flower play at preschool

 Toddlers are natural gatherers. Show them any sort of object in number and they will probably gather them all up. They will line them up, horde them, talk to them and play with them in ways you never imagined.

Give a young child water and they will splash it and pour it. Give them toy animals and they will talk to them. Give them balls they will throw them and drop them, and give them paint, they will probably stick their hands in it. They do this with (hopefully) no prompting from adults.

One of my favorite things to do with young children is to set out an assortment of supplies and/or objects and see what the children do with it. They rarely do what I imagine they will and the surprise I feel is a great gift of knowledge.

I came to school one day to find the toddler classroom rearranged into a flower shop. Sure enough, the tots gathered up those plastic flowers. They were horded, lined up, placed into bags and cooked in the kitchen. They were stuck into play dough, used as microphones and yes, they were artfully arranged into beautiful bouquets but the young 'uns themselves.

A few weeks later, I filled up the water table with potting soil, added printed Easter eggs, watering pails, seed pots and a bunch of fake flowers.

Gardens were planted, bouquets were given and the kiddos had a great time! Why not add some flower play into the mix?

taking the time...

 I work as an assistant teacher at a preschool that teaches children 18 months to 5 years of age. Much of my job is scurrying about escorting tots from one area to the next and being an extra pair of eyes when needed. The cool part is that I get to work with all the kiddos. I spend time in each classroom observing, teaching, playing and I enjoy it immensely. My favorite part is the observing. It is where I can apply all my fancy-pants education and see which theories may apply or not. It challenges me to reassess whether or not what I believe has value or not. Also, it is never dull.

As I wrote up above, my favorite part is observing. I like to set out supplies with one goal in mind and see what the kiddos do. I make predictions in my head as to which kiddo may actually use it in the manner it was intended and which will clutch the supplies and horde them. There are no incorrect ways to play, this is how they learn. When given enough time, a lot of learning can develop in their little noggins, even if it appears all they are doing is pouring water or gathering dowels...or playing with my watch.

I wear an inexpensive slap watch at the school so that I can get myself onto the next transition in a timely manner. It has gotten left behind on numerous occasions, as well as dropped and buried in sand. I have to admit, not only does it get me to the next transition on time, but it works at bribing the kiddos when a good bribe is needed. When I write bribe, I don't mean if you do this now, you can play with my watch. I use it more as a tool for coaxing a kiddo to transition.

"Hey Bella, when you finish in the water table can you hold my watch for me and make sure it doesn't get lost as I wash my hands for snack? Come with me so I can hand it to you at the sink."

Stuff like that.

Now the kiddos often ask if they can try my watch on. The toddlers especially like it. It works great with an antsy tot that needs a diaper change.

"Oh, can you hold my watch while I get yer diaper on?"

Last week, one of the toddlers asked if she could sit on my lap during outside play. I said sure and she climbed up and immediately asked if she could take my watch off. I sat there with my wrist elevated as she took it off and put it back on, over and over again. As she did so, I talked about what my watch does, how it helps me and what time it was. At one point she asked me what time it was and I told her it was upside down and that I could not read it. She took off my watch and attempted to turn it around and put it back on upside down again. So she went through the process of trying to correct the angle of the watch and I watched and saw where she flipped it so that it was upside down. Rather than say anything, I just watched and after a great many tries she exclaimed with a huff that she couldn't do it. I simply said you have to turn it around. So she turned my wrist around and kept trying. She spent much of the outdoor time flipping the watch over and around until finally she got it and when she did she beamed. BEAMED! As I looked at my wrist I exclaimed "Hey, it's not upside down!" And so she asked me what time it was and I told her.

Later that day, after lunch, she climbed back up on my lap and took my watch off. She put it back on upside down on purpose and had a good laugh at the joke she played on me. She took it off and put it back on right-side up. I write about this to encourage you to allow your child all the time she or he needs to master a task, be it minutes, hours, days or weeks. Kids don't need the next big thing to keep them entertained or busy. By allowing them time to master a task or skill you are helping them build confidence, strengthen autonomy and master relationships. If you get a chance and if you have the time (so to speak) slow yourself down, get out the blocks or fill a tub with water and some cups, sit back, take a breather and observe. It's when we are quiet and not a part of the playing the magic happens.

**okay, can i just say that it must have been the antibiotics that i am on that made me think it was a good idea to title this post slap happy? seriously, i was thinking of the slap watch which made me happy and i thought slap happy would make sense but now i see that well...that wasn't one of my better ideas. i do hope yer still sticking with me.  happy July!

use your noodle

 While the idea of purchasing a long tube of styrofoam gives me a bit of an eek out, I do have to say that the product is quite adaptable for the preschool and kiddo world. From car washes to garlands to light sabres the possibilities just keep astounding!

I picked up two noodles from the dollar store plus two jump ropes. Sliced 'em up with a not so great serrated knife and dumped them into a pair of tubs. The jump ropes were unknotted then tied to one noodle-bead each/ The frayed ends were given a once-over with an open flame and set to cool.

