buggy pea soup

More spring time sensory play. This time with two bags of dried split peas, and an assortment of insects, reptiles, and amphibians (which all escaped the pea bin and made their way to the sand box..of course!)

misadventures in gluten-free play dough making

I tried, I really did, but as far as dough goes, I failed (well, sort of, at least in this instance.) I picked up some coconut flour and thought if I added cocoa powder to it and cooked it up like regular play dough it would work....I thought wrong.

I added the flour, then the cocoa, some cornstarch, and less water than usual and it looked like it might ball up but it didn't. It got too fluid and goopy so I added cornmeal and nothing happened. At this point I had about 6 cups of crumbly stuff that I was told smelled divine but what could I do to salvage it? Ooh! I know...turn it into a microwave mug cake...um....yeah, that bombed too.

Rather than admit defeat, I popped the whole crumbly mess into a container and marveled at the texture which was silly smooth and cool even if it wasn't doughy. The next day at school, I dumped the whole crumbly mess on top of the table, added a few cookie cutters, and empty heart shaped candy boxes and called it a day.

It appears the kiddos loved it...

Go figure.

Coming up, the successful gluten-free playdough recipe I rocked. Stay tuned!

rainbow discovery bottles

I've been busy with a couple of summer teaching projects so here is a mini post to share! For our week of A Rainbow of My Own, I whipped up a batch of RAINBOW DISCOVERY BOTTLES for the kiddos to enjoy. Each one was made with warm water and clear glue with extra bits of color added for well...discovery.

 

The red bottle had glitter, orange had buttons, yellow...a chunky gold glitter, green...marbles, blue more glitter, and purple...beads. The children loved these. LOVED these! They practiced arranging them in rainbow order, naming the colors, and counting the bottles. They also carried them around the room, played with them all day long, and asked me all sorts of questions about what was inside each bottle, often bringing a bottle to me randomly throughout the day to proclaim that "Blue has glitter, Purple has beads." It was super fun!  They are now in our BIG window and make the room just a little more happy.

investigating cornstarch and shaving cream

One box of cornstarch, 1 can of shaving cream. Add some eyedroppers and liquid watercolor and a small spray bottle or two and watch those little minds at work. We used cookie sheets as work stations. Four sheets for four kiddos. They could go as long as they wanted or they did not have to investigate at all.

best two dollars I have ever spent!

Sometime last summer I wandered into our Goodwill Outlet and came out with a bag full of old school curlers. I had the vague notion that they would be fun sensory bin items for the preschool. It wasn't until I switched schools and had my own classroom that I thought to bring them in.

 

Before I dumped them onto our train table, they got a good soak in the sun then a spin in the washing machine. Now they were as good s new!

We played with the curlers for two weeks. I sorted out all of the purple curlers and we talked about all of the little blues yellows, and greens we had to play with.

 

The children sorted them by color and/or size, stacked them up, made designs and patterns, lined them up and blew them over.

The following week, the purple curlers were added as well as a couple of jump ropes for lacing.

 

Best two smackeroos I have ever spent!