Torn Tissue Paper Poinsettias

 As we approach the Christmas season, teachers everywhere are trying to teach children the skills they need to learn, as well as incorporating fun seasonal activities.  It isn't always easy!  Our students get more and more excited as the holidays approach, and who can blame them?  It's an exciting time of year!  Today I thought I'd share one of my go-to activities for December learning.

 I always have a stash of used gift wrap tissue on hand.  Yup, used.  I remember as a child looking at all the beautiful tissue paper and wrapping paper, and wanting desperately to play with it.  I've always had this thing about paper. :-)  As a teacher, I try to remember what it was like to be a child, and to honor the spirit of my kiddos.  I also have to be budget conscious.  Reusing beautiful cast offs is one way to do both.  (After birthday parties and holidays I smooth out the tissue paper and fold it up, ready for the next craft occasion.  I've done it so long, my daycare parents know to set it aside, and often help with the folding and saving.)

Tearing is a great fine motor work out, and there is no wrong way to do it, so the children typically enjoy tearing red and green tissue paper into strips for their projects.

Next they glue the tissue strips onto a plain white background, I usually use printer paper.  There's a trick to this: don't put the glue on the tissue paper, it will tear easily.  Rub your glue stick onto the background paper, then push the tissue onto the damp glue.  (Of course glue sticks are also another fine motor work out for young children, but don't tell them that!)  I encourage my kiddos to put down 4 - 5 strips of one color, then to make an AB pattern by inserting the other color between them.  We add a little crumpled yellow tissue in the middle of the poinsettia.

Trim around the edge of each strip of paper (I do this for my preschoolers, but first graders are pretty good at it), then have them glue the finished poinsettia onto a solid colored background. Ta-da!

This is a fun and simple center activity your students can do by themselves or with an adult, and makes a lovely art companion to one of my favorite Christmas books, The Legend of the Poinsettia by Tomie dePaola.

Insects, bugs and things that creep

Oh yes, we got buggy this week!  This is a great time of year to learn about insects, and it seemed natural to follow up our caterpillar and butterfly learning by learning about other insects.  Do I even need to  tell you that the children loved it?!

In between our insect books (both fiction and non-fiction, of course!) we sang a song about insect body parts: Head, Thorax, Abdomen, and labeled a large diagram with the parts mentioned in the song.  Fun!  We saw pictures - including a life size drawing - of one of the biggest insects to ever live on earth, the meganeura.  Meganeura looked like a dragonfly, but it was up to 36 inches from wing tip to wing tip!  While the adults in the room seemed to all be grateful it is extinct (it lived 300 million years ago), we had the children graph whether or not they would like to meet one, and they overwhelmingly said yes!

We also had a live ladybug visit us, along with a nice supply of aphids for it to eat. (Unfortunately they all came from my oleander bush, which is yellow with aphids in some places.)  I need all the ladybug help I can get in my garden!

We also had ladybug dough play, with black beans to make spots.  We revisited a word we worked on last week, symmetry, and enjoyed the feeling of mushy dough and hard, slick beans.

We're going to use the dough again next week to make our own fossil type imprints, so a couple of kiddos borrowed their parents' phones again to take pictures of their creations.  I love seeing them remember this idea from past story time sessions!

We had out lots of magnifying glasses, plastic insects, informational cards and the like, as well as puzzles, all out of one of the early learning kits that are available for check out.

The most popular use of the plastic insects was the dirt sensory bins - with tall, tall grass, just like in Denise Flemings' book.  We set 5 of these sensory bins up on the patio outside our community room, so our families could enjoy the spring sunshine along with the bugs and dirt. 

While enjoying the sensory play bins outside, some of the children helped me to look on the day lilies for "evidence" of bugs.  We found some!  The children told me they think these petals were chewed by caterpillars, probably very hungry caterpillars!

Finally, since we did read In The Tall, Tall Grass, we followed it up with making our own tall, tall grass, an idea I saw here.  The children glued on words, wrote their names, fringe cut the paper to make "grass", and decorated it with brightly colored insects.

So much fine motor development, preparing those little fingers for writing and much, much more!

Next week we'll learn about another kind of animal that is extinct - and much bigger than the insects.  Can you guess what it is?  Come back next week to see what we learn!

