Tulips!

I ran across the idea of using forks to make tulips on Pinterest.  So it became one of the T.'s preschool activities that turned into the other school-age kids wanting to do it also.  :-)  What a neat little project!  Simple, but still all turned out quite a bit differently!  Love them!

T.'s are pretty simple but this is a great little fine motor activity for preschoolers!

 

The school-agers went on to add more details and even mixed colors a bit!

                                       2nd grader                                   1st grader

                                     4th grader                                     3rd grader

 

They loved this very simple project!

 
 
 



Flowers

Various activities from this past week.

Flower Bead Sorting

A great "practical life" activity.

The variety of materials you can put in with the flour and sift is endless so you can make it theme related very easily!

Flower Shop

One aspect of a home-based preschool that I struggle with is that many of us are unable to do the typical 'centers' that a center-based program can do unless you have a space separate in your home or are wiling to give up the "home-like" environment.  We do not and nor are we willing to give up the home-like environment (I say "we" because home-based child care/preschool effects the whole family).  So dramatic play is often provided in a tub of thematic materials and the children seem to have no issue with making it work for them.  It's really more me that prefers the 'center approach' to preschool...specifically wishing for a designated larger area for dramatic play.  But so be it.  When we do the flower shop we have the various materials for a shop available but also incorporate the piano bench and the puppet stage.  Oh, the puppet stage gets used in so many different ways.  :-D  The kids can be pretty creative.  I guess that's one benefit to having a dramatic play tub route vs. a center is that their play becomes very imaginative and that's a plus!

Basic materials we've used...

vases/cups

flowers

seed packets

Styrofoam for arranging

small watering cans

phone/phone book

cash registers

wallets/money/checkbook

paper and pencils

dress up clothes

Calendar Wall

I took down a lot of our posters and such that we had accumulated over the past couple months.  It was getting to be a very busy wall!  So the materials we use frequently I put in a plastic dish tub nearby: month poster, counting sticks, Handwriting Without Tears Materials, and of course the weather symbols, crayons, pointers, individual calendars, etc.  So that left the visual schedule, weather mat, and calendar.  In it's place I put up flowers that focused on the vowels and a few basic word families to reinforce word families and rhyming.  Color and shapes are back up with the butterflies for T. who knows his colors but not all of his shapes.  A caterpillar that counts by 10s was added also.  A pattern sun as well.  They really got excited to see the changes.  So thought I'd just remind you again that if you are one who puts up displays and leaves them all year (or posters for your children)...consider rotating them.  I find that my kiddos often stop interacting with a display after it's been up about 3 weeks.  So about a month is a good time to switch them out and jump start that interaction again.

Blot Flowers

The process of this type of activity is awesome.  If you are T., one downfall is that it's messy...at least if you do it the way Ms. Amber/Mom shows you how to do it.  LOL  I encourage the use of a LOT of paint.  I had some leftover paper flower shapes from last year and so I simply folded them in half and reopened them and provided various colors of paint and brushes.  The children brushed paint on the flower, folded them shut and pressed...which if you have a lot of paint it squishes out the sides.  But that's fine!  They can paint anywhere on their flower, I do not encourage them to paint only one side and then press.  The results just aren't as bold and no matter where they paint, they'll get a symmetrical result.

Accordion Folded Spring Flower Collage

I was going to simply have them create a vase of flowers but this week I was inspired by Make and Takes and I cut a cereal box in half and provided a "buffet of stems" as she suggested.

Window Box Seriation
These turned out a little different than I first planned but to add the seriation from small to tall in there I had to change my plans from foam flowers and craft sticks stems to paper flowers and stems.  I initially thought that I would write the color word directly on the stem but that would have only worked if they had used a red flower for the small stem and since I gave them a choice we just wrote the word under the flower on the window box.

Simply fold a 9x12 piece of construction paper in half and trim to make your window box shape.  Provide various size paper stems and a selection of flowers.  Children glue the flowers to the end of the stem.  Open up the window box paper and glue to the top inside of the window box.  Then they add glue to the perimeter of the window box and fold and press to complete.

With this youngster, we worked on color recognition and counting to 5 instead of seriation. 

Parts of a Flower Painting
inspired by Teach Preschool

I had hot glued a small pom pom toward the bottom of the paper to represent a seed.  Then they were given brown and green paint and their choice of colors for the flower.  After they painted, they labeled the parts.  Today I chose to let them copy the word and I found that using the spiral bound index cards work quite nicely!

Dot Flowers

I picked up some colored sticky dots for dot flowers this last week. Great fine motor activity with the sticky dots and markers.

Later when my boys came home they spent a few minutes with the dots also to add to the flower shop.  :-)  Not sure if you can see it but the 6 year old created a lady bug (picture on the right) and on his flower he has black dots...which are aphids!  LOL

While on the subject, this is another way I used the dots this week.  I placed a dot on a child's right hand to help him remember which hand to use.

Encourage crossing the midline.  Note: he's turning his body vs. crossing over.

