painting our own cloudy sky

 

We've spent a lot of time reading Little Cloud by Eric Carle, and so our classroom is overflowing with all sorts of cloud activities and projects. The only thing missing was an actual sky full of clouds which we got for a spit second before the wind blew the clouds south. To create our own cloudy sky, we went the Michelangelo route and decided to surprise tomorrow's class...

Our train table (we call it our building table) is just the right height for little arms to reach from underneath. I covered the underside with blue paper and masking tape and set out a tray of white paint and little sponges for the children to create their own clouds with.

It got a bit crowded but the children really held their own, negotiating for space and a turn at the sponges. They kept at if for maybe fifteen minutes before the lure of our shipping boxes called them to create am arching band.

I can't wait to see how tomorrow's class reacts to the surprise!

clouds clouds clouds

color sorting clouds

sticky easel clouds

cloud photos to explore

one to one clouds

return of the weather picks

valentine classroom set up

play dough fun

strawberry cloud dough aka cake mix

color matching and sorting

valentine clothesline

pink and red sorting

spin art hearts

sink or float fun

connectors

fizzy heart experiments

heart shape button snake

Many of these made an appearance last year, thanks to being productive and me actually making them and not simply putting them on a TO DO list. This year I added sink or float fun, fizzy science, spin art hearts, the matching hearts, and clothesline fun (our classroom tree was a bit too exciting for some of the children). Not pictured is the mail center. It was pounced upon and played in immediately upon arrival and I never got it cleaned up enough for photos.

pin the tail on the lion {and the little red bird}

The children in the preschool loved playing Pin the Tail on the Lion after we read The Lion and the Little Red Bird. They spent a lot of time retelling the story, choosing their favorite tail and playing many different versions of their game. My co-teacher painted up the lion on large white paper and I assembled the birdie from paper in our scrap bin. The tails and lion were oh-so-carefully covered in clear adhesive shelf paper so that we could enjoy him again next year with another group of kiddos.