Here are some of what we did today...
Flower Pom Pom Sort
A very simple activity, to make as well as do. Added a fine motor component by providing tweezers. It's officially May...so starting into the final assessment of my students. This was mainly for me to see if they could name the basic colors. They put them out any way they wanted but as they put them back into the bowl, they stated what the color name was. We also counted how many flowers there, which row had most, which rows had equal number of flowers. I also watched for if they went from left to right or not. Children who have really internalized this left to right concept tends to work from left to right when the task is organized to allow for it. I believe I got the black and white flower pattern from www.childcareland.com, then just colored them to match the pom poms.
Playdough
Well, this activity was a cute idea but they didn't really "take" to it like I thought they would. :-) I had provided brown playdough, fake flowers, and teracotta pots. Of course, we added the watering can, a couple flower cutters, and a rolling pin. The marbles were an idea from them, "for decoration" but they didn't end up using those either. :-) I think I'd use larger and plastic flower pots next time, if I do this again. The little teracotta pots made it difficult to take the playdough out. Oh well, done with another group of kids or even on another day...they might play with it differently. That's what happens!
Flowers: Ordering By Size
This is something I'd definitely do again. Works well 1:1. Foam flowers with magnet strip on back. Easy to make! First step that all the children did was order the flowers by size. If they couldn't do six (which is not unusual for preschoolers) then I helped them by saying, "What's the next biggest?" Then we started with a set of 3 flowers. If they could order the 3, we went to 4 and then to 5 and redid 6. Next step was to put number magnets from 1-6 in order above each flower. Then we talked about where the first flower was and where the last flower was. With the youngest, we stopped there. Attention span and fine motor skills are not ready for the next step. The 4 year old took it a step further and drew six flowers on a piece of paper, wrote the numeral and the number word on the paper. She was so proud!! The oldest took it a step further from that and we worked together with addition. Seperating the flowers on the board and adding the magnetic numbers...then writing them on the paper. So he wrote, 1+5, 2+4, 3+3, etc. Yes, would definitely do that again! I think we'll pull this type of thing back out this summer with our summer Kindergarten Readiness program.
Button Flowers
Easily turns into a gift for something (like Mother's Day) :-) The funny thing was I had planned to do the styrofoam cup idea this spring ... and one day I walked into the school to see that Aaron's 2nd grade class did this. They were displayed on the wall. Cute. That's where I got the button idea. Difference between the 2nd grade work and preschool...is the second grade was capable of making their own very unique flowers using the ripped paper technique. Most preschoolers wouldn't have had success actually making flowers. So do that when you wish to have an open ended art project. I just used up scrap paper and made a much of different size petals for them to choose from. Hot glue works best on the styrofoam cups.
A different type of mosaic. :-)
I started them with a plate of glue and a spreader but it really does work better if they are allowed to use the bottle and make a puddle of glue. LOL I happen to have 3 butterflies so ...voila! They were excited to add a butterfly to their garden. :-)
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