ice play

We dumped a large bag of ice into our sensory bin, then added a couple of cups of liquid watercolor with eye droppers. This entertained the kiddos for almost an hour!

buggy pea soup

More spring time sensory play. This time with two bags of dried split peas, and an assortment of insects, reptiles, and amphibians (which all escaped the pea bin and made their way to the sand box..of course!)

ice play with a twist

 

We at the 'do! live in a pretty sunny climate. Our winter temps can get pretty chilly at night but for the most part we can get away without a sweater for much of the year. During our week of The Mitten, I thought it would be fun to fill our outside sensory tub with ice and when I found these awesome ice sphere molds from ZOKU on sale an idea was born!

It took me a few days to freeze about 10 spheres mostly because I kept forgetting to do so and partly because it does take quite a few hours. I played with adding a little and/or a lot of food color for variety and got a kick out of each sphere as I removed them from the molds. Really, it takes very little to please me. I wish I had taken photos of them, they were so pretty!

Just before outside play time, I put a little bit of water into our two sensory bins and separated the ice spheres by cool and warm colors (the food color leached out qucikly enough to tint the water so I thought it would be prettier plus we've been working on cool colors and warm colors in the classroom). The kiddos were very curious and there were shouts of "circle ice! spheres! snow balls!"

 

 

It did not take long for the kiddos to realize just how cold the spheres actually were and there was a discussion about how to play with them other than dropping them on the ground to see them break (which did happen rather quickly because ice balls!) After a little debate the children realized mittens would work and after much running around was had, one of the kiddos returned with a single mitten on his hand followed by others, each one bearing only one mitten a piece (or a glove). I loved that...thank you happy thrift store mitten find!

After the mittens got completely soaked, the kiddos returned to the room to retrieve another mitten (I am just now wondering where did all those mittens go?) to continue their investigations.

 

 

 

Play narratives came out, color matching, rich language, songs, math, and science all made an appearance. They had so much fun I think I need to make more...once I remember where I put the mittens...

fun with rainbow rice

valentine cloud dough fun

 

A few weeks ago we had cocoa cloud dough in the classroom. I need to get those photos up! For Valentine Week I added a box of strawberry cake mix to the dough and a side dish of crushed cocoa husks along with various tools such as a flour sifter, measuring cups, wooden spoons, and a wee mortar and pestle.We also had hearts aplenty with small jewels and heart shaped containers.

 

 

The children loved the scent of the cloud dough as did the parents. Some scooped up the dough and spooned into our muffin pan. I found the silicone heart-shaped muffin pan at the thrift outlet for fifty-cents!

 

 

I only had one sifter and it was a popular tool. The cocoa husks got dumped into the dough and then the children tried to sift the all of the flour away from the husks. They noticed that their sifted dough was more dusty than the rest and kept calling it their chocolate dust. There was also a lot of husk crushing going on. Due to having only a single flour sifter, we had to get creative...

 

 

Which brings me to the mortar and pestle. The children really liked the crushing aspect and feel for the tools. Using a tiny one I found at World Market they would go at it for all of their exploration time. A lot of focus and work was happening. As well as all those nifty motor skills we like to talk abut. If you have never tried cocoa hulls in your sensory bin, I recommend it! The scent and texture is thoroughly satisfying and when all is said and done, it makes for a great ground covering or mulch in your garden or you can whip up a wee "cocoa" bunny and add a handful to the stuffing for authenticity. Source it from a local organic supplier and make sure to dry it out in the sun before sealing it up in a bin or bag to prevent molding. Cocoa hulls are harmful to dogs and if you have a child under the age of three I would not use hulls unless supervised (as all children should be).

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!