we made snow globes

Because, you know.....sunny California.

This week we read the book Snow by Uri Shulevitz, we talked about weather, temperature, snow, ice, seasons, winter, and more. There were pompom snowballs to explore, glittery orbs to discover, a mirror box to explore symmetry, and books with photos of snowflakes. We made faux snow aka clean mud, tape resist snowflakes, wintery colored paintings, and these happy snowglobes.

The children brought in jars, poured the water, added the glitter (and discovered that too much sparkle made it difficult to see their happy snow globe selves), and selected their decorations. I took the photos the week before, and manned the glue gun the day of. They really loved looking at them and sharing them with their friends and family. Idea came from Our Best Bites blog. Ya gotta love folks who share, thank you!

gingerbread men round 2

This year the children whipped up their own puffy paint to paint their gingerbread men and/or houses with. After reading more than a dozen recipes for diy puffy paint I came to the conclusion that the ratios did not need to be exact and that all you needed was salt, flour, baking soda, and a little water (plus liquid water color).

 

We mixed up our paint at circle time. Each kiddo was given a small container and spoon on one of our white plates (I LOVE these plates). Then I talked about the paint we were going to make and how it was a recipe. We've been working on recipes almost every week. The children took turns scooping out their desired amounts of the ingredients and got to mixing.

There were a lot of comments when the children found their paint to be too thick or too thin. After a little experimenting they each came up with their perfect pot of paint.

 

I poured the paint into small squeeze bottle that made it difficult for the children to get all squeeze happy. They really had to work those squeezing muscles!  Even though they each mixed up their own color we talked about sharing the paint with the rest of the class and how we could accomplish that through kind words and questions.

 

While I love the idea of using real candy to decorate their cardboard people and houses (like we did last year) I wanted for them to make something that could possibly be kept without attracting critters. To remedy this I spent one television program using various paper punches and a paper pad of holiday paper from Michael's to punch out circles, stars, and hearts of various sizes.

 

 

The children delighted in their creations and use oodles of thinking skills when they realized their paint would not puff up when we cooked it  (pop into microwave and cook for 20 seconds or so)if it was covered in paper. I loved seeing and listening to their collaborations and discoveries. Some layered circles and told me it was like "Disky" back from when we did our Kandinsky study, while others talked about shapes, size variations, and practiced their one to one correspondence with one paper shape to each blob of paint that they then counted out.

I mean, lookie how happy these creations are (blurry photos and all)! I used a template the mister made for me last year. I need to transfer to the computer so you all can have a copy if ya like.

Also, the clean up was so pretty I had to take a picture of it as well. We kept the paint out and available for the day. Oh my goodness! I just realized the sticky bottles of paint are in a zip bag somewhere in the casa...where did I put them?  I better find them before they get super ickified! Yikes! Enjoy!

snowflakes a plenty

 

A wee bit of fun on the art table during our week of Snow. Snowflake punches, cupcake liners, stickers, and stamps. Oh the flurry of art that was created at this table!

it's a wrap!

In Rabbit's Gift, each animal in the story returns home with a different type of vegetable. To add to the literature, the children used various vegetables to create their own wrapping paper to take home for the holidays.

I brought in my acrylic paints and let each child choose up to three colors. To keep the paper from getting muddy, we kept each vegetable to one color with the children choosing which veggie got which color.

 

One child worked at a time at our smaller art table. I kept an eye out and rotated the paper a little to keep the stamping an all over process rather than a cluster in one place. Some children chose to stand and walk around as they stamped.

We rolled up their paper and secured it with a pipe cleaner to take home on the last day before winter break. Some of the parents in other classrooms were really dazzled by how modern the paper looked.

a preschool classic: pinecone christmas trees

I remember making pinecone trees back in the 70s when I was a wee one. As a preschool teacher I had to have this available for my kiddos, had too! This time around, not only was there glitter but sequins too! 

 We found that it was easier to just pour the glue over the pinecone. Make sure there is wax paper underneath so that your pinecone does not stick.

 Some of the children pinched and dropped their glitter while other dumped a bottle or two onto their wax paper before grabbing as much as they could to sprinkle on top.

Sequins were added to a few as well. I love how the vintage white sequins turned out!

I looped a bit of yarn around the top so that the wee trees could be hung on a tree or elsewhere. The children got to choose between yellow, red, green, or blue yarn. Red was a favorite.Aren't they fun?

bows, bows, and more bows...

