Valentines "Chocolate" Playdough

During our Valentines theme, I always love to make "chocolate" playdough!! Since chocolate is such a big part of the holiday, the children really seem to go with this and love playing with it.

It's easy to make....just follow your regular playdoug recipe and add some cocoa powder to the mix! It turns brown and smells like chocolate all in one. Just remember to remind the little ones, that it's not REALLY chocolate. Along with a variety of baking items, I also set out a few empty boxes of chocolates so that the kids can pretend to give valentines to their friends and make their own chocolates to put in. It's always so fun to see them handing out "chocolates" and to hear the socialization that goes on during this Valentines time!!

Love According to Preschoolers.....

LOVE IS.....

• when I get hugs
• my mommy and daddy
• my Wii and my Wii games
• when my parents play with me
• helping my sister
• when I clean my bedroom
• when my sister stops fighting with me
• bandaides and medicine for my owies
• when my parents build my toys with me
• when I do stuff without being told
• loving your mom and your family
• when your friend is your best friend
• loving everybody even when they are your enemies
• reading books
• giving people things they really want
• hugs and kisses
• cooking with my mom and dad (especially eggs)
• drawing
• being with my friends

Valentines Slime

We enjoy getting MESSY in preschool! This slime always seems to be a favorite and really brings the kids together playing and exploring. I figure it's a great way to build our friendships stronger and have fun with eachother. We also talk about opposites...to me slime is an opposite word for Valentines day because slime is yucky and gross and love and friends are fun and enjoyable! To make this stuff, just mix as much elmers glue as you are going to want slime and add your food coloring. Poor in some liquid starch until it's not sticky but slimy and stir it all together. FYI - I buy the gallons of elmers glue. You can get it from Lowes or Home Depot or I'm sure order it from a school catalog.

Valentine I love you's

There are plenty of ways to say "I Love You"......this week we are having a blast talking about all the ways we can say I love you and also how to be a friend! Today we made thise fun and simple hearts. The children were talking about who they were going to give them to, when, and even why. I have some students who just LOVE to cut and glue and others who would rather color or draw. So we had a few different variety of hearts today which is the way I like it! I love to watch a child make something his own and go with it.

With this craft we used construction paper, glue, scissors, and squares of tissue paper or crepe paper. It's fun to just pour the glue on everywhere and begin sticking the squares on. You can crumple them or stick them on straight!

Happy Valentinezing!

Sweet and Slimy!

Hmmmm.....what to do in the Messy Table this week??

SLIME - what could be a better idea? Well, nothing!!

Love can be kind of slimy!

So we mixed this together as a group in the messy table!

Equal parts Elmers Glue and Liquid Starch. We added some fun LOVEY colors!!

The students have absolutely LOVED feeling this all week!!

Beading it Pretty

What a better way to develop small motor skills then beading!! I found these great beads at Hobby Lobby and thought they would go great with our Valentine's theme!!

Once I got them home I noticed that the holes were VERY tiny.

So I set out some larger beads for the students who don't quite have those motor skills developed well enough.

I'm sure that one of the worst feelings for a child is FRUSTRATION! I especially don't want any child to get frustrated when it comes to developing or learning......so why not help them out a bit.

The children LOVED the beads, and I was surprised at how many children tried it and worked REALLY hard to make these little beads work. What GREAT eye-hand-coordination!!

We also had some great math going on too.....check out the red/white pattern figured out all by herself!!

I'm a proud teacher!!

Painting it a Valentine!

This week we've had a great time painting hearts for Valentines day!

On Tuesday we started out with basic paint brushes and of course, had a ball!

On Wednesday, I added a variety of paint brushes to spice it up a bit. Circled sponges, flat sponges, thick brushes, skinny brushes, etc. Kids LOVE painting, and as long as you keep it interesting, they will do it. Everytime I have a painting activity, I have at least one student stay there for most of Choice Time, painting as many things as he/she can!!

If you don't know what to do with ALL of these hearts that your child takes home......

You can make a heart mobile and hang it in a special place for all to see.

Or you can simply hang them up ALL over your house or kitchen or windows, or where ever you would like. If you are like my two daughters....I have a million and I can't break their hearts by throwing them away!

Besides, I LOVE how great they look and the time they have spent on them!!

