Hand Made Blocks

We had each child bring in an empty shoe box. We covered each box with white butcher paper and clear packing tape for durability. Next we had the children paint the boxes and embellish them with items that would make them look like buildings.


Who would of thought that such a simple and cheep addition to our block area would bring on such enthusiasm for our future builders.

Construction Zone

Block play provides children with opportunities to develop many skills and concepts, but don’t leave your block area to just blocks. When adding different props to the block center children’s play will be enhanced.

• Blue prints
• Carpenter pencils
• Clip boards
• Fabric measuring tapes
• Hard hats
• Safety glasses
• Books on building, bridges, equipment, and homes

Here is a group of boys building in the block area. They went back and forth between the blue print they had laid out to the structure they were building. They are at play but what are they learning?


• Literacy Skills
• Language
• Conversational Skills
• Collaboration
• Problem solving
• Math Measurement/Size

Five Little Sandpals

Since we do not have snow where we live we had to come up with a substitute for a snowman, which was a sandman.  Here is the song that we came up with to go with our sandman.

Five little Sandpals sitting on the beach

Five little sandpals sitting on the beach.

The first one said “We are made out of sand.”

The second one said “We have sunhats and shell eyes, what funny guys.”

The third one said “The sun is high in the sky, I’m beginning to dry.”

The forth one said “The ocean is beginning to rise, oh my!”

The fifth one said “My toes are getting wet, oh No!”

In came the tide, out went the sand, and the five little sandpals washed right in.

Five Little Sandpals Fat Sung to the tune “Five Little Snowman Fat”

5 little sandpals fat (circle your hands in front of your stomach)

Each of them wearing a funny hat (hand over head like a hat)

In came the wave (move hand up and down)

And washed one away (put hand over eyes like your looking to see)

What a sad thing was that (make a sad face)

Down, down, down

Repeat until non are left

One Snowflake at a Time

Children’s Picture Book

Written and Illustrated by: Tami Sanders

From mountains high to valleys low, One snowflake at a time. Where will your child find their snowman? This delightful children’s book takes you on an adventure from urban streets, to desert sands, to rural rice lands. Your child is sure to enjoy this cleverly illustrated book for years to come. Sure to capture your child’s imagination as well as provide them with an association to their own personal individual environment. One snowflake at a time, snowmen are not just for snowy climates anymore.

Newpaper Sculpture

Who does not have a stack of newspaper in their classroom that keeps on growing? We decided to turn our rather large stack into art. We rolled up newspaper and taped them into long and short tubes. We placed these newspaper sticks (tubes) in the middle of the table with masking tape and let the children create what they wanted to out of the items. This is what they came up with. Once they were done with assembling it they had to paint it. It was a rainy day and this turned into a great project for the day because they stuck with it for about 45 min to 1 hour. Not bad for a 10 hour day with 24 children on a rainy day.

Gingerbread Man Story Extension

Over the last two weeks we have been reading the Gingerbread Man and other variations of the classic tale.

Following the story on the first day the children tried to see if they could catch the Gingerbread Man. They followed clues that lead them through out the school and as they got to each clue they discovered that they had just missed him. On the last clue they ended up in the school kitchen to discover the Gingerbread Man pulling out fresh baked gingerbread cookies for the children to enjoy for the morning snack.

Bringing stories alive will build on the children’s comprehension and vocabulary. It will also help children learn the joy of stories.

Five Gingerbread Kids

Five Gingerbread Kids
Use flannel board pieces as you sing the song.

Five Gingerbread Cookies jumping on the bed
One fell off and bumped her head
Mama called the Baker and the Baker said,
“No more Gingerbread Cookies jumping on the bed.”

Four Gingerbread Cookies jumping on the pan
One fell off and bumped his hand
Mama called the Baker and the Baker said,
“No more Gingerbread Cookies jumping on the pan.”

Three Gingerbread Cookies swinging in a tree
One fell off and bumped her knee
Mama called the Baker and the Baker said,
“No more Gingerbread Cookies swinging in a tree.”

Two Gingerbread Cookies standing on a chair
One fell off and bumped his hair
Mama called the Baker and the Baker said,
“No more Gingerbread Cookies standing on a chair.”

One Gingerbread Cookie jumped and did a flip
She fell down and bumped her hip.
Mama called the Baker and the Baker said,
“No more Gingerbread Cookie doing the flip.”

Gingerbread Craft

*Gingerbread people craft

Get out different colors of brown paper, yarn, lace scraps, buttons, glitter, felt scraps, fabric scraps, markers, glue, and scissors. Let the children create their own gingerbread person. Remember do not pre-cute or pre-draw on the brown paper let them do it themselves so that it is their project and not the teacher’s project.

Gingerbread Lesson Ideas

Gingerbread Boy Lesson Plan

Cognitive Development
*Gingerbread Boy Color Bingo GamePrepare a supply of gingerbread children with color dots on the hands, feet, and for the buttons. Make color button cards. Have children flip the color button cards and identify the color. Once the color has been identified have the children place a matching color pom pom on that button.

*Gingerbread Memory
Build their vocabulary and compression with object memory. Get objects that correspond with the gingerbread story. (rolling pin, cookie sheet, gingerbread man, cow, horse and fox) Have the children name all object that you have. Once they have named the object place two and a tray and have them tell you what two are on the tray. Next place a cloth over the tray and pick up one object with the cloth. See if the children can identify which object is missing. Repeat until all children have had a turn.

Gingerbread Boy Lesson Plan

Bubbles, Bubbles and More Bubbles

Bubbles

Today we sat out dish pans with dish soap in them so the children could wash dolls and other things in the play house area. Instead it turned into a bubble experiment. The children brought different items from around the classroom to see if they could blow bubbles with them. Some of the items were successful and some were not. One child discovered that she could blow the best bubbles just using her hands. Once the others saw that she was making large bubbles they all started blowing bubbles. We need more dish pans!!!

