The "Correct" Tools?

I just finished my morning summer routine of looking through websites and reading all the fun preschool blogs and I HAD to get something off my chest! One of the preschool art blogs mentioned "making sure you use the correct tools". The site mentioned the different types of paint brushes (their uses), easels and smocks for cover ups. REALLY? WHY? I'm sure there may be hundreds of reasons we should use the correct tools at some point in our lives, but preschool art should be the exception. My class has always loved painting with different objects. Part of what makes my class fun is the uncertainty of what we will discover in class. I love finding strange and unusual objects to use for art. There are days when we do pull out a paint brush, or two or three. But for the most part we experiment! We have been known to paint with feathers, baseballs (my personal favorite!), celery, toilet paper/paper towel rolls and even communion cups (that's a whole different post hahahaha). The list could go on and on. The "correct tools" in my classroom are ones that encourage fun, creativity and yes, lots and lots of giggles. Why in this world would anyone settle for just paint brushes when there is a world of possibilities out there? Oh well, thanks for listing. I guess I should stop the ranting and do something productive today. Maybe I'll mop the kitchen floor? Hmmm . . . I don't think we have ever painted with a mop! NEW IDEA, LOVE IT!

What's Wrong with Me?

It's summertime and aren't teachers suppose to be resting and enjoying their time off? Well, I am . . . uh, sort of! I wonder if there is something seriously wrong with me. I can't stop thinking about school. I'm already excited thinking about September and a class full of new faces. Now don't get me wrong, I love being home with my sweet hubby and doing little home projects. Especially those that we've put off WAY to long. I love heading to the lake and enjoying time with my family (oh, Father's Day is next Sunday and we are planning a big surprise for my husband! shhhhhhh, please don't tell!). But I'm get up really, really early in the mornings and I try to be quiet until my husband gets up. I do my daily walk for exercise (which by the way doesn't seem to be doing any good) and then I have my "play on the computer time". This is when the trouble begins. I start reading blogs and getting ideas. I start making notes and printing new and cute things for September. The next thing you know it is 10:00 a.m. and NOTHING has been done. I was at the grocery store yesterday afternoon and I found myself staring at the school supplies. Now we all know that no teacher buys school supplies at the grocery store, too expensive, but I saw a wonder FAT marker that I really could use. Don't worry, I didn't buy it, but I did write down the name of it so I can try and find it later. That's another problem I'm having, my list for next year. I have the longest list of the "things I want" and "things I want to do". There is no way that we will have time to do all of them next year. There just isn't enough time. Hmmm . . . maybe we could extend our school year! Probably not. I am hoping to run by school next week and grab some construction paper and few of my supplies that I should have brought home this summer but alias I didn't. The way I figure it, I can at least start cutting out some fun stuff. Okay, I have got to calm down. I just will not make it until September. I will start repeating to myself, "I can calm down", "I can calm down", "I can calm down" . . . OH NO! I just received an e-mail from our director! She attached our clandar for 2011-2012! Oh my! The thoughts started running through my head again. I think there is something seriously wrong with me. Maybe I should look into find summer school work!!!!!

Father's Day and End of the Year :(

Well, it has happened once again, our school year has ended. I think the end of the school year is like Thanksgiving. I know it is coming, I understand that things need to be done, I get excited thinking about it, but after it is over I am always sad. Am I CRAZY??? Probably! Anyway, I decided that if my sweet class was going to HAVE to leave me then they were going to leave me with a BANG! I pulled out all the tricks in my preschool teachers book! Here is a recap of my last week of school for 2010-11 . . . .

