Baby It's Cold Outside!

The great state of Alabama, as well as most of the country, has been COLD lately!  School started back for us on Tuesday!  But, due to the extreme cold, our school, like so many others, started an hour later.  This was NOT, repeat NOT a good way to welcome the students back from Christmas break.  Now, I know my students do not know how to tell time, but their little internal clocks were all off.  It took most of Tuesday to get things "normal" in my classroom.  It was fun listening to everyone tell me what they received for Christmas.  We giggled and laughed most of the day and listened to some "regular" music (that's what "T" called it since I didn't have Christmas music playing).  Our first fun art project for 2014 will be kept for our upcoming art show. 

We started by letting the children cut some white construction paper for our snow.  Next, we glued our snow onto a piece of blue construction paper and added our hand/arm print for the tree and our palm prints for our little snowman/girl.  It took just a few minutes for that the dry and then comes the FUN part, we added the snow.  Earlier that morning, I found an old tube from a roll of plastic wrap and covered it with hot glue.

  We rolled the tube in white paint and then rolled it onto our paper.

After everything dried, we mounted it to a large piece of black construction paper and added window panes!  A WONDERFUL Winter Window!

 

Tuesday was bitter cold down here in Alabama and since we aren't accustom to this kind of temperature we forced to stay inside for our recess time.  YUCK!  Well, not really!  I saw on one of my favorite sites Teach Preschool where the children were weaving through a rainbow.  I loved it of course (because I love everything on this website!) and wanted to try it.  Here is my version, we call it "Sneaking Through a Snowstorm"! 

WOW!  It was fun!!!!!

 

No fun winter themed week would be complete without talking about PENGUINS!!!!  I must say, our penguins are very cute.  His/her fat little belly was made white by sticking different white objects to contact paper.



 

Our Thursday was spent talking about polar bears!  Of course we read Polar Bear, Polar Bear What Do You Hear by one of our favorite authors, Eric Carle.  Our polar bear craft was taken right off of PINTEREST .  It was very simple but oh so much fun.  We really gave our fine motor skills a workout.

 

 

Since we were talking about polar bears, we had to play a polar bear game, right???  Meet "Pete, the Polar Bear" . . . .

He was made from a vacuum cleaner box (don't worry, I didn't get a vacuum for Christmas! LOL).  I covered him in white butcher paper, added ears, eyes, a nose and cut a hole for his mouth.  We talked about how polar bears like to eat fish, so I made us some little fish to feed him.

 

All the little fish were turned upside down on the floor.  They looked like they were swimming.  Each child picked out a fish and told us what written on it.  If you got it right, you got to feed the fish to the polar bear.  SUPER FUN!!!!!  I think we could have done this for an hour!

Our "Fabulous Fun Friday" was one of my favorites.  We started the day painting with ice!  On Wednesday, we all went to the kitchen to make ice paint.  Everyone stirred up little cups of paint and water.  We covered them with foil and stuck a popsicle stick in it.  On Friday, they were ready, no instructions were needed.

This one was fun because it had yellow and red paint in it.

The child who mixed it together didn't mix it thoroughly,

so we got to see the yellow and red paint.

This green ice paint was made with glitter paint!

LOVE!

They were ALL amazing!

 

As soon as we were finished painting we headed to make a snowman.  Now, by the time Friday came around, the temperature in Alabama was back into the 50's (ahhhhh . . . . winter in the south!), so we made our traditional "southern" snowman.  First, we had to make snowballs, and lots of them.

 

 

As you can see, we use newspapers!  We stuffed three large white garbage bags with old newspapers to make "Frosty"!

 

Hopefully, he will stay in my classroom for a few days.

No "Fabulous Fun Friday" would be complete without a little "cooking" time!  This Friday we made a snowman cookie. 

Everyone loved him!  We used one white powdered sugar donut (we cut it half),

 

added M&M eyes and a candy corn nose!  MMMMMM. . . . it was so good!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by!  I hope you come back next week, we will continue our unit on "Winter"!





Let's Talk Turkey!

First of all, let me issue a big 'ole apology for being away from my blog so long.  We had a wedding at our house!  Let me introduce you to our family . . .

