f is for fire

we make pretend camp fires on the playground nearly daily (this also cares for the direction from the state surveyors to keep the playground “free of sticks”).  during parts of the year we bring the camp fires inside and offer our red, yellow and orange scarves.  then there are always a couple who ask for blue scarves (for the “really hot part”).

here is how we did it at home once…no photos from preschool:

i even splurged once and bought a wooden s’more/kabob food kit.  sweet.

m is for mouse cheese

we were reading lots of mouse books during m week and brought in a woodworking element.

with my power drill, the preschoolers helped drill several holes through a block of wood (the cheese), then used a piece of yarn with tape on the end (the mouse), then had the mouse eat through the cheese!

t is for turkey

we finger-painted huge pieces of butcher paper (red, orange, brown and yellow) and once dry, cut it into leaf shapes.  these hung from our ceiling and in the hallway for over a month…then it was thanksgiving time.

we took the leaves down and added a paper body to turn our leaves into turkeys! we even had another piece of butcher paper on the wall for preschoolers to scribble on when yellow crayons…a straw stack. then, of course, we sang “Turkey in the Straw”…ha ha ha

i love projects that extend for weeks and months!

h is for hairy head

because i found this fake hair at the thrift shop, we made hairy heads during h week. i must admit i glued the hair on ahead of time as soon as i handled it myself and realized how the hair would stick to fingers and needed a long time to dry.

each preschooler chose a bag with hair attached and added paper shapes for facial features. we had a variety of paper shapes already cut with scissors available to change those shapes or make new ones. then the bags were stuffed, a piece of a dowel rod stuck in and taped…then a hairy head puppet was born.

g is for glitter

around christmas time and then again at valentine’s day time, we invited the children to draw or write on pre-cut shapes (stars at christmas and hearts at valentine’s day). then a teacher would use a hot glue gun to trace their shapes and press in glitter on a tray.

the kids liked helping press the warm paper on to the glitter.

i is for inch

the concept of measuring and units is a seed we plant. by using the language in describing things, by offering rulers and tape measures in dramatic play, by offering inch blocks for sorting and building.

then we move naturally to conversations of more and less, greater than and less than, etc.

b is for blue

or really it could be g is green or p is for purple or any other color.

we fingerpaint first with the goal being to keep some of the paper showing around the edge (an exercise in self control) to make a “frame.”

then we used these after all the foam got pulled out to scratch out the letters of the color word. clearly ony could use fingernails, dull pencils, etc. the great thing is “erasing” by rubbing the paint smooth again.

b is for birthday

i love to honor the birthday child in the classroom.

we bring the knitted cupcakes from katie to the housekeeping corner and bring out the birthday puzzle to the puzzle corner.

at circle time before snack, we make a little cake out of playdoh (and joke that if they don’t watch out their mamas and daddies might eat it) and figure out how many candles to put in.  according to the rules of our building, though, we can’t light the candles til we get home.

happy birthday, dear ones…

t is for tail

so during animal week we make tails.  i could have thrifted knee high pantyhose, but that gave me the willies.  and at 49 cents a pair, i was okay with it…plus, i got 18 little plastic egg holders too!

i have never had to remind kids as often as this year to keep them in the back…we’re trying to show people that we are animals, so let’s be realistic…if the tail is in the front people won’t know for sure what we are doing…hmmmm, how can i help you keep that from moving to the front?

wow.

oh, my remaining 12 year old self is giggling on the inside…rejoicing in the humor of our creation…after all, we are funny looking creatures. so if you, too, want to have a tail, grab yourself the needed supplies and stuff away.

oh, good times in the ‘room…

a is for address

i love to offer preschoolers real items to use (the montessori influence).  starting early in the school year, i bring out phone books for preschoolers to use as they like.  when i use current phone books, we can usually find each preschooler’s family…what fun that is.

and yes, the fuzzy blue hat will make this work feel even more important.

t is for tornado

using some thrifted rope-like-crinkly paper (i’m sure there is a name for it), we unrolled and unrolled to make a classroom-size tornado.  it took a couple of tries to make it strong enough for little ones to handle, but we got it.  hot glue and a couple of old rulers to wrap the top around made it work.

with this tornado hanging in our block corner, there were many farms, zoos, cities and spaceships that had to escape the powerful wind.

t is for “tie-dye”

this is a great example of when the process is more important than the product…though the product was spectacular.  instead of trying to “make a flower” or “make a cloud” we focused on using as much paint as we wanted…most preschoolers had the clear goal of no white showing.