The week started with what the children thought would be a typical "Marvelous Monday". Right after carpool we walked down the hall to . . . . an . . . . empty classroom! No toys, no music, no special tables, nothing! The look on their faces was priceless. I told them to "grab their bubbles" and follow me. I took them straight through the bathroom to my partner-in-crime, Christi's classroom, and there it was 16+ glorious feet of blank cardboard! (My husband and I had a new patio door install a few weeks ago. The cardboard was wrapped around the door. A preschool teacher's DREAM!) Of course we had the paint hid so everyone was dying to know what we were going to do. Christi and I pulled out bottles and bottles of paint and just about any type of brush and roller you could ask for. Let the fun begin! There was only ONE rule (I know I don't like rules but you have to have them), you could not paint OVER anyones work. Now, 1 . . . 2 . . . 3 . . . PAINT! And paint we did!
I am still amazed at how very quiet the entire room became. Of course it didn't last long. There is always that one child that started complaining and wanting another color or another brush. We were planning on changing up colors and brushes but because of the "whining" we let them continue for a little longer before the switch. Suddenly, everyone realized that this was REALLY FUN! Colors were being swapped with the teacher's help! People were being NICE TO EACH OTHER! No one was complaining! SUCCESS! Here is our masterpiece!Of course this couldn't go home with anyone so we took a big group picture and with the help of my computer genius hubby, everyone got a lovely picture!

Monday really was Marvelous!

Tuesday was busy as usual. I wanted to do a quick little Father's Day. We have been practicing our writing skills all year long and it was now time to put all that work to good use. First, we made some background paper by painting a piece of white card stock. We used a mixture of rubbing alcohol and paint (any three colors the child wanted). The effect is amazing. It is quick to dry, doesn't warp the paper AND it is a great way to get the last of the paint out of the bottle. Plus, it smells funny! Next came our hand print (we used regular strength paint here). We carefully added some old left over letters that were cut from our Ellison die-cut machine and a glittery heart left over from Valentine's Day. Finally, we added our names!! The perfect Father's Day gift!
Can you believe that the children that wrote these JUST TURNED FOUR! WOW!
Wednesday came way too quickly. Thursday was our big end of the year bash so I wanted to do something meaningful. Several weeks ago I read a book during story time about a mother bird and her babies. The mother bird took care of the babies until it was time for them to leave. All of a sudden "A" spoke up and said, "Mrs. Carrie (I know my name is Karen, but she pronounces it Carrie), you are like the momma bird and we are your babies!" Hmmm . . . an idea was born. Our end of the year project! As you can see the next was made from scrap paper that the children cut themselves. Theirs is the little hand print and that is my big 'ole hand sitting beside them. The top reads, "It is time to spread your wings and fly". And then written on the side, "But, I will always be here for you! Mrs. Karen"

Thursday was the last day for me to be with my class. It had been a good year. Of course there were difficulties, challenges, laughs, tears and a few temper tantrums, but over all it was an amazing year. Our new director, Mrs. Cynthia, did an amazing job with our May Play Day. Each of our classes rotated to different play stations during the day. My station was science and snack! My class has a small science lesson once a week and a special snack on Friday, so it was fun to share this with the other rooms. Here is our "SUMMER SUN SNACK"! A simple sugar cookie with freshly made (by the child of course) yellow icing and pretzels for the rays.It was a great way to say goodbye to all the children. We ended our day with a wonderful picnic lunch from Chik-fil-a out on the soccer field.

I'm not sure that this part should be included, but hey, it's MY blog! I wasn't going to return to school at the end of LAST year. I wasn't happy and I'm at the wonderful place in my life that I don't have to go to work each day. I work because I love the children and love my co-workers. I'm blessed and I know it. I didn't want to return and be miserable. I knew there were other schools that had asked me to join them, so I knew I had options. Then the most wonderful thing happened. I listened to God! I didn't just TELL Him what I wanted or thought I needed. I asked Him for guidance and then I shut up and listened to Him. He spoke loudly and clearly. A new director was named to our school. Things are wonderful. God is wonderful. I am glad I listened to Him and was (for probably the first time) patient. Thank you Lord for helping me to listen.

I guess I'll spend the next 90 days reflecting on my school year. I expect to research books and blogs so I can make some changes to my classroom, add more things and maybe even delete a few things that didn't work. We will see. For now, I'm taking a week off to be with my husband. Have a great week. I'll talk to you next Sunday afternoon!

"Z" Week and FUN!

Oh no, it is the dreaded letter "Z" week! That means "the end of school" is almost here (visualize me with a very SAD face here)! I like to end the year with a huge BANG so hold on to your hats . . . here comes our "Z" week.