My husband, Bill, Me, our son Jay and his lovely bride Brooklyn!

 

I plan to go back and play catch-up, hopefully during the Christmas holidays.  But, for now let's talk about Thanksgiving!!  One of our very first projects this year was special.  Last spring our Director of Children's Minister, Mrs. Brenda Clark did a little house cleaning.  It was like "Christmas in April" for me.  I found so many things little treasures!  One of my favorites was several packages of very "strange" looking artificial leaves.

Trust me, NO ONE would want to use these for leaves!  But, I did want to use them for feathers!!!  It was so much fun letting the children pick out their very own combination of leaves.  If you look closely, you may notice that the turkey is made from shapes.  The body is an oval, the eyes of course are circles, the beak is a diamond shape that magically turns into a triangle when you close it and finally those cute little feet are stars.  I think he is so cute!



THANK YOU MRS. BRENDA!!!

 

Like most teachers, I love new supplies!  Look what showed up in our supply closet . . .

This is some very good stuff and the children love it!  It isn't as messy as regular glue and a lot more fun to "dab" on.

 

Our next project came to us by one of my former student's Mom.  We loved it!

 

We used vegetable rotini.  I think I like it because as with most project, the process was so much fun.  It didn't take long for everyone to realize that it was fun to "dip" the pasta in the glue.  Yep, it was messy - very messy, but lots and lots of fun.  By the way, walking around all day making turkey sounds NEVER gets old for a bunch of 3 and 4 year olds!  We have had so much fun gobbling around our classroom.

 

Our next project is an old favorite.  I say old because we have actually done it before and if you are a regular reader of my blog, you know I like to add new things each year.  But, this is just too cute and fun.  The children got so excited painting the toilet tissue rolls.  I kept asking them what they thought we were making and I loved their answers.  I got everything from "trees" to "a dirty truck". 







The feathers are their hand prints and the feet are stars (again).  The turkeys actually stand up so I hope at least one or two of these little guys will be the centerpiece of someone's Thanksgiving table.

 

Okay, you know those good 'ole hand print turkeys that we have made for years and years??  Well, we have given them a little twist.

 

 

Since we are 3 and 4 years old, we need something more than just a hand print!  The children had the best time putting beads onto a pipe cleaner.   I love watching them pick out their favorite colors.  Can you tell what color "B-man" likes . . .

Yep, he spent so much time picking out his beloved "green" beads.  Oh, the little pieces of burlap were placed on some old pieces of cardboard and held on with large gold brads.  SUPER CUTE and FUN!

 

Goodness gracious, we did a lot of turkeys these last few weeks.  I will post our other Thanksgiving ideas later (I promise).  In the mean time, I hope you give a few of these ideas a try.  

Pet and "C" Week

We talked about our "Pets" this week and the letter "C".  This past week was our first FULL week of school, five LONG days.  Man, either I am really out of shape (could be) or I'm really getting old (yes, I am).  Oh well, either way, I survived.  Tired, but still hanging in there.  The children and I are still trying to get use to each other and each week I try to do something a little "extra" fun.  This week we started off by painting with balloons.  I read, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.  There were a couple of children who had not heard of this book so it was fun to watch their faces and hear them yell, "Read it again!".  After we read the book we talked about what we like to eat when we are hungry.  Much to my surprise, "cake" was a big response (more on this later!).  Anyway. . . we divided up into small groups and I headed over to the craft area to make our very own hungry caterpillar.  Everyone was so surprised to see balloons all blown up and waiting for us.  We started by dipping our balloons into yellow paint and making big "blobs" on the page. 

 

Next, we added big green blobs right on top.

And a big red blog for the head.

 

We added legs and little antennas and let them dry.  Afterwards, we added cute little eyes, a nose and of course, a happy smile!  

 

I just love these little guys, don't you?  I especially love the fact that they were 100% made by the child.  This is a little pet peeve of mine and I'm sure I will be mentioning it from time to time (sorry!). 

 

Another great book that we read this past week was If You Give a Mouse a Cookie by the wonderful Laura Numeroff.  I think this is one of my all time favorite books.  It should be, I've read it enough over the years!  We made a little chocolate cookie and added it to a "prompting note" to our parents.  It was easy, but it was fun.

 

I hope you can tell that the "chocolate chips" are our fingerprints.

This one made me giggle.  She said the mouse was hiding!

 

On of my special individual activities this week is our magnet box.  I was a little concerned about getting it out so early in the year.  I wasn't sure it we had people that put things in their mouths (something I am guessing is not a concern for Harvard professors!).  But, I kept a very close on it and everything went smoothly.  One of my students loved it.  He loved making a chain with the magnets.

 

 



During the week our circle time discussions generally were about our dogs and cats.  There was one day when we discussed what animal(s) we would like to have IF we could have any animal in the entire world.  Alligators and crocodiles were 2 of the favorites - YIKES!  It did make for a fun and lively circle time. 

 

Our letter of the week was "C" so we HAD to make a cat.  Now if you have read my blog before, you know that I big on giving the children choices.  Making our cat was no different, everyone decided on what color their cat would be.  First we painted a large paper plate and let it dry.  The next day we came back and cut some whiskers (it was "C" week after all!).  Most of the children had never cut with scissors before and most of them were quick to tell me they weren't suppose to use scissors.  After a little reassuring them that it was okay, they went to work.

 

Everyone did an amazing job cutting with scissors!!!

 

We added the freshly cut whiskers, ears, eyes and a little nose to make the cutest little cats!

On the back of each cat was a little note to the parents.  It said, "Guess who cut the whiskers?".  Everyone could hardly wait to show their parents!

On Thursday, we headed to kitchen to begin our weekly science experiment.  I had gone to my local Publix grocery store on Wednesday afternoon looking for fresh carnations (another great "C" word!).  The sweet manager finally located some for me way in the back of the store cooler.  It was a large bunch, big enough for EVERYONE to have flower!  We have a very sweet lady at the church who brings up empty Boost bottles.

She is so nice, she even takes the labels off of them for us!  They were the perfect size and shape for our experiment.   Each child selected his/her favorite color and we mixed the food coloring and water together.  Next, we carefully added our little flowers and waited . . . and waited . . . . and waited . . .

 

The next day we found a lovely surprise! 

 

 

 



Look very closely, can you see the colors starting to creep into the flower??  We sent them home on Friday and asked the parents to put them back into some colored water.  I cannot wait to hear how they are doing.

We read several stories about dogs this past week and one of the other teachers shared this next project with me.  It was really cute and easy.

 



I cut out the body, head and 2 ears.  The children had a great time painting them whatever color they wanted.  After they dried, we assembled them and added the cute little eyes.  One little girl was so excited, she now had a "real" dog of her very own!

Friday is always a fun day at school.  I want everyone to leave WANTING to come back.  After this week, I bet they ALL do!  We start our day with our Spanish class and everyone has so much fun with Mrs. Stacy.  Then we headed to kitchen to cook-up a little more science fun!  Our school is very good at using recycled products.  There is nothing that makes me happier then doing a project that cost little or nothing.  I found our big box of used and unloved crayons.

A lot of them already had the paper off so I just had to separate them.  The students picked out their favorite colors and put them into our little homemade bowl. 

We didn't have enough old muffin tins, so I just some aluminum foil

and made little crayon bowls. 

It worked pretty well.  They were funny looking and

the children loved it.

 

While the crayons melted slowly in the oven, we started working on our yummy "color-cake".  I mixed up 2 boxes of white cake mix (thanks again to Publix!) and each child got a large cup filled with batter.  Hold on, here comes the fun . . . . everyone got to add their favorite color of food coloring to the batter.  We spooned it into a cake pan

 

and popped it in the oven.  WOW, the entire school smelled SO good!  But we were patient and while it cooked, we got to use our new crayons!

 

 

I'm trying a little experiment myself.  On Friday's we are doing some free art.  This has no instructions and the children just have fun.  This week we had a lot of fun using crayons that we made ourselves!  INSTANT GRATIFICATION!!!

 

Soon the cake came out of the oven and we spread on some plain white frosting. 





 

 

As soon as we ate lunch we headed back to the kitchen to enjoy our cake!  

 

What a fun and yummy way to end our week!

 

Thank you for visiting with us.  I hope you stop back by and see what we will be doing next week!