ICE CREAM post! It contains cute book recommendations and ice cream recipe so that you and your preschooler can make ice cream together at home.

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Awesome Vegetable Books

It can be hard to get preschoolers excited about vegetables. Here is a list of awesome vegetable books to help your child view vegetables in a positive light.

Awesome Vegetable Books!
Vegetable Books

10 Vegetable Books:

Supertato

1. Supertato by Sue Hendra—

There’s an evil pea on loose and it is terrorizing the other vegetables! Who will stop it? Here comes Supertato to the rescue. No pea can match Supertato’s speed, strength, and determination! In this funny supermarket battle between the vegetables, Supertato defeats the pea and locks it back up in the freezer so all of the other vegetables can live in peace. Full of jokes, action, and bright illustrations, you and your child will enjoy reading this book together! Fortunately there is a whole series staring Supertato and his vegetable friends so the fun can continue 🙂

Grandma's Garden

2. Grandma’s Garden by Mercer Mayer —

Little Critter is a preschool favorite! In this story, Little Critter and Little Sister help Grandma grow a vegetable garden. They pick their seeds and carefully plant them. Little Critter learns that plants need water to grow and that he has to keep the weeds away so that the little veggies have room to grow. Wow, gardens take a lot of work! In the end, all of their hard work pays off and they get to enjoy a yummy meal made from their garden! Like the other Little Critter stories, this one is full of good intentions gone wrong and the author’s trademark humor to leave preschoolers giggling.

I will never, not ever eat a tomato

3. I Will Never, Not Ever Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child—

Lola is a fussy eater, but her older brother, Charlie, comes up with all sorts of funny names for the foods that Lola believes she won’t like and Lola is convince Lola to give them a try. For example, she won’t eat carrots, but she will eat orange twiglets from Jupiter! So far Charlie is able to convince her to everything except tomatoes. After trying all of the foods that Lola declared she would never eat, the only thing left at the table is the tomatoes. She points to the tomatoes and asks Charlie to hand her one. Charlie is in shock! Lola takes a tomato and says, “Moonsquirters are my favorite! You didn’t think they were tomatoes, did you Charlie?” My son loved the illustrations and the collage art style!

Vegetables in Underwear

4. Vegetables in Underwear by Jared Chapman–

In this short book, vegetables model an assortment of underwear. My son laughed at potato’s small undies and at the beet’s funny underwear! Everyone wears underwear, even babies, the book says. Wait a minute…babies don’t wear undies! Cue the giggles 🙂 With bright, silly pictures of veggies in undies, this book will make your preschooler laugh.

Eating the Alphabet: fruits and vegetables from A to Z

5. Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert—

We love Lois Ehlert’s books! In this yummy book, Ehlert takes the reader on a journey around the world to learn about fruits and vegetables. She includes a pronunciation guide in the back so you can look up how to say each one. As I read this one to my son, I like to say “Oh, I love broccoli” or “okra” and have him tell me which ones are his favorites to eat. This book is great for learning the alphabet, as well as incorporating some healthy eating habits.

Growing Vegetable Soup

6. Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert–

Lois Ehlert teaches young gardeners the steps to growing their own vegetable soup! With bright illustrations, and not a lot of words, this books shows the necessary tools to tend a garden, planting seeds, caring for your garden, and then harvesting your vegetables and preparing the soup! Ehlert’s art style will keep your preschooler enthralled with the garden process and pique their interest in growing their own vegetables. The book also includes a recipe for vegetable soup.

Tops and Bottoms

7. Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens–

A clever hare with a family to feed convinces a lazy bear, who owns lots of land for growing yummy veggies, to split his the crops in half — tops and bottoms. Bear chooses “tops,” so Hare plants root vegetables. This leaves bear with useless “tops.” Next time, Bear picks “bottoms” so Hare grows corn! The book is filled with humor and opens vertically, to better illustrate tops and bottoms.