I had to be out on Monday of "Z" week because my Mom and I attended my niece's college graduation way down in Auburn. It was well worth the 2 1/2 hour drive! So I left a little fun for the substitute. They started out with a very simple watercolored "Z" My class has always enjoyed painting with water colors so I thought one last hurray! Next they moved to the clay, lots and lots of "Z's" were created with the clay. Best part, it is the end of the year - take your clay HOME!


I was back with them on Tuesday and I was ready to go! We did an amazing black and white collage to honor our letter "Z". I love them all!

Do you see the "Z"eros? I like mixing the paint with the glue to make a 3-D effect.


Wednesday was our "Z"ero the Hero day. Wish I could show you a picture, I'm just not sure where they are :(

Thursday ended up being BUSY! We continued talking about "Z" and putting the finishing touches up on our "Brown Bear Book" (more about that later) so our art project was simple. FUN, but simple. Anything and I do mean anything I could find that was round was dipped into white paint and we made "Z"ero art. I knew there was a reason I kept all those laundry detergent caps. Since they were white on black paper everyone kept calling them our "Z"ebra "Z"eros! SUPER fun!





We also decided to make a "Z"ebra puppet. To be honest, I thought it was boring but after it was all done everyone loved them. We even had a "Z"ebra parade!

Friday was the day we had all waited for! I had teased everyone all week about the fun we were going to have. And boy did we have fun! First, we were not allowed to "walk" down the hall, we had to "Z"ig "Z"ag. Our art project was amazing. I know I use that word a lot but seriously it was amazing! I saw this post from Teacher Tom ( http://teachertomsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/our-tall-paintings.html ) and knew we just had to do it. To say the children LOVED it is an understatement. Well, there are no words, just look for yourself -
Some got a little carried away pouring the glue, but who cares? Certainly not me! These will take days to dry so we left them in our storage room for the weekend. I can hardly wait until Monday!

As always on Friday we headed to the kitchen for a science experiment. Hmmm . . . last FABULOUS FUN FRIDAY, this had better be good! IT WAS! We made our very own "Superballs". Here is the recipe http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/rubber-blubber-666356/ and here is our version

And yes, they really bounce!



Were we done? NO! Next we made our own homemade ice cream. We used the following recipe for each child.




1/2 cup milk




1 teaspoon vanilla




1 tablespoon sugar




We put the children in groups of 3, tripled the recipe and put the ingredients into a large ziplock freezer bag. CLOSE IT TIGHTLY! We put the baggie into a large round plastic container (ours were large plastic pretzel containers) with crushed ice and rock salt. Next we rolled, and rolled, and rolled. We actually rolled for about 15 minutes, just because it was fun!







There was one accident (I think I didn't have the top screwed on tight enough) but no one minded, it just was fun to pick up the ice!




The ice cream was so good! Super way to celebrate our last Fabulous Fun Friday!




It was a busy week and to be honest I expect next week, our final week, to be even more busy. I hope you stop by and see how we ended our year!

"Y" Week and Mother's Day

Opps, I did it again! (AHHHH! Do I should like Britney Spears?) I'm not sure why the end of the school year/Mother's Day/Art Show week always seems to sneak up on me, but once again it did. To say the week of May 2nd was busy is like saying preschool children have a lot of energy! First we were finishing up our wonderful Mother's Day surprises. For my children's special gift we dress them up in old clothes and take their pictures. I always turn the pictures into sepia tone and well you just look at the one of the pictures and tell me if there is another word besides adorable to use . . . .


Too cute! But of course the children have to make them their own so we got busy!Everyone painted their frame their Mom's favorite color. Next we added finger print flowers. PERFECTLY done! I forgot to take pictures of the final product, so I just cropped this from another picture OOOOOOPPPS!

Now everyone knows that you have to give your Mom some flowers for Mother's Day, right? But I'm not a big fan of cut flowers, they just die, so we made our own. These can be kept for years and years.

