Preschool Mommy

This is such a fun and easy sensory activity for little ones. Best of all, it's completely non-toxic. The neat thing about goop is that it feels solid when you pick it up, but melts in your hands. The children were so fascinated by this (at least the ones that would get their hands dirty :P) that they kept playing with it for probably 45 or more minutes.

Ingredients

• Cornstarch
• Water

Yes, that's all! You will need a lot of cornstarch. If you can get a big bag of it at a wholesale club - do it. I let my membership slide so I had to get 6 boxes for each class at the supermarket, and it still wasn't quite as much as I would have liked

Directions:

• You will want to start with a little bit of cornstarch in the sensory bin (approximately 2 cups). Ask the children to describe how it feels.
• Next, add and equal amount of water, and have the children mix it until the cornstarch is mostly dissolved.
• Continue adding cornstarch and water until your sensory bin/ table is filled and it is the consistency you like.

Depending on the ratio of water to cornstarch, the goop will behave differently. Play with it and explore how it feels. It's super fun!

***Tip: Do this outside. It gets really messy, but is a breeze to clean up with the hose.***

This was a great activity that I wanted to share. I did it for Halloween, but you could also do it for Thanksgiving.

I got a large carving pumpkin and placed it in my sensory bin (outside - this gets messy). First, I asked the children what was inside the pumpkin (teasing them that it was full of kitty cats or bunnies, etc.). Next, I cut open the pumpkin and we all removed the insides and placed it in the sensory table for them to explore. We talked about how the pumpkin insides felt - wet, slimy, slippery etc. and worked together to separate the seeds from the stringy goop. (I reserved a few seeds for us to plant in the garden.) I explained to the children that we were going to cook the pumpkin seeds, and filled up a pot to boil water on the stove. We boiled our seeds for 10 minutes on high heat. Afterward, the children helped me stir butter into the seeds, spread them on the pan, and sprinkle salt over them. We placed the seeds into the oven (275 degrees) and cooked them until browned.

Later we took the reserved seeds and insides, and planted them in the garden in the backyard. We'll see if they grow. :)

The great thing about this activity is that it was like a million lessons in one:

• We predicted what was inside the pumpkin
• Used our vocabulary to describe how the pumpkins insides felt
• Worked our fine motor skills removing the seeds from the stringy insides
• Discussed how water boils (I asked them questions like: "how do we boil water? and "What does water look like when it's boiling?" I also showed them what the water looked like when it was boiling)
• We talked about stove and oven safety
• Learned about how butter melts when heated up
• Counted the number of minutes to boil the water and cook the seeds
• Saw how the seeds changed when cooked
• Planted the seeds in the garden.
  

***And when we were done with the pumpkin, I got a bunch of tees and we beat them into the pumpkin using plastic hammers - a good gross motor activity. ***

Overall, this was an awesome activity. My only complaint is that the seeds took too long to cook, and they weren't finished before the children went home. My oven is a little strange (gas) and sometimes recipes take longer than they should to cook in it. Next time, I will have to cook them at a higher heat.

I thought I would take a moment to share my centers with other teachers (or parents) who might be looking for ideas on how to put together an attractive and economical classroom. I've had a ton of fun putting these classrooms together. My goal has been to make something beautiful and whimsical, but also functional. I hope you like them. :)

I have two rooms that I use for my school.

THE BLUE ROOM - The main classroom is what I call the "noisy room" and contains the dramatic play, blocks, art, and music centers.

DRAMATIC PLAY- The kitchen was a gift from Santa for my kids a year before I started the program. It is, by far, the most expensive thing in the room. The dress up clothes are hung up on command strip hooks. They're cheap and easy to move around. They can, and will, pull the drywall off your wall if pulled too hard as you can see in this picture. I will fix it...eventually. ;) I also use crates a lot to hold things. They're tough, cheap and don't look to bad when used sparingly. For the small figures, animals, cars trucks etc. I organized them into separate bins with labels I created using clip art.

ART - In my art center, I have an easel (one is all I have the room for) and a shelf full of art materials that the children have free access to: play-doh and play-doh tools, paper, markers, paints, recycled art materials, tape, white and colored glue, scissors, stickers, and of course, paper.If you look at the top of the image you will be able to see the little foil stars suspended from the ceiling. These cover the ceiling of the entire room. They are simply stars cut from foil and hung using fishing wire.