Bubble Painting/Prints

Bubble blowing turned into bubble prints. We filled bowls with water, milk and food coloring. The children blew into the mixture with straws and watched the bubbles rise. Once they got a mountain of bubble they placed a white sheet of paper on top, making bubble prints. We had different colors in each bowl so as they went around to table they layered the different colors on top of one another, which made wonderful designs.

Look at what I am writing

I have been having a hard time getting some of the boys and girls interested in writing during work time (free choice). I do not believe in the drill and kill because I want children to want to learn and have fun doing it, so I started taking pictures of the children that were working in the writing area during work time. I made a book with all the children’s pictures in it and what they had told me about their drawing or writing. I then placed that book up on the writing center cabinet. I could not believe that it could be that easy to get the others involved in writing. The morning I placed that book in the area I must of taken 30 pictures of children that had never been to that area before and they were having fun. I heard all morning long “Teacher look at what I am writing.” It is now the favorite area of the classroom. It keeps me busy refilling the area but it is well worth it. It is only November and all the children can write their names and other letters, numbers and sentences! I should of done this years ago.

Alex said, "look I can write the alphabet."

Adran said, "look at all my numbers."

The Things Preschoolers Will Say

While jumping up and down today after smashing my finger. I had one of my students come up to me to see if I was OK. Oh I thought how sweet. Once she saw that I was alright she looked at me with the most serious face and said “You really want to use that “S” word right now don’t you.” So I’m standing there thinking wow this little girl in my class knows the “S” word, I will look at this on the positive side and say “Wow Lilly Letter Lady is doing a great job in teaching the children their letters and letter sounds.” The positive side of using puppets to be repeative.

Turkey Color Bingo

Place a supply of construction paper feathers in a variety of colors on the center of table. Give each child a turkey body. Turn over a color feather card and have the children identify the color. Once they have identified the color have each child find that color from the supply of feather. Once they have found that color have them place it around the turkey. Keep play until the turkey is full of feathers.

You can find this game and more hands on learning activities in the lesson Turkey Time Math, Literacy and Art Fun.

Teachers Pay Teachers

Turkey Feather Patterning

Have children create different kinds of color patters with the feathers around the turkey. Keep challenging the children with harder types of patterns. (AB, AABB, ABBA, and ABC)

Turkey Dice Game

Make a turkey body and laminate for durability. Cut out construction paper feathers in a variety of colors. Have child roll a dice and identify the number on the dice, next have the child count out the number of feathers to match the number on the dice. Once child has the right amount of feathers have child place the feathers around the body of the turkey. When turkey has all its feathers child is done. With this number game all children are winners.

If you need to challenge some children have them use two dice and add them together, once child has add the two dice together have child count out that many feathers and place them around the turkey.

You can also use different styles of dice.

Turkey Feathers

Set out a supply of construction paper feather shapes. Have a wide variety of collage material for the children to glue onto the construction paper feather so that they can create their own feather. Once all the feather are dry turn them into a large turkey for your bulletin board.

Sorting Potatoes

We set out a basket of different types of potatoes for the children to sort and count groups.

Vegetable Prints

Stone Soup Theme Lesson Plan

Stone Soup Theme Lesson plan is 37 pages. It is a great companion for the classic story Stone Soup. It is filled with ideas that are sure to spark the interest of all children in your classroom. This lesson covers all learning domains for preschool children. Including: Story Extension, Math Games, Science Activities, Creative Art Project, Language and Literacy Activities and Movement Ideas.

Science Table

After making our stone soup we used the left over vegetables for our science table. We cut some of the vegetables in half so the children could see what’s in side. We placed vegetable book, clip boards, paper, magnifying glasses, and markers in the area. The children took down their own observations of the vegetables.

Stone Soup

Stone Soup is a great way to show children how they can come together as a group and make a difference. We started the unit out by having each bring in a vegetable for the stone soup. As the book was being read each child came up and placed their vegetable into the pot.

During center time the children cut up the vegetables and make stone soup to be shared during snack.

Stone Soup Lesson Plan

Craft Stick Homes

The children created their own homes with craft sticks and markers.

Family

To show all the different types of families we had amongst us. We had each child take home a cut out of a house shape. Each child and their family filled their homes with family pictures and decorations. The children brought their house back to school and each child shared who their family was. We placed the houses through out the classroom bring in the individual cultures of each child.

Family Book Making

We started our new unit this week on families by talking about how all of or families are different. Some have a small family, some a large family, some just have a mommy and some just have a daddy. After we shared about our families we read The Family Book by: Todd Parr. During our book making center we had the children draw and write about their families.

Sorting Nuts

Today the children were fascinated with all the acorns, pecans and others nuts that were dropping from the trees. They were collecting them like a bunch of squirrels for winter. So we thought why leave the nuts outside lets bring them in and turn these nuts into a wonderful math lesson, we also add other mix nuts to give them enough of a variety. We set out sorting trays (old cafeteria plates found at a yard sale) and let the children sort the different varieties. They discovered that some groups had more or less. Some were large and some were small nuts. We wrote down all of their observations and then placed the nuts in the math area to see what they could discover on their own.

Book Making Center

During book making center we had the children draw and write about what their scarecrow would scare.

Paper Bag Crows

The children made paper bag crows today in the creative art center. We set out brown lunch bags, newspaper, trays of black paint with brushes or sponges, wiggle eyes, buttons, orange triangles, feathers and black yarn.

This center was a huge hit with the children today. Most of the children wanted to make two; they hung one up on our tree and took one home.