I think the reason I like these SO much is that they were made from scraps of paper and recycled mailing tubes that I retrieved from the garbage last summer. We even used some shredded paper (not sure you can see it) for dirt. I wish I had one of these of my son's hand. Hmmm . . . do you think I could talk a 24 year old police officer into making one of these?????

We didn't forget our letter of the week. "Y" is a difficult letter to learn. Not a lot of fun "Y" words but I tried. We take all different color yard and wrap it around a "Y" cut from poster board scraps. For some reason the children adore this. They sit longer than I ever expect and wind the yarn, round and round. Fine motor skills; I like it! Here is our "Yarn Y" - Of course we spent the entire week "Y"awning and using the color "Y"ellow as much as possible. We also put a "Y"awn in our mouth as we traveled down the hall. FUN, FUN, FUN!

Our Fabulous Fun Friday came way to soon this week. We wanted to make one more little surprise for our Moms. Luckily for me, my dear friend, Myra, told me about making a flower from styrofoam cups! OOOOOOHHHH yes, a science experiment AND a Mother's Day gift all in one - PERFECT! We started with a styrofoam cup and colored it with markers and crayons (just a note, the crayons did much better). Next, the chidren cut the sides of the cup.Finally, into the oven.We had our oven set for 350 degrees. Watch them VERY carefully because it only takes about a minute. Add a craft stick , some leaves and the final results are amazing -







THANKS MYRA!!!!


I hope you will come back and check on us as we finish up our school year and talk about the letter "Z"!

"X" Week and Outdoors

WOW, what a week! This time I'm not talking about the craziness that has been going on at school. Our state was hit by several devastating tornadoes on Wednesday. In case you don't know, I live and teach in Central Alabama and April 27, 2011 is going down in history as one of the most deadly in the history of the state. As of today, there are over 200 dead and hundreds more are listed as missing. It has been extremely sad. We were out of school of Wednesday and Thursday of this week because most of our area is without power. With all that said, we had a great week at school.

We began our week with everything being normal. Just the normal routine chaos. We started talking about the great outdoors! We put together the CUTEST insect ever. It was anatomically correct; 6 legs, 2 eyes, 2 antennas, and 3 body parts. The rest however was left to the imagination of my class! Aren't they amazing! They were done with nothing more than a cardboard egg carton and some pipe cleaners. I don't think I have ever recited the phrase "6 legs, 2 eyes, 2 antennas, and 3 body parts" so much in MY LIFE. But, we got the message! My class officially knows that spiders are NOT an insect! JOB WELL DONE!

On Tuesday we worked on our wonder letter "X". This letter is challenging at best. But we tried. Today we made a giant "X" with a fun x-ray effect. I started by cutting out a large "X" and drawing little "X's" all over it with a white crayon. Then the children painted it with water colors. Don't you love it? I love their faces when the little "X's" appear.

During the week I hid little "X's" made from different colored tape all over my room. I told the children they were to find the hidden "X's". "X" marked the spot. They loved it! Everyone was looking all over my classroom! SUPER FUN!

We also made a bug jar on Tuesday. It is made with just fingerprints. Everyone loved talking about the different types of bugs that went inside the jar.

My favorite moment appear during our snack time. One of my students moved her goldfish around until . . . .

LOVE IT!

Then Wednesday happened! A severe storm with straight line winds arrived in our area around 5:30 a.m. After that, everything changed. No electricity so no school. To be honest I thought the worst was over and we would be back in school on Thursday. WRONG! The deadly tornadoes arrived late in the afternoon and early in the evening. Thousands and thousands of people in the state of Alabama had their lives drastically changed.

On Friday we were lucky enough to be back at school. I was shocked to find out that during the storms my sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi was hurt during the storms. She has many, many large trees down in her yard and during the clean up process she was injured. I don't talk about Christi much, but she is an amazingly sweet friend. We are completely different. I actually call us "The Odd Couple". She is Felix, nice and neat; I am Oscar, well you know! Anyway, her injury really hit me hard. Just the thought of her being hurt and possibly serious injuried really upset me. We were lucky because not many children were at school so Mrs. Christi and I joined classes. For the first time, I wasn't upset that we only had 9 students. We decided that no matter what, we would continue on! And continue on we did!!! We worked on an eXtra special dragon fly. The entire project came about because I was out of school and TOTALLY bored without electricity and my mind was raging out of control. I looked through my wonderful supply of scrapbooking paper and we came up with . . . .