The Turnip

8. The Turnip by Jan Brett—

In this retelling of the Russian folktale, Jan Brett provides beautiful illustrations and her trademark humor to tell a story of a family who grows a turnip so large that they can’t pull it out of the ground. One by one, family and friends try their hardest to free the turnip, but without success. Finally the rooster comes along and proclaims that he can get the turnip out of the ground! Out pops the turnip, but was it really the rooster who freed it? Pay attention to the pictures of the bears along the sides of the book and watch as they become the real heroes.

Zombies Don’t Eat Veggies by Jorge Lacer

9. Zombies Don’t Eat Veggies by Jorge Lacera —

This is a humorous story about a young zombie who loves vegetables, not brains. The little zombie comes up with all sorts of schemes to get his parents to eat veggies! Will his parents finally try vegetables? A little bit spooky and a whole lot of fun, this book is perfect for young monster-lovers.

Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!

10. Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! by Candace Fleming —

This one of my favorite “vegetable books!” Mr. McGreely has dreamed of planting a vegetable garden. Finally, this is year that he is going to do it. Three little bunnies are excited about the new vegetables he’s growing and they sneak in to eat the yummy food each night. Mr. McGreely builds fences, walls, a moat, and finally a fortress around his vegetable garden to keep the bunnies out. It looks like the bunnies are finally locked out of the garden. Mr. McGreely does a happy dance and carries his basket into the fortress, across the moat and over the wall to pick his vegetables. But who is that hiding in the basket? It’s the bunnies! Muncha, muncha, muncha!

Check your library for these and other vegetable books. To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program. If you buy a book through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂

Vegetable Worksheets:

  1. Which ones are vegetables? Color the pictures of vegetables. Circle your favorite veggie.

2. Living or Non-living? Cut out the pictures below and then paste them either in the living column or the non-living column. What vegetables do you see?

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Silly Rhyming Stories for Preschoolers

Silly Rhyming Stories for Preschoolers

Get ready for lots of giggles as you read these silly rhyming stories with your preschooler!

10 Silly Rhyming Stories:

Billy Bloo is Stuck in Goo

1. Billy Bloo is Stuck in Goo by Jennifer Hamburg–

This is one my son’s all-time favorite books! Billy Bloo gets stuck in goo. Who will save him? A whole series of silly characters try and rescue him, only to find themselves stuck too. Yikes! A cowgirl, a pirate, acrobats, and even the Queen are stuck, and its starting to look like they may never get out. An unlikely critter passes by, a scared shriek from one of the would-be rescuers, and suddenly they are being dragged out, one-by-one. Hurray! You and your kiddo will be cracking up throughout this book!

I Like Myself

2. I Like Myself by Karen Beaumont —

Not only does this book have a positive message about loving yourself just the way you are, but the story is a fun read-aloud to share with your kiddo. With awesome rhymes galore, you can’t help but get caught up in the this girl’s exuberance as she tells that world that she loves herself just the way she is. I love the pictures! David Catrow’s illustrations in this book remind of Dr. Seuss’ silly illustrations.

Silly Sally

3. Silly Sally by Audrey Wood —

Your preschooler is going to love this one! Silly Sally went to town, walking backwards upside down. Along the way she encounters a pig, a dog, a loon, a sheep, and Neddy Buttercup, who is walking forwards, right-side up. They dance, they play, they sing, and they sleep, before finally making it to town.

Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You?

4. Mr. Brown Can Moo, Can You? by Dr. Seuss —

Whether you read the board book or the hardback edition, this story is great for preschoolers! It is full of sounds that will have kiddos engaged, giggling, and even making up some of their own! This is one my storytime favorites because they kids have so much fun repeating Mr. Brown’s sounds with me 🙂

The Wonky Donkey

5. The Wonky Donkey by Craig Smith–

In this story we meet a wonky donkey who accumulates more problems, more rhymes, and more giggles as the story progresses. Preschoolers will love mimicking the sounds in this book and laugh as the story becomes even more ridiculous. By the end of book, we have a spunky, hanky-panky, cranky, stinky, dinky, lanky, honky-tonky, winky wonky donkey! My son says you have to read this one!