I set the whole she-bang outside for the kiddos and watched. There was some great hand-eye co-ordination going on as the toddlers attempted to thread (and horde, we have a young one who LOVES blue) beads onto the rope along with math as patterns and sequencing happened. Science appeared as some of the beads made their way to the water table...they float! And dramatic play ensued as the older tots turned the two ropes into ENORMOUS fancy necklaces.

This took me all of 15 minutes to prep so what are ya waiting for, it is pool noodle season don't ya know?

Skip to my Lou {Craft Camp}: Circle Circus

 Greetings, friends! Skip to my Lou's Craft Camp is upon us and here is my small contribution to the fun. The beauty of this project is that you can let your kiddos go wild with color or you can limit their color palette to all one color or two colors, complimentary colors or more. You can make this on a L A R G E scale or a teeny tiny scale, it all depends on the circumference (lookie, I have even supplied you with new vocabulary words) of your largest circle. Skip on over for the details!

invisible pictures

 One morning, I handed a small group of toddlers a white crayon each. We talked about the color of the crayon and the color of the paper in front of us. When the kiddos eagerly got to drawing, they stopped abruptly with confusion on their faces.

"Mine is broken!" 

"It doesn't work!"

"I need a new one!"

I explained that their crayons did indeed work and that they were drawing invisible pictures that would show up once we added watercolor to the mix. When presented with the idea of water color, you can bet the crayons were immediately abandoned as the kiddos clamored for paint. After a little coaxing, and demonstrating how they could feel the wax on their paper, one of the three-year-olds told me she could see the crayon. That's all it took as the rest of the small group got to squinting at their papers.

 

Much scribbling was done and then liquid watercolors were passed out. 

 

 

 

 

I love the magic of children when they paint.

skip to my lou craft camp is here!

For the month of June, Cindy of Skip to My Lou has organized Craft Camp. This is its third year and you'll be sure to find something awesome to make with your kiddos no matter their age. Thirty bloggers, thirty days, thirty crafts! Don't forget to visit!

put a pipe cleaner in it

There is something fun about pipe cleaners. Maybe it is the happy colors or the bendability, who knows. One thing is for certain, kiddos love 'em! I spotted this nifty project on pinterest and put it into play once I rounded up a trio of happy colanders from the Goodwill bins.

I set out the supplies on a low outdoor table and stepped back to see what the kiddos would do. In between hand grabs of pipe cleaners and the head wearing of colanders, there was a smidge of poking and weaving magic. Even though the pipe cleaners were mostly twisted up into a massive mess, I thoroughly enjoyed watching the little minds create.

dip-idy doo dah

 Back when we did our watercolor and painter's tape pictures, we found we had quite a bit of liquid watercolor left over in our repurposed applesauce cups. So as not to let it go to waste, I remembered that just that morning, I repinned a most nifty pin. I grabbed a handful of paper towels and folded them up into triangles for the little painters who wanted to continue arting it up and demonstrated that it was totally okay to dip their little triangles into the leftover paint. 

They had a blast dipping away it was all I could do to wrangle them up for outside play time.

**here is the original source that the Land of Nod linked up to.

scrumdillydilly: sweetie pie

 

Hop on over to scrumdillydilly (yup, lower case) for the recipe! Your kiddos can do most of the work.

in the classroom: watercolor and painter's tape

 Working with a group of two year-olds and just-turned threes, I passed out paintbrushes, paper and oodles of strips of blue painter's tape. Some of the tape was torn short and squat while other strips were longer and divided in half lengthwise. I sticky-stuck them all around the edges of the table so the children could choose which strips they wanted. Some used a lot of tape, some used a little. Some added and removed as they painted, some asked for specific lengths and widths. 

 

 

After the tape hit the paper, the liquid watercolor orders were placed. I began with limiting the painting to two colors adding a third or fourth when requested. My favorite part was watching the manner in which each child took to the project. Some painted far away from the tape shapes, a few filled their paper with color, one young one painted their lines in between the tape pieces, while another took to the project with a paintbrush in each hand.

 

Once the children were ready, they each removed the tape themselves revealing the bits of patchy white squares underneath. 

All sorts of lovely turned up. One project through six different pairs of eyes. Ain't paint grand?

make a fingerprint brooch for mother's day

 Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there! I know this post comes late but I couldn't get pics to you earlier as we had the toddlers make these just this week.

There's a time for open ended art exploration with toddlers and then there's a time for having a very focused goal to the end product. This project is one of the few where I am focused not on the process so much as the product. Not exactly kid focused but still cool, I promise. We approached this as a project for the toddlers to "listen to instructions" and after a leisurely round of playing with the dough, here is what we did. The picks come from my redo as I was unable to get any of the kiddos working their fingerprint magic. 

