Preschool Mommy

I've had a lot of fun doing this with my class, and the children have really gotten into it. The best part about it is that it is so easy to adapt to various age levels. All you need is a box - think large shoe box - with a hole in the side big enough for children to easily put their hands into and take things out of, but not so big that they can see into it. That's the whole super-secret mystery part. ;)

There are three ways you can use the super-secret mystery box:

1. This first activity is good for children ages 2 to 3 who are still working on basic verbal skills. I incorporate the letter of the week into the activity, but it is only in an effort to expose the children to letters and their sounds. At this age, the focus is really on getting them to talk, talk, talk. :) The children simply reach into the box, and name the item they take out. This week I placed a baby doll, book, bear, ball, and bananas (plastic of course) in the mystery box and the children took turns taking the items out, naming them and placing them in the "B" box. The "B" box will stay out until we do the letter "C" next week. However, the likelihood that the items will actually remain in the box that long is not too good.

2. For older preschoolers, you can place one item in the box, and have the children take turns feeling it and giving a one word description of it (long, square, rough etc.). Then ask the students to guess what it is. This is a great way to get them to think about the properties of things. The difficulty with this activity is finding an object that lends itself to a lot of descriptions. With a large class, it would be best to let all the children touch the item, then call on a few to describe it. You could also give the children a chance to make multiple guesses as to what it is, and see who's right.

3. Another way to challenge your older preschoolers is to place items in the box and ask them to simply guess what they are - only by touch. This might be a good follow-up to the 2nd activity, or you can slowly work your way up to more and more difficult items over time as the children get better at it. This activity is fun in that each child can be given a different item to feel.To start out, you could set out simple objects that might be in the box for the children to see, and have the children take turns guess which one they find in the box. Then, you can place more and more complex objects in the box over time to challenge them. My son loved this activity. He couldn't get enough of it, and I thought it was really fun too. My husband and I got so into it, we were trying to trick each other with some really tough choices, and were even guessing the letters on Sebastian's wood blocks. I totally won! ;)

I'm happy to say that we had our first day of school today, and it went really well! I am so lucky to have such a neat group of kids!

This is the activity we did for circle time:

This activity was based on the book "Oh My Baby Little One" by Kathy Appelt (A wonderful book for the first day of school).

On the bulletin board I had written a line from the book that said "This love will always be with you" and placed cut out hearts all around the classroom with excerpts from the book written on them for the children to find. After we read the book, I helped the children search the classroom for the hearts. As each heart was found, I read the words on it to the children, and placed it on the bulletin board. This made for a really sweet display once all the hearts were assembled around the quote on the board.

Although I think this is a cute first day activity, the children were (as I expected) too excited with all the new toys to really get into it. Not to mention, being a class of 2 -year-olds, it was their first such experience. I think it was a fun first activity for them, but an older class would probably really get into it.

With this activity, I've taken the typical paper snowflake and jazzed it up a bit. It is very simple to do, and since the paper is thin, it takes less strength to cut making it a good activity for preschool children. This does take a bit of skill using scissors so it would probably be best for children 3 and up - possibly younger with a lot of help. My 4-year-old was able to do it all by himself.

This is what you'll need

• One 4 cup round coffee filter (white)
• Markers
• Newspaper
• Spray bottle
• Scissors

Directions:

• Lay out the newspaper and flatten the coffee filters out on top of it.
• Have the child(ren) color the coffee filter with markers - making sure they use a lot of colors.
• Once they have finished coloring their filter, have them spray it with water until the colors start to blend.(Make sure they don't spray too close - you want them to mist, not soak, it)
  
• Leave it on the newspaper to dry.
• Once the filters have dried, remove them from the newspaper.
• Have the child fold the filter in half, then in half again

• Next, show them how to cut the filter on all three sides, making sure to leave portions of the folded area connected.
• Unfold, and voila! Tie-dye snowflakes! :)

Variation: If you want to make these look more traditionally tie-dyed:

• Grab the center of the filter and pull the ends together like a cone.
• Tie rubber bands or twisty ties around the filter.
• Color and spray.
• Let dry.
• From this point you just follow the same directions as above.

My son says hysterical things on a daily basis, and I thought it would be fun to jot down some of the funny things he, and the kids in the school say. Hopefully,over time, this will grow to be a great collection of some really funny stuff.

Where Honey Comes From
This all takes place around the table at lunchtime. Sebastian is eating chicken nuggets with honey - the lunch time favorite of 4-year-olds everywhere - and we get into a discussion about honey. He wants to know if honey has vitamin c in it (his current obsession), and I say that honey is basically just a "natural" sugar because bees make it. Then he holds up the little bear shaped honey container and says very confidently "The bees just open the top of the bear, and pee honey in there." :)

Gotta love kids!

I used to teach art so I do a lot of art projects with my son. Here are a couple projects we did recently using unusual items for painting.