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Cow

6. There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Cow by Lucille Colandro–

Lucille Colandro’s “There was an Old Lady” series is a favorite with preschoolers. The old lady is ridiculously silly and the kids love to laugh at her antics and say “you can’t do that” when she swallows a cow, some hay, a pig, duck, horse, sheep, and a fiddle! Why is she swallowing all of these things?

Elmo's Tricky Tongue Twisters

7. Elmo’s Tricky Tongue Twisters by Sarah Albee–

Sesame Street’s Elmo presents silly, tricky tongue twisters that will have everyone giggling! Good luck trying to read these tricky words with a straight face. Both you and your kiddo will be cracking up as you compete to see who can say it fastest! The pictures are filled with Sesame Street favorites and the rhymes are full of great vocabulary words.

How to Catch a Mermaid by Adam Wallace

8. How to Catch a Mermaid by Adam Wallace–

This book is great for preschoolers. It has a mermaid, awesome pictures, silliness, and a rhyming story! A couple of kids and dog try and catch a mermaid. They have shiny bait and lots of traps, but the mermaid is quite clever and escapes. Oh no, one of their plans backfires and the kids and the dog find that they are the ones trapped. Yikes, a bunch of sharks are coming! What are they going to do? Mermaid to the rescue! Whoo-hoo, everyone is safely returned to shore 🙂

I Love You, Fred

9. I Love You, Fred by Mick and Chloe Inkpen–

Fred, a little pug, is in dog school. He learns to stay away from cars and poo (cue the giggles). He also learns a lot of important words, except for what the word “Fred” means. If only he knew how to Fred! Fred goes to ask the dog in the upstairs mirror, but doesn’t get an answer. Only when Fred is rescued by his boy from a duck pond, does Fred realize that “Fred is a name and it is mine!” Preschoolers will love Fred, a wiggly dog with big googly eyes, who tries to wag his tail off.

The Hiccupotamus by Aaron Zenz

10. The Hiccupotamus  by Aaron Zenz–

We love this silly tongue-twisting tale of a hippo that comes down with the hiccups. Its hiccups are so bad that the hippo disrupts all of the animals around him. The animals get together and decide that something must be done to cure hippo of the hiccups. Each attempt at a cure is hilarious and the rhyming, tongue twisters adds to giggles. Your preschooler will laugh their way through this book!

laughing face

For more silly rhyming stories, take a look at my Dr. Seuss Stories for Preschoolers and ask your local librarian for book suggestions. I’ve included links to purchase these titles on Amazon. To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s Affiliate program. If you buy a book through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale (at no additional cost to you). Thank you for your support! Happy Reading 🙂

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Cut the Vines Scissor Skills Activity

Cut the vines and free the toy! This a fun scissor skills activity for preschoolers to practice cutting. Preschoolers love using scissors, so let’s give them constructive opportunities to practice cutting. I told my 3 year old son that the dinosaur was trapped in the vines and that he had to save him! I gave him scissors and told him to carefully cut the vines off and free the dinosaur. He really enjoyed this scissor skills activity and took his job of freeing the dino so seriously!

cut the vines and free the toy scissor skills activity supplies: plastic toy, green paper, scissors, and tape.
supplies

To do this activity you will need green construction paper, tape, safety scissors, and a plastic toy that won’t get damaged from scissors.

1. First cut the green construction paper into strips to be the vines. Mine were roughly 1/2 inch wide.

2. Wrap the vines loosely around the plastic toy and tape the ends of the vines hold them in place. I used a dinosaur because I like that it had legs and a tail that I could wrap the vine around.

Dino wrapped in vines

3. Have your preschooler free the toy from the vines by cutting the vines off!

free the dino

Yay, the toy is free! Great job using scissors!

Another scissor skills activity that I did with my son was a Paper Plate Hedgehog Craft. He got to use his scissors and cut the plate to the make the hedgehog’s quills! This craft was easy to pull together, but tons of fun.

