Preschool Mommy

This is the only homemade art recipe that has ever worked for me. (I have to say it may just be me). I won't even elaborate at the disaster that was my attempt at making finger paints my first week teaching - think rotten eggs and an entire Kindergarten and Pre-k evacuated. Oh yes. I did that. :) This recipe, however, is awesome. I love this play-doh. It gets softer as you work it, molds perfectly, and is completely safe (though not too tasty) to eat. Thank you to my friend Heather for sharing it with me.

Here's what you'll need:

• 2 cups of flour
• 1 cup of salt
• 1 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 2 tablespoons oil (I used canola. I wouldn't advise using olive oil)
• 2 cups of water
• 1+ tablespoons of food coloring

Directions:

• Mix all the ingredients in a sauce pan adding the food coloring last. (I found that this worked best if I stirred everything up a bit before turning on the stove.) DO NOT PREHEAT!
• Heat over medium to medium low heat stirring constantly. This will get tough. Keep a partner on hand to switch off with.
  
• The play-doh will start coming off the side of the pan a little. Stir just a minute or so longer.
• Remove the play-doh from the pan and lay it on the wax paper to cool down enough to touch.
• Knead until smooth
• Once cooled seal in an airtight container or Ziploc bag.

This activity was a hit with my 2-3 year old class. The younger ones needed a little help with the pipe cleaners, but it was a great way to work their fine motor skills, and teach them a little about spiders.

What you'll need:

• Play-doh (Homemade play-doh recipe)
• Pipe cleaners
• Cheerios
• Wax paper

Directions:

• Give the children a palm (your palm) sized chunk of play-doh.
• For older children you can have them work it into a ball, but you will probably have to help the younger ones. Wrap their hands around the play-doh to show them how to mold it, and then show them how to roll it in their hands or on the table to help round it out.
• Next give them eight pipe cleaners and have them stick them into the top of the play-doh any way they want.
• Once they're finished, flip over the play-doh, spreading the pipe cleaners to the sides, and have them push it down with the palms of their hands.
• Finally, place a bowl of Cheerios in the middle of the table and let them press as many as they want down into the top of the spider. They will probably eat more than they place on the spider, but that's all part of the fun.

Here's what one of our final ones looked like. I personally like color, but you could definitely use black play-doh and pipe cleaners if you want a more traditional looking spider.

This is a neat way to get kids writing and spelling. It started out with Sebastian writing little notes to his sister telling her not to touch the TV, stove etc. (She's only 1 1/2 and obviously can't read, but we didn't mention that :) )All we did was take 2''X3'' index cards and write labels on them for items around the house, then attached them to the items with tape. He already knew his letter sounds pretty well so this was a fun way of working on more complex phonics.


Through this activity we reviewed:

1. The "oo" sound in book
2. The "ll" sound in wall
3. The "sh" sound as in trash
4. The "ch" sound in chair
5. The "ck" sound in clock
6. The "st" sound in stove
7. And the silent "e" in gate.


It was so fun, he had no idea he was learning. ;)

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!