a busy day of building

a house

a stage

a bridge

 

paint mixing...

After mixing up pink to paint our classroom chair, the children had mixing on their mind. We mixed up paint in a variety of ways for a number of different activities. After we discussed warm and cool colors, the children got to mix their own classroom paint. Some went for warm, most went for cool, and they mixed, mixed, mixed away to create their own paint. I think their favorite part was naming it. We will use this paint for the rest of the year, re-mixing when we need to. I can't wait!

self-portraits...

Sometimes our rainbow hair is seen in our minds eye....I think I may love self-portraits by the young even more than their elepehants.

mother's day brooches part 3

scenes from the classroom: november

tiny pumpkins

fine motor work

sensory play

doctor's office play

watercolors and pipettes

monochromatic collage jars

mixing up pudding

the art table

flower experimentation

scenes from the classroom: october

wiffle balls and pipe cleaners

birdseed in the sensory tub

painting with feathers

natural geo-board turned hammering boards

making nests

getting a little themey with apples

Everyone brought an apple to school for tasting. We used our "octopus" slicer to cut the apples into eight pieces that we then cut with butter knives to share. After much deliberation and sampling, the kiddos graphed their name in the column of the color apple they liked the best.

 

Next up, more chopping of apples that were then mixed into a homemade batter to make apple muffins. We used the recipe in the back of Apple Farmer Annie. Not one crumb was left. Yum! 

Lastly, we did a three step apple tree painting. The kiddos used a paintbrush to paint their trunk, a bath sponge for the leaves, and their fingers for the apples. Later we talked about the many ways you could paint an apple tree. Some of the children continued on to draw trees with markers, and paint trees at the easel. It was a lot of fun, themey or not!

it's time for our estimation jars!

There are five jars for the children to investigate. Each jar contains a set number of like items such as rubber duckies, stretchy snakes, butterflies, small pebbles, and a large mossy (faux) rock. We set this up along with a couple of clipboards and pens to encourage drawing what they see. This year around, it was more fun to stack the jars as high as they could. Either way, it's all learning!

a window full of happy

I usually hang art up on the line to move it out of the way for new art that needs a flat surface for drying. This assortment of art waiting to go home was too happy not to photograph! We have our weather sun catchers on the window, our veggie prints hanging on the wire, our pool noodle sculptures on the shelf, and an be-glittered pine cone or two as well. Swoon!

can you paint a flower?

mother's day gift wrap

For Mother's Day, the kiddos made sweet Sculpey trinket dishes and watercolor painted wood tags all wrapped up by their own hands. How sweet are these?

a wee little classroom happy

*weather inspire suncatchers
*blotto trolls
*easel painting
*pool noodle sculptures
*ice cream cones
*fun with weather pillows

**just a little splash of color in our classroom to brighten your day (and mine)!

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!

trip-trap, trip-trap

vehicle match with free printable

 
Howdy! Last spring I purchased two packs of toy cars with the intention of making a matching game that never happened. Flash forward to the new school year and a burst of creative energy and I have a freebie for you!

use folded scrapbook paper for a background

a piece of tape stages where to place each vehicle

tiny vehicles!

The cars came from T.J. Maxx and were $2.99 each (for a pack of five). Score! I created a mini photo studio by placing the vehicles on two different colors of textured scrapbook paper near a natural light source. Before printing, I upped the brightness and saturation of the photos and cropped them for a tighter visual. I then used PicMonkey to add two pictures to one photo so that the finished size would be about the size of a business card. Photos were printed at a photo kiosk, cut by hand, and then laminated by me.

To set up, I popped the vehicles into a small basket and set out the cards. I was interested to see what the children would do.

Turns out, they did exactly what I intended, along with some hoarding and some playing. For an added bonus, I demonstrated how the cars moved when you pulled them back a little and released them. The children soon found out that if you pulled back for too long the car would break. No worries though, they were still able to match 'em up!

For clean up, the cars were returned to the basket along with the cars. When we were looking for the cars, we played the matching game to discover which cars were missing and then used the card to identify the runaway! The children loved it!

I can't sell you a pack of cars but I can offer up access to the cards. Save as a PDF and print out two copies of each photo and you have an instant matching game! Enjoy! (Let me know if you are having any issues)

Vehicle Match Printable from scrumdilly-do!