Valentine's Day!

It was Valentine's week and the kids had a wonderful time making heart crafts, eating cookies and handing out valentine cards to their friends! We had a Valentine's learning center full of sorting, matching, sequencing, math and science! You can see it in the top tab ' Themed learning centers'.

We did several heart-themed crafts this week, one was a project we had never tried and the kids (and I) were thrilled with the way it turned out!

This is a suncatcher made with translucent pony beads! We placed heart shaped metal cookied cutters on a cookie sheet and then the kids placed the pony beads into the cookie cutter in whatever design they wanted ( one layer). We placed them in the oven at 400 degrees and baked for 30 minutes. We took them out to cool and they made popping sounds as they cooled and released from the pan making it very easy to get them out- no scraping or pulling! I hot glued ribbon to the backs and hung them in the window. I found later that if you place a glass bead in the cookie cutter in the place you will wish to thread the ribbon, the glass bead won't melt leaving a perfect hole ready for hanging!

Valentine Trees! This was a 2 day project as we had to make the tree trunk by painting the children's arms and hands brown and pressing it onto the paper. I pre-puched hearts with a Martha Stewart craft punch; this is something older children could do themselves safely as well. I used several different prints of scrapbooking paper along with pink and red construction paper. The kids were then able to glue the hearts on as the leaves on their trees however they wanted!

We made handprint hearts as well which are very easy. We cordinated the color of the hand print with the color of the border paper. If you can have the children hold their hands just right, the space in between their thumbs makes another little heart!
 We read several Valentine books; a few favorites were:

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rose





The Day it Rained Hearts

The Night Before Valentine's Day


Happy Valentine's Day Mouse!


Big Hugs Little Hugs

The Cat in the Hat

The Cat in the Hat is always a huge favorite but I had a hard time finding projects to go along with some of the books! Of course we made Green Eggs and Ham and Oobleck! Here are a few of crafts that we did.

Think 1 and Thing 2 hand prints! For the bottom section, paint the child's hand red but do not paint the ring finger; press their hand onto the paper with their fingers spread out. For the top, paint the palm of the child's hand white and their fingers blue but do not paint their thumb. Press their hand onto the paper with their fingers spread out again. Add featurs after the paint is dry.

For the Cat in the Hat, I cut out the main pieces ahead of time and the children assembled them to make their own cat.

 

Mice

This week we talked all about mice and of course we read everyone's favorite mouse book:
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie!
My favorite project we did was also the easiest! It is a mouse made out of shapes: triangles, circles and rectangles with a pink pom-pom nose, google eyes, yarn whiskers, and a real straw! It turned out really cute and the kids had a lot of fun putting it all together!

Polar Animals

Now that it has snowed it finally feels like winter! Time to talk about Polar Animals, mainly Polar Bears and Penguins! A Polar animal theme is always a perfect time to talk about camoflage as most polar animals are white to blend in with the snow.



The children area always interested in learning how the animals stay warm in the winter, so we talked about blubber and how it works as insulation for the animals bodies! To go along with this we read The Magic School Bus In the Arctic then did an experiment on heat retention from : http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/lesson-plan/magic-school-bus-arctic












Of course we read Polar Bear Polar Bear, What Do You Hear? by Eric Carle. The version I have has a CD with it and the kids had a lot of fun listening to it over and over again! After reading the book we made the polar bear! Each child's bear turned out different depending on the amount of paint they wanted to use to make the outline.

These were made quite easily by printing out a bear template, cutting it out and lightly taping it to a piece of white construction paper. The children then painted around the edges of the bear ( and all over the bear! ) using a sponge and blue paint. As you can see, there were varying amounts of paint used between the different children, but the end result was a bear when the template was pulled up!

 We read a series of books about Polar Animals by Melvin and Gilda Berger that were published by Scholastic. They were:
How Polar Animals Hide
What Polar Animals Eat
Where Polar Animals Live
Polar Animal Babies
Polar Animals All Year Long
Polar Animals in Danger

We made a polar bear booklet that I found in a 1996 January Mailbox theme book.

