glitter and spice

 

Each month we feature a nursery rhyme for the children to learn. September had us chanting, reading, and singing I Had a Little Nut Tree. To give the children a little boost in what I like to call dot-connecting, I whipped up a batch of our autumn play-dough scented with cinnamon and nutmeg with a dash of silver and gold glitter to make it shine.

Along with the play dough, I had set up a scent center with small squares of sand paper, a cinnamon stick, and a nutmeg.

 

 

The children enjoyed rubbing the spices across the sandpaper and then smelling the spice scent that appeared like magic. They noticed that the play dough smelled the same and then enjoyed rubbing the dough on top of the sand paper to see what would happen.

 

Both the cinnamon stick and the nutmeg made an appearance with the dough....many times....

We also painted with silver and gold paint where we used our fine motor skills to remove our cut paper scraps from the green box and then press them onto the sticky-glittery paint.

going with the flow....

I set up some shaving cream and a couple of primary colors for some color mixing fun. The plan was for some shaving cream exploration with the children using their hands and sharing a piece of paper. One of my kiddos did not wish to touch the shaving cream and so the paint brushes came down and everyone was happy.

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...

doing what a raccoon does...

Well...sort of. The school I teach at is a both play and literature based. We feature a book a week and build our lesson plans around the various themes within. The children I teach of young threes and our first book was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. We learned about the different habits and traits of raccoons, one of which is the washing of their food. To add a tactile experience to the learning, I created a fruit washing bin.
 

 The children loved this activity and spent much of their free exploration time washing away. A few weeks later when I dropped my apple on the floor and headed over to the sink to wash it, on of my kiddos piped up "You wash it just like a raccoon"!

weave a little house...

 

We had a donated playhouse in our classroom that had a cloth cover in various shades of pink. We couldn't decide if we wanted to keep the house or not. I discovered the cover came off quite easily and so we whipped the cover off and then I found some yarn....

 

My thinking was two-fold. The house was now open but still houselike so that the children could play inside it and turn it into whatever kind of structure they wanted while we could still see them and what they were up to.

So I wrapped the walls of the house in yarn to give it a smidge bit more visual stability...

And added the basket of fabric scraps so that they could weave some magic into the walls.

Some children work carefully weaving the fabric in and out. Some work very hard to hang a length of fabric over a piece of yarn that rises far above their heads.

Lately I have spotted many of our scarves from the scarf basket tucked, tied, and woven into the house. It is always changing and I love it.

make a spin art raccoon!

During the first two weeks of school our theme was The Kissing Hand by Audrey Penn. We talked a lot about school and feeling and raccoons...

One of the projects we did was to make our own spin art raccoons. First up was a discussion about the different colors a raccoon's fur might be and pulled out some paint to match. We then selected some scrap pieces of construction paper from our scrap box and gathered up our salad spinner and coffee filters. I had also cut out an assortment of triangles and circles to complete our project.

The children placed three coffee filters into the basket of the spinner, we use three because of the viscosity of the paint. It's weight and thickness tend to smoosh the filter into a corner and then all you have is a mess of coffee filter. Using a short stack anchors the filter down and allows the paint to spin about. We used a washable tempera for or paint.

Once the filter was in the basket, the children selected the colors they wished to use and gave great big squirts of paint into the basket (with a little help from me a the bottles were new and not easily squeezable).

 

Next up was placing the lid onto the spinner which is not as easy for a three year old as it is for an adult, and then turning the handle that spins the basket. This part was really fun and interesting to see how each child would approach it. Our spinner has a crank handle and so the children needed to figure out how to hold the basket with one hand and turn the crank with the other. Some children grew frustrated and asked for help.

 

 

After a few checks and maybe more squirts of paint, the children removed their raccoons-to-be and added features.  The thickness of the paint took place of any glue we would need and so eyes and stripes and noses were added by simply selecting their preferred shapes (we used a variety of raccoon images from various flashcards as inspiration) and pressing them down onto the paint with their fingers.

 

 

They were quite proud of their raccoons and really into the spinner and so we made another spin art bit just for fun.

snip! snip! hooray!

In the three-year-old class we are practicing with scissors.  Construction paper is fairly easy to tear and even easier to cut. I tear strips of paper and mark lines across the width and ask the children to practice cutting along the line.

My aim mostly is to familiarize the children with how scissors are usd and held. We often practice our "thumbs up" mantra when using the scissors  and have more success tearing that last bit than actually cutting it.

Even if the children do not manage to use the scissors all the way through the width of the paper ir even anywhere near a line, the excitement they show when they liberate even the smallest scrap of paper has me offering up a scissors station every day.

Once they cut their pieces they can then choose a section of our paper box to put them into. The same pieces are later incorporated into painting and gluing projects. The sectioned acrylic box came from Target in the dollar section. I have a blue one as well and the children prefer to match their paper with the box and so we cut yellow, and green paper for the green box; and blue, and purple for the blue box.