Continuing to encourage crossing the midline.   Getting use to it now after some instruction. 

 

Encouraging the use of right hand.*

 

* I do not usually emphasize one hand or another with toddlers and preschoolers. In this situation I'm choosing to.

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Just a little info on crossing the midline and hand dominance.

When a child does not cross their midline, the child will equally use both hands. It's might be considered a great thing to be able to use both hands but what usually happens is that the child develops two mediocre hands vs. a strong dominant...specialized for writing hand. Studies have shown that these students have poor handwriting all through their schooling. So therefore, when I plan activities, I'm often incorporating the crossing the midline skill or setting up their work so that they have ample opportunities to experience that movement.

Phonological Awareness: Word Chunks/Syllables

On our flower pots I placed a piece of tape labeled with the numbers 2-3-4.  Then I pulled out some of the seed packets from the Flower Shop and we clapped out the names and tossed a bean bag into the appropriate pot as well as placing that seed packet near the pot.  They enjoyed this simple activity...anything that gets the moving is well-liked!

Flower Arranging

This is always a favorite and so I usually bring it out when it fits into our plans.  Those little glass vases are pretty durable.  I purchased them at Wal-Mart.

Clothespin Flowers

Can't say these are the prettiest flowers I ever have seen :-) but they fit the bill for what we needed.  This was mainly for T., our toddler.  The older children did seem to enjoy it and worked a bit more with patterning.  Clothespin work is always great for fine motor.  I thought I'd be able to find another set of clothespins at the dollar store so we could sort by type of clothespins but they didn't have any but the wooden ones.  Can you believe it?  For awhile they had so many different types of clothespins! 

And while we are on the topic of sorting...

This is from The Mailbox.  They have theme kits now and so when I had a certificate I purchased a couple to see what they were all about.  This particular activity was in the bugs and garden theme kit.  I put this up in our entrance way and each day before we went outside we sorted by a different characteristic.  I love that about this activity!  We can sort it by size, color, type of flower, insect and by how many leaves!  Awesome for learning that we can sort by different characteristics.  That is one thing most preschoolers seem to struggle with...coming up with more than one say to sort a set.  :-)  So the question of the week this week was..."Can you see another way we can sort these?"  In this particular picture they had sorted by bugs...bees, ants and ladybugs.

Color Matching Flowers

I'm pretty sure I posted this activity before.  But in case I haven't...this is a very simple activity that works with fine motor skills, color recognition, and in this case, color words for K.  The flower pattern came from a Mailbox publication I believe and I simply colored the flowers and added pompoms.  For  younger children, color code the words for older children, keep them black. 

Foil Flowers

Permanent markers (these were a clearance sale metallic...beautiful!) are a great writing tool for foil.   These are 12x18 pieces of construction paper with a flower cut out of one side.  They colored the foil and we taped it to the inside of the paper, glued the other half and folded over.  They looked pretty plain and K. had the idea of putting flowers on them so that's what we did.  They arranged and I hot glued.

 

And since one should not waste paper....  :-)

The children told me things about themselves to write on their flowers with those lovely metallic permanent markers.  :-)

Silent E Makes a Long Vowel

K. and I have been working a lot with vowel sounds and how that often when there is an e at the end of a word, it makes the previous vowel long.  She knows this rule but often does not look ahead in the word before she starts sounding out the word.  This was a simple but helpful activity to get her to look ahead and find out whether the vowel will be long or short.  I chose the clipart from Print Shop and on one flower typed cvc/short a sounds.  And on the other flower I put the word with the silent e to make it into a new word.  So, cap/cape, at/ate, van/vane, etc.  I simply cut off the petals and she glued them back on after reading the words.  I do have this document that can easily be shared if you wish for it.  Just leave a comment or send me a message.  Same for the next activity...

Ways to Make 6

Decomposing Numbers

 

She really enjoyed this.  It's a bit further than what I normal do with PreK students but this is an example of taking a child a step further than where they are.  She picked up the pattern that the purple was going down and the red was going up in the numbers at the third set and she thought that was very cool.  :-D  She had chose purple and red stamp pad so I found purple and red buttons to use and we used those buttons to create a hands-on component to this activity.  She made the circles with a pencil eraser and since this was our last activity of the morning and she was ready to be done I finished it up by adding simple petals to make flowers.  When doing a step for the child...just remember to ask for permission first.  It IS their work and they have the right to choose whether they want the "finishing look" or not.  :-)

Edible Flowers Rebus Recipe

(Once again the image is upload blurry though the original is a good quality. Any suggestions?)

A quick post to share this week's rebus recipe.  They got very excited when I pulled out this recipe to read with them.  "Just like the pizza!"  "Look, Ms. Amber, we have to wash our hands first just like with the pizza recipe."  "The ingredients we need are crackers, grapes, what's that pink stuff?"  "My mom said I can't use a knife."  :-)  Just a few of the comments. 

