I was asked to guard them...

At the beginning of the school year, the children latch onto the stilts as objects for keeping. They gather them up in pairs or more and create their own games and variations of play with them. At some point in the middle of the year, they progress to balancing and standing on them, and by the end of the year, they are walking on them. I love the time of year when they place such a high level of importance to the stilts that they need guardng.

tinting primary colors

mixing paint...tinting things up

When it comes to paint, for most kiddos, the more there is, the happier they are. We like to use paper plates for color mixing as they are both inexpensive and sturdy enough to hold the massive globs of paint the kiddos add to them. Here, we've given a short lesson on tints...adding white to other colors...we've given the kiddos paint palettes with primary colors (there was a discussion as to which blue we should use) and white, and then they were let loose to mix it all up!

decorating the castle....

When we really wanted the giant Outlast blocks from Community Playthings, but did not have the budget for them, we bought crates instead. Crates are great for building a block happy community. They are lightweight and stackable and provide a multitude of opprtunities for the children to come together with their imaginations and problem solving skills. Yay crates!

being sneaky...

Sometimes our play yard toys get super ickified....the easiest way for them to get less ickified is to add soap to the water table...we like to use either Dawn or Mrs. Meyers....the kiddos just like the suds...

let them mix paint!

classroom tour 2017

As I mentioned before, every year we tweak our learning spaces based on what we have learned the previous year. I work in a shared room so have to plan and organized with my teaching partner. While we have very different aesthetics that make us happy, our respect and joy for each other has us working as a team in our classroo mand play yard design.

Last year we had the dramatic play set up in the center of the classroom. This year, my co-teacher picked up a loveseat so we had to rethnk where things woudl go and how best they would fit. This usally means we move the furniture around, a lot. Even after we figure out what we like, we may change it later in the year if the children do not seem to respond to the space as intended. This is the view from our art corner looking out to the rest of the room. To the left of the photo is our building area, with the dramatic play in the back corner. The reading area is both the sofa and behind it, with our group time spent on the rug in front of the sofa.

We picked up a grey cover for the loveseat to keep it on the fairly clean side because...preschoolers. For our group area, I had a vision of using the single Kallax shelves from Ikea as a bench and grounding point for the area. The bins holding building materials such as magnatiles, mobilos, and city blocks. The bulletin board is empty but will be filled weekly with work from the children. We have a large white board on the wall to the right of the area, and a felt board propped up on the shelf.

The large Kallax shelf divides the group area from the dramatic play area. The backside houses our play kitchen and new-to-us repurposed entertainment center. It gets dark back there so we added a lamp for light and a measure of hominess.  The last photo shows the view of the room from the group area. The blocks and building area is on the left. We will be adding photobooks of the children to the rim of the bulletine board once school begins. The back wall is where the art area is.

We carved out a small science and inquiry area near our back door, under a part of our window wall. The green mat is also an Ikea find and the children take it out and use it on the large gray rug in the group area.

This is the view from the far corner of our group area. I love the large windows in our room. Every year, we add items to a wish list and then we make purchases based on our budget. We don't get everything and I spend a lot of my own money on items for the room as I love making it a joyful place of learning. Every year it just gets better and better. I love how much it has changed since my first year and each year after. Click to see previous room tours...2014, 2015, 2016.

a new school year, a newly organized play yard

Every year we tweak our indoor and outdoor spaces. The more we use them, the more we figure out how the children use each space. Last year we updated our sandbox and while it was super cool, we found the children needed a space to work. Enter the new mud kitchen shelf made by the mister!

For now we have the crates under it to store all the sandbox toys. I went through them and puleld out broken bits and items that the children generally do not gravitate to but I think there are still too many things. We'll see.

The planter boxes were made locally. We have rocks in one and potting sil in the other. I love how the  mirror opens up the space. The window box on the table will soon hold herbs and flowers. When it gets super hot we pippi up our space by cobbling together a shade using sheets and clothespins. I love the fort feel of it! It's really tricky trying to find other preschool play yards so I hope that by sharing, I will encourage others to do so as well. Enjoy!

art supply storage, a work in progress

We have open shelves in the classroom that we use to store the art supplies we use most often. Paint, glue, paper, paint cups, etc. are all housed here.

For the past few years we have been using these decorative plastic bins I foudn at various dollar style stores. While handy, they are visual clutter with all the different colors. We have greem pink, orange, blue...yikes!

For our work day, I picked upa couple cans of grey spray paint to pant the bins so they would all be the same color. While it's not my dream storage, it will do for now.

Not too bad. I want to switch out the fabric bins for all grey, we use them to store the children's rest items. My dream to switch out all the plastic for wicker and rattan baskets. It might get spendy, but I think I am going to start looking for some. Can you imagine how pretty it would be?

end of year tea party

strawberry themed cuteness 

with real tea cups, saucers, and tea! 

eats fit for a tea...

and of course we dress up

as our favorite book characters...

such as lions who paint...

strawberries in disguise...

or lions who are friends with mice...

strawberry science

When we raead The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear, we have a lot of fun with strawberries. Here, the chidren are weighing and comparing their strawberries they brought from home. We have a variety of scales for the children to investigate with.  I bring extra berries that are locally grown for those who forget or are unable to bring one. I haven't had a strawberry allergy yet, but if we do, we of course change the fruit to something safe for everyone.

scent tubes

I think I found these on zulily, or maybe it was at Tuesday Morning. Either way, I am quite fond of them. The tubes are made of sturdy plastic with screw on tops/bottoms. One lid has holes punched into it so that these make for pretty nifty scent tubes, albeit large tubes. The tubes measure about 15", I think, mayne 13". They are large enough so that the children can only hold one in each hand at a time. I like to add items from my own garden to them so we can begin a discussion of what is in your garden or yard. Our community is designated rural with many of the children very familair with gardening and growing. If I had children in my room with different home environments, the discussion would be different. Here in the tubes we have basil, rosemary, oregano, and lavender.

time for lunch

A dolphin, a striped momkey, and a kimochi, all ready to be fed....this could get interesting...

classroom canvases

One of the ways I build community in the classroom is through our classroom canvases. Each child gets a flat canvas to create art on but with a twist. The owner of the canvas gets to choose the colors and paints the base however they wish.

We use acrylic paints for our canvases which elevate the process for the children. I keep the acrylics in a cardboard suitcase so they know something fun is afloat when it makes an appearance. Once the original coat is dry, the owner of the canvas selects a new color or two for a classmate to use on their canvas. For me, the fun part is switching out the tools the children use. I place a variety of tools on a tray and the painter selects which one they wish to use. This helps to keep the canvas from getting muddy while alerting the child that this is mindful work.

Some of the tools we've used are strawberry baskets, q-tips, pieces of cardboard, dollar store massage rollers, tp tubes, cups, sponges, toys, the bottoms of cups, toothbrushes, and our fingers.

The evolution of each canvas is pretty magical. We paint on them throughout the year so some may have layers and layers on them, while others might not.