Materials

*a half batch of porcelain clay

*pin-backs

*glue gun

*watercolor paper

*watercolors

*paintbrush

*small container of water

*small hole punch or fat needle

*pretty paper sacks (optional)

Our awesome toddler teacher made a batch of air dry porcelain from this blog. One half batch made more than enough for fourteen kiddos. We gave each kiddo a ball of dough to play with and when they were ready we broke off a smaller bal and got ready for some smooshing.

 

We used paper plates to flatten the dough into small disc and then had each kiddo press their thumb into the ball. Discs were quickly relocated to a piece of paper with their names written below their dough for some quality air drying time. The dough took a little less than 48 hours to dry fully and took on a slight yellowing which appeared to fade once the dough was totally dry.

 

 

 

Next up, we handed each kiddo a small torn piece of watercolor paper and had them choose two colors of Colorations Liquid Watercolor. When using watercolors with toddlers, I recommend using the liquid watercolors as the cakes need a little more attention than the young uns' generally have. There was a lot of discussion about Mom's favorite color but soon we were off and painting! Set aside watercolors to dry.

Away from tiny curious hands, use a hot glue gun to affix pin-backs to the back of each thumbprint. 

When the tiny watercolors are dry, use a small hole punch to punch two holes into the paper to affix the now super awesome brooch. 

Slip the whole thing in a happy bag with a message for Mom and stand back with a smile! Happy Mother's Day!

flower petal butterflies, part three

 This time we're gonna give 'em a whack or two. If yer handy with a sewing machine, you can then whip them up into a floral scented sachet. If not, use a larger piece of fabric and frame in a painted embroidery hoop.

Materials

*assortment of garden flowers

*2 small pieces of muslin or cotton

*2 small pieces of printed fabric

*newspaper

*board/old cutting board

*hammer/mallet

*rolling pin

*sewing machine or needle and thread

*cotton balls and/or fiberfill of choice

*pinking shears

*lace scraps optional

*dried rose petals or lavender or favorite scented oil

Arrange your petals on top of your muslin to create butterflies. Clickhere to see the first post on how to do this. When arranging petals, think front and back. Add small details first then layer wing petals on top followed by other accents. This way, when you clobber it with the mallet, you'll have two prints for your effort. 

 When satisfied, cover your butterfly with another piece of muslin and gently move to your board or cardboard.

Cover with a couple of sheets of newspaper and place the whole shebang on the ground outside. A hard ground that can take a wallop is best for this part. Before whacking with the hammer or mallet, use the rolling pin to gently roll the paper flat on top of the petals. This will help cement them in place and prepare for the clobber that they are about to get. Now you're ready to whack away! Give the newspaper covered creations a dozen whacks or so. You don't need to hit too hard which is why I would recommend a wooden or rubber mallet before a hammer. If you only have a rolling pin handy, give that a try and roll away.

Remove newspaper and gently peel the fabric pieces back away from each other. If you were successful, you should have two faint butterfly prints in front of you. Yay! 

Add a few details with a permanent marker and layer on top of your printed fabric. Stitch around the perimeter of the fabric leaving a two inch opening. Fill your pillow with flower petals or scent soaked cotton balls. We used a combo of lavender buds and fiberfill. Bring back to machine and continue stitching. Use pinking shears to cut around the edge to create a frilled look. 

 

 Handstitch or glue a loop of lace to the back to hang in your closet or leave as is and place in a drawer. Have your kiddo sign and date the wee pretties and give away for Mother's Day gifts. Yay for pretty!

flower petal butterflies, part two

 Second verse, same as the first...almost. This time, we're gonna create temporary butterflies. The process for this is to focus on the task of the making. The pulling apart of the flowers, the dipping of the petals and the arranging. Even the most wiggly of kiddos can lose themselves in the quiet destruction of this project. Small children will strengthen their pincher grips while older children will take notice of the varying colors and shapes within the petals themselves. This is a perfect project for using up a flower bouquet that has seen better days.

Materials

*flowers

*shallow bowl or dish for flowers

*large plastic yogurt lids or paper plates

*white paper

*scissors

*paintbrush

*pen/pencil

*small glass or bowl of water

As in the first project, have your kiddos collect flowers from your garden. Encourage questions and dialogue and have fun! when collected, set your kiddo up at the table and let them take apart the flowers you collected.  While they are working on disassembling the flowers, you can set up the workspace with a shallow dish of water for dipping and the yogurt lid or paper plates. If using a yogurt lid, plop the lid onto a piece of paper and trace around it, cut out and insert paper into the lid. 

Have your kiddo cover the paper with water using the paintbrush. If using paper plates, paint those up with water. The water on the paper will act as a fixative of sorts, keeping the flower petals in place. 

To create the butterflies, have your kiddo dip each petal into the dish of water before arranging on top of the damp paper. Continue until you have a pretty little butterfly. Create as many or as few as you like. Turn it into a science experiment and see what happens if the petals sit for a day or two. Enjoy!