Artic Friends

Each year at the end of my winter unit I do a unit on Arctic friends, animal and people.  We talk about Alaska and the north pole and Northern lights.  the last two years I have had the children paint their interpretation of northern lights at the easel.  We water down tempera ( about 1/2 and 1/2)  and they begin brushing from the top and letting it drip down.  We use yellow, red and blue.  They turn out very nice.Sorry I have no pictures


During this week we also learn about polar bears, penguins, walruses, seals and whales.  We pretend to do scrimshaw on walrus tooth.  For this we use Styrofoam plates and cut teeth shapes out.  They then draw on the Styrofoam with a shish kabob skewer pointy end and then we brush black tempera on and rub it off.  It leaves the design in the groves and gives the effect of scrimshaw.

For a penguin activity we spend every line waddling like penguins and  we make a penguin fact book that looks like a giant penguin.  I have elaborated on the idea I originally found for the book by having the children take two large black ovals we fold one hot dog style and crease the line in.  They cut on the line, to make the wings,  we take a small orange oval and they cut hamburger style to make the feet.  The children are cutting and learning about folding vertically and horizontally.  The eyes are sticker and the beak is folded paper that I have pre-cut triangles in to make the beak.  We have 5 round balls with the penguin words on them.  I want to say this came from and old Mailbox magazine, but I am not positive.  The title is PENGUIN PALS.  We sort our 5 pages and put them in order and staple our little book.  We then add the white round book to the center of our oval penguin and there you have the giant penguin book.  This is not art, because the children don't have total free reign on what they accomplish.  This is a learning project which involves, listening ears, cutting, folding, and pre-reading skills. Everyones wings end up in different directions and they are funny.  The children think it is fun though, so that makes it great for me.  After all who wouldn't like a giant penguin book.  I sweet mom took a picture of her daughters penguin along with a snowman that we got the idea from another teacher blog.  Both turned out so cute

The last thing we did this for the finale of our winter studies was make the sock snowman that I saw on another blog.  I have been hunting all afternoon for the link and have yet to find who to give the credit to.  It was wonderful.  And the children have something to really keep.

5 things I love about my job

I love everything about my job, I can't think of 5 specifics, I love the fun we have in the classroom, the parents present and past that affirm I am doing what I am suppose to be doing, the children who struggle and the children who get it right off the bat. I love the assistant that I have that just goes about and gets stuff done while I am interacting with the children.  How lucky I am.

GAMES FOR CHRISTMAS---- BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

I love playing games with my class friends.  During December we spend the entire month playing games to remind us of different parts of the Christmas story.  The first week we talk about the angel visiting Mary to tell her that she would be the mother of God's son Jesus.  We make hand print angels and a child acts out the angel part in the story.  On the last day of class I hide white feathers all over the class and tell them to remember our story this week their are angel wing feathers hidden all over the room.  The children love finding and keeping the feather.
The week we talk about the wisemen following the star to Bethlehem.  I hide 5 construction paper stars with the letters J, E, S, U, S on them.  When they children find all the stars we have to figure out what the letters spell.  Once we figure it out we put them on our wall for another game we play at our Christmas party. 
Notice  Christmas party not Holiday party.  I love being at a Christian school where we can celebrate our Christian heritage and the birth of Jesus our Savior.  " God loved us, and sent His son"  John 3:16 (simplified for preschool)  One of my favorite sites for getting Bible ideas is http://www.daniellesplace.com/.



Mrs. Nanette spinning the next player

Finally at our Happy Birthday Jesus celebration, we play a game called put the baby in the manger.  The children color the baby Jesus and then just as you play pin the tail on the donkey, we put the baby in the manger.  Everyone wins, but the real winners get first prize pick. 

Trash Bag SNOWMAN IMPROVED

I talked about my trashbag snowman last year and in my winter time 2 post.  I did it, wrapped the bags in batting and hot glued.  I made felt pieces and what great results.  The bags stayed stacked and the children had alot of fun. 

 

LAST YEAR'S TRASH BAG
SNOWMAN



THIS YEARS BATTING COVERED
IMPROVED

IN PROGRESS



COMPLETED!!! They worked and talked and made a fine snowman in the classroom.   Best of all we actually have real snow right now this year in Allen Tx, so they got to experience the real thing at home.  Some years, this little man is all they get!

