Spring Window Mosaics

Need a little spring decoration......perfect!!!

Get some crayons, a cheese grater, wax paper, and a hot iron. It's so fun to watch the crayons melt and mix colors under the wax paper.

Just grate some bright spring colors of crayons, have your child sprinkle it onto their waxed paper. Fold the wax paper in half and run the iron over it. They can cut out their own decoration or you can draw a spring object for them to cut out.

In preschool we simply cut out flowers. Some of them ended up looking like clouds, but you get the idea.

Hang them up in your window and let the sun shine through and brighten up your house!!

Spring Finger Painting

With spring comes lots of color!! It's so fun to take a look around and see what colors are coming out!! What a better way to celebrate the colors of spring then with some fun and messy and colorful fingerpainting!!

To make this fingerpaint all you need is......

* 1 cup flour

* 1 cup water

* 1 tblsp liquid laundry detergent (this helps it come out easily from clothing)

* food coloring

Stir these ingredients together in a bowl until smooth. Seperate into different bowls with however many colors you are going to use and stir until mixed to your desired coloring!!

Spring Trinket Holders

It's so fun to make containers that can hold special trinkets, especially in the spring time when it's organizing time!! From jewelry, rocks, money, flowers, candles.....pretty much anything that will fit in it.....these are great and fun to make. Save yourself up some glass babyfood jars. You'll need some spring colors of tissue paper or crepe paper cut into squares, and then some starch (found in the laundry aisle).

Now just paint the starch over the tissue pieces all over the jar, let it dry, and you've got yourself a GREAT spring trinket holder!! How exciting!!

St. Patricks Day Green Painted Toast

Painted Toast always seems to be a childs favorite!! I don't know why because it is simply bread painted with colored milk...........but it's sooooo COOL!! When I make this in preschool the kids always LOVE it and ask for seconds.

To make this "kids favorite" snack, just take a piece of bread, a paint brush, and milk colored with your childs favorite color of food coloring. We obviously used green today for St. Patricks Day. Your child can paint his bread however he desires, pop it in the toaster or toaster oven. Then eat it up......and believe me, it will be!!!

St. Patricks Day Green GAK

Slime never gets old. This is another recipe, it turns out a little slimier then the glue and starch.

Recipe:

* 16 oz. white glue

* 2 cups water (halved)

* Green food coloring

* 3 teaspoons Borax Powder

* 1 medium bowl

* 1 large bowl

In the medium bowl, combine the glue, 2 cups of water and several drops of green food coloring. Stir this constantly. In the large bowl, combine the remaining water and the Borax Powder. Stir this until the powder is dissolved. Pour the glue mixture into the Borax mixture. Stir constantly until a glob of GAK forms. Let the children squeeze, knead, aquish, and ooze the GAK between their fingers.

St. Patricks Day Lucky Shamrocks

For St. Patricks Day today we made lucky shamrocks out of crepe paper. We talked a lot about luck and what it means. We went on a treasure hunt looking for gold rocks and got pretty "lucky"!! We did all sorts of things having to do with GREEN!!

For our shamrocks, I simply cut out a shape of a 4-leaf clover and had green crepe paper cut in squares set out. The children chose to put them on collage style or twisting the squares around a pencil and sticking them on.....the results were very creative!

When I Grow Up.......

We're finishing up our unit on careers and I had the kids draw a picture of what they thought they might want to be when they grow up. I absolutley LOVE children's illustrations. Many of the kids also wanted to write what they wanted to be all by themselves!! I'm so proud of their progress and all of the learning that I see is so exciting!!

Letter Tiles

I had letter tiles set out today that the children worked with. They really enjoyed these and had fun matching the letters and spelling their own words. I love to watch literacy development!!

The letters on the mat are what I call "computer" letters. Then they get to match the tiles to the correct letter on the mat. It's important for children to know that letters can often look different, which is why I introduce "computer" letters (g, a, q, etc). Many kids might see these letters if they haven't been introduced to and have no idea what they are.

I also had the tile holders out so they could spell different words. I had a list of words set out on the table they could spell, but many just wanted to practice their names or family names or other words they like.

One boy said, "Miss Chelsea, how do you spell preparing taxes?" I couldn't help but chuckle......I guess we know what his parents must be doing - ha ha ha!!

Painting Fire

We were learning all about what policeman and firefighters do. The kids really enjoyed painting fire flames which corresponded with what firefighters do. I basically cut out fire flames and set out yellow and red paint for the children to paint with.

"Firefighters are so brave!"

Grocery lists

We were talking about Grocery Workers and I the kids write their own grocery lists. It was fun to watch them think about what they might find at the grocery store. I would either tell them how to spell the word as they wanted or I would write it down for them to copy. A few students aren't quite ready for that step so they would draw the pictures and I wrote down what they needed.

The kids would write their grocery lists and then bring their list to the "grocery store" I had set up in the dramatic play area to go shopping.

Shopping fun!!

Messy Table Madness

We've had some fun in the messy table with colored rice. Rice is always a favorite because of the great sensory feeling the kids can experience as the rice runs through their fingers and pour them into different containers, etc. The children seem to really love that it is colored........"How did you do that Miss Chelsea??"

You can make colored rice by placing rice in a large ziplock bag and adding about 1 or 2 tblsp. rubbing alcohol and then some food coloring. Mix the rice around in the bag until they are colored evenly. Lay the wet rice out on a cookie sheet or tray to dry. WA-LA!! This is also they way you would color noodles for necklaces or whatever.

We've also had water in the messy table to go with our "firefighter" career day. It's so fun to act out being like a firefighter or policeman. We've had a lot of things going on in our classroom this last few days........I can't wait to be ____________ when I grow up!!

Policeman hats and badges

What a better way to act like being a policeman then with some policeman wearing gear! There were a lot of hats and badges made and then being worn and role playing the life of a policeman.

From jail, speeding tickets, and helping lost kids.....our classroom was busy as the the life of a policeman!

This is the House that Jack Built

Our new unit is all about Careers - "Workers, Tools, and Uniforms". Today we got to learn all about Construction workers and Painters. I love teaching all about the types of things kids can do when they grow up. In the end, they usually want to be EVERYTHING!!

We painted houses at our Art Table and we got to build our own houses out of popsicle sticks at the Cut and Color Table. This was a great experience for the kids to give them a little more understanding of what Construction workers and painters might do, plus develop a few skills while they are at it!

Construction Worker Dramatic Play

I put set up a work bench for the children to work with at the dramatic play area for our Careers and Construction Worker day. They really seemed to enjoy this. I heard a lot of construction worker discussion and socializing going on.

"Hey, I'm building you a kitchen Miss Chelsea!"

"What does this measuring tape say? Is it going to be long enough to make my project?"

What great thought processing going on!!

In the past I've also set up large blue print papers for the children to draw, measure and figure out their projects on. My classroom is a little smaller this year.......maybe next year I could shrink the blue print book. The large one is just so fun and exciting for them to work in.

Fiddlesticks and legos

For some Small Manipulatives, I had Fiddlesticks and legos set out for the children to explore with. I saw some great things being built as they all worked on their awesome construction building skills!!