Springtime!

I love spring, it is such a happy time!  My class came back from our Spring Break with lots of energy and I returned refreshed and ready to go!  We started our unit on Spring this past week and here are a few of the highlights.

I have very few regrets when it comes to things I did with my son as a child (not that I did everything right, it is just a don't believe in regrets).  But, one of the things I would have done differently is hand print art.  I just don't have enough!  I think that is why this first activity is one of my favorites.  We put the children's hand prints in a circle.  The children ALWAYS decide on what color they want to use.  I feel this is part of what makes this art work so special, no matter what color they choose.  Next, we have the children cut out the leaves and the stem.  As the children are cutting, we talk about the different parts of the flower and the importance of each one..

 

I back the stems and leaves with brown construction paper to make them POP OUT.  This is a very special piece of artwork because it highlights our cutting skills and we will be saving it for our upcoming art show in a few weeks. 

 

Here in Alabama, like in most of the country, we always have a lot of rain during the spring.  This past week was very rainy so we spent an entire day discussing RAIN.  Our art project for the day was really fun, we made it rain!  We started by mixing blue paint, a little glue and water in a large container.  Then we used some really fun droppers to put small and large drops of "rain" onto our papers. 

 

 

 

"This is fun Mrs. Karen, but when are we going to make it rain?", "T" said.  So he lifted up his paper and . . . . .

"It's raining Mrs. Karen, it is raining!"

SUCCESS!

 

After they dried, they still looked great!

 

 



I love Pinterest, and I'm sure if you "follow me" you know I am almost obsessed (hahaha).  I saw this the other day and knew my class would love it!  Of course, we changed things a little and made it our own.  We started by painting a large paper plate yellow.

 I love when little "S" said to me, "I know that we are doing more than this!".  I just giggled and assured her that we were.  Next we painted a stem and leaf. 

 

We all have our "special" ways to paint!

 

If you look closely, you may be able to see that I outline the leaf and stem with hot glue.

 

I'm not sure if this was really an important step, but the children seemed to like it.

 

We had to wait a whole day to let it dry. 

 

Next, comes the wow!  We cut slits all around our paper plates and added real sunflower seeds to the middles.  Everyone picked their favorite colors to finish off our masterpieces.

 

 

I love these so much!  Everyone could not wait to take them home!  We were so proud!

 

Our "Fabulous Fun Friday" had to extra special this week.  We had survived a fire drill on Wednesday and our water was cut off for a couple of hours on Thursday, all because of construction in a nearby building.  As always, my class was amazing so I wanted to do something special.  Our letter of the week was "K" so I brought in my keyboard and opened up my large jar of keys! 

 





 

Everyone loved counting the keys and making key rubbings.  We even tried to put them in order from smallest to the largest.  Of course all this was done while someone was playing "songs" on the keyboard. 

 

Our art project was very simple, but is started our conversation about "wind" and it was a great way for us to review our shapes.

 

 

Our discussion about "wind" was very lively and fun.  I brought a box fan from my house and we took turns seeing what items would "blow in the wind".

 

 

The shredded paper was the most fun (of course) but it was also the messiest! :) 

Everyone knows that on "Fabulous Fun Fridays" we HAVE to cook, and cook we did!  We made our very own "cookie flowers"!  Each child cot a cup of cookie dough and colored it their favorite color food coloring.  Next, we squished it out onto some aluminum foil so that they would look like a flower and added chocolate chips for the centers.  (NOTE:  Mrs. Christi and I wrote each child's name on their aluminum foil with a sharpie so everyone could eat their own cookies.)  Into the oven they went and YUM  . . . .

 

okay, maybe not "yum" but if you look closely, maybe you see a flower????  It didn't really matter because everyone loved eating their very own flower cookies.

It was a long and exhausting week but I can't wait to do it again!  I hope you will visit us again soon.  Our next unit will be all about birds!





Q is for Quilt

The letter "Q" is always a difficult letter for me to teach.  Let's be honest, there aren't a lot of fun "Q" words.  I know, I know, "queen", "quick", "quack", but come on . . . how many times can you you be "quick" while you are "quacking"?  This year besides the girls being "quacking queens" and the boys being "quick quarterbacks" we made a "quilt!  Everyone made their own "square" and we joined them together!  This turned out to be a keeper!  I am sure it will be a hit at our art show!  "Quick" and Fun, you have to love it!

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!

I wanted to have something extra special for "S" week.  I had read and seen a "sticky table" over at Teach Preschool and ever since I've been dying to try it.  My classroom is small and is also used for Sunday School on the weekends so most of classroom activities have to be stored out of site at the end of each week.  Instead of using a table, I made a sticky box!  OH MY GOODNESS, we loved it!