Fun with Elephant and Piggie!

We LOVE Elephant and Piggie!  And Pigeon! And Knuffle Bunny!  Pretty much all of Mo Willems' books!  Okay... I guess basically I just love books... but Elephant and Piggie are special!

This week we had an Elephant and Piggie story time.  :-)  Do you see who is trying to sneak in?

That silly Pigeon!  Don't worry Pigeon, you'll have your own special day in a few weeks.

Ms. Debbie and I acted out/read There Is A Bird On My Head.  I knew we were having fun with it, but it wasn't until I looked at the pictures one of our patrons took of us reading, that I saw how focused the children were on us.  I think the kiddos may have enjoyed it almost as much as we did!

Of course we sang and danced, and Ms. Debbie read another book about our cute friends - and then we got to play/learn.

I downloaded the Pigeon and Duckling finger puppets from PigeonPresents.com.  Mo Willems has all kinds of awesome resources for schools and libraries to use for his book celebrations, and there are also online games for children to play on his site.  You should definitely check it out!

The children made "nests" from paper bowls and brown paper.  I especially love the skinny pieces of cut brown paper sack, they made awesome "straw" for the nests.  Everyone colored birds and put them in their nests.  Now they can act out the story just like Ms. Debbie and I did!

Look at those fine motor skills - strengthening little fingers to prepare them for writing tasks as they prepare for school.

 

Our next station was making Piggie paper bag puppets.  I found the idea here.  There wasn't a pattern for them, and our paper sacks were very small, so I whipped up an outline and made copies on pink paper.  

The kiddos cut them out, and added eyes and nostrils to their piggy faces, and ta-da!  Piggie puppets!

Of course we also needed a third activity, a sensory bin.  One of the Elephant and Piggie books is Shall I Share My Ice Cream?, so Ms. Kathleen made us some ice cream dough.  She mixed a large box of baking soda with several packets of frosting mix in (just color and scent, sugar free powdered drink mix would work too), and made us pink and blue "ice cream" to play with.  We kept it in the refrigerator until it was time to play, so that it was cold too!

We pulled out ice cream scoops and some stale ice cream cones, and our friends had a great time!

I often mention that the children have different ideas for how to use things than what we envision, and this week was no exception.  One little girl played with her "ice cream" for so long that the cone began falling apart.  That was a new opportunity to explore, and she crumbled the cone and dough together for a very long time.  As I watched her, she told me she was making it into a "salad".  (I can see a lot of potential for an ice cream salad, she's brilliant!)

I turned poster board into the cover of an Elephant and Piggy book, I Am In A Book, and we took pictures of our friends in it.  When they were all done, Ms. Debbie and I had a turn too!

As the children left, we asked them to vote/graph about which character they preferred, Elephant or Piggie.

The graph is on the bottom left of our new graphing wall, and you can see for yourself which character had the most votes!  I created some posters to help parents see what we learn from this activity, and am happy to share them with you too.  They are free on my TeachersPayTeachers store, please click and download.

We'll keep building on this wall each week, always talking briefly about the results of the previous week's graph.  When we looked at our Chinese New Year graph, we noticed that there were 10 votes for dragon painting, and 10 votes for tangrams - they were equal!  We learned the sign language sign for equal, and added a great math word to our vocabularies.  I made sure that this week's graph is oriented vertically, because graphs are definitely not always horizontal.  We'll have to have some pictographs soon, and.... well, all that will have to wait.  Stay tuned, and come back next week to see what else we are getting up to at the library!

Need more Elephant and Piggie ideas?  Check out my post about Happy Pig Day  with lots more ideas about celebrating these favorite characters!

Celebrating Chinese New Year

Kung Hei Fat Choi  -  Wishing you all a prosperous new year!

We celebrated Chinese New Year at story time this week, and as usual, we had a blast!

I got to lead story time, which is sooooo much fun!  I love reading to the little ones, and singing and dancing, and did I mention all the fun things we get to do afterwards?  While I'm sure some people think I'm doing this as an act of volunteerism, I have to admit that getting to hang out and play with small people is an absolute treat for me.

I put together some props to use while retelling the story of the Great Race - the story of how the years of the Chinese Zodiac were named for 12 animals. 