String Painting
This is one I'd never done before. Sebastian wanted to play with some of the string we got at the store, and I was going to try to teach him to braid and tie knots, but then he said he wanted to paint so I thought to combine the two. I simply squirted some paint on a Styrofoam tray, and placed one piece of string in each color. We used a plastic fork to push the strings into the paint because Sebastian didn't want to get his hands dirty (don't even get me started on that :P). I would show him one way to paint with the string, and give him a little time to try what I showed him before introducing another method.
We tried:dragging the string, laying it down carefully in straight lines, lightly tapping it on the paper, and running it carefully along the paper in curved lines.
I think it turned out great! And we had a lot of fun!


Knife and Fork Painting
Before I even begin... yes I'm talking about PLASTIC forks and knives. Jeez, what kind of mother do you think I am. ;)

This project actually came out of the string painting project. Sebastian wiped the fork we were using on the paper, and I was curious to see what he could do with it. I introduced the knife later after I realized what a cool idea this was. The great part about this project is watching them explore all the different ways they can make marks using the fork and knife. Sebastian really experimented with the utensils - especially the knife. He spread the paint like butter, scratched the paint with the serrated edge, sliced at the paint.. everything. The fork couldn't hold much paint but made great scratch marks on the paper and cool dots. I'm going to try thickening the paint next time and see how that works. I'll let you know....

Here is his painting. I love it!!

This blog is mostly about sharing the work I'm doing for my preschool with other teachers and parents. But above all else I'm a mom, and as a mom who really has no life outside of my children and this school (if you couldn't tell), I've discovered a lot of online resources for parents. So I thought I would share with you some of the great web sites I've relied on over the past several years. I hope you will find them as helpful as I have.

• SafeFetus.com - This was so wonderful resource when I was pregnant. It's an enormous database of medications, and how they are graded for pregnancy and breastfeeding.
• Kellymom - Great resource for breastfeeding and parenting.
• Baby 411 and Toddler 411 Developmental Checklists. - I love these checklists because they show age ranges.
• Family Watchdog - A searchable database on sex offenders.
• Skin Deep Cosmetic Database - This database lists detailed information about the substances in health and beauty products, and rates their toxicity.
• HealthyToys.org - A guide to toxic chemicals in toys. Also contains a database of the results of hundreds of toys and baby products tested for lead, bromine, cadmium, chlorine, arsenic and mercury.
• Kids-In-Mind - This is great site for parents who want more information about the movies their children are seeing than the rating system can provide. Movies are broken down by three categories: sex/nudity, violence/gore, and profanity. Ratings are given for each, but the really useful part is the detailed information they provide about the movie under each category.
• Car-Safety.org - This site contains a wealth of information on vehicle and car seat safety.

I am the queen of Craigslist, I love yard sales, and am on a first name basis with the local consignment sellers. This is the only way I could have gotten all the materials I needed for the school. I have to admit that I have a disease for good deals because I CAN'T STOP!! But it is so much fun!

As you know, classroom furniture is ridiculously expensive, so I had to get creative. Here is some of the furniture I've gotten for my classroom:

Quite possibly my favorite is my art table. I needed a table that would fit 6-8 kids and couldn't afford to buy something full price. After searching for children's furniture online for a while - I was looking for a cheap train table - I had an epiphany. Children's tables are just regular tables with shorter legs... duh. I decided to look for just a nice "all wood" table, and I found a really cute kitchen table on Craigslist for $25. It didn't come with any chairs. Then, I went to Home Depot and they cut the legs off for me for free (to 20 inches table top height), and I just added some pads to the feet

Now I needed some chairs, but since I was short on space I opted to use stools. These little stools were only $9.00 each at IKEA. My mother in law was kind enough to pick them up for me so I didn't have to pay shipping. Now that I think about it... I didn't pay her anything. Oops. Sorry. :P

Another great buy was my TV stand. Yes... TV stand. I'm not playing Barney for the kids or anything -we're more of a Blues Clues house anyway :). I use it to store toys. TV stands, although soon to be extinct, are perfect for storing toys. They are low to the ground, have deep shelves, and can handle heavy loads (namely my kids' 5 billion toys!). I use two TV stands in my room, one I've had since college (yes, it is that old), and the other I got at Goodwill for $30. It was missing the doors which is why it was so cheap, and also why it was so perfect. I didn't want the doors.

Cubbies are also fairly expensive. I just got some of the cubicles made by Closet Maid, and turned them on their side. They make perfect cubbies for toys or for storing students' things. I found mine for sale at Target, but you can also find them at Wal-mart and AC Moore.
(Tip: AC Moore always has coupons on their web site)

I also found the cutest mirror on Craigslist. It's a child's full length mirror - shatterproof - soooo adorable. And I can't find a way to get it up on my classroom wall because of the chair rail. Double oops!

Do you have any good ideas for classroom storage and furniture? Please share!