Tag: Find the Differences

books

10 Preschool Pirate Books:

Jennifer

Enjoy 10 preschool pirate books and a fun, pirate activity that will surely get your preschooler saying “Arrr!”

Preschool Pirate Books

September 19th is Talk Like a Pirate Day! Here are some fun pirate stories to enjoy and a pirate-themed Find the Differences worksheet to try 🙂

10 Preschool Pirate Books

1. Pirate Boy by Eve Bunting. — In this sweet, reassuring story, a mother’s love will follow her son anywhere, even onboard a pirate ship. No distance, no sea monsters, and no unruly pirates will be able to stop Mom.

2. Charlotte Jane Battles Bedtime by Myra Wolfe. — I love this book! It is the cutest story about a young pirate named Charlotte Jane who refuses to go to bed. She has important pirate things to do and sleep just gets in the way. Charlotte Jane loses her “oomph” and her parents form a search party to find the missing oomph. The missing oomph is nowhere to be found. How is she going to have sword fights and engage in other pirate activities without any oomph? Charlotte Jane falls asleep and awakes full of oomph and ready to be a pirate!

3. How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long. — This is a funny story filled with fantastic illustrations by David Shannon. In this book, Jeremy Jacob joins a pirate crew and learns all about being a pirate. He’s enjoying not eating vegetables and having gross table manners. It’s all fun until he learns that pirates don’t do any of the loving things that his mom does, such as read bedtime stories and tuck him in at night.

4. Pirates Don’t Change Diapers by Melinda Long. — In this follow-up to How I Became a Pirate, the pirates return to Jeremy Jacob’s house to look for treasure, but an upset baby stalls their plans. Nobody is able to get anything done until Bonny Anne is happy. In this silly turn of events, the pirates become babysitters and learn that an upset kiddo is even more terrifying then their pirate adventures!

5. Pirates Love Underpants by Claire Freedman. — Preschoolers love books about underwear! Get ready to laugh your way through this silly book as the pirates go in search of the fabled golden underpants.

6. Shiver Me Hook; a pirate ABC by June Sobel. — The pirate crew is embarking on an alphabet adventure. They search high and low for all of the letters from A to Z, with each letter corresponding to something piratey! This is perfect for preschoolers who are working on letter recognition and phonetic sounds!

7. Are Pirates Polite? by Corinne Demas. — In this fun rhyming story, the pirates show that they can, in fact, be polite and say “please” and “thank you.” If pirates can be polite, then preschoolers can too! This book has just the right amount of grossness to keep preschoolers giggling.

8. Pete the Cat and the Treasure Map by James Dean. — Sail along with Pete the Cat and friends aboard a pirate ship. They find a treasure map and set out on a hunt for the treasure. Uh-oh, they run into a sea monster! Is the sea monster going to cause trouble or become a new friend? Preschoolers love Pete the Cat and they will enjoy Pete’s pirate adventure!

9. Arrr, Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos — This is the cutest story about two toddlers, one who is born with a mustache and one who is born with a beard. One day at the community pool, they encounter two pirate tots and the mustache baby and the bear baby turn into pirates, determined to keep all of the loot for themselves. A whimsical battle between the kids ensues. Behaving like pirates does not make their parents happy. As their treasure filled ship sinks, the tots find themselves in a timeout. They learn that sharing is lot more fun than hoarding the treasure and behaving badly.

10. How to be a Pirate by Isaac Fitzgerald. — A young girl named Cece wants to be a pirate, but the boys tell her she can’t be one (mean!). She doesn’t let them stop her and she seeks out her grandfather for advice on being a pirate. Grandpa has tattoos (just like a pirate) and a ship in a bottle, so Cece is convinced he knows all about pirates. He guides her through all of the things pirates need to be, ending with a beautiful conclusion about believing in oneself.

Find the Differences — Pirate Edition

Can you spot differences between these two pirate-themed scenes? Look closely and see if you can find all five.

Find-the-Differences-PirateDownload

Did you enjoy finding the differences? Try more Find the Difference pages: https://imaginationsrunningwild.com/find-the-differences/

Disclaimer — this post contains affiliate links to products sold on Amazon. I joined Amazon’s Affiliates Program to help cover the costs of my site. If you buy a product through one of my links, then I get a small percentage of the sale. Thanks your support! Happy reading: )

Fall, STEM

Apple Theme — books, craft, STEM, and games!

Jennifer
Apple theme picture books, crafts, and STEM activities for preschool
Apple theme books, crafts, and STEM activities for preschool

Fall is just around the corner and I love to do apple-themed things this time of year. Here is a list of some of my favorite apple books for preschoolers and kindergarteners: a tissue paper craft, a yummy apple STEM activity, and a fun apple counting idea to do with pompoms. And no apple themed activities would be complete without an apple taste test — try different kinds of apples and see which one is your favorite!

Apple Books:

1.The Apple Pie that Papa Baked by Lauren Thompson — I love Lauren Thompson’s books! This is a cute story about everything that goes into making an apple pie. As the story progresses, your child will notice more and more animals after the delicious pie! Thompson creates a cumulative and lyrical text that teaches preschoolers about nature and the apple’s life cycle.