 

Winter time fun.... #2

What a fun week, we played, we learned, we sang, we had a great week.  We did lot's of white things this week because our color was white.  For several years I have done this winter art that someone shared with me.  You color a snow scene on blue construction paper and then do a wash of epson salts and water over it.  As it drys the epson salts makes a milky crystal glaze over the page.  Winter time!!!!!!
     I think the most fun thing we did was mix up ingredients to make our own hot chocolate and then we had "snownuts" , which are really powder sugar donuts.  What made it all even more fun was my finding a site with a cute little song to use and some other great hot chocolate ideas, like counting marshmellows in a cup, and something I will definitely use next year, using a large marshmellow with white paint on brown paper, to show the marshmellow in the chocolate. The site for the hot chocolate was a blog called
littlefingersthatplay.blogspot.com. 
Look back to last years winter post for a trashbag snowman idea.  A teacher friend of mine just did this last week and she just stuffed the bags ahead of time for all the children to use the 3  trash bag balls and all the supplies for a snow man in homeliving.  I loved her revision of the idea.  We talked about how it would be cool to wrap those bags in batting, and put velcro on them so they would stay stacked better so I will be trying that out this weekend.  with batting I think that you could even use felt pieces for the buttons and eyes nose and mouth, and just have a variety of hats and scarfs for them to choose from. 

On another note, the sensory table is usually filled with Steven Spanglers fake snow, and letter cubes, and other white things, for a snow sensation, but I did not realize in time that I was out of the wonderful stuff.  This year I am using the fake snow from the Christmas decorations.  It has not got the same feel but it looks like snow.  This week we had to find the letters and make the words hot, cold and winter, next week I will add white packing peanuts for them to pick up with tongs and scoop up with scoopers. 

Wintertime fun

As we get ready to head back to class, I get excited once again to share my favorite collection of Wintertime ideas.  Check my last years January blog for our trashbag snowmen.  This year I am trying some new things as well as using some of my old favorites. A great game to use during these units is a game called Thin ice. I have seen two versions, and I think mine may be an older version, but the children pick up marbles with game tongs (great fine motor exercise}and place on a piece o tissue that is held tight in a hoop.  The goal is to see how many marbles it takes to break the ice.  It is a great resource to use with older preschool children needing those fine motor muscles to be getting strong. 

There are many games that help with motor skills along with learning how to communicate, and share with each other. Children with speech delays, or other auditory issues gain so much from the interaction in a good game.  If you don't have access to games make your own by purchasing some dice.

Snow man building game
 Have the children take turns rolling the dice, rather than giving each child their own.
 Let them build a snow man.  You can either just draw picture of different parts ( eye, nose, mouth etc) and have them place those on a pre-printed snowman, or you could have them roll for the snow balls. They would have to roll a 1, 2 or 3.  and if they had rolled a 2 they would have to roll a 1 to finish up their snowman before starting on the parts.   As I am thinking about this I have seen so many cute little decorated snowmen, why couldn't they roll and make that cute little snow man to keep.
  A game and craft all in one.  Love that multi tasking...just sayin....
All this said, I am ready to get back to work and play with my little friends.

5 Senses- Gingerbread Man theme this week

What fun we are having but whew, so many ideas and so much to do before Christmas.  My class has one birthday each month for all of the friends that have a birthday in a particular month.  Today was THAT day.  We have 9 December birthday friends.  I have my birthday friend parents pick something to help with a simple party and we take pictures, play a game, sing the birthday song and have cup cakes all in about 30 minutes.  It is a whirlwind of fun.  The children have seemed to really enjoy it.  I started doing this several years ago when I realized how many cup cakes per month we could actually have to endure.  Saves my sanity and makes it alot more fun. 


Now on to the Gingerbread man senses week.  It is always one of my favorites, and if there were more weeks between the Thanksgiving and Christmas break it could definitely last longer.  We read many different versions of the story of the gingerbread man.  I love doing senses at Christmas because our senses are stimulated by all sorts of sounds, sights, smells, tastes and things to touch. 
There are a gazillion wonderful websites with gingerbread activities on them, and most of the things I do come from one of those, though occasionally I have a brainstorm.  I actually had one this week by accident. 

I had done a whole bowl of different punches for patterning, which I had read about doing last year.  I made way to many and thought it might be fun to cut out a paper tree and get out some glue sticks and have the children decorate the tree.  It was a hit.  They were not required to participate it was just out there and they would come by glue a few on and move on.  We added sticky bows as well because I had a bag I had purchased to use in the paint center this week.  Yes we dipped our bows in red and green paint and painted with them.  Very pretty!!!!! 

A few years ago I bought some clearance gingerbread men place mats at Target.  I planned to just use them in the class a s a giant Gingerbread man, but then I had the idea to sew velcro on the back and let the children use buttons, and trim and stuff to decorate them.  They have been fun ever since.  I think you could make your own either using felt or fabric with velcro on it.