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Star of David Craft

Star of David Craft

Make a beautiful decoupage Star of David craft for Hanukkah.

Supplies Needed:

  • 6 craft sticks
  • glue dots (optional)
  • white glue
  • assorted colored tissue paper
  • paintbrush
  • water
  • small container/cup
  • paper plate
  • ribbon (optional if you want to hang it)

How To:

Making the Star of David — Glue the craft sticks together to form 2 separate triangles. If you have glue dots, use them to stick the craft sticks together to speed up the process. Let your triangles dry if you used glue.

Glue one triangle upside-down onto the other triangle to form the Star of David. Let it dry and then you can add a ribbon to hang the Star if you want.

Decoupage –In the small cup, mix a little bit of water with some white glue. Stir until it looks milky.

If your tissue paper is not already in small pieces, cut your tissue into 1-inch squares.

To protect your surface, make this craft on a paper plate. The tissue paper colors will run once you start to paint the glue/water mixture onto the tissue!!!

Paint the glue/water mixture along the craft sticks. Lay your tissue onto the craft sticks. Begin to layer your tissue paper across the Star, filling in the entire thing As you add a piece of tissue, paint your tissue with the glue/water mixture. It’s okay for the whole piece to be wet. It will dry. Don’t worry if your tissue paper hangs over the sides of the triangle because we will fold it over later. Once your entire Star of David craft is covered in tissue paper, brush some of the glue/water mixture along the tissue paper’s edges and corners.

Let your craft dry.

Once your tissue is dry, flip your project over. Paint the glue/water mixture along the craft sticks. If any of your tissue paper from the front is sticking out, now is the time to fold it along the craft sticks before layering on more tissue paper. Now repeat the process of layering on tissue and brushing the glue along the edges and corners as you did previously.

Once completely dry, hang or display your craft for your family to enjoy 🙂

Looking for more crafts to make? Check out my Crafts page for ideas and how-tos!

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Toilet Paper Roll Turkey Craft

Toilet Paper Roll Turkey Craft
Toilet Paper Roll Turkey Craft

This toilet paper roll turkey craft makes a cute table decoration!

Supplies Needed:

-empty toilet paper roll

-paper plate

-feathers

-white, school glue

-stapler (optional, but highly recommended)

-orange paper

-googly eyes

-scissors

-red marker

How To:

Cut your paper plate in half. Discard one of the pieces.

Turn your plate backward so that the plate arches away from you. Staple the plate onto the toilet paper roll, making sure that the bottom of the the plate is even with the bottom of the toilet paper roll. If you don’t have a stapler, you can glue the plate to the toilet paper roll.

Now you get to decorate your turkey! Add glue all over the paper plate and then attach the feathers. My son used an assortment of colors and sizes. I loved the way the feathers stuck out past the edges of the paper plate.

For the turkey’s face, we used peel-and-stick googly eyes. I cut a diamond shape out of orange paper. My son folded the diamond in half to make the beak and then he glued it onto the toilet paper roll. He used a red marker to draw the turkey’s snood.

We let his project dry before placing in on our dinning table. My son is excited to give it to his grandparents when we go visit them on Thanksgiving!

If you are looking for another turkey craft to make, try our Turkey Paper Bag Puppet. I love crafts that my son can make with supplies we already have at home. All you need for this one is a paper lunch bag and construction paper.

Books!

We like to pair our crafts with our favorite books! We’ve been reading a lot of turkey and Thanksgiving books lately that inspired us to make our craft. Check out my book recommendations for stories to enjoy with your preschooler.

Turkey Books Post: eight turkey stories and one non-fiction turkey book that we enjoyed.

Thanksgiving Books: six Thanksgiving stories about being thankful.

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Free Math Worksheets Available

Check out the new “Preschool Math Skills” section under the Preschool page. I finally got some math skills worksheets available for free download so your preschooler can practice their number writing, counting, and number ordering skills 🙂

I originally made them for my son to practice his math skills, and I periodically print them off for him to do again. I am so impressed with how much his handwriting has improved. He just wrote the most beautiful number 20 on his worksheet!

