G is for Gumballs {preschool}

What a fun group preschool we did at our home today! I got a lot of these ideas from my sister’s blog at Preschool Alphabet! We started off with a simple G letter tracing page (found here). Then I gave the preschoolers dot stickersthat the older preschoolers had to write ‘G’ and ‘g’ on the different dots. For the younger kids, I wrote the big & little G’s on the stickers. With those stickers they had to match the capital and lowercase G stickers (aka gumballs) to the capital and lowercase G’s on their gumball machine paper that I made. Those who finished faster, colored their gumball machine until everyone was done.

Since this is a Gumball preschool, we of course were going to pull out a gumball machine and play with it. But before we did that, they needed to get some money for the gumball machine. I didn’t take a before picture, but what I did was draw a big gumball machine on newsprint and hung it up on the wall. I put one penny inside 26 different colored water balloons (because they are smaller), blew them up & taped them on the gumball machine mural. Each penny I put inside the balloons had a sticker on it with a letter of the alphabet. The kids then took turns popping the gumball balloons (with a wooden skewer), found the penny that came out, took off the abc sticker & matched it to the right letter on a separate paper with the alphabet on it. They loved this game – popping balloons and money!!

[colored courtesy of my 4 year old]

With that money they found in the gumball balloons, I got out the gumball machineand let them each take a turn getting a gumball. I printed some gumball graph papers and they had to color a circle the same color as the gumball that came out. They put the actual gumball in these ice cube trayswhich are the perfect size for the little gumballs.We went around and around about 6 times until we had a bunch of different colored gumballs. Then we talked about which color had the most gumballs, and what colors had the least, etc. They got to eat one at the end of that.

I didn’t take a picture of our next activity, but the kids did some relays and games with the gumballs. One particular game, I gave them each a plastic spoon and a gumball. They had to try to walk around the couch without touching the gumball or dropping it. It was a lot harder than they thought it would be.

Our last activity was the gumball machine cupcake. When I found these I thought it was way too cute and had to try it! I made some red velvet mini cupcakes the night before and frosted them while they were finishing up the relays & games. They colored a paper plate to give me some more time to frost as well :) With the mini M & M’s they put “gumballs” in their gumball machine.

To finish the gumball cupcake, you use another cupcake with the top cut off, turned upside down. Put frosting on the bottom of it and lay the frosted & decorated cupcake on it’s side on top. Top it with half of a whopper candy and use a candy melt with 5 cents written on it with edible marker. They turned out pretty dang cute!

[front view & back/side view]

And the preschoolers LOVED them, of course ;)

 

G is for Gumballs!

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