Snip! Snip! Hooray!

sometimes you just need to squeeze

If you have ever worked with small children you may be familiar with their fondness for glue. They will use as much as you give them and then some. Often, you will have an idea for an art or craft project that involves liquid glue and pretty pieces of paper or other colorful bits and pieces. You have a gleam in your eye as you imagine all the beautiful arting and crafting the children will do and then you hand them the glue and well.....everything changes.

And it is all good. Adults present an art opportunity to well...create art but really what happens is the magnificent exploration of the supplies at hand. Be it beads, colored pasta, strips of paper, play dough, or glue, children need to figure out how it all works on their own.

My three-year-olds had their first art project that involved liquid glue in a bottle. I wanted to give them an opportunity to use a variety of adhesives and so we worked with glue sticks first, then our white glue that comes from a brush bottle where a paintbrush is built into the lid, and then the squeeze bottles came out and sure enough, all other adhesives were abandoned.

The very act of squeezing that bottle is so enticing and exciting, how can we really expect a young child to stop and why should we? Art with young children really is about the process and squeezing a bottle of glue silly is one fantastic process.

I do have a trick involving the glue however and that is that each child receives their "own" bottle of glue. They can use as much or as little but when the bottle is empty and all squeezed out, the glue shop is closed for the day and we move on to another project of their choosing which often involves the washing of some classroom item with oodles of soapy bubbles and plenty o colorful sponges that need to be squeezed out.

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....

our autumn play dough

I work in a school that is both play-based and literature-based. Each week features one title and each month we focus on a nursery rhyme. This month's nursery-rhyme (um...I mean last month's) was I Had a Little Nut Tree. We introduce the rhyme and practice reciting it out loud to introduce the idea of recitation to our younger children as recitation is a large component of our school in the older grades. My children or new threes and so often-times the recitation part does to happen but that's okay. We still sing songs, read books, and engage in activities to reinforce our rhymes.

To give the children a tactile experience while we recite our rhyme, I made a batch of silver & gold play dough that is richly scented in cinnamon and nutmeg. The golden color comes from the spices and the silver sparkle from a hefty dose of glitter.

When I introduced the dough to my class. I sang the nursery rhyme and spoke of the golden color of the dough and the rich scent of nutmeg mixed with cinnamon. I asked if they could see the sparkle and to guess what color it was. After many guesses of white and gold I showed them the bottle of glitter and called it silver.  The children enjoyed rolling the dough and smelling the dough and holding it up for me to smell as well. They even called it our nut-dough.

There is no shortage of spicy dough recipes out there in pinterest-land but here is what I used, adapted from Mudworks by MaryAnn F. Kohl. If you have an opportunity to purchase this book,  I highly recommend it as it is fuller than full of all sorts of homemade tactile experiences.

Cinnamon and Spice Dough

*1 cup all purpose flour

*1 cup water

*1/2 cup salt

*2 tablespoons cream of tartar

*2 tablespoon cinnamon

*1 teaspoon ground nutmeg

*2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil

*2 tablespoons silver and/or gold glitter

Add all ingredients except glitter into medium-sized saucepan and mix. Turn heat to low and stir mixture. Continue stirring as mixture will thicken a bit like a pudding. As it heats up, mixture will thicken up more and begin to pull away from the sides of the pan resembling mashed potatoes.

Once the mixture has pulled away completely from sides of pan and formed a clump in the center, remove from heat and dump onto a cutting board or other heat-happy surface. Mixture will be hot, do not allow children to knead until the dough is much cooler to the touch.

Once mixture has cooled enough for you to handle, begin to knead by pushing dough in cneter then turning edges inwards and push some more. Use rocking motions with your hands as you push and turn and push and turn. Dough will be a bit grainy. Keep kneading.

After your first round of kneading and after the dough has cooled enough for small hands to handle, dump glitter into center and continue to knead to incorporate. Glitter will stick more to the dough than your hands as long as you keep kneading it (yay for sticky oily mixtures).

After you have mixed in the glitter, the dough should begin to lose its graininess and smooth out. If dough is still too sticky and "wet" add more flour or return to heat and try cooking a bit more. If dough is too dry, add a little more oil. If you follow the measurements above, the dough should come out perfectly. This is a favorite recipe to use in many centers.

Your dough should now be smooth in texture and spicy in color. If you wish your dough to have a richer color, add more cinnamon. It is okay to add more spice after the dough has been made. The more you handle it, the smoother it will become.

If you have no cream of tartar, don't worry. You can still make the dough but it will not last as long and the elasticity will not be a smooth. This dough will last for weeks stored in an airtight container in your fridge or a cool space.

I put the dough out on the table with an assortment of fall-themed cookie cutters, some rolling pins and a few acrylic fall leaves found at the dollar store. There were also pom-poms nearby that got incorporated into the mix and of course whatever else the children decided to round up from various areas of the classroom.