  

 I'm going to be on a look out for a stand to put our recipe up in front of the children.  Or perhaps I'll explore with putting them inside page protectors and in a binder.  Think that we could turn the binder "inside out" to create it's own stand?  Hmmmm.  One of the things that I like about laminating though is that sealed sheets are easier to sanitize.  And on that note...please remember that when cooking with children to be sure are using appropriate sanitizing processes.  :-)   

 

 Feel free to download the edible flowers rebus recipe for your own personal use.

Edit:  After my boys came home from school they tried these and decided they would prefer to have peanut butter on their crackers.  And since pb is usually "on hand", I went back and added a second page to the rebus document using peanut butter.

Flowers, again. Last day though :-(

I love doing flower activities...spring-y, colorful, puts us all in a good mood....and SO much to do.  So many neat ideas out there!  Might have to just include them with our bug theme this next week.  :-P

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.  :-)

Flower III

We actually used today as a "finish up project" day.  We had stuff from our weather theme a few weeks ago that I thought we'd get done in our rain/rainbow (April Showers) theme but still didn't get done.  So finish up and a few extra activities. 

We started sewing yesterday.  Trent was watching them so intensely that when he woke up from his nap today I offered that activity to him.  Oh my goodness...he loved it!  He has excellent fine motor skills.  He even has a nice color scheme going on!  He'd get to a point and hand me the rectangle (to knot off) and he'd open the container to get another color. 

This is where he is at.  We'll be leaving it out for him to continue with as he desires.

Setting Up Activities

I find that in home-based programs...it's very easy to do a lot of independent work.  Especially, if it's a homeschooling household with only children in that family.  And independent work has it's place.  But we also want to make way for cooperative work. I vary how I set up my activities.   Here are three main ways I usually set up the activities in order for a different experience.

* Sitting near each other but have own materials.

That's similar to the sensory pool today.  I thought Trent would be up and was setting it up accordingly as he really is still in parallel play.  However, the other two children are past that and at first they played with their own materials but then began to combine their play without any suggestions from me...which is exactly what I want to see! :-)

* Sitting next to each other and having several of the same type of items but not identical.

I find that this is a great way to transition the children to sharing.  Why?  Because "it's always greener on the other side of the fence."  They want what the other child has.  It looks like more fun.  This is a great way to encourage them to ask politely and wait patiently.  In the meantime, they have something similar to work with.  Side note:  Just because a child asks another for a specific toy or tool, it doesn't mean that the other child is done with it.  At the beginning of the year they often struggle with this concept.  I teach, "Ask them if you can use it when they are done."  And by this time of year...I hear this all the time.  The children very seldom forgets who asked for the item.  Something else I teach...especially with a mixed age group is how to trade.  All a part of problem solving and working together. 

* Sitting next to each other but having to share materials.

By the time they are at this stage, most of the  children are well into cooperative play and understand the "rules of the road" when it comes to using and sharing toys/tools.  They are also at a stage where they are beginning to "plan" their work.  So this adds a bit of a challenge for them.  Definitely a benefit.  To add an additional challenge, do this with a group of 3 or 4!  Lovely conversations and learning experiences!  Often, after setting up the activity and giving directions I'll quietly scoot back so I'm not really "with" the group.  I'm there if I need to help facilitate but they often learn quite a bit from their peers.  If it's a mixed age group...or mixed develop group, I'll sit near the youngest or the one who may not be at the same develop as the others.  I've found great success in having 2 or 3 that know how it works and one that isn't as adept.  Sitting next to a specific child so I can give quiet verbal, nonverbal-physical-visual cues help them be successful.  That's what we want, right?!  The more they are successful the higher their confidence level.

"Grow a Garden" Flower Sorting

This activity was a homemade one.  Really didn't take all that long and was relatively inexpensive.  It got the name "Grow a Garden" because the three year old was sorting the flowers and saying, over and over, "I'm growing a garden!"  So cute.  It's simply a shoe box, trimmed "library pockets" (dollar store), painted craft sticks and foam flowers.  I used all the same type of flowers for each color so we could talk about characteristics.  I also made the color word tags color and black and white.  They are removeable so that they can match the color word to the color of the flowers.  We talked about how many of each flower they had in their garden.  If they were equal, more or less. 

Marble Transfer

Again, these simple fine motor activities are a hit!  The pegs on the pegboard was a bit more of a challenge then the fish cut out of the bath mat...probably because of the plastic but they all did well!  We pretended the pegs were stems and the marbles were flowers.  FYI: A 1/4 teaspoon is the perfect size tool for a marble transfer.  I know you all know this...but as a reminder...marbles are choking hazards.  Use under supervision. 

I love my job!  Looking forward to tomorrow!

Flowers II

Here's a pic of an almost completed "Garden Party" booklet they made yesterday.  They just didn't get their name on it yet.  Not sure how that was missed...but we were running out of time yesterday so that is probably why. 

I love the Mailbox publications "I Can Make It!  I Can Read It!"

This was from their Spring themed book.  Unfortunately, I don't think you can purchase the seasons, preschool-kