Educational creativity

Changes, Changes is a book by Pat Hutchins This book has no words and I was amazed at how it kept all the children's interest.  We predicted what the people would build next.  At the end of the story we recalled all the different things that were built.  They did great with it.  Some even asked to read it again.  Since we share all our books from Creative Curriculum with another class, we had to give the book up for the day. I decided to let the children make their own structures like in the book. Like the book states, plans change. My lesson plan shows the intent of the activity below. First, we worked together to watercolor paint a large piece of paper.  I then cut out shapes from the paper, and I added some other paper scraps from other cutting projects.  Next the kids were asked to glue some shapes down to make something.  I recorded what they made on each page along with their name. We turned it into a book we will keep in our library....

Building, Buildings, and more Building      I have been excited to start this theme of buildings, since I have 13 boys.      I took pictures of the familiar sites around town, then printed them big enough to fit on our cardboard blocks.  How's that for environmental print.  Some pictures I made big enough to cut in half or forths to encourage children to build the buildings and not just build to knock down. Add some helmets, tools, and vehicles and you have a construction zone the kids will want to visit. One little boy carried this fire station around all during center time because his dad works there.  So make multiples if you want to encourage sharing.      My classroom is lacking car, trucks, or anything with wheels.  This will not do, so I made vehicles the same way I made the building blocks.  Luckily, there was some construction vehicles right outside my ...