I hope you can see the large box over on the right.  I filled it with all different kinds of objects (Note: the drinking straws were fun but a bad idea.  Yes, they kept being put in our mouths!)  I just used an old cardboard box destined for the garbage and some very ugly contact paper.  I sprayed the box with a spray adhesive and placed the contact paper, ugly side down, to the box.  I used good 'ole duct tape to secure the paper and carefully peeled the paper off.  The duct tape proof interesting because the children kept trying to stick things to it and seemed to enjoy figuring out that the entire box was not sticky.  Another wonderful moment came when they discovered they could remove the items and then replace them in another spot.  Seriously, this was an amazing activity!  

Well, by now I hope you have seen our wonderful class snowmen!  Here is our garbage bag snowman with his very own University of Alabama Crimson Tide #14 National Championship jersey!  Lucky for me, we were also talking about the number 14! 

Since it was "S" week and I was given some wonderful BIG boxes we also made "Sammy, the Square Snowman"!

Right beside Sammy is our "world's largest snowball". As soon as we read the book, The Biggest Snowball EVER by John Rogan, we all started talking about building one ourselves.  It took quite a bit of teamwork, but it was well worth it.  Our snowball may have started out small but in the end it was over two feet tall and for the state of Alabama, that is one large snowball!

We read another wonderful book entitled Snow Dance by Lezlie Evans.  As a matter of fact, I do believe this was everyone favorite book of the week.  I know I was asked to "re-read" it at least 4 times!  We decided that since we do live in Alabama and snow is rarely ever seen, a snow dance probably wouldn't work.  Instead we made our famous "dancing" snowman. 

  

We call them "dancing snowmen" because the two paper plates are tied together with ribbon and when you hold them up they wiggle and look like they are dancing.  

Another great art activity we did this week was our collage penguin.  We spent the day waddling like penguins and talking about how they cannot fly even though they have wings.  The white belly of the penguins are filled with a variety of different white objects.  Each and every one of our collage penguins seem to take on the personality of the maker.  

Look at this one!  My sweet little "W" was hungry,

so he put some food in his penguin's mouth!

Each month I save one piece of special artwork for our end-of-the-year art show.  This month I kept our hand print snowman.  Each child used the palm of their hand to form a snowman.  Once he dries, we use a variety to hats and buttons to make each on unique.  We used our fingers to add snow all around.

We also used an old make-up brush to brush on more snow at the bottom.

I will add a mat and laminate these special little guys and girls for our our art show!

Our Fabulous Fun Friday arrived way too quickly this week.  We were having so much fun I didn't want anyone to be disappointed.  I think I delivered!  We started our by with something different - sand art!  Everyone covered a black sheet of construction paper with glue.  NO INSTRUCTIONS, just go!

Some used a little.

Some used a LOT!

Next we sprinkled on some sand. 

Finally, we added some paint.  Any color or colors you wanted!

This was extremely messy but a lot of fun! (EDITED 1/19/11 to add photo)  Here is a sample of the final artwork all nice and dry.

Of course snack time on Friday had to be special too!  Our wonderful new assistant director brought in her shaved ice machine for us to use.  

This thing was so much fun.  We all got to have a little shaved ice with our pretzels! 

 Thanks Mrs. Melissa!

Our science experiment for the week was very SPECIAL!  My sweet friend and fellow teacher, Mrs. Christi and I had filled the school's freezers and our home freezers with bowls of water.  We gave the children the large hunks of ice and a cup of rock salt.  Everyone sprinkled the rock salt on the ice and watched.  

OH MY!

As you may know if you live in the northern part of the United States, the rock salt quickly started to eat away at the ice.  We were all amazed.  BUT, we weren't finished (of course not)!  Next, we added some color.

Everyone picked several colors of paint (we used our regular school paint mixed with water) and squeezed on the color.  

The results were spectacular!

Even though they were special we waited about an hour and came back to find . . . .

Needless to say, we were all Surprised!

We ended our very special Snow Week by doing a little "snowman bowling".  Now, I do not have one of those fancy "I-Phones" or "Droids", but as soon as I said we were going to go "snowman bowling" half of my class said they play that game on their parent's phones or I-Pads.  REALLY!?!?!  We didn't use an "I-Phone" but we did use some old Christmas boxes turned into bowling pins.

Let the fun begin!

Our snow week sadly came to an end.  But it was super fun! 

I hope you come back and visit with us again.  Next week we will be talking about solar system.  I can't wait to show you what we will be doing with those big boxes next week!