The wise men gave--------

A quick idea or 2 before Christmas..... December and November were so busy I am hoping to post some ideas and add pictures between Christmas and New Years.  
My class is big on drawing pictures for class made books.  It try to come up with many ideas because those books are the favorite to read during rest time.  Not enough to go around yet, but as the year continues more will be added.  The favorite right now is How many apples on top.  I got the idea from a teaching website.  I take a picture of the child's face and glue it to a paper.  On the top of the paper I type _________ has ______ apples on top.  They roll the dice to see how many apples they will draw on top of their head.  At the bottom I write   ___ apples are on the ground.   They again roll the dice to draw on the bottom of the page.  Lesson on math and spatial awareness. 
At Christmas I use to do this little Wise man page with 3 blank squares.  The children would paste gold paper on one, squirt perfume on another and a little spice on another.  We then would take 3 squares of wrapping paper and tape them over the gifts at the top to make a flap.  We added little mini stick on bows and I would write for them the gifts of the wise men  gold, frankincense and myrrh.  This year I had a little brain storm to make a class book but ended up letting the children take their page home.  At the top I had typed out  The Wise men brought gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.   There was a big square in the middle of the page and at the bottom I wrote  If I could give baby Jesus a gift I would give him_________.
I was amazed to find that only one child wanted to give him toys.  One wanted to give him milk, several wanted to give him a flower, and I don't remember everything they said but it was cute.  The children drew a picture in the box of what we would give and then we taped a big square of wrapping over for the flap and put a bow on our present.  I could not figure out how to make it last as a book, but when I do we will keep them in class next year. 

One quick little idea.  Home made play dough, if your little ones are getting fresh play dough make it homemade.  IT lasts longer, and works better.  You can even make surprise play dough by poking a hole in the middle and putting a few squirts of food color in the middle.  When the children squeeze their play dough it will make a color as they mix the coloring in.  Don't put too many squirt 3 little ones is enough to give color and not make a huge mess.  My favorite recipe is:
My Favorite Play dough Recipe
(this is a double batch)
2 Cup flour
1 Cup salt
4 tsp. cream of tarter
2 T. oil
2 Cup water
food color or unsweet koolaide (for smelly play dough)
Put dry ingredients in a sauce pan. Stir in water and oil and coloring, while cooking over med heat. Cook until mixture comes away from the pan and begins to ball up. Store in air tight container. Keeps for a very long time.

5 things about my job, I missed a week or two

I still love my job, and one of the things I love is when the children are reciting the pledge of allegiance, a Bible verse, or anything, they have their own words they use.  They don't exactly hear the words that are actually used.  As I think about it to share, I only remember when my nephew was small he thought that Jesus froze rather than rose.  Children put a whole new spin on almost everything.  2. I love my classroom.   It is a comfortable size.   3. I love my teacher friends because they share and care with each other 4. I love the fun Christmas stuff we are doing right now 5. I love that the children are glad to see me each morning and do not want to leave early because they might miss something.  How thankful I am to work in the enviornment I do, There is no place like it in the world.

the First Thanksgiving/ a little history for for PreK

Well a fun week last week, we turned a table upside down to become pilgrims and sail to the new land.  I never got around to taking pictures but it was fun.  I have collected some good info to use with preschool children on the pilgrims coming to America.  We talked about what they would need to take for such a long journey and http://www.daniellesplace.com/ has some awesome resources to help with that.  We talked about how the boys and girls had to leave all their toys behind and they played with things on the ship.  We had food, dishes, suit case, clothes and other things that you might need to pack if you were sailing across the ocean to a new land.   Another great resource is from http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/  in their printable books they have a book called Pilgrim, Pilgrim.  It is a great very simple resource for the Pilgrims story.  In block center we used lincoln logs to represent the homes the pilgrims might have built after their arrival. 
We added a tee pee to our home living and the Mayflower left about mid week and we talked about how they had help from Native Americans and how they helped them learn about some new crops to grow.  They worked together and celebrated the First Thanksgiving in the new country.  We made Indian head bands with feathers out of sentence strips.  I wanted the activity to be a math center activity so I cut triangles, circles and rectangles out of many colors of paper.  I told the children we needed to make a pattern out of the shapes.  I did not want to worry about the colors because I wanted their head bands to be very colorful.  It was very interesting how some children not only patterned the shapes but also the colors.  Some patterned the way they placed their triangles and rectangles as well.  It turned out to be a great patterning math activity.  Random thoughts to teach often turn out the best.
Our school is a Christian school and for us this whole month has been learning about praying and thanking God for all he gives.  We read a book that was called  I  am Thankful Each Day. It was a great book to use to help the children think of the small and grand things in life all around us to be thankful for.