pouring and learning about volume

 

a fine motor tree

 

To color match, or not to color match, that is the question. The tiny little hair clips really work those pincer muscles. When we set this out, we often find those little clips everywhere, including hair! 

insects in the grass: a fine motor invitation

 

flower arranging with preschoolers

The children in my classroom love florist foam. They LOVE it. If I do not glue or tape it down, they will grab that green block up into their little hands and squeeze and squish away until every little last foamy bit is scattered across our carpet. It makes sense, the foam has a delicious texture and a satisfying bite when smooshed. The smooshing also raises the energy level in the classroom which quickly shifts concentrated play into chaotic play. For this reason, our older blocks will appear outside for all the smooshing (and running around) they want but the inside blocks are anchored down so that the kiddos can poke things into them. We reuse shipping styrofoam for toothpick/golf tee, and feather poking but the floral foam comes out for flower arranging so that the children do not have to push so hard. And really, with the flowers, they don't. Some children approach the set up and jab one flower into the mix and dash off while others will sustain 20-30 minutes or more of arranging and rearranging. It's really sweet and lovely! I have used these flowers for all sorts of projects over the past three years!

*small basket w sides 3"-4" high

*1-2 blocks of floral foam

*double stick tape, masking tape or glue

*faux flowers with stems trimmed to 6"-8"

*shallow tray, basket, or plate

Step 1. Adhere foam to baskets.

Step 2. Trim flowers with wire cutters so that they do not tower over the basket. You want them sized for small hands.

Step 3. Arrange flowers on tray and set next to basket

Step 4. Allow play to begin!

a {floral} invitation to play

A lot fo flower cookies were made. We're talking oodles of them. After the cookies were" eaten" the children began making pizzas. If you keep the stems of your flowers you can reattach and put them to some other use. The dough was homemade and tinted green with plants from my garden. The flowers came from the dollar store...$3 worth...not bad, not bad 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!

setting up the classroom for the new year

School has been on break for three weeks now. We return next week for a week of The Mitten. Here is how the room has been set up so far....I also have a basket to fill with wool squares. I'm going to see if the kiddos want to make their own mittens! First up, I added wee mitten erasers to our rice bin.

We pulled all of the fall items from the nature table and my co-teacher prettied it up. We added white stones and jewels and hope to have the children bring in items from around their homes. Our winter so far has been unseasonably summer-like. We'll see what happens.

 Mittens shapes on our chalkboards for fine motor painting. Some of our children will do this for all of their exploration hour. Sometimes they will request we redaw the same shape over and over again. Some want new shapes, some want to draw their own shapes, while others will simply paint the water onto the board over and over again.

 Mitten memory games as sorting fun. The mittens on the right are from Oriental Trading. I only put out half of the game (with their matches), the other half, I punched holes into one end, added a pipe cleaner loop and now we have ornaments for our winter tree. The mittens on the right are also a matching game but these feature numbers and colors. We'll see what the children do with them.

 Mitten shaped paper at the easel for the children to paint their own mittens. I will select a few harmonious colors (pictured here: red, pink, gold, white, and turquoise) for the painting but if the children wish to add any others they will tell me and we do. I have a few children who polish off five or six paintings a day so we have a pile of pre-cut mitten shapes and regular easel paper to choose from.

 I plan on making some snow dough but just in case I do not get to it, our festive cloud dough is set up. If I do not get the play dough made, I'm going to add a squeeze bottle of hair conditioner, a container of baking soda, and a container of cornstarch for the children to mix up to see what they make.

 Th art table is set up with mitten stampers, snowflake stampers, snowflake stickers, and crayons. The art shelves are always open and filled with markers, crayons, scrap construction paper, blank paper, scissors, glue sticks, white glue, and stickers. We also have watercolors and tempera available if the children ask for them.

 The train table has been turned into a winter inspired sensory bin for the children to use for dramatic play. It is full of pom-poms, glass jewels, snowflake shapes, forest animals and more. I am excited to see what the children do here.

Last, but not least, I have hidden mitten shapes around the room for the children to find during group time. There are two of each design and we'll do some mitten math with them. Later in the week we will add ice to the mix for the children to explore. Bring on the mitten!

holiday play dough fun

 

 

My co-teacher whipped up a batch of gingerbread playdough for the kiddos to enjoy while I brought in a bag of tiny bows. We piled it all onto a thrifted tray (my magic place) with as many holiday cookie cutters as we could find and let the play begin!

invitation to play: pumpkins and creepy crawleys

Four felt pumpkins and a bag of Halloween rings with the ring-parts snipped off. I set it up to see what they would do.

 

Sorting, counting and naming of colors all happened. The children also talked to each other about their favorite colors or their favorite critter. The purple bats were a top favorite.

One child pulled me over to talk about what he discovered after sorting out all the creepies. He said that there were the most spiders and that most of them were black but a lot were orange but that only one was purple. We had been working on counting, grouping, quantities, and subitizing and seeing that he was taking it all in and using it was so cool. So cool!

an invitation to play: felt leaves sorting

This little wooden box was another thrift outlet find. I hot-glued the tiny clothespins onto the back and popped a different colored felt leaf into each one and a sorting activity was made. The leave came from either Michael's or World Market and they are tricky to grab with a clothespin as they tend to stick together. They have been sorted and played with for two weeks now. I find them in lines, piles, and arranged around our pom-pom apple tree.

the wormy apple game

 

I found this small red colander at the dollar store and thought it looked a bit apple like. Add a construction paper stem and leaf, a handful of pipe cleaners, and some wooden cubes and an invitation to play was made.

 Don't ask me how to play it, they just do and it is fantastic!

how's about a little pom-pom play?

what shall we do with all of this?

poms in raccoon colors

first time using tweezers

and so play begins

the daddy and the mommy

partnering up

arranging by size

big to little

and then the kitties came...

more autumn scented play dough fun

The children have really been enjoying our Autumn Scented Dough.  It has traveled all over the room and I keep finding bits and (dried up) pieces of it in our play kitchen. One way to keep the idea of the dough fresh and exciting for little hands is to change up how it is presented.  Recently I have discovered the phrase "Invitation to Play" and I love it, thank you internet! After a few days of the dough being on the usual table. I set it up on one of our other work tables on top of a sheet of orange paper underneath with our Autumn leaves nestled in a small copper mold.

The play became recharged and the dough was used in new and different ways.

The leaves were used differently as well.

And then the fall flowers were brought in and a whole new game began....