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Dreaming of Rain

We’ve had a few light sprinkles last night and today — just enough to make my car look really dirty, but not enough to cool down the temperature. My son is disappointed that there wasn’t enough rain to make puddles because he loves to jump in puddles! And he looks so cute in his rain boots, hoping up and down too.

So here we are wishing for rain! If we can’t have actual rain, at least we can read about rain and puddles!!!

Our pick for rain: The Rain Came Down by David Shannon.

In this book, a series of chaotic events ensue when it begins to rain one Saturday morning. Squabbles among animals and among the townspeople break out as each event builds upon the craziness of the previous one. And all the while, “the rain came down.” But suddenly the rain stops and a rainbow appears and once again, all is well. Your preschooler will giggle at all of the commotion!

Your local library will probably have this book — it’s been around a while and David Shannon is a really popular author. You can also buy it on Amazon here.

Our pick for puddles: The Puddle by David McPhail.

This book is loving tribute to the imagination of a young child faced with a puddle! The little kid is not supposed to go into the puddle, but the toy boat escapes. What is a kid to do? Never fear, a whole series of animals appear to help rescue the boat! This book is full of silliness as a pig in a swimsuit appears, a turtle having tea, an alligator, and a thirsty elephant. Your local library will probably have this book since David McPhail is a well known author.

Our pick for rainbows: What Makes a Rainbow? By Betty Ann Schwartz.

This is such a cool book — not only does it devote a page to each color, it has a matching color ribbon that stretches across each page. As you turn the page, you accumulate more colored ribbons until you end up with a rainbow! It is truly amazing to see the rainbow at the end of the book. I ended up buying this book because it a great story, fantastic color teaching tool, and the ribbon rainbow is an awesome concept. Click here to buy it on Amazon.

To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s affiliate program, which pays advertising fees to sites that advertise and link to Amazon’s products. So if you buy the book through my site, I get a small percent from the sale.

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Nosy Crow Books

Some of my four year-old’s favorite books are published by Nosy Crow — they made interactive, super fun books! My son highly recommends The Rabbit, the Dark, and the Cookie Tin by Nicola O’Byrne, I Saw Anaconda by Jane Clarke. When he was younger, he loved the Busy Bear board book series, and while he doesn’t read/look at them very often anymore, he still loves the manipulatives throughout the story and won’t let these books go.

In The Rabbit, the Dark, and the Cookie Tin, rabbit doesn’t want to go to bed (preschoolers can relate!). Rabbit thinks that if it doesn’t get dark, then he won’t have to go to bed. Rabbit hatches a plan to catch the dark in a cookie tin and not let it out so that rabbit can stay up. In this story, preschoolers learn the importance of nighttime, and eventually rabbit agrees to let the dark out of the cookie tin. The reader gets to lift the flap and open up the cookie tin, releasing the dark in an awesome pop-up!

My son says this anaconda book is awesome because it has so many flaps! Every page is interactive and my son giggles as the anaconda eats everything in sight. Plus, he learned about some new animals (a stork, piranhas, and a skink). We bought this for a couple of other preschool age kids we know because my son enjoys it so much.

The Busy Bear series is so much fun. Toddlers and younger preschoolers will love all of the hands-on activities they get do with these books. It really lets the kids be part of the storytelling as the books’ manipulatives are part of the story line. There’s something to toggle, lift, slide, and move around all throughout the books! We have Race Car Driver, Knights’ Castle, Spooky House, and Pirate Adventure. Even though my son is a little old for these books (the storyline is too simple for him), my friend has an 18 month-old that I still get to buy these cute books for 🙂

To help cover the costs of this site, I joined Amazon’s affiliate program, which pays advertising fees to sites that advertise and link to Amazon’s products. So if you buy the book through my site, I get a small percent from the sale.