Fun with Lines

This past week we talked about the letter "L".  It is a fun letter!!!  Of course our class talked about love but we also leaped through the air any time we could AND we got to walk around and sing "lalalalalalala" all day long.   Oh, and who could forget those lovely lions we made.

 

If you look closely you may be able to see the mane of the lions.  The children cut it all by themselves!

 

 

 

But the highlight of our week came on our Fabulous Fun Friday!  Earlier in the week I saw this post from one of my FAVORITE blogs Teach Preschool.   I actually giggled with excitement because I knew my class would love doing some of these activities and they did!  Let me show you our fun with lines!   Our day instantly became exciting when the children saw all the lines Mrs. Christi and I had laid out on the floor in the hallway.

Everyone loved "walking the lines" back and forth down the hall.  Everyone had to wait until there name was called before having a turn.  This was a fun way to practice our listening skills and focus on following directions.  We hopped, wiggled and leaped our way up and down the hall.  Since the last few days had been wet, cold and rainy here in Central Alabama, this was also a great way to rid ourselves of some extra energy. 

We also drew lines with rulers.  Rulers are fun!  Mrs. Christi and I covered two of our tables with butcher paper and everyone had a great time drawing with them. 

 

I always find it fascinating seeing which children enjoy activities like this.  Some wanted to draw for only a few minutes and they became bored while others could have been there for hours!

Again, thanks so much to Deborah Stewart and her wonderful blog!  You inspire me!

"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!

What's Black & White and Red All Over?

What's black & white and red all over? Hmmm . . . did you say a newspaper? Well, in Mrs. Karen's Class the answer is . . . .

A ZEBRA on red paper! His head is the child's foot! Isn't he the cutest thing? We had so much fun using tiny paint brushes and painting the stripes. By now you may have figured out that we are studying "Zoo Animals" and the letter "R". This adorable little zebra was the finale of our fabulous week. Friday was our official "BLACK AND WHITE DAY". We all wore black and white clothing (or at least tried) and we headed to the kitchen to whip up some really delicious "zebra cookies". Here is our secret recipe - take one chocolate cookie (our's was lowfat)Spread a little vanilla icing on top

Why use a knife when we have fingers???? Add some raisins for eyes and a nose and drizzle with chocolate syrup!

Instant zebra cookie! AND very, very yummy!

Opps, Friday was so much fun that I think I got ahead of myself. Let's go back and talk about our Marveous Monday activities! Monday was a lot of fun! We started of the week talking about the letter "R". Nothing says "R" to me like a Recyclable Red Rabbit. Recyclable Red Rabbit??? Yep, isn't he adorable? And all we used was red scrap paper and a toliet tissue roll. Instant Recyclable Red Rabbit.

Of course no respectable rabbit would be complete without a tail (left over from some Christmas crafts)If you look closely you may notice that the rabbit's little feet are made from left over valentine hearts. Truly a "Recyclable Red Rabbit"! This was one of those projects that had the children giggling and thinking at the same time. All day long we tried to think of things that had the "R" sound. SUPER FUN!

On Tuesday we concentrated on our zoo animals. We talked about all the different zoo animals and did a lot of growling! So we made a pride of lions!

We started with a small paper plate. By the way, why is it is hard to find CHEAP paper plates? It seems all the manufacturers want to coat them in plastic. Preschoolers need cheap paper plates, they are easier to paint. Opps sorry, now back to our activities. Next we painted them with our special mixture of yellow and orange paint with a splash of glue. Before the paint/glue mixture had a chance to dry we carefully laid on rotini noodles. After he dried we added our eyes and noses. Super cute! I have to show this next lion. Somehow he absorbed some of old purple paint that had dried on our paint mat. Instead of being upset, my sweet "L" just thought he looked "meaner", which in preschool terms means "he liked it". Whew, meltdown averted!Wednesday was a really big "R" day! We made our annual "Recycle Rosies" and "Recycle Robbies". (These little ones are named after my mom, Rose and my brother-in-law, Rob) Oh my goodness, each year this project gets bigger and better!

As the children were working I asked them if they could tell what kind of material we used for our project. I was amazed at how many students could identify the cereal boxes, expecially the "Fruit Loops" boxes! I was quick to remind everyone that all the supplies used were "recycled"! They loved it and couldn't wait to tell the parents that we used "garbage". Well, I tried!

Thursday is an extremely busy day for us. We always enjoy our Chapel time with Mrs. Fish and Mr. Scott and our Spanish Class is always lots of fun. But it leaves us rather short on actually class time. This week we did 2 fun and silly animal crafts. Our first was an eleplant, on red paper of course

Super easy and pretty much an independent activity. Everyone did a great job!

Next we tackled a handprint peacock! SUPER pretty and great fine motor skill practice trying to pick up the sequins.
Again this was pretty much an independent activity so I just watched them work!

It was a wonderful and busy week in our class. We are on our Spring Break this week and hopefully everyone will get some needed rest because we will start on the letter "S" when we return. I hope you will join us!