MUSIC - My radio is the only thing off limits in the room, for obvious reasons, but the children have free access to a range of musical instruments. The larger instruments are on the shelf and the smaller ones are in the crate. They can also use headphones to listen to music if they wish. You can see on the side of the shelf where I took a page from a torn touch and feel book and taped it there for the children to enjoy. I actually took apart the entire book (after Olivia destroyed it), cut it up and taped the pages all over both of the rooms.




BLOCKS - I got these Melissa and Doug blocks (2 sets) with coupons at A.C. Moore. I just couldn't find a better deal anywhere else. The shelf is just a simple book shelf. I placed the blocks next to the dramatic play area so the blocks can be incorporated into the children's play with the small figures and vehicles.


THE RED ROOM - This room is called the red room for obvious reasons. It is also the quiet room. It contains the manipulative, reading, writing and science centers.
READING CORNER - This is my favorite spot in the whole school. This is where the children can go read a book or get away and snuggle with a stuffed animal. I created the space by turning my old china cabinet to the side and attaching a piece of cloth to the back. The couch is actually a toddler bed with a folded mattress pad on the bottom and pillows lining the back. The canopy is one that you would put over a child's bed.

WRITING - My writing center is simply my old coffee table with different sized markers, pens, various kinds of paper and stencils on it. I used a Closet-maid shoe storage cubby for mailboxes. Since my students are still at the pre-reading level, each of their mailboxes is labeled with their names and a symbol they each got to choose before school started. Children can recognize a simple symbol more readily than they can a name so they are able to tell who's box is who's, at the same time they are learning that written symbols can have abstract meanings.


MANIPULATIVES - Manipulatives take up a large portion of the red room. This is probably because I don't separate them into math, language, etc. I have puzzles and games available in the china cabinet to the right of this shelf. My manipulatives vary from Mr. Potato Head to Montessori's Pink Tower.

The children use the manipulatives how they wish. If they want to build the tower from largest to smallest - great. If they want to put the blocks into cups and pretend they're tea - that's cool too.

I rotate the materials on low tables to encourage the children to try new things and to keep up their interest. In this picture I have magnablocks on the small table and number peg cards and dressing boards on the longer table. The shelf is for displaying artwork and setting art to dry.



SCIENCE - My science center is small. Really, the outside area is the best science center in my opinion. I also do a lot of science related projects with the children, but I have this center available to them all the time. In my science center, I keep plants, binoculars, magnifying glasses and items for them to look at (shells, rocks, bark). I also have a kaleidoscope and some VERY cool magnets.

This was sooo much fun! It's messy though. Remember to put paint shirts on the kids, and be prepared with paper towels and spray cleaner.

First you have to make the ice cubes. Here's what you'll need:

• Ice cube trays
• Popsicle sticks (you can get small ones or break them in half)
• Aluminum foil
• Liquid watercolors (This is the key. Using food coloring does not turn out nearly so bright and colorful. I have only found these at Discount School Supply.)

Here's how to make them:

1. Take the ice cube tray and fill each section 3/4 of the way full with the liquid watercolors. I used red, yellow, and blue so the children could see how those colors blend to make secondary colors. One tray will go a long way. I used one for about 10 kids, and I had a good bit left over.
2. Next fill each section the rest of the way with water.*
3. Place the foil over the entire tray pressing it down so you can see the divisions between the sections.
4. Finally, push a popsicle stick through the foil in each section (you may want to pierce the foil with a knife first). The foil will hold the sticks up straight until the water freezes.
5. Let it freeze overnight.

The activity:
Before you begin, explain to the children that these are paints and must not be eaten. They're non-toxic, but do temporarily stain the skin. Twist the tray to release the cubes, and place them in a small container in the middle of the table for the children to share. These totally bleed through paper, but are pretty easy to clean off of hard surfaces. Clothes, however, well that remains to be seen. :P

Here are a few of the pictures. The lighting isn't the best. They are even prettier in person!