Our last week before winter break we read Rabbit's Gift. To tie in the literature we had a lot of bow play going on (even though there were no wrapped presents in the book the children talked about presents and what they looked like so bows it was).

 

 

We had magnetic bows to sort and match and bows to count and measure with.

We had a table of boxes and bows to create gifts with which the children thoroughly enjoyed. I must have received a dozen boxes of dinosaurs, cars, acorns, and rubber insects!

pinterest in the classroom

 

The families that organized our holiday party really did a tremendous job! Each child got their own supplies to create edible snowpeople and Christmas trees. The green frosting might have covered every inch of the children but it did not keep their smiles from beaming through!

painting with holiday bows

We painted with our bow brushes using our tempera paints on fingerpaint paper. The glossiness of the paper gave our paintings a fun bit of shine. The children enjoyed painting with our bow brushes and took it upon themselves not to mix the paint up. I had done this before years ago with the children dipping their bows in paint. I wish I had thought of gluing them to craft sticks but then again it was so long ago you needed to save your popsicle sticks if you wanted some. So happy I found the idea and this pin. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

turn those scrubby sponge snowflakes into ornaments

The plan for the scrubby sponge snowflakes really wasn't to make ornaments or anything specific but more of a printing project to keep little hands busy. Once I cut them out I thought they would make nifty ornaments and then I thought what if I wrapped yarn around them so they would look kinda like the apples in one of my most favorite fabric prints and so I went for it. What makes this even more nifty is that my small batch o' ornaments became the art for he december bed. I see many more of these ornaments in my future.  So here is how you do it.

Create your scrubby sponge snowflakes and cut about five notches into the edges all the way around. These notches will help anchor the yarn in place and allow you to hang your ornaments without using any tape or staples! 

 Cut a length of yarn at least 18" long and pop one end into a notch and begin wrapping using the other motches to hold the yarn in place. Ask your kiddos if they think they can create a star as they wrap. 

To create ornaments for your tree, loop off the final end piece and hang or give the yarn a knot that can be pushed onto an ornament hook. Easy peasy! 

 To create this wall hanging, tie five or so ornaments to a wooden spoon or nifty stick using various lengths of yarn. Use another length of yarn or fishing line tied to both ends as the hanger. If using a stick, make sure it is free of debris, visible fungus and/or critters. I banged my stick around in hopes of evacuating any wee beasties and then submerged it in water and set it outside to dry. As it turns out, there may or may not be a wee wood beetle in residence. The mister swears he can hear it, I choose to pretend he did not say that. 

Enjoy! 

scrubby sponge snowflakes

There are all sorts of household objects you and your children can use to make snowflake-like prints. A few years ago I used empty thread spools, this year why not try using a scrubby sponge? You can pick up a six pack of scrubbers from the  dollar store or even check under your kitchen sink to see if you have any tucked away already. 

scrubby sponge snowflakes

*cereal box or other thin cardboard

*acrylic paint in assorted colors

*plastic scrubby sponge (not steel wool)

*white paint

*glitter

*scissors

You can certainly create your snowflake prints on any type of art paper but I prefer to use up what I have so this cracker box was perfect. Simply open both ends and cut along one side with ap air of scissors. Have your kiddo squirt and dribble on two or three colors of paint. 

Use an edge of another box, folded up newpaper or paint scrapes to push, pull and scrape the paint so that it retains some of its original dribbly bits. This will create a nifty marble effect. Otherwise, let your kiddos go to town with a fat paintbrush or sponge. Set aside to dry and repeat on the flip side of your cardboard if you like.

 To create the snowflakes, pour a blob of white paint onto a plate or repurposed lid. Have your kiddo dip and press all over the cardboard. While the paint is still wet, hand them a glitter shaker and let them jazz up their snowflakes. Ignore the yarny parts of the pics. I had originally thought if I cut into the scrubby sponge five or so times and then tied it at the cuts it would make a more prominent snowflake print. It did not, though the yarn does make the picture look a bit more quirky. Set aside to dry.

Once dry, cut around each snowflake and flip over to add another snowflake print on the back. Add your glitter and allow to dry. Once dry you can tape them up on a window or turn them into gift tags. Tuck a few away and I'll show you another nifty projects to make hanging ornaments with them! Stay tuend and thank you for visiting scrumdilly-do!