Perfectly Circley Day!

Wow! It has been a long time since I have posted! In that time the preschool where I have worked for the last 4 years has regrettably closed. I am now providing preschool and childcare from my home. The children all adjusted seamlessly, however I have had a rather difficult time!

Preschool is now underway and the first week was filled with learning how to use glue sticks, markers, scissors, etc...

Our theme for the first week was On the Farm and we examined circles, the color red and the number 1.

The children's favorite part seemed to be finding circles so we had a Perfectly Circley Day! We found circles all around us, from the screw heads on the cabinets to the clock on the wall! We used markers to draw circles on red paper and then stuck circle foam stickers on for some extra fine motor practice. We practiced drawing circles in the air with our fingers for pre-writing practice. We found different ways to make circles with our bodies for large motor skills! We sang songs about circles and even ate circles! For breakfast we had Cheerios in a circle bowl; morning snack was apples cut into circle slices with peanut butter and raisins; lunch was English muffin pizza with circle pepperoni (which are also red!), banana circles and carrot circles! The kids were especially amazed at the apples cut in to circle slices :)
Of course my favorite part is always...Books! We read...
                 

The Rabbit books by Alan Baker are some of my favorite for teaching basic concepts as the children are captivated by the silly things the rabbits do!

Next week...Apples!

Valentine's Day

This project was a lot of fun and each one turned out to be quite original! We used the spiky balls shown above; placed a piece of construction paper in a dish bucket; put some paint around the edges; dropped the balls in and the kids rolled them around by rocking the bucket back and forth! Lots of fun! After the paint was dry we cut the paper into hearts!

This is a pretty basic project. We just taped the heart shaped paper doilies onto the back of a sheet of construction paper. Then we flipped it over and rubbed crayons onto the front of the paper to reveal the heart shapes! This is one the kids are always amazed with as they see the hearts appear!

This is another easy one that turns out very pretty. I pre-cut several heart shapes and the kids used bottles of Elmer's glue which they squeezed all over the hearts. This was a very good fine motor workout! Then they shook glitter all over the hearts! Very pretty.

Colors!

Preschoolers love lots of colors! They love to identify colors, find new colors, and find out what colors make other colors. We did several projects about color mixing and by the end of the week almost all of the preschoolers knew what colors you needed to make green, purple and orange.
We read the books 'A Color of His Own', ' Mouse Paint', ' White Rabbit's Color Book', 'Little Blue and Little Yellow', and 'The Mixed Up Chameleon'.


These have always been some of my favorite stories for teaching colors and the preschoolers loved them! We did quite a few projects to go along with this theme as well. The first one we did was using handprints to show how colors mix together to form a new color. Each child painted their hands either blue/yellow, blue/red, or red/yellow. They placed both hands palm down on a piece of paper. Then they rubbed their hands together to make the new color then placed one hand in the middle of the first two. Very cute!

We did another project that the children really liked. It was a two day project that covered many different realms of instruction. On the first day the children colored coffee filters with markers using red/blue, yellow/red, or yellow/blue. We then sprayed the coffee filters with water to see the colors mix together. (Process art, fine motor, science) This is what they looked like-

The next day, the children ripped the coffee filters into many different pieces and glued them to a piece of construction paper or a coordinating color. (Fine motor, process art) I only have one photo, oops!

Of course we also make color mixing bottle which are simply mixing food coloring in small water bottles and shaking them to see the colors blend. We also added glitter and small beads!
I put out the color mixing paddles in the science center so the children could play with mixing colors on their own. In the sensory center I put out the colored rice which is really pretty and relaxing!
Our name tags were also colors- I simply cut circles out of construction paper and overlapped them. The kids referred to them often while mixing colors! Altogether it was a fantastic week full of colors and learning!!!

Process Art

The goal of preschool art is the process, not the finished product. Because of this, many of our 'projects' don't really end up looking like anything! When I pull out the paint in our preschool room, the question is not 'what are we making?' but 'what are we going to paint with?' We have used fruits, vegetables, pasta, cotton balls, q-tips, sponges, combs, cereal, suction cups, bubble wrap... ummm I think we have used paint brushes twice this year! The kids are learning that anything can be used for art, and it doesn't matter how their artwork turns out, it is their's. I try not to have a model for the children to compare with or use pre-printed pictures. Sometimes though, they are used as a fall back for 'those' days; the days when nothing seems to go right! The kids always have fun with our art 'projects' and usually have a long story to tell me about what it is! I love hearing their different takes on a painting that they did. Soooo, if your child brings home a strange painting and you are not sure what it is, just ask them! I'm sure they will have a really detailed explanation and story to tell you!

What to wear in the winter

Our theme this week is Winter Wear. We were very lucky to receive quite a bit of snow, soooo, we brought it inside!!!! The kids think it is the coolest thing to play with snow indoors!