* Be careful to leave a little space at the top, or you'll have nothing but brown ice cubes. ;)

This was a wonderful idea, (stolen from Sid the Science Kid) poorly executed. This is definitely one of those activities where YOU can learn from my mistakes. Here's what I did....

The children and I put a bunch of fruit (i.e. grapes and strawberries) in a large Tupperware, filled it with water, covered it, and placed it in the freezer. We talked about what we thought would happen to the water and fruit. Some of the kids said they would turn into popsicles. I thought that was cute. :) The following class, I took the container out of the fridge and dumped the, now, big block of ice into a large bin. Then, the children felt the ice, and gave me ideas of how we could get to the fruit inside. I got ideas like: put it in the pantry, put it in the closet, melt it with cold water, melt it with hot water, etc.

Good so far, right? Here's where things start to fall apart.

We decide to melt it with hot water. So I gave each child a cup of water to pour over top of the ice, and I had a large pitcher. We counted one... two.. three.. and poured. Oops! The ice melted, but not enough to release any fruit. I had to go back to the sink (all the way in the kitchen) about 5 times. Meanwhile, the children were getting bored. Finally, all the ice melted, and we got the fruit. The grapes were wonderful, but the strawberries were mushy - I probably should have anticipated that. I also probably should have anticipated that getting a huge bin full of water out of the room might be difficult. I picked it up, one side gave way and - SPLASH - it went all over the floor. I raced to the sink to dump what was left, spilling much more water in the process, and proceeded to race around the room trying to clean up all of the water before someone fell. In the end, the kids really enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, did not.

However, I can learn from my own mistakes!!!

I did a few things differently with my other class. First of all, I did it outside - MUCH BETTER! Second, I was prepared with a couple pitchers. The strawberries still stunk though. Next time, I will only use grapes.

We are currently learning all about plants, and I wanted to help the children learn about seeds in a way that was fun and hands-on. This was definitely it.

I purchased some fruits and vegetables at the store: tomatoes, green beans, lemons, oranges, cucumbers, and grapes. After talking about how plants grow from seeds, I sat the children down at the table and told them that we would be looking inside all of the fruits and vegetables to see what kinds, and how many, seeds they had. One at a time, I showed them a fruit or vegetable and had them take turns guessing how many seeds were inside it. Then, I cut it open, and we counted the number of seeds to see who was the closest..... then we ate them.

The children had a ton of fun guessing the number of seeds and eating the yummy fruits and vegetables. Not only was it a fun way to learn about seeds, but we got to make predictions and practice counting as well. :)

***A great book that we read to go along with this activity was "A fruit is a Suitcase for Seeds by Jean Richards."***

This is an activity we did to learn to distinguish between living and non-living things.

First, at circle time we talked about the traits of living things: They need air, water, food, and they grow (they also reproduce, but I wasn't sure I wanted to get into this discussion with the kids so I mainly stuck to the other 4. :) ) Next, I held up pre-cut images (with the pictures facing away from the children) and the children each took turns choosing an image, telling the class whether it was living or non-living and placing it on our board under the correct grouping.

The children did surprisingly well distinguishing between the two.



Next, we looked at 3 flowers that I planted, and three rocks I placed in small dishes. I told the children the one flower and rock would get plenty of sun and water, another rock and flower would get no water, and the last flower and rock would get no sunlight. Then, I asked the children to predict what would happen. Now this is where it gets interesting... Most of the children knew that with the proper light and water the flower would grow, and without it the flower would die. However, they thought the same thing would happen to the rocks. Even after I asked them if the rocks were living things and they said "no."
We have been watching these silly flowers and rocks for a week now, and I have to say that those are some pretty darn resilient flowers. They look way too good! I'm hoping they start to wilt a little soon or my lesson may be kaput. :P As soon as I see them start to noticeably wilt, we'll discuss our findings, and I'll have the children plant them outside.

Here is a picture of our science table with the flowers and rocks. The big red thing is the construction paper shielding the one flower from the sun. The other piece of paper is covering the rock.

This is such a cool activity, but I have 2 issues with it:
1. I tried to squeeze this all into one day and it really should have been two. It was a bit too much all at once.

and

2. I'm afraid that by the time these flowers actually start to wilt the children will have completely forgotten why we had them there in the first place. We'll see....