our week of sunflowers

Fall is a lovely time to study sunflowers. Our literature for the week was The Lion and the Mouse. I added sunflowers to the mix since they were growing all over town and in season. It helps that a sunflower can resemble an artistic lion...if you squint a bit.

 

My sunflowers at home had gone past a few weeks before and I saved one of the dried head for exploration. Since I had no fresh flowers I picked up a bouquet at Trader Joe's and popped them all about the classroom. One large bunch was featured on our nature and science table and one of the students got to exploring it with a cinnamon stick. Of course!

 

 

Before placing the flower head on the table, I brushed at it a bit to make it a smidge less pokey. The children explored it with our magnifying glasses and used tweezers to remove seeds.

We also had a jar of store bought seeds for scooping and pouring. SOe of the seeds made their way to our play-dough table.

 

I made the dough and added a bit of lavender oil for scent. Add some seeds and some glitter and the children played and played for the longest time!

As we observed our sunflowers, the children named the colors they saw and we sorted our beads to make our own sunflower colored bracelets.

There was also some dissection going on. We wrote down the words the children used to describe what they saw, felt, and smelled. We talked about our senses as we made our observations.

 

The children painted up egg cartons and scooped out seeds into green paper envelopes to take home for home sorting and playing. They were so proud! At the end of the week I sent the children home with a recipe for chocolate covered sunflower seed oatmeal cookies. Those were super tasty! We also did a lot of arty projects which I will post next. Sunflowers were a lot of fun to explore for the week. We will definitely do it again!

thank you pinterest...

...and all you crafty bloggers out there who share your ideas! Last week we read Fletcher and the Falling Leaves and worked on all sorts of Thanksgiving fun found through pinterest!

 This fine motor activity was inspired by Twoodaloo. I used floral foam cut to fit one of our small wooden crates. The picks were made by me, using stickers from Michael's and construction paper. Out of all of these projects, this one took the most prep time but the children loved it! Though it may be that they really loves the sound of the toothpicks going into the foam. Feathers were great too!

 This awesome rainbow button turkey inspired by Raptor Mama. This one I did turn into a color matching game as well as the fine motor aspect of the buttons. My threes had a hard time at first but soon got the hang of it and played with it over and over again.

 This awesome clothespin turkey inspired by Pink and Green Mama. Thank you to mr. a-go-go for drawing me the turkey. I used scrapbook paper for the wings and a glitter paper for the base. I had wanted to do the color matching turkey but our local Michael's was out of rainbow feathers so I went with this instead focusing on the fine motor movement of pinch the clothespins.

And this semi-modern take on the classic handprint turkey from Things to Share and Remember. The children chose their own colors for their turkeys and I painted their hands. They drew in their legs and eyes and selected their beaks and waddles. The backgrounds were painted on the backs of cereal boxes and then hot glue to cardboard. They also painted their noodles for the handles. I love, love, love how they turned out!

spin art is never too old: making spin art acorns

 

 

 

invitation to play: pumpkins and creepy crawleys

Four felt pumpkins and a bag of Halloween rings with the ring-parts snipped off. I set it up to see what they would do.

 

Sorting, counting and naming of colors all happened. The children also talked to each other about their favorite colors or their favorite critter. The purple bats were a top favorite.

One child pulled me over to talk about what he discovered after sorting out all the creepies. He said that there were the most spiders and that most of them were black but a lot were orange but that only one was purple. We had been working on counting, grouping, quantities, and subitizing and seeing that he was taking it all in and using it was so cool. So cool!

an invitation to play: felt leaves sorting

This little wooden box was another thrift outlet find. I hot-glued the tiny clothespins onto the back and popped a different colored felt leaf into each one and a sorting activity was made. The leave came from either Michael's or World Market and they are tricky to grab with a clothespin as they tend to stick together. They have been sorted and played with for two weeks now. I find them in lines, piles, and arranged around our pom-pom apple tree.

the wormy apple game

 

I found this small red colander at the dollar store and thought it looked a bit apple like. Add a construction paper stem and leaf, a handful of pipe cleaners, and some wooden cubes and an invitation to play was made.

 Don't ask me how to play it, they just do and it is fantastic!

apple printing for our apple unit

Most schools will do some sort of apple for fruit theme during the school year and many will do fruit printing as a part of their art and enrichment in the classroom. It's fun, it's simple and for the most part it is pretty.

Aside from the pretty though there is a lot going on. Firstly there is language. When I set up the activity thechildren often run over and ask questions:

What's that? What's this? What are you doing?

After they ask questions, we cut the apples open and talk about what we see, smell, taste, and feel.  They often tell me they have apples at home or they like green paint or that they have a dog.

The process of dipping the apples into the paint, lifting them and then pressing them to paper is not as easy for a three year old as it is for an adult. The apples are cold and wet, which often surprises the children and many will not wish to continue. In those instances brushes and or sponges are offered up and made available. Other colors are added if the children ask for them but for this particular project we chose red and green to go with the apples we had on our flannel board.

Some children get the hang of it quickly and happily press away while others make a few prints then discover how cool and wet the paint is in their hands discarding the apples and diving in with all fingers squishing and swiping the paint on their paper. Other children are happy to print with the fruit but do not want paint on their hands. I set out a damp sponge for them to wipe their fingers on. Sometimes the sponge becomes the brush and sometimes it is used to wash the paintbrushes.

