With Saint Patrick's Day coming up there has been a lot of discussion in class about leprechauns, pots of gold, wishes, and rainbows! I ran with their interest of rainbows and tried two rainbow experiments. The first is watching a rainbow form out of Skittles. Supplies Needed: • Bag(s) of Skittles • White Plate • Warm Water Arrange Skittles in a circle on a plate. We tried to make a rainbow pattern, but ran short of red and added some extra orange to fill the gaps. Slowly pour warm in the center of the plate until it reaches the edge. Let the plate sit and watch the colors instantly bleed into the center of the plate. Any my movement of the plate or water will make the rainbow "beams" mix up so encourage kids not to touch anything. We first tested this experiment at home and at the end my kids noticed the color on the Skittles was still solid on top and asked if we could flip them over and try it again, so we did! And it worked again!! What a great observation, curiosity, and experiment!
This is is such an easy and visually appealing experiment to try with young kids.
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If you're looking for an adorable, and relatively easy, art project for Saint Patrick's Day, then this leprechaun handprint artwork is perfect! Supplies Needed: • Orange Paint • Face Paint* • Green construction paper • Black construction paper • Yellow construction paper • White construction paper • Googly eyes • Black Sharpie • Paint brushes • Patience :) Before we get started, please note you can make the leprechaun's face any color you wish. My kids looked through several books before deciding which leprechauns they wanted to make and ours were actually a dark peach--almost orange. To mix our color we mixed yellow, pink, and white until the kids decided it was perfect. Steps: Take the child's hand, palm facing up, and paint orange on their fingers only. With another brush spread the face paint on their palms. Gently press their hand down on white paper, trying to keep their thumbs down towards the rest of the fingers. Pull up slowly to reveal the print. We chose to paint some orange bangs on our handprints as well. Then we let the pictures dry overnight. While they dried, we cut out hats and the buckle accents for the hats. We let the kids assemble and glue the hats however they wished. Once the handprints were dry they glued on Googly eyes and drew on faces.
One of my favorite handprints is the leprechaun pictured above with the shocked expression. That student said its a leprechaun that was caught! It's so fun to hear the stories they makes up based off their creations! I know, I know, there have been a lot of sensory tub posts recently but honestly my students can't get enough of them and this water-based sensory tub was a HUGE hit with my pre-kinders this week! Supplies Used: • Green Water Beads • Mini black cauldrons • Porcupine Leprechauns • Plastic Shamrocks • Green "Good Luck" coins • Slotted scoopers I let green water beads soak over the weekend so they were varied sizes, ranging from a small marble to a large marble. This tub is holding three bags of water beads. My students really enjoyed filling the cauldrons with water beads and of course gently squishing them in their hands. I encouraged them not to pop open the beads, but it occasionally did happen. The water beads and scoopers were supplies we had on hand at school and the other fillers are from Oriental Trading.
If you're a regular reader of this blog you know I love dramatic play centers. The typical themes of doctor, dentist, vet, etc are always fun but I have to admit I love it when we have themes where our kids mimic their parents--especially when ordering complicated coffee drinks! We recently had school cancelled due to a snow storm and once back in session we were discussing what they like to have for a snack when they come inside after playing out in the snow. Hot cocoa came up and then a discussion about coffee, which led into stories about going to coffee shops with their parents. The interest created in this discussion led me to make our next play center a coffee shop. Supplies Used: • 'Hot' drink cups • Lids • Signs • Menu • Order forms • Reciepts • Gift Cards (voided) • Coupons • 'Cold' drink cups & lids • Straws • Tan & Pink Tissue Paper • White Poms • Pretend coffee maker • Pretend blender • Pretend desserts • Bakery bags For smoothies and iced coffee we used colored tissue paper. They especially loved ordering muffins and cookies and carrying around true little bakery bags. Even our classroom "pets" needed a caffeine boost! For my fellow germaphobes, prior to opening up the shop, we had a long discussion about not putting our mouths on cups or straws so we don't spread germs, and overall they did great following this rule.
I have been so excited to create St. Patty themed sensory bins. Most often you think of the color green when it comes to St. Patrick's Day, but I love to focus on a rainbow of colors. In the past I have used rainbow rice and dry green lentils, but this year I wanted to try something different! The main fillers I use in the dry sensory bin are a combination of rainbow pony and headphone beads. From there each day I will switch out the other elements, which include rainbow bottle caps, fabric shamrocks, plastic shamrock containers, porcupine leprechauns, mini pots, hats, large plastic shamrocks, and green four-leaf clover coins, and rubber charms featuring a rainbow, pot of gold, leprechaun hat, and a shamrock. Each day will also focus on a different learning goal. One day kids will hunt for all the gold (yellow beads) with tweezers and fill all the pots with gold. Another day they will find the green coins and match them to printed pot picture with numbers on them. The next day they will match upper and lowercase bottlecaps (dot stickers will be added). All of these items (and a whole LOT more) can be found on Oriental Trading's website. Check out their St. Patrick's Day selection here: http://www.orientaltrading.com/holidays/st--patricks-day-a1-550659.fltr No compensation was received for writing this post, however the items features were provided complimentary from Oriental Trading.
We are thrilled to be part of the Parragon Book Buddy program! We own numerous books from Parragon and have always highly recommend them for their unique content, quality, characters and themes. We were sent a variety of books this month, including a story book, collector's tin, and activity books. With the newest movie version of Beauty and the Beast coming out soon, this first "book" is sure to be a hit with all Belle lovers past, present, and future. It's actually a collector's tin set that features the classic Disney animated characters on a beautiful tin box that holds three books, four markers, a large coloring sheet, and sticker sheet. Next up is another Disney classic, the Lion King! This version comes in hard back with a gorgeous metallic embossed front cover. The pages are full of color illustrations, which catch the attention of young readers. We also received three activity books. Below is "Twisty Mazes for Little Hands". This book is great for fine motor development as your little one works to master their grip and control. And the best part is that the entire book is made out of eraseable pages and it comes with a dry erase marker! Each maze has its own theme with fun, colorful illustrations. The book is very durable and the variation in the mazes provides hours of entertainment for "little hands!" "Red, Yellow, Blue: Sticker and Draw" is an activity book that helps little thinkers learn and explore all about color with over 150 stickers and activities. Each page has a unique theme, helping to engage your child in a new way. This book is encouraged to be worked on with an adult due to the amount of reading comprehension required. My favorite page is the Last, but not least, is "Circles, Squares, Stars: Sticker and Draw". If your child loves stickers, then this book is made for them! It features over 150 stickers that all focus on basic shapes. Pages help teach children about shapes and encourage them to create images with the various shape stickers. One of my favorite pages actually makes you turn the book vertically to read and complete. I value books that fully engage the brain like this! No compensation was received for writing this post, however the items features were provided complimentary from Parragon.
Today we celebrated the birthday and honored the memory one of the greatest kid's authors, Dr. Suess! We had a dress-up themed day and I went as the famous Cat in the Hat and we had a wide variety of other characters show up, from Cindy Lou, to Sam I Am, and of course Thing 1 and Thing 2! For our art center we made Cat in the Hat artwork with our dot markers! The kids loved this project and it really helped work their fine motor skills. We also practiced our rhyming -at word families while at the table. Kids were also encouraged to bring in their favorite toy or stuffed pet from home during our reading of "What Pet Should I Get?" |
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