Valentines and Friendship Books

I wanted to share some of the books we'll be reading for our Valentines and Friendship unit. From love, hearts, kindness, friendship and more.....we always LOVE our books in preschool!!

I absolutley LOVE Robert Munsch. His books ALWAYS grab the kids interest and they are so FUN to read. The kids always say....."Read it again, read it again!" with any of his books!!

"But Mama, would you love me if I was a STINKY SKUNK?" The kids just crack up!! I don't know why it's so funny, but they adore this book!

Yes, there is a time and a place to be loud and quiet!! When we talk about friendship we also talk about how to be respectful of others!

This book is so fun to read, it says what would be rude first (which the children think is hilarious), then how to fix it by being polite and courteous!

The children laugh at this book because Froggy is falling in love. But in the end the valentine is actually for his mother. This is a great time to talk about saving kisses for JUST family! This is definitley a fun book!

HAPPY READING!!

Friendship smoothies

We got to make Friendship Smoothies today which turned out soooo YUMMY!! The children always love it so much when we get to make our snack together in preschool.

This is just a basic smoothy recipe with a "tweek" in the name! You can use any basic ingredients such as, OJ concentrate, yogurt, bananas, ice, and milk. You can make these as extravagent or non as you would like (using different fruits, etc). We kept with the traditional style.

When we make large group snack we basically take turns measuring, counting, scooping, or pouring in the ingredients. We of course learn the basics of cooking also - wash hands, have an adult there, etc. This is a great way to enhance a variety of math skills as we do this all together. The children are always totally enthralled and they always thing THEIR ingredient is the BEST!

This was how our finished product looked. We have a basic rule in preschool that when we make snack together we all need to take ONE taste, if we don't like it after that one taste, we don't have to have anymore.

The children LOVE our little chant, "Try it, you might like it!" It usually NEVER fails that the kids will eat the whole thing after they've taken the first taste, even if they said they weren't going to like it!! What a great way to explore the different foods we eat and make sure we try new things!

Friendship hearts

I love the process of how little preschooler minds think! These friendship hearts were a great Valentine craft activity and such a fun thing to watch come to life as the children explored in their own ways what they wanted.

Again today we had friendship abounding in the air as these hearts were made. I didn't emphasize the idea of giving these away today, but that is what the children wanted and enjoyed doing!! These turned out so cute!

Don't forget to keep in mind that when preschoolers are doing their work, it is the PROCESS not the product!! They are using their small motor skills, their imaginations, social skills, thinking processes and much more to create. They turn out how they want, not how we want!

Valentines and Friendship - A great day!

There is a lot going on this week with friendship and valentines. I always have so much fun getting the things together that the kids will be working with this next couple of weeks!!

Today we had to teach our friend "Rude Rodney" some manners and how to be a good friend!! He doesn't really know how to share or use please, and thank you, plus more!! Believe ME, the kids are GREAT at teaching him what to do to be a nice friend!! They always love Rude Rodney so much, and by the end of the unit, he is a great friend to all because of the kids!

Today we used our senses as we explored in the Messy Table with PINK shaving cream!! It's so fun to explore and discover in something you don't USUALLY get to get so MESSY in!

There was friendship exploding out of our ears as we wrote letters to each other and our families at the Art and Craft Table! It was so fun to see and hear the nice things we really love about each other!!

The children mostly decorated and drew pictures for their friends or families and I would dictate their letters for them. This is a great way for children to see how writing takes place......left to right, forming the letters and watching the words being written down on paper as they say them! What a great learning experience.

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This is how I introduced the activity with everything in hands reach! There were of course crayons, markers, and pencils available. It's so fun to get MAIL!!

I of course don't have a whole Post Office set of cubbies (which would be great one day), but until then I compromise. The kids didn't know any difference and loved it just the same. The box was definitley full by the end of the day!

My "compromising" mail box!!

We also had a great time with "sweetheart" playdough! This activity turned out great!! The kids had such a great time using their imaginations, small motor skills and creativity to make all different sorts of creations!!

For this playdough, I used strawberry koolaid (to of course give it a "sweet" smell) and red glitter. The students absolutley thought it was great!!

Here are some of the things the students came up with when making their creations!!

Aren't they GREAT!! It really was such a fun day and what a way to develop some skills!