I hope that you can tell by the photo that he/she is anatomically correct. The precious wings, both sets of them, are made with tissue paper that was salvaged from Christmas presents! I love using recyclable stuff!


We also headed to the kitchen for a fun "spider" snack. Isn't it amazing what you can do with 'Nilla Wafers, chocolate icing, pretzel sticks and M&M's. SUPER FUN!


Hopefully, next week will be less emotional. Even though my students were not effected by the storm other than the loss of electricity and/or the damage of fallen trees, there is still the constant talk and visual images that are on television. We will be dealing with the anxiety of our students for months to come.


As a footnote, I'm not sure how many people actually read or care about my blog. But if you read it, please pray, please pray for the people of Alabama. We have been devastated by these tornadoes. We need your prayers. THANK YOU!

"W" Week and Easter

I'm late once again! Since we were out of school for the Good Friday, Bill and I headed to the lake for a little R&R (not really, we worked the entire time). We had a wonderful visit from our son, his girlfriend and their dogs, so the weekend was perfect.

School was great all week. It seems everyone was busy talking about our big Easter party so it was a little difficult to keep our focus, but I tried. We started Monday by making the most amazing "Stained Glass Easter Egg". It turned out so nice. It is one of those projects that the children (and I) get instant gratification. Something we all need from time to time. We started with a piece of contact paper. We laid our hollowed out egg on top. Next we added our cross and little pieces of left over tissue paper.

We finished by carefully laying another piece of contact paper on the top.

Then we rubbed. We probably over did the rubbing process, but it was FUN! I carefully cut away the extra contact paper. The final results . . . . .

WONDERFUL!
Everyone couldn't wait to hold them up to the light.

Tuesday is always a fun day. We are busy, busy, busy! Today was no exception. I try very hard to emphasize to the children the true meaning of the holidays. I don't want them to think that Easter is all about candy and eggs. So on Tuesday we worked very hard on a beautiful and very meaningful Easter Cross.

Each of the colored squares has the meaning of the color written on it. The Easter lily is made from our handprint. The parents loved it.

I guess most people can tell by what I write that I AM NOT A FAN OF WORKSHEETS! They bore me, so I am guessing they will bore most children. Besides, anyone can color at home, school should be a place where you do "other" things, right???? Well, that is what I think anyway. So instead of copying all those coloring sheets (yawn), I laminate one or two of them a week and we use some donate "white board" markers to practice our writing skills. This week I made us a wonderful Easter egg to change things up a bit. EVERYONE loved it.

When we get finished we just erase it!

Here are our name sheets. Everyone loves practicing writing their names! Yes, this child is only FOUR!

A little side note: These will eventually get nasty looking. When they do, just wipe them off with a Clorox® Disinfecting Wipes or something similar and let them dry. They will look like new.

Wednesday is often referred to as "Wild Wednesday" or "Wacky Wednesday" and this week was NO exception. We had fun. I changed things around in our room and waited to see if the children noticed them. It tooks a while, but finally I heard, "LOOK Mrs. Karen, the pictures on the cabinet are turned upside down!" After that everyone started looking for things that were "wacky". We also made the cutest little wagon with Easter eggs in it of course!Thursday came too quickly this week. It was our big party day and I knew things were going to get crazy. I decided that we needed something very meaning and calming to work on today. We made an Easter bracelet. We used pipe cleaners and colored beads. Each bead represented the colors that were used in cross. They were beautiful, but not calming. It was party day, I tried! ;) We also worked quickly on our letter "W". We hung out the wash! Super cute, super fun!

Our Easter party was a huge success. Instead of "hunting" for Easter eggs we do an Easter Egg Swap. It is just like our Valentine Swap and everyone goes home happy!

Thanks so much for stopping by. Our next week will be all about the great outdoors and the wonderful letter "X". I hope you will come back and visit us!