Of course since we are talking about winter wear, we read the books 'The Mitten' and 'The Hat' both by Jan Brett. If you haven't read these, check them out; the illustrations are fantastic! We used some ideas from her website as well at http://www.janbrett.com/ We used the mittens and the animals to re-create the story of 'The Mitten'. The older class was able to lace the mittens together quite well.

For a more creative project the next day, we fingerpainted. Each child had two mitten cut outs. They fingerpainted one of the cut outs with LOTS of paint any way that they wanted. When they were finished, we placed the blank mitten on top of the painted mitten and pressed them together. When we took them apart two matching mittens were revealed!
We had a bit of a fine motor workout today; I have a picture of a bear who is in the snow but dressed in summer clothes. The children colored suitable winter clothes and then glued them onto the bear so he would stay warm. The project 'Bearly Warm' came from The Mailbox magazine Jan 2009.
All of the kids loved our new fingerplay today entitled 'What to Wear' , they had a great time clapping their hands and stomping their feet!
I added mittens and gloves to the Dramatic play center which the kids have diligently been practicing with. The older kids are doing very well with the gloves, while the younger ones are sticking with the mittens!
We also have mitten matching added to the math center. The template for this was found at http://www.prekinders.com/

Snowmen!

This week we also talked about snowmen. I find that like snowflakes, snowmen are a wonderful way to teach children about individuality. Snowmen are also perfect for teaching children about geometric shapes; there are soooo many different shapes that go into making a snowman! One of the projects we did was make a 'shapes snowman'. The children were each given 3 white circles of different sizes, a piece of construction paper in their choice of color, geometric shapes, and a glue stick. From there they were encouraged to put their snowman together however they wished! It was really fun to see the different ways that children used the shapes to make their individual snowman. To go along with this project we read the book 'All You Need for a Snowman'. This is a fantastic book which takes you through all the steps of making a snowman! We also sang a song about dressing a snowman that the kids loved!
Another snowman project we did was painting a snowman with cotton balls. I traced 3 circles onto construction paper. The children then painted in the circle using the cotton balls and white paint. The younger children smeared the paint around staying in the circle remarkably well. Some of the older children 'dotted' the cotton ball onto the paper which gave the snowmen more of a textured look! The children then added google eyes, orange triangle noses, and other items that they wanted to 'dress' their snowman. They all turned out really neat and are on display in our classroom. To go with this project, we read the book 'The Biggest Snowman Ever!'  The song we sang to go along with this was an action song about rolling snowballs bigger and bigger to make a HUMONGUOUS snowman!
The last snowman project we did was to make a snowman chain. This was more of a fine motor project as it required the children to make paper chains. The kids did a great job helping each other which was the point of the project! We make a chain out of white paper that had 3 links. On the first link the children glued eyes, nose and mouth. The second line was left empty and on the third link, the children glued buttons. After these dried, we hung them on the ceiling where they look very nice! To go along with this we read 'Snow Friends' and sang 5 Little Snowmen!
To go along with our snowmen theme, I added a snowman tangram printable from http://www.prekinders.com/ In our sensory box I put a bunch of cotton balls and added pretend people. The kids loved making the people play in the snow! In the dramatic play center I removed the Christmas items *sniff* and added snowmen cookie cutters and a snowman cooking apron. We had a wonderful, fun filled week even though we didn't get to play in the snow!

Snowflakes!

This week (January 3-7, 2011) we talked about snowmen and snowflakes. Unfortunately there was not enough snow to play in this particular week; if it is too cold outdoors, we simply put the snow in a bucket and play with it indoors. Ah well, maybe next week. Children are fascinated by snow; they always have so many questions! I love to use snowflakes to remind the children that they are all unique just like snowflakes! Of course we have to make lots of snowflake projects to go along with this lesson! We used paper doilies to make snowflakes- we taped several different sizes of paper doilies to a piece of construction paper in the child's choice of color. The children then sponge painted over the doilies. We removed the doilies when the children were done and they were very excited by the results! They were all very proud to hang their individual snowflakes in our classroom to show their friends and parents.
Another snowflake project we did was one I found in the Dec/Jan 2010/11 edition of 'The Mailbox. I gave each of the children several different sizes of green triangles and brown rectangles. They glued these where they wanted on a piece of dark blue or black construction paper to form a night time woods scene. We then used wagon wheel pasta dipped in white paint and pressed them all over the paper for snowflakes! They turned out fantastic, and once again, the children were able to see that no two snowflake pictures were the same!
For science, we looked at and compared close up photographs of snowflakes. The kids did great finding the differences in the snowflakes! In the math center I printed a snowflake tangram pattern from http://www.prekinders.com/ The kids had a great time putting all of the shapes into the correct place to form the snowflake pattern!
There is a way to save a snowflake for viewing by using superglue and a microscope slide, but I have never been able to get this work (mainly because I always glue my fingers together!) I found the instructions for this at http://www.ehow.com/how_2062910_save-snowflakes.html
I will try to post some pics of the kids completed snowflake artwork and get the info for the snowmen section we did this week as well!