we could also make these different shades of yellow, egg shape, shamrock shape, leaf shape, heart shape, apple shape, dinosaur shape, beach ball shape, umbrella shape, the landscape for a paper zebra to be glued on to, pumpkin shape, a bunch of grapes shape, igloo shape, jewel shape, kite shape, nut shape, octagon shape, violet shape, whale shape, x shape, money shape, quilt block shape, tree top shape, rain drop shape, etc. : )

we used industrial-size coffee filters (and i mean industrial:  these things are at least 18″ in diameter) cut in cloud/flower shape, folded 4 times in pie fashion, then used plastic pipettes and food coloring containers to drop liquid watercolor paint.

oh, the excitement would brew as a preschoolers suspected they put enough paint on to have no white showing when they unfolded it…and if not, we could easily refold and add more paint.

these were sopping wet, but dried easily when we draped them over chairs, gates, etc.

u is for umbrella

here we have colored rain on pre-cut umbrella shaped paper…

we made rain by mixing liquid watercolors.  a teacher poured little pools of paint and the preschoolers blew through straws to move the paint around.  we were sure to take breaks for some deep, slow breathing. : )

v is for vehicle

using cars, trucks, anything with wheels, we made tracks by running these wheeled vehicles through blobs of paint.

i taped paper on the entire table and drew a simple “road” ahead of time. then i would drop blobs of paint as needed….you can imagine those became oil slicks (time to talk about pollution), rain puddles (time to talk about weather), ice spots (time to talk about seasons), ketchup (time to talk about car accidents when trucks can spill their load), dirt (time to talk about way-back-when before there were paved roads)…ah yes.

i also introduced the concept of clockwise and counter-clockwise…we walked around the table in one direction and then switch!

once dried, everyone could take home a section of the big paper…there are no names written on them, this is one way i like to nurture the “we’re a team” feeling…we all help as much as we like and everyone gets to take some of it home. comparing and competition dissolves. mmmmmmm.

and then since next week was w week, we washed the wheels in water…and it was tricky since the paint dried by then. but with old toothbrushes and baby shampoo..no problem. : )

s is for store

or g is for grocery store or f is for food store or m is for market or…

on the last days of school i put out the cash register, pads of paper, pencils, receipt books, and a sign showing the symbols of money (how exciting for those who have mastered the “s” and “c” shapes)…it was an “everything is for sale” store…though we added “except sand and water” after the first day.

the preschoolers put “price tags” (post it notes with pencil marks) on anything in the room they wanted.

yes, it made clean up more tedious, but it also cleared shelves that needed to be wiped down anyway…

e is for egg shell (and 25 others)

i buy these large cardboard alphabet shapes each year. then as we work our way through, we coopratively glue things on to represent that letter. here we have egg shells glued on the e.

other favorites i can remember:

apple seeds on a

buttons on b

crayon chunks on c

dirt on d

fake fur on f

grass on g

hair on h

ice cube painting on i

jewels on j

ketchup packets on k

lint (from the dryer) on l

(fake) money on m

nut shells on n

oatmeal on o

purple paint on p

q-tips on q

ribbon on r

sand on s

tape on t

(paper drink) umbrellas on u

velvet on v

wipes on w

x-rays on x

yellow yarn on y

zippers on z

s is for stick art

once again, the magic of glue.

we put out saucers of glue and invite preschoolers to dip sticks in and spread glue as needed.

then begins the creation of craft stick sculptures. we talk about dimensions as we build these basically flat creations. i still see a small one hanging in a preschool mama’s car years later.

this is one i actually did at home with my then 7 year old naomi and 3 year old micah in honor of eliza’s birth.

as always, if pieces are not solid once the glue has dried, the teacher can add more glue.

these pieces look great flat against a wall or suspended horizontally by fishing line. we did that over a changing table area for eliza…it was like she was looking at the underside of a big web.

s is for secondary colors

really, this can be called c is for color or b is for blue or y is for yellow or g is for green or r is for red or o is for orange or p is for purple, because it is an activity we do in the study of secondary colors.

we put a blob of one primary color on one end of the paper and a blob of another primary color on the other end and then mix…a new color!  and then we can extend this into our math and reading concepts by introducing the symbols that they can read (and when the text strip is added to wet paint, no glue is needed).  ahhhhh.

what i like is when some of the primary colors remain unmixed on the edges (though i don’t give that boundary since there are some preschoolers who need to “complete” their work)

we also color mix paint in baggies by sending it around the circle and everyone squishing it.