We started with the animals lined up on one side of the felt board, and as I told the story I moved each animal across.  The children helped me figure out which number each animal was, and I put up the numbered cards across the top.  (This modeled the left to right progression of our writing, as well as numerical order - but all the children saw was a fun activity.)  Can you see the dragon puppets flying by the animals in the lower right hand corner?  One of our guests really loved the shiny dragons.

How about these for shiny dragons!?  One of our sensory bins had golden dragons, red tinsel, gold coins, red envelopes, and some other shiny shapes hidden in it. 

Here's our other sensory bin: pompons with jewels, tongs and clothes pins to work those fine motor skills.

Here it is in action:

Those little fingers are working hard, developing muscles that will later help these children to hold pencils as they learn to write.

Block play helps build hand muscles too, while also working on spacial skills, balancing, and learning about 3 dimensional shapes (with an occasional lesson in gravity thrown in for good measure!)

Painting our dragon scenes was very popular this week, as friends used sparkly paint to create a background, and added dragons on top. At least, that's what I thought was the plan, but as usual the children took the materials furthar and in different ways than we poor adults can hope to imagine: beautiful silhouettes!

I was surprised to see that the favorite center this week was actually the tangrams!  This set of 7 shapes can be formed into a square, or any number of other creations.  I read a wonderful book, The Tangram Magician by Lisa Campbell Ernst (no, I'm not affiliated with any book sellers, the link is just for your convenience).  In the story a magician transforms himself into different animals and objects, which are all represented with tangrams.  The kiddos LOVED it!  I put out tangram patterns of all 12 animals of the Zodiac that I made, plus enough paper tangrams for everyone to make their own creation - and they did!

Here's our graph that we made to show which activities each child liked best.  We looked at last week's graph, and introduced some great mathematical language: more, less, most, least.  Graphing their favorites is an easy way to introduce graphing, and all the math skills it entails - and it gives us great feedback that we can use as we plan future activities.

Each child went home with a red envelope with a nickel in it (red envelopes with money are a traditional New Year gift), and one of our families brought in delicious New Year cakes that she made for everyone.

 It looks like a very good new year indeed!

For more Chinese New Year activities, please see my Chinese New Year Pinterest board, and see this post from a previous celebration.

A touch of Texas

During our recent move, I found all kinds of things that had been tucked away safely, only to be forgotten.  If you have ever moved, you know what I'm talking about!  If you haven't ever moved, you're in for all kinds of surprises when you eventually do!

While many of the things I found were junk, I came across this little treasure too, and wanted to share.

I can't take credit for the idea, it's something my first grade team did during spring time almost 20 years ago.  I can't credit the right person either, I simply don't remember who suggested it, or where they got the idea.  What I can tell you for sure, is that it was a sweet little project, and that the parents loved it!

You may not be able to tell from this picture, but it is actually a quilted rectangle with several layers to it.  It will take some adult preparation, plus 2 days of student work to complete.

To make it, you need:
  -plain white cotton fabric
  -plain blue cotton fabric
  -iron-on 2-sided adhesive
  -a layer of batting
  -white, green, and blue fabric paint
  -fine brush
  -pretty scraps of a contrasting color
  -embroidery thread
  -a needle.

Cut the white cotton fabric, blue cotton fabric, and batting into equal sized pieces.  Ours were 8.5 x 11".  Set aside.

The next step needs to be completed for ALL the copies you will make at once.  If you're going to make one project, only do it once.  If you plan to make a class set of 22, you need to prep them all before you cut!  Follow the directions for your iron on adhesive, attaching it to another piece of white cotton fabric - not the one you already set aside, another piece.  After it is fused, cut a smaller rectangle.  Ours was 5 x 8".  This will be the part that gets painted.  You want this piece to look perfect, so trim very carefully!  When you are satisfied, center it on the plain blue cotton rectangle, and fuse it in place.  You will now have all the pieces shown above, ready for your student artists.

On the first student work day for this project, the children will paint their bluebonnets.  They'll paint some small leaves, and a long stem with the green paint and the brush.  Then it's finger print time!  If you can show your students real bluebonnets, or at least closeup photos of them, you'll see that the color isn't consistent over the whole flower.

There are usually more white petals towards the top, and more blue ones toward the bottom.  We had the children paint the blue fingerprints first, then added white ones in another layer.  Our children were delighted with the results!

