Preschool Mommy

This is a project we did as part of a unit on winter and polar animals.

To create the template, I took the picture I found of a teddy bear outline, (http://twistynoodle.com) inserted it into word, and wrote "My polar bear's name is.." underneath it.

For the class... I gave the children just the glue and the template to start off, and I showed them how to cover the entire inside of the template with the glue. Next, we used medium sized cotton balls to stick to the glue. Once most of them were finished, I talked to the group about what the bear was missing. With a little encouragement they figured out that he needed eyes, a nose, and a mouth. I then set out some plates with various materials on them: cut pieces of string, buttons, pom poms, and googly eyes, and let the kids go for it.

Now, I realize that these aren't your typical polar bears, more like polar bears from planet X, but I'm really not interested in cookie cutter artwork. I think forcing children to adhere to some adult idea of what is "right" just stifles them creatively. Not to mention having 12 polar bears that look exactly the same sounds kind of boring to me.

I have these displayed in the room right now, and they are pretty hysterical. I have some with 20 eyes on them, and others with nothing but buttons.






The children got pretty creative with the names they gave their bears as well. We had our fancy bears: Gabriella and Eala. Our islander bears: Tiki and Jaga. Our country music bear: Hank-O-Mise. Our traditional bear: Snowflake. Our big bear: Tiny. And last but not least the undefinable (and my personal favorite): Chicken. :)

Like many of my projects, I adapted this idea from one I got online. It is quite simple actually... You give the children pasta wheels, and have them glue them together with regular school glue, give it a day or two to dry, then paint it with white paint and silver glitter. Once they're dry, you can tie a string on one end to make them into ornaments. (I didn't do this since it was past x-mas time when we did it).

(These really weren't this shinny... it's just my flash.)

1. Do this on wax paper. You don't want to have to pick them up until they are dry, and once dry they will just stick to anything else.
2. School glue really does work, but try to make sure the children glue them in a bunch, not a line. I had some that did really neat designs pasting the wheels end to end, but they fell apart when I tried to remove them from the wax paper. An idea may be to draw little circles on the wax paper and ask the children to fill them in. I didn't do that.. it's just a thought.
3. I used the small pasta wheels because I thought it would be a good fine motor activity for them. It was, but I do think they would have looked much grander if we had used the larger ones. I also think they probably would have been easier to paint.

I got the printout for this on Makinglearningfun.com. The idea is the same. You place the number of goldfish crackers on the penguins belly to match the number on its fin. However, I wrote the number on its belly instead, and placed dots in specific spots on the numbers. Why did I do this? Well... as a child I remember being very frustrated when I was told that I couldn't count on my fingers so I developed my own system of counting on the actual numbers. This was something that helped me immensely as a child, and something I would like to pass on to my students. You see, by counting on the numbers the children are connecting the physical amount that the number represents to the numeric symbol. My hope is that this will help them to identify numbers, count using numbers, and as one parent pointed out, in the future write numbers.

Here is the sheet I made:

Okay... So this started out with the idea being that we would split up into teams, make walls with the large cardboard blocks, roll toilet paper into balls, and have a snowball fight. Instead it was more like a tearing, throwing, rolling, jumping, diving, super-crazy free for all.

And it was sooooo much fun!!

I had each child bring in one roll of toilet paper and we went crazy ripping and trowing it all around the room. The kids had a ball, and so did I, but there was one problem... lint. Holy &*^%) the lint!! It was so thick that I had to make the kids go outside to let it settle because it was starting to make us cough. Then, cleaning it up was ridiculous. I basically vacuumed the entire room.

I realized after the fact where I went wrong. You see, with my first class it wasn't so bad, but a lot of those parents had forgotten to bring in the TP, and I used some cheapo toilet paper I had on hand. I did, however, remember to send and email out to parents the night before my second class to remind them to bring a roll for their child so they all remembered. Well... I guess I have some families with sensitive tushies because I got some really high-class TP. And as you may know, the softer the toilet paper the more lint it creates. So my advice to anyone who would like to do this with their class is to get the cheapest, roughest, just short of sandpaper toilet paper you can find and go nuts! :)

This is such a simple idea, but it touches on so many important concepts: fine motor skills, ordering by size, and producing representational art.

For this activity I made white playdoh. (To make white play-doh, just follow the Homemade Play-doh Recipe and omit the food coloring). I also used some red play-doh that was ready to be replaced.

First, we talked about how a snowman looked. I drew a picture on the white board showing how a snow man was made up of three balls that got progesivly smaller as they were stacked on top of each other. Then, I showed (i.e. reminded :) ) the children how to roll play-doh into a ball by rolling it on the table. One at a time, we rolled the play-doh into 3 balls (small, medium, and large), and stacked them up largest to smallest. Next, we rolled the red play-doh into a snake, and placed it around the snowman's neck like a scarf. Finally, we added pipe cleaners for arms, and drew the faces on with marker. Here's one that a little girl in my class did. So cute!!

Tip: Place them on wax paper and give them a couple days to dry. They harden nicely but are very fragile.

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.)

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.

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.

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

• 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! :)

• 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.