2. Apple Picking Day by Candace Ransom — Ransom’s trademark short story with great pictures makes this book a good choice for kids who can’t sit still for long stories. The family goes apple picking and the reader gets to enjoy the fun with them. Preschoolers will get caught up in the excitement as the brother and sister race against other kids in the orchard to see who can pick the most apples.

2. 10 Apples Up On Top by Dr. Seuss — in this funny, rhyming book, a lion, a tiger, and a dog compete to see who can stack apples on their head and do tricks without the apples falling! While they keep trying to outdo each other, the animals inadvertently find themselves in a bear’s home. The bear is not happy with their shenanigans and chases them out. The animals run into more bears and more trouble. The bears chase the animals (who still have apples still stacked on their heads) into an apple cart! Now everyone has 10 apples up on top 🙂 Your child laugh at this silly story and enjoy the animals’ crazy antics. Plus, this books offers a fun way to incorporate counting!

3. Ouch by Ragnhild Scamell — in this story, an adorable hedgehog gets an apple stuck its back. Now hedgehog can’t fit into its den and winter is coming. The hedgehog’s animal friends try to help and get the apple off, but each attempt ends up with more things stuck to the poor hedgehog. After squeezing, and swimming, and rolling around, hedgehog and friends are running out of ideas. Fortunately, along comes a goat with a big appetite and eats all of the things that are stuck on hedgehog!

4. Aaron Loves Apples and Pumpkins by PD Eastman — Fall is here and Aaron the alligator loves everything about it. He loves the yummy apples, pumpkins, football, Halloween costumes, and spending time with his friends. When his friends go apple picking, Aaron tells them that he knows a better way to get the apples down. Aaron shakes the tree, causing all of the apples to fall down on him! Oops 🙂 Now all of the apples are down and Aaron and his friends can enjoy them together. This book is part of the beginning reader series, I Can Read. It has short sentences with few words per page, making it a good choice for kids who are learning to read, and for those who do not want to sit through long stories.

5. Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Wallace — in this cute story, the bunny family goes apple picking on a lovely fall day. Farmer Miller teaches the bunnies all about apples. Kids will love learning all about apples with the bunnies. The book includes a applesauce recipe too!

6. 10 Red Apples by Pat Hutchins — everyone loves apples, including all of the farm apples. The apple tree starts with 10 red apples on it. Soon, one-by-one, a farm animal comes along and eats an apple off of the tree. The farmer eats the last one, and his wife didn’t get to enjoy a yummy apple! Oh no! Not to worry, the wife knows where to find more 🙂 This story has bright pictures, large, bold numbers on each page, and makes it easy for preschoolers and kindergartners to practice counting apples.

7. Adding Apples by Nick Rebman — this nonfiction, early math book is a great choice for preschool and kindergarten apple-themes. The child in the book leads the reader through a series of age-appropriate math problems with apples 🙂 My son liked counting the counting all of the apples on the page and announcing the answer to me! Plus the pictures in the book do a great job representing different colors in the apples.

Tissue Paper Apple Craft:

Tissue Paper Preschool Apple Craft

To make this tissue paper apple craft, you will need a piece of white paper, a pencil, a glue stick, and tissue paper in red, green and brown (or orange). I drew a rough outline of an apple on a piece of paper. Next I cut red tissue paper into 1-inch squares.

My son and I both scrunched up the red tissue paper squares together — great for preschool fine motor skills. After we had a lot of of tissue balls, my kiddo covered his apple shape in glue. Then he stuck the tissue all over his apple.

After covering then entire apple in red tissue, we scrunched up green tissue. We glued the green tissue balls in a leaf shape. Even after adding the green leaf, my son still thought his apple was missing something. He decided to add an orange stem (I didn’t have brown tissue paper).

His apple turned out pretty cute! We really enjoyed doing this craft together and I love that he added his own creative ideas with the stem.

STEM Activity:

Apple STEM activity — using our 5 Senses

Activities:

Apple Counting:

Preschool Apple Counting Activity with flashcards and pompoms

Tactile counting with pompoms really helps conceptualize numbers. For this activity, preschoolers will add red and green pompoms to their apple tree to show the same number of apples as is listed on their flash cards. I made numbered cards and an apple tree that you can print. This activity can used over-and-over again as no glue is involved. Just draw a card, look at the number, and place the corresponding number of “apple” pompoms on the tree!

For this activity you will need to print off the flash cards and cut them out; print off the tree page; and have 10 pompoms in red and green. Click on the link below for your flashcards and tree:

Apple-CountingDownload

Find the Differences:

Can you find 5 differences between these 2 scenes?

Find-the-Differences-Apple-TreeDownload
Animals, STEM

Learning Letter D

Jennifer

Letter D is awesome — Dinosaurs, Dogs, Donuts, and Ducks! This was a fun week for my preschooler. We read books about his favorite animals, ate donuts, danced along to We are the Dinosaurs, and made a neat Froot Loops Tower.

