more butterfly fun with dollar store finds

This butterfly frame is the outside part  of a butterfly sign that I turned into a chalkboard. It was originally glittery pink, and now it'...not. We set it out on a table, along with a plethora of small bits to explore.

Some children designed a loose parts butterfly, some showcased their skills in symmetry, and other essentially used a one-to-one correspondence approach to their design. More blurry pics, but they show the variety of exploration in this group of three and four year olds. 

investigating the lid bin

It took me months to save up enough lids for an impressive lid bin. When I introduced it to the children we were all sitting in our kitchen area enjoying our lunches. I brought out the lids which I placed in a sturdy shallow wicker and wire basket. I held the basket/bin under the table and shook it. I asked the children if they could guess what I had. I did this so long ago I forgot what their guesses were. I placed the bin on top of the table and the children were very excited. Who knew? We talked about the shape of the lids, the various colors and how some of the lids had words on them. I told the children the bin would be in our block area if they would like to investigate and immediately upon finishing lunch they swooped down on it. There was stacking and sorting, nesting and counting, design making and patterning. There was a single purple lid that allowed one of the kiddos to complete a "beautiful lid rainbow". All the busyness and exuberance makes my heart go thumpity-thump.  The children enjoy working with the bin and are extra delighted when they find a cap in their lunch or snack bag. Now we have more than one purple lid for more rainbow making. This is preschool math at its best.

learning with ornamental corn

 My class begins with forty-five minutes of exploration time. This is when the children arrive and explore the room, centers, activities, and supplies I have set up for them. Sometimes what I set up is a hit and crowd pleaser with the children playing in the one spot every opportunity they have. Other times....not so much. It's all good as it helps me to get to know the children better and figure out what will engage them to higher levels of play and what will not (no matter how much encouragement they receive). This young man was a first arrival one morning while I was still setting up and discovered the wooden corn-on-he-cob holders I picked up at a local thrift. I got them mostly because htey were wood and an interesting shape. I thought they would be interesting to sort items into and/or accompany play dough play.

He asked me what it's name was and I told him it was intended to hold corn on the cob. His face crinkled up a moment and then his eyes flashed a wee light bulb and he was off looking for our ornamental corn that was no-longer on the nature shelves. I waited for him to use his words to ask me where the corn was and when he did I told him it had been put away and would he like to use it.

 He did indeed, and so we walked to the big teacher cabinet where the corn had been stored and I pulled out the bag for him. He immediately sat on the floor and attempted to fit the corn into the holder. When that didn't work I told him the husks were in the way and that maybe they needed to be shucked, explaining what shucking was. It took him awhile but he did it for each of the four ears of corn.

 Then he carried each holder over to a table. After placing two of the holders down he exclaimed "Hey! I made a L!"

The L became an O and then a train and then so many other lovely, wonderful, imaginative things. The best learning comes from within and this kiddo had a grand time of it!

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!