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!

"L" Week is Lovely!

When I think of all the different activities we do, I am pretty sure that "L" week is one of my favorites!  I know I say that a lot, but we always seem to have so much fun.  Let me show you some of the highlights of our week . . .

Our friend, Larry the Leaping Lizard, was a huge hit!  Besides being fun to put together, we used our fingerprints to make the little purple dots on his body.  The best part was getting to leap like a lizard all day long.

Another fun surprise for the week was our lollipops!  There are just too many "L's" in lollipops, so we had to make very large lollipops.  We started with a large round circle and added some paint.  Next, we cover the paint with some clear plastic wrap.  Now, here comes the fun part . . . squishing it!

As you can tell, there is no wrong way to squish paint!  

Some like to use one finger, 

while others enjoy squishing and slapping the paper.

After they dried we wrapped them in clear plastic wrap and added a stick!!!  

Everyone also went home with a special, sweet treat too - lollipops, of course!

 Cutting with scissors is always fun!  This week we practiced our scissor skills by making a lion!  First, we cut his mane.

Then we added some cute little eyes, a couple of ears, a nose and a mouth.

Isn't he adorable???  Of course, there was a lot of rooooaaarrring all day long.

Lots and lots of tissue paper helped make our next "L" project extra fun!  Everyone picked out their favorite color tissue paper and laid them on some very sticky clear contact paper.

Then we covered it with more contact paper.  

Now, let the fun begin!  Everyone was asked to bring a flashlight to school so we turned off the lights and ahhhhhhh . . . .

Our room came alive!  Everything looked so different with only our flashlights on.  No one wanted the lights to come back on so we laid on our backs and used our flashlights to make different shapes and letters on the ceiling.  We even tried reading a book -

Remember the tissue paper we stuck onto the contact paper???  Well, we borrowed my friend, Mrs. Tiffany's light box and ahhhhhhhh (again!)! -

 Now, see why I love "L" week?  Thanks for visiting with us, I hope you come back again soon!

LaLaLaLaLa It is the Letter "L"

Since Valentine's Day was on Tuesday this year we had 3 glorious day to spend talking about the lovely letter "L"!  Our Wednesday art activity took a lot of patience and fine motor skills, but it turned out to be amazing.  First we needed to cut some strips of brown paper for the lion's mane.

I drew a large circle on piece of yellow paper and each child added the eyes and a nose.  Next, the children glued on the lion's mane.

The end results were unique and so very cute!

We also spend the ENTIRE day roaring like a lion and talking about this fascinating creature.  I found some very interesting facts at Zoo Ville USA and Lions  These are two terrific websites!

Thursday is ALWAYS jammed packed with "extra" activities (we have Chapel and Spanish classes each Thursday) so our art activity usually has to be quick AND fun (it always has to be fun!).  This week we talked about lizards!  I found some very interesting lizards facts over at Lizards .  Be careful if you click the link, you could be there for HOURS!  Our lizards were not exactly anatomically correct, but they were a huge hit with the entire class!

We just some very small lids to make the dots on the lizards.  It was fun!

Since the beginning of the week was filled with talk of Valentine's and parties, I knew I had to do something VERY special for our "Fabulous Fun Friday".  I sent a note home asking everyone to bring a flashlight to school on Friday.  Hmmmm . . . let the fun begin!  For our art project, we each made a small square with clear contact paper and tissue paper.

Of course it was great fun shining our flashlights through the tissue paper and looking at all the different colors.

We headed to the kitchen for our weekly cooking unit.  This week we were a little more simple than usual, we made an "L" cookie.

Cute, fun, simple and VERY yummy!

It was a good thing that it didn't take very long to make and eat our cookies because our science experiments lasted a LOT longer than I had expected!  Our first experiment started with everyone grabbing a partner and  filling a big clear plastic container with water.  (NOTE:  Our containers are actually the lids from old CD containers.)  Next, we added a little food coloring - 

BUT, we did NOT stir them!  Ahhhhhhh!  Now, let's turn off the lights and look at them with our flashlights!

Cool, huh?  We can't stop now!  Let's add another drop, or two, of a different color food coloring!

I loved hearing everyone talk about what they were seeing.  My favorite was, "It looks like a jelly fish!".  I  do believe it does!

Next we headed to our BIG Spanish/Music room for some light games.  First we played our "Color Game".  This time however, we turned the lights out and everyone had to find the color with their flashlights!  FUN!!!! After a while everyone was getting a little TOO wild so we had to take a quick break.  We all laid down on the floor and pointed our flightlights straight UP!

We all just laid there for a while making shapes and letters with the lights.  It was an amazing day!

Thanks for visiting with us!  I hope you come back soon!