Monday — D is for Dinosaur

  • Writing Practice: write uppercase D. For this letter, we used a worksheet from AtoZteacherstuff.com:
uppercase-letter-DDownload
  • Book: Crunch the Shy Dinosaur by Cirocco Dunlap. This is a fun, interactive book that really engages with the reader. Young children will have a blast getting to know Crunch by saying hello, singing Happy Birthday, and introducing themselves. It also encourages the reader to take into consideration that other people (and dinosaurs) might be shy when you first meet them and to let them have some quiet space to adjust to new people.

Check your library for Crunch, the Shy Dinosaur, or buy it on Amazon.

  • Craft / Activity: Dinosaur Coloring Page — use your creativity and color or paint an awesome dino picture! Then, Find 5 Differences between these 2 dinosaur scenes:
Dinosaur-Coloring-PageDownload
Find-the-Differences-Dinosaurs-1Download
  • Song: This was great excuse to sing along to our of my favorite preschool songs, We Are the Dinosaurs by the Laurie Berkner Band. Watch the music video on YouTube and march along!

Tuesday —

  • STEM: Build a Froot Loops Tower. This project is great for working on fine-motor skills!
Froot Loops Tower

Supplies needed are Play-Doh, a dry spaghetti noodle, and Froot Loops cereal.

First, make a mound out of Play-Doh to use as your tower’s base.

Second, stick a spaghetti noodle into the center of the base and make sure to really smush the Play-Doh around the bottom of the noodle so that it stands up.

Now it is time to make the tower and work on fine motor skills! Take your Froot Loops and carefully drop each down the noodle, making a tower as they stack. Have fun making color patterns. Bonus, you get to eat the cereal after your are done making towers 😉

  • Air Writing: Ask your child to hold up a hand and trace letter shapes with their finger in the air. I was skeptical of this at first, but my son really got into it and I found him air writing his letters all on his own.
  • “Dog I Spy” Worksheet: practice counting with this cute dog-themed I Spy picture.
Dog-I-SpyDownload

Wednesday — D is for Dog and Donut

  • Writing practice: write lowercase letter d.

I found this worksheet online from PreschoolMom.com: https://preschoolmom.com/wp-content/uploads/PMom/AlphabeWorksheets/D2.pdf

  • Books — We read dog stories! My son loves Karma Wilson’s book, A Dog Named Doug. Doug the dog is a digging machine. He digs a holes to everywhere and gets into a bit of trouble along the way. The book ends happily with Doug digging a hole into his family’s bedroom for a bedtime cuddle. My son loves this book and he laughs every single time we read it. We have checked this out from our library numerous times, and we hope you will check it from yours too! It is also available on Amazon if you want to buy it.

We also read Laura Numeroff’s If You Give a Dog a Donut. Turns out if you give a dog a donut, a great story ensues! This cute story is a fun read-aloud and good introduction to sequencing. Find a copy at your library, or buy on Amazon.

  • Craft — Paper Plate Donut. Supplies needed are paper plate, light brown watercolor paint and paintbrush, construction paper (we used pink), scissors, white glue, and sprinkles.

1. First my son painted the entire plate light brown.

2. While it was drying, we picked our construction paper for the donut icing. We went with the classic pink for our donut, but also strongly considered brown for a chocolate icing. I cut out a wavy shape in the pink paper.

3. After the donut plate was dry, I cut out the center to give it the donut shape.

4. My son used white, school glue to attach the icing to the plate.

5. Last, he glued on sprinkles to complete his paper plate donut 🙂

  • Songs — For letter D, we sang the “Donut Song.” If you don’t know this song, you can check it out on YouTube. My son loves this song and he sings it all of the time!

Thursday —

  • Salt Tray Writing: cover the bottom of a shallow tray or pie tin with a layer of table salt. Your child can take one finger to trace letter shapes in the salt. Make bother uppercase D and lowercase d.
  • Worksheet: Draw a line from the lowercase d to all of the uppercase D letters.
letter-d-worksheet-1Download

Friday — D is for Duck

  • Book: Little Quack’s New Friend by Lauren Thompson. The whole Little Quack series is adorable, but I am partial to this one because I love the new froggy friend. This Little Quack story embodies preschooler’s shyness about meeting new people, but children’s innate playfulness and curiosity wins over and everyone has fun playing together. Plus, this story is full of fun sound words to say!

There are many cute stories in the Little Quack series. Hopefully your library has this one and others. It is available for purchase on Amazon.

  • Craft: Color and Feathers Duck Craft — supplies needed are duck coloring sheet, crayons, white school feathers, and glue.

Here’s the coloring page we used. I found on getcoloringpages.com. Feel free to draw your own duck or cut out a duck shape from construction paper if you don’t like this one.

Duck-Coloring-PageDownload

We used crayons to color our duck. My son worked hard to color within the lines!

Then we picked out feathers for our duck and attached them with white, school glue.

  • Song: Raffi’s Five Little Ducks. I really enjoy doing hand movements to this song. We hold up fingers on one hand for the five little ducks, folding down fingers as the ducks go over the hill. The other is our mama duck and we keep our fingers together and move them up and down to touch the thumb to make a mouth movement for the quacking parts. If you don’t know this song, it’s available on YouTube.