Human Anatomy for Preschoolers

As I've mentioned I'm a biology major so I love sharing the world with my daughters.  And when they wanted a new coloring project I'd recently found a picture of the human body with the major organs labeled.  It seemed a perfect opportunity to introduce some new ideas to my daughters.

Since my younger daughter is not yet two I didn't really expect her to get much out of the dialog, though she did have fun scribbling all over her picture with a variety of different colors.  But my older daughter wanted to talk about the picture.  First she wanted to know how come we could see the person's insides.  Then I told her the names of the organs along with a few basics - like the fact that the heart pumps blood and the lungs bring in oxygen.  But mostly my little girl wanted to know what color each organ was so that she could color it accurately.  And she wanted to see pictures of what they looked like.

In a few days I think I'll revisit the lesson - cement what she learned.  Even if it is only that the heart pumps blood and the lungs breath in oxygen that's a very good start for a soon to be four year old.  If she continues to enjoy the discussion next time we might pursue it more in the near future.

Learning About Frogs

Having graduated with a BA in biology I feel that it is never to early to spark your child's interest in the world around her.  This being the last day of frog month I thought I'd tell you about our frog unit.  I was actually a little surprised how much my daughter enjoyed learning about frogs.

I introduced the unit by reading the book From Tadpole to Frog (How Things Grow) which has plenty of pictures and simple text with my daughter.  My daughter loved it.  We must have read that book every night for two weeks, which for my daughter is amazing.  Normally she wants a new book every night.

We also visited the National Geographic Kids website and read about Red-eyed Tree Frogs.  There are a variety of pictures for your child to view while you read them the factoids about tree frogs.  The site also has a video so she can see the frog in action.

To reinforce what she'd just learned in her book and on the website she colored the life cycle coloring page while I talked with her about what she was coloring.  And because she was learning to write the letter F at the time we also colored the F is for frog coloring page.

In order to round out our unit on frog we sang Five Green and Speckled Frogs and played the Leaping Lily Pads.  The lily pad game is easy to play and a good way to encourage your preschooler to burn off a little energy.  Gather up some "lily pads".  We used pillows.  Scatter them about the room and have your child jump across the "lake" without falling into the "water".  My daughter liked to spread the "lily pads" further and further apart to see how far she could jump.

Five Green and Speckled Frogs
Five* green and speckled frogs
Sat on a speckled log
Eating some most delicious bugs
Yum!  Yum!
One jumped into the pool
Where it was nice and cool
Then there where four green speckled frogs
Glub.  Glub.
*Count down until there are no green speckled frogs

 Something else that looked like fun, but I never got around to trying myself, is creating a frog puppet.  DLTK has all the information you need to complete the craft.  Also if you'd prefer a book that matches more specifically the focus of the video and coloring pages you might consider Tree Frogs (Let's Investigate).  I've not read it myself but it is the same age target as the one I read with my daughter.  If you do try it let me know how it works for you and your child.

Whatever activities you choose for your frog unit (emphasizing the color green is a good choice if you're still working on colors) I hope you enjoy sharing the wonders of nature with your child.

Number Discrimination

Today I thought I'd focus on numbers.  Mostly because I found a really great deal on a sticker numbers workbook for my daughter--just a buck.  Walmart was blowing them out.  I don't usually by workbooks there because the selection is lousy but every now and again they'll have some great deals.  Anyway back to the learning my youngest daughter is only just beginning her work on number discrimination, but my oldest daughter has been working with numbers for quite awhile now and one of the things she loves is color by number pictures.  They are ideal for teaching a child to differentiate between the different number shapes.

It's not difficult to create your own color pages.  However, it can be time consuming.  So here are a couple of websites you can try:

• The All Kids Network features a number of coloring pages ideal for preschoolers.  They also have some popular characters as color by number pages but those pages tend to have numbers in very small print.
• The Coloring website features a large number of coloring pages by both number and letter.  However, many of the pictures have very small spaces to color.
• Crayola has a few color by number pages.  However, some use crayola color names and some introduce the concept of odd and even.
• Print Activities has several color by number pages which I like.  The pictures are all made using geometric shapes so the numbers are easy to see and the shapes easy to color.

Also if your child is familiar with the computer or you want to begin introducing the computer try the Up to Ten site.  The site has a couple of color by number online games:  Daisy (featuring a man's voice) and Marcelino (featuring a woman's voice).

Finally, if you are following the Ready for Kindergarten program the target I was aiming for was matching number shapes.  At one your child should be matching shapes 1 through 3, at two your child should match 1 through 6, at three your child should match 1 through 9 and by four your child should be matching shapes 1 through 12.

My daughter and I have been working on color by number pictures together and at age three she is already matching two digit numbers.  I hope they work as well for your children.