Church and "L" Week

I apologize for being so behind on my post.  Between school and this little thing we are putting together called a WEDDING, I am a little S T R E T C H E D thin.  But, I'm playing catch-up this weekend and I hope you enjoy some of these fun activities.

Our Church and "L" week was a lot of fun.  We started the week working on one of my favorite projects, a lizard.  Because we have a "L"andon in our class, we of course called him "Landon the Lizard". 

I love the little spots on him.  They were made by the children with dot paint.  He is a wonderful and easy way to introduce the letter "L".

I love sensory activities and I love for us to use our hands.  I could not resist letter my class make a "squishy" lollipop.  "Squishy" painting is one of my favorites.  No one really gets dirty (except for me) and I love to see the children's faces when they mix the paint all together.  We start with a large circle cut from poster board.  The children pick out their favorite colors.

I cover the circle with clear plastic wrap (note: this is NOT the time to buy cheap plastic wrap and if you do, use 2 layers). 

Here comes the fun part . . . squish!!

 What magically appears is beautiful.

We let them dry overnight (some actually took longer) and glued a large craft stick to the back.  INSTANT LOLLIPOP!  Of course everyone went home with their very own lollipop to eat too!
One of our 3 year old teachers found these Tiger Pops at the local Dollar Store and they looked just like our lollipops!

Since this is our "Church" week and our school is one of the largest churches (Shades Mountain Baptist Church) in our area, we took a wonderful tour.  Here is my friend, Mrs. Christi showing the children the BIG stained glass window (I may get in trouble for posting her picture.  But I'm checking to see if she really reads my blog.)

 

Since we saw the church's big window, we headed back downstairs to make our own!  We are VERY blessed at our school to get to use all the church's wonderful resources.  One of the BEST is the large commercial Ellison machines and dies.

 

 

We have a good supply of shapes to choose from and one of them is a beautiful window.  I carefully lay the cut out shapes onto a piece of clear contact paper and the children have a wonderful time cutting, tearing and placing their favorite colors of tissue paper onto the window.

 

When they are finished, we cover it with another piece of clear contact paper and cut away the excess.  Now, it becomes an amazing piece of art.  Here it is laying on our light box.

My class is doing very well with their scissor skills.  Each week we try and spend time improving our skills.  This week we worked on "Larry the Lion". 

Everyone cut their own mane!  Isn't he adorable!  We also worked on drawing "l"ines by using a ruler to draw his whiskers.



A little close up view of our cutting!

 



We used the Ellison machine again but this time we used the negative portion of the die cut (don't worry, the actually die cut will be used later!).  Instead of using tissue paper, we used colored cellophane that my wonderful director, Mrs. Cynthia ordered for us. 

Once again, I laid the cross onto a piece of clear contact paper.  Then, each child carefully selected their favorite colors and added them to the cut out.

Once the cut out was covered we had another beautiful art piece. 

 

I didn't send the cross or the stained glass window home until Friday because we used them during our weekly science experiments.

 

On Monday we sent home a little note that asked everyone to bring a flashlight to school on Friday.  Of course everyone was so excited on Friday morning to show me their flashlights.  Our entire Friday was devoted to exploring the "L"ights!  We started by looking at our beautiful stained glass window and cross on a light box.  The light box was more fun I imagined.  We looked at all difference in the tissue paper window and the cellophane cross.   We looked at other things too, including our hands, leaves and even one little girls long hair!  Next, we all headed to the kitchen to find our big table covered with butcher paper.  Unfortunately, we didn't have enough real rulers for everyone so we used big craft sticks and drew "L"ines!

 

Now, what does this have to do with LIGHTS . . . .well . . . look what happens when you turn the lights out and add a couple of black lights??????? 

AHHHHH!!!  We loved looking at every one's drawing, our clothes and especially our teeth!  A special "THANK YOU" to our sweet Assistant Director, Mrs. Melissa for finding us the black lights!

Next, we headed up the hallway for some flashlight fun! 

We drew shapes on the ceiling with our flashlights! 

 

Making squiggly lines was fun too!

 

We even danced with our flashlights!

Now as sad as it was, our fun day was coming to an end.  But we really didn't want it too, so we headed to the kitchen to eat our lunch under the black lights!!!  

Mrs. Christi and I had one last surprise for our "Fabulous Fun Friday" . . . . Glow in the Dark Jello!!!  Oh my!  You can find it on my PINTEREST board. 

Yes, it really did glow in the dark!  Although I'm not too sure everyone enjoyed the taste, but we had a great time.  THANKS for stopping by.  I hope you drop by again to see what we are up to!