we also color mix colors of play-doh (sometimes this takes all week!).

z is for zipper

oh, that tricky letter z. not much beyond zebras, zig zags, zooming cars and planes, zweibach. so we do things with zippers. we wear zippers to school, practice zipping our dress up vests, listen to different zipping sounds.
this year i gave zippers away as a goodbye gift:

zippidee-doo-dah, zippidee-day…
keep learning and growing each summer day!

here is a zipper to pull up and down…
work those finger muscles all over town!

when i was checking out at the thrift shop, the clerk smiled hopefully and said, “oh, my, you must have a lot of sewing planned.”

i set her straight.

m is for mother’s day ii

in a top-secret corner of the room, we made mother’s day bead strands which could be worn as a choker-style necklace (quite literally due to shorter-than-i-planned wire), a wrap around bracelet, or a longer necklace if mama would add a bit of string.

there was a random assortment of beads, cut apart leis, straws, then someone brought over little paper cups to use…oh, they were sure fancy.

then with a little “MOM” writing and wrapping, top secret presents were taken home.

m is for mother’s day

this was mother’s day 2007’s project.

we had non-mamas come in to help preschoolers by using hot glue guns (a pin back was added to the pre-cut foam flower shape). preschoolers placed items where they wanted them and the grownups glued them in place. with encouragement to add as much as they liked in “collage” fashion, mother’s day pins were created, wrapped, and taken home. pretty fancy!

e is for ear

we make “super ears” with empty toilet paper rolls and colored masking tape (really we could have used anything to decorate these, though i wouldn’t use markers because i h.a.t.e. how markers smear).  what makes these super ears is that when you put the tube over your ear, everything sounds louder.  of course we have to remember not to be close to someone’s super ear when we are talking (or yelling) or else we could hurt their ear.

this led us to discussions of bats, playing guessing games of whose voice is whose when we had our eyes closed, to conversations on blindness, to a request to visit grandpa bill upstairs who can’t see us but knows we are there when we sing to him or rub his arm.

oh yes, super ears…the catalyst for wonderful learning moments.

i want to do a s is for super hero theme someday (on the goodness of superheros, on the wonder of every human being having some super quality that we can find if we look, etc.)…these would be good for that week.

n is for newspaper

what i love about these kind of projects is when we see it extended.  so yes, this was squares of newspaper glued on a block n form, but what you can’t see are the dictations of what it really is:

“the top of one side is a volcano”

“the top of the other side is blasting out hot lava”

“the bottom of the other side is the hot lava that cools off and rolls down”

one technique we use is having a teacher put down dots of glue for a child to hide…this changes the focus of the project for some…it becomes a one-to-one correspondence activity rather than a making-pools-of-glue project (because glue sticks usually irritate me).

z is for zebra

or z is for zebra stripes on a carboard z.

q-tips as brushes and black liquid watercolor paint after a discussion of why zebras might have stripes…

y is for yarn

oh, joy. we made a HUGE spider web, working on it for a week.

we used donated/thrifted yarn and with four points tied to furniture, we wove and wove. under and over. sometimes the balls of yarn would be thrown to a friend across the web. only one did a supporting shelf get pulled over (and thankfully no injuries).

when i explained to the class that we would have the fun job of cutting it apart once we finished, one little friend got wide eyes and said, “but i am making a rug!” and another said, “i’m making a balnket!” so thanks to these resourceful minds, we will not cut apart the web rug blanket, we will keep it. : )

s is for spider and w is for web too : )

p is for playdoh

we always have playdoh…

it has different colors and scents (and sometimes glitter or sand!) and is an amazing tool for play and learning. favorite recipes are on the sidebar.

it is definitely something to love.

p is for poem

this was kind of like mad libs for preschoolers…there were rhyming words to choose from…some made sense and some were so funny. oh, there was a lot of laughing…i mean really, “sit to eat a rake”? hee hee hee.

t is for ticket

it was worth the $4 to buy a roll of tickets.

there was incredible fine motor practice as tickets were torn apart, the imaginary play took off, and with glue, there could be a visual reminder that t indeed is for ticket.

p is for parmesan cheese pitcher

when we needed a pitcher that would pour only a little water at a time, a parmesan cheese container and duct tape to cover two of the three holes worked perfectly!

w is for water, too. : )

p is for puppet show

we have a piece of furniture that can be a puppet stage, a window to crawl through, a store front, and more.

the most motivated puppeteers put numbers on the back of chairs with tickets to match. tricky stuff!