We read a book about a baby polar bear named Knut who was raised in a zoo. The kids really enjoyed seeing the pictures of Knut as a baby and several of them said they were going to ask their parents for a polar bear next Christmas! We talked about why Knut had to be raised in a zoo and the kind of things that are hurting polar animals (Polar Animals in Danger). After reviewing all of this we made our own baby polar bear! this was based on a craft I found on www.kidssoup.com We used  plastic condiment cups that I found at Wal-Mart for $1.27 for 24 cups and lids. We used these for the polar bear nose.  I did glue the the cups on ahead of time to help ease frustration :)

Along with our books, crafts and songs I found Arctic Toobs and penguin Toobs at Hobby Lobby. I set these out as learning centers. I also made Arctic Animal cards that have a photograph of each arctic animal and the name of the animal printed underneath. This helps the children identify the animals and match them up with the names. I also put the books of the week at the table so the kids can look at them on their own after we have read them.

Perfectly Circley Day!

Wow! It has been a long time since I have posted! In that time the preschool where I have worked for the last 4 years has regrettably closed. I am now providing preschool and childcare from my home. The children all adjusted seamlessly, however I have had a rather difficult time!

Preschool is now underway and the first week was filled with learning how to use glue sticks, markers, scissors, etc...

Our theme for the first week was On the Farm and we examined circles, the color red and the number 1.

The children's favorite part seemed to be finding circles so we had a Perfectly Circley Day! We found circles all around us, from the screw heads on the cabinets to the clock on the wall! We used markers to draw circles on red paper and then stuck circle foam stickers on for some extra fine motor practice. We practiced drawing circles in the air with our fingers for pre-writing practice. We found different ways to make circles with our bodies for large motor skills! We sang songs about circles and even ate circles! For breakfast we had Cheerios in a circle bowl; morning snack was apples cut into circle slices with peanut butter and raisins; lunch was English muffin pizza with circle pepperoni (which are also red!), banana circles and carrot circles! The kids were especially amazed at the apples cut in to circle slices :)
Of course my favorite part is always...Books! We read...
                 

The Rabbit books by Alan Baker are some of my favorite for teaching basic concepts as the children are captivated by the silly things the rabbits do!

Next week...Apples!

Valentine's Day

This project was a lot of fun and each one turned out to be quite original! We used the spiky balls shown above; placed a piece of construction paper in a dish bucket; put some paint around the edges; dropped the balls in and the kids rolled them around by rocking the bucket back and forth! Lots of fun! After the paint was dry we cut the paper into hearts!

This is a pretty basic project. We just taped the heart shaped paper doilies onto the back of a sheet of construction paper. Then we flipped it over and rubbed crayons onto the front of the paper to reveal the heart shapes! This is one the kids are always amazed with as they see the hearts appear!

This is another easy one that turns out very pretty. I pre-cut several heart shapes and the kids used bottles of Elmer's glue which they squeezed all over the hearts. This was a very good fine motor workout! Then they shook glitter all over the hearts! Very pretty.

Colors!

Preschoolers love lots of colors! They love to identify colors, find new colors, and find out what colors make other colors. We did several projects about color mixing and by the end of the week almost all of the preschoolers knew what colors you needed to make green, purple and orange.
We read the books 'A Color of His Own', ' Mouse Paint', ' White Rabbit's Color Book', 'Little Blue and Little Yellow', and 'The Mixed Up Chameleon'.


These have always been some of my favorite stories for teaching colors and the preschoolers loved them! We did quite a few projects to go along with this theme as well. The first one we did was using handprints to show how colors mix together to form a new color. Each child painted their hands either blue/yellow, blue/red, or red/yellow. They placed both hands palm down on a piece of paper. Then they rubbed their hands together to make the new color then placed one hand in the middle of the first two. Very cute!

We did another project that the children really liked. It was a two day project that covered many different realms of instruction. On the first day the children colored coffee filters with markers using red/blue, yellow/red, or yellow/blue. We then sprayed the coffee filters with water to see the colors mix together. (Process art, fine motor, science) This is what they looked like-

The next day, the children ripped the coffee filters into many different pieces and glued them to a piece of construction paper or a coordinating color. (Fine motor, process art) I only have one photo, oops!

Of course we also make color mixing bottle which are simply mixing food coloring in small water bottles and shaking them to see the colors blend. We also added glitter and small beads!
I put out the color mixing paddles in the science center so the children could play with mixing colors on their own. In the sensory center I put out the colored rice which is really pretty and relaxing!
Our name tags were also colors- I simply cut circles out of construction paper and overlapped them. The kids referred to them often while mixing colors! Altogether it was a fantastic week full of colors and learning!!!