Educational creativity

Yesterday I posted our Little Blue and Little Yellow activity. And Deborah has great timing, thanks. I was trying to think of how to do this myself but just couldn't think of what to use.  I will be trying to find colored cup and making my own light table. http://www.teachpreschool.org/ If you like felt boards, you can find a set to go with the book here http://www.etsy.com/listing/60379682/little-blue-and-little-yellow-flannel

     We read this book by Leo Lionni about 2 friends, little blobs of color, who are different yet are the best of friends.  They show all the events of their day together after accidentally squishing together becoming green during a hug. While teaching, I would have the kids find a friend to do this art activity.  I would paint one child's hand blue and one child's hand yellow.  Then they squished their hands together representing the hug in the book. Since I only have one child, we adapted it this way to make a book. One hand was painted one color the other hand painted a different color, then rug together. We made hand prints on paper I had printed simple words to recreate the story. "This is Little Red. This is Little Blue.  They are friends.  They hugged, and hugged, and hugged.  They turned Purple. We did all the primary colors and added white to red and black. My daughter loves singing the mixing colors song on Little...

Rainbow fish If you've never used shaving cream to marbleize your papers, then you must try it.  It's amazing every time. Shaving cream is one of those fun materials that kids love and the state says is not to be sprayed in front of kids.  So, check with your state rules and find a way to use it.  I had to spray it in the hallway or before the kids were in the classroom. We sprayed shaving cream on a plate, you can use a tray, to contain the shaving cream.  You have to let them play with it for a while.  Then have them spread it out smooth and somewhat flat. We used eye droppers to drop paint onto the shaving cream, liquid water colors work best.  I didn't have any so I tried watered down washable paint and tried it with food coloring.  Both worked okay. Then, use the end of a paint brush to swirl the paint around. Place paper on top of shaving cream pressing lightly.  You can wipe the shaving cream off to get a wet marbled look. Or, let ...

Today we made a flower garden inside on the wall.  At least it started as a flower garden and turned into a lot more.  I usually put this on my easel at school, but we don't have one at home.  The wall worked well. We started by taping clear contact paper to the wall sticky side out.  We then took felt shapes and stuck them to the contact paper. I wanted her to use the shapes creatively to make flowers, so I did not make any direct flower shapes. Then she asked for a sun and clouds and rain for her garden. The great thing about this activity is it is removable and re-doable. If you have a large window or door with windows, check out this website for another way to use foam shapes.  This one uses wet foam shapes to stick to the window. http://www.art4littlehands.com/2011/06/foam-window-art.html

We are preparing for a trip to the beach, so we are learning about what we might see. The best thing about the beach is there are seashells you are aloud to take home with you. So, I have collected a lot over the years. I didn't find this one, but inherited it.  It's great for hearing the ocean. I made these mats from a worksheet in a mailbox magazine.  They are great for containing the shell space. Allowing children to sort shells by there own categories will come up with amazing groups.  I will provide the full lesson plan with Ohio academic standards in another post. I made this book from a pamphlet I picked up at the visitors center on the way to Florida.  I keep it at the sensory table were I put 100's of shells they can play with.  If you have a smaller science tub, that would work too.  I just have collected too many shells to worry about them getting broke. I also added some to our sand tub. We put some at the playso table. We made necklace...

     Once children recognize their names, it is time to start introducing them to all the letters in their names.  Kylie has know what a letter K is since she was 2, but was never really interested in any other letters in her name.  Now she is 4, starting to write, and wants to work with letters.  So I've been trying to come up with some fun creative ways to work on her name.     As a teacher, I have my own opinion about whether you should teach upper case letters or lower case letters.  Hand Writing Without Tears is a program I admire, but they recommend you teach your child all uppercase letters first because they are easier to write.  From experience,  I have seen too many children who already can write their names in upper case letters and then find it very hard to switch.  So I teach, Your name is special, it begins with a Big letter.  The rest of your name uses lower case letters. It will be your decision ...

I use to make these stand up characters as game pieces using students pictures.  They always turned out cute.  We needed some characters for our newly made castle. I cut out these out of her birthday wrapping paper then glued them to cardboard to make them sturdy.  Then cut them out again.  If you use a photograph, you don't need the cardboard. Hot glue them to a paperclip that has been pulled apart in the shape of an L.  You might have to play with the paperclip to get it to stand up.  The princesses were kind of lop-sided, so it took a lot of playing with. I even found a picture of my daughter riding a horse, then added a crown. For storage, they can be folded flat and put in the castle box.