The second student work day is for sewing.  I strongly recommend having a bunch of prethreaded needles ready, or you will spend the entire time rethreading while the students wait!  Young children can usually "get" the idea of the needle going down on one stitch, then up on the next, it's a pattern, so you're incorporating some mathematical thinking as well as a lot of fine motor skills as you do this.  Keep the threads no more than 18" long to start, it isn't enough to go all the way around, but it seems to be as much as little hands can manage without tangling.  Layer your pieces: white backing, batting, blue painted piece, and safety pin in place so it isn't going to slip while the children work.

Students sew the embroidery thread around the edge.  It won't look picture perfect, but they and their families will think it is beautiful!  Finish it off by hot gluing a small bow or some buttons in one corner.  (Our bows were tied in fabric scraps 1" x 12".)

If you've read this far, you are a brave teacher/parent, bravo!  Yes, this project does take a lot of adult supervision and guidance.  If you can get some volunteers to help you do this, take all the help that is offered.  The reason we did this, even with all the time and effort involved, is that it is a beautiful memento of those little hands working.  Children are proud of the results, mommies hung them up to display, and everyone remembered what bluebonnets look like, and that they are the state flower of Texas.  These make fantastic Mother's Day gifts a few weeks after the bluebonnets are finished blooming!

Some of you are thinking about all the pretty fabrics you could use instead of the plain blue one behind the painting.  I know I thought it would look fantastic with a nice gingham.  Here's why we used a solid color: the background shows through and distracts from the painting.

I know posting this in July is absolutely the wrong time of year for bluebonnets, but if I wait until late March, this project will have found its way back into a cupboard, only to be forgotten all over again.

Here's another Texas learning activity I want to share too.

This is my Texas bingo game, for reviewing 12 different symbols of Texas: armadillo, the Lone Star, pecans, the Texas Flag, longhorn cattle, cowboys, The Alamo, the Seal of the State of Texas, prickly pear cactus, bluebonnets, Texas, and mockingbirds.  Children love to make games out of everything - it's just more fun that way - so I put this social studies learning into a bingo format.  There are 24 game boards with the colorful outlines, and 24 in a printer friendly format.  I used some cool star buttons as playing pieces, but you could use any kind of small manipulative that's handy.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, bye y'all!

Chinese New Year dragon blower

Last year I found a really cute Chinese New Year's dragon craft, and tried it out with the kiddos.  I found it via Pinterest.com, at two different sites: http://blog.kangarooboo.com/2011/01/ and http://babyccinokids.com/blog/2012/02/14/fire-breathing-dragons/. The children really enjoyed it, and got quite a fine motor workout making their dragon!  As a bonus feature, blowing through the dragons is a deep breathing and calming activity - something most teachers of  3 - 5 years olds will welcome!

This project was completed over a couple of days, as we had to paint the cardboard tubes and then let them dry completely before decorating them.

 I helped hold the rolls still while the children put on two large spots of glue at one end, added pompoms, and then clipped a peg on to hold them in place while they dried.  We added wiggly eyes very carefully!

 Clothes pins provide a great finger workout for little hands!  We repeated the process on the other end of the tube (minus the wiggly eyes), to make large "nostrils" for our dragons.

 We taped some tissue paper streamers inside the mouth end, and let them dry.  It's so hard to wait!

The next morning we were able to enjoy our dragons!  We discovered through trial and error that when the children put the tube right up against their mouths, the tissue paper didn't move much, but look at it go when we pursed our lips and blew from a short distance back!

 I think these dragons will scare off any evil spirits that may be lurking around! 

 I will admit, this was not the children's favorite activity for Chinese New Year.  I bought some special red envelopes, and followed the Chinese new year tradition of giving money.   I only put a quarter in each envelope, and the children had to tell me "Gung Hay Fat Choy," which means Happy New Year, in order to collect their envelopes.  Would you believe, they all really liked that best?!   They also liked the ginger chicken stir fry and rice that we had with lunch... and the fortune cookies.  (They're smart kids!)

For those of you who are working on sight word reading, and want a fun reading activity for Chinese New Year, here's a link to a fun activity I created recently.  I hope you like it!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!  Happy Chinese New Year!