What I love about setting up any project or center is seeing how the children approach it and what they end up doing with it. It's never dull, that's for certain!

more autumn scented play dough fun

The children have really been enjoying our Autumn Scented Dough.  It has traveled all over the room and I keep finding bits and (dried up) pieces of it in our play kitchen. One way to keep the idea of the dough fresh and exciting for little hands is to change up how it is presented.  Recently I have discovered the phrase "Invitation to Play" and I love it, thank you internet! After a few days of the dough being on the usual table. I set it up on one of our other work tables on top of a sheet of orange paper underneath with our Autumn leaves nestled in a small copper mold.

The play became recharged and the dough was used in new and different ways.

The leaves were used differently as well.

And then the fall flowers were brought in and a whole new game began....

our autumn play dough

I work in a school that is both play-based and literature-based. Each week features one title and each month we focus on a nursery rhyme. This month's nursery-rhyme (um...I mean last month's) was I Had a Little Nut Tree. We introduce the rhyme and practice reciting it out loud to introduce the idea of recitation to our younger children as recitation is a large component of our school in the older grades. My children or new threes and so often-times the recitation part does to happen but that's okay. We still sing songs, read books, and engage in activities to reinforce our rhymes.

To give the children a tactile experience while we recite our rhyme, I made a batch of silver & gold play dough that is richly scented in cinnamon and nutmeg. The golden color comes from the spices and the silver sparkle from a hefty dose of glitter.

When I introduced the dough to my class. I sang the nursery rhyme and spoke of the golden color of the dough and the rich scent of nutmeg mixed with cinnamon. I asked if they could see the sparkle and to guess what color it was. After many guesses of white and gold I showed them the bottle of glitter and called it silver.  The children enjoyed rolling the dough and smelling the dough and holding it up for me to smell as well. They even called it our nut-dough.

There is no shortage of spicy dough recipes out there in pinterest-land but here is what I used, adapted from Mudworks by MaryAnn F. Kohl. If you have an opportunity to purchase this book,  I highly recommend it as it is fuller than full of all sorts of homemade tactile experiences.

Cinnamon and Spice Dough

*1 cup all purpose flour

*1 cup water

*1/2 cup salt

*2 tablespoons cream of tartar

*2 tablespoon cinnamon

*1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

*2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

*2 tablespoons silver and/or gold glitter

Add all ingredients except glitter into medium-sized saucepan and mix. Turn heat to low and stir mixture. Continue stirring as mixture will thicken a bit like a pudding. As it heats up, mixture will thicken up more and begin to pull away from the sides of the pan resembling mashed potatoes.

Once the mixture has pulled away completely from sides of pan and formed a clump in the center, remove from heat and dump onto a cutting board or other heat-happy surface. Mixture will be hot, do not allow children to knead until the dough is much cooler to the touch.

Once mixture has cooled enough for you to handle, begin to knead by pushing dough in cneter then turning edges inwards and push some more. Use rocking motions with your hands as you push and turn and push and turn. Dough will be a bit grainy. Keep kneading.

After your first round of kneading and after the dough has cooled enough for small hands to handle, dump glitter into center and continue to knead to incorporate. Glitter will stick more to the dough than your hands as long as you keep kneading it (yay for sticky oily mixtures).

After you have mixed in the glitter, the dough should begin to lose its graininess and smooth out. If dough is still too sticky and "wet" add more flour or return to heat and try cooking a bit more. If dough is too dry, add a little more oil. If you follow the measurements above, the dough should come out perfectly. This is a favorite recipe to use in many centers.

Your dough should now be smooth in texture and spicy in color. If you wish your dough to have a richer color, add more cinnamon. It is okay to add more spice after the dough has been made. The more you handle it, the smoother it will become.

If you have no cream of tartar, don't worry. You can still make the dough but it will not last as long and the elasticity will not be a smooth. This dough will last for weeks stored in an airtight container in your fridge or a cool space.

I put the dough out on the table with an assortment of fall-themed cookie cutters, some rolling pins and a few acrylic fall leaves found at the dollar store. There were also pom-poms nearby that got incorporated into the mix and of course whatever else the children decided to round up from various areas of the classroom.

bake: Welcome to Fall cake

 It's Fall here in the States and if yer like me (an many others out there) you might, might, might have pumpkin on your mind. Pumpkins to carve, pumpkins to paint, pumpkins to sip and pumpkins to bake. Here is a super easy pump[kin bar/cake recipe you and your kiddos can turn out in a jiffy.

INGREDIENTS:

*1 box yellow cake mix

*1 15oz can of pureed pumpkin

*1 egg (optional)

*assorted chips and sprinkles

Dump your cakemix and accoutrements into a bowl. Hand your kiddo a wooden spoon or fork and have them mix it all up.

Dump the pumpkin, crack the egg and mix some more.*

 

Pour into greased baking pan (I think mine was about 9X13), top with more sprinkles and bake at 350 for 15-20 minutes.

 

Allow to cool and enjoy with a cold cup of favorite milk. I enjoyed mine with an iced coffee, cream, no sugar. SO GOOD! I then brought the batch to family dinner night and they were gobbled up...lickety-split.

*you can totally omit the egg but your cake will be a bit flat...more dense which is a whole other kind of good. These bars, with the egg were puffy and fluffy. A tiny piece goes a long way.