Set the stage for a series of fun-filled puppet shows with your preschooler by transforming an ordinary cardboard box into a one-of-a-kind, box theater! This puppet theater is a great way to spend quality time with your child while creating a useful play set. Work together in the creation of a stage, scenery, puppets, and storyline inspired by a favorite character, book, or movie. For an added lesson, re-purpose everyday household objects for the art materials used to emphasize being environmentally aware.

What You Need:

• A large cardboard box
• Scissors
• Packing tape, or other strong tape
• Glue
• Crayons or markers
• Magazines, newspapers, or fabric samples

What You Do:

1. Turn the box upside down. Make sure that the opening is on the bottom.
2. Ask your child to trace a line around the top half of the box on the front side. Extend this line across the center of the box.
3. Using the scissors, cut the line around the edges of the box. Do not cut through the middle line. This step should be done by an adult.
4. Fold the top half flap that has been cut down by bending the cardboard at the drawn middle line.
5. Optional: If you do not want to have to lift the box up and down every time your child uses the puppet theater, have her help you to create a back door. Ask your child to draw a door on the back of the box. Cut out one side and the top of the drawing. Fold the door back to form a flap.
6. Invite your child to decorate her new theater however she would like. This can be done by drawing with markers or crayons or gluing child-friendly magazine or newspaper pictures onto the box in collage style. For an added flare, decorate with ribbons or pretty pieces of cut fabric.
7. When the decorations are in place and the glue is dry, she now has a place to perform. Round out your stage by encouraging your child to create a variety of puppets to perform with and multiple backdrop drawings that can be hung inside the box. Finally, enjoy the show!

Looking for a way to reuse those old crayons you’ve got lying around? Try this fun art activity with your kindergartener to get those artistic juices flowing. This activity will help her with shape and color recognition and when she’s finished, she’ll have a brand new fun set of crayons to color with. Get coloring!

What You Need:

• Candy molds in your favorite shape (available inexpensively at craft or gourmet stores) or an ice cube tray
• Assorted crayon bits
• Your choice: paper cups and a microwave or a muffin tin and an oven

What You Do:

1. Peel the paper from the crayons and separate by color. If melting in the microwave, put each color into separate cups and melt in microwave on low, checking frequently. If melting in the oven, separate in different cups of a muffin tin and melt on low, again checking frequently. (Crayola warns that overheated crayons will create fumes.)
2. When melted, pour hot wax carefully into molds. If your child has the patience, you can let one layer cool and then add another in a different color for multi-colored crayons.
3. Let cool thoroughly and pop out. Voila!

Throwing a skating, garden or princess party? Find molds in a coordinating shape to make crayons and you’ve got eye-catching party favors made from your child’s scraps!

An apple a day helps your kid practice A! First, kids trace lines to practice the fine motor skills they need to form the letter A. Then, they trace the letter several times for practice. Finally, they trace the letter A twice in a phrase: An Apple.

Print the page: Practice Tracing Letter A

Watch your kid’s writing skills soar like the balloon on this worksheet. First, kids trace lines to practice the fine motor skills they need to form the letter B. Then, they trace the letter several times for practice. Finally, they trace the letter B twice in a phrase: Blue Balloon.

This missing letter activity is a great way to help your child learn the alphabet and it’ll help build her vocabulary and letter recognition skills. Help your child get in the mood for fall and try to help her figure out which letters are missing!

What You Need:

• Poster board
• Glue stick
• Scissors
• Markers
• Computer
• Printer
• Printer paper

What You Do:

1. Help your child load printer paper into your printer.
2. Then, take over duties and hop on the Internet.
3. Use a search engine to locate royalty free clip art.
4. Find 10 pieces of clip art associated with the fall. For example, you could look up cornucopia, cornstalk, scarecrow, pumpkin, turkey or whatever other fall-themed words for your little wordsmith to figure out.
5. Then, compile all the pieces of clip art into a single PDF or Word document.
6. Print the document off.
7. Help your child use the scissors to carefully cut out each piece of clip art.
8. Then, with the marker, help her evenly divide the poster board into 10 different sections.
9. Next, encourage her to apply the glue stick to the back of each cut out piece of clip art.
10. Have her stick one clip art in each of the ten sections on the poster board.
11. Allow the glue to dry completely.
12. Taking over duties, neatly write out what each item is below the clip art picture, but leave several blanks. For instance, for a picture of a pumpkin, you could write this below it:   P__mp__i__
13. Or, if you picked out a scarecrow, you could write this below it:   __car__c__ow
14. To begin, she should look at the pictures in each section.
15. Then, she should look at the blank letters available.
16. Challenge her to figure out what each picture is and neatly fill in the missing letters.

Get in the spirit of Christmas by celebrating Santa’s favorite helpers, the elves! This adorable project will allow your little one to practice distinguishing left from right and up from down using hand print painting. The final product will make a festive addition to any wall.

What You Need:

• Tempera paint (green and peach)
• White paper
• Large paintbrush
• Markers
• Googly eyes
• Glue stick
• 2 medium poms

What You Do:

1. Ask your child if they remember which hand is their right hand and which is their left hand. Help them out to remember the difference between the two by having them hold up their left hand and showing them the “L” shape their first finger and thumb make.
2. Have him show you where the top half of his hand is located (from the base of the fingers up), and where the lower half of his hand is located (from the base of the fingers to the base of his palm).
3. Help him paint the four fingers of the upper half of his left hand with green paint, and the bottom half of the same hand with peach-colored paint.
4. Have him stamp his hand on the left side of the paper, gently pressing his hand down to get a good print.
5. Encourage him to paint his left thumb with the peach-colored paint and have him press it down on the left side of the handprint, near the bottom of the green paint, to create an elf ear. Now let him paint his thumb again and press it on the right side to finish his elf’s ears.
6. Repeat the entire process for the second elf on the right side of the paper. Let the paint dry completely.
7. Ask him to outline the elves’ hats in marker and glue a pom on the end of each hat.
8. Glue some googly eyes in place to help the elves come to life.
9. Have him draw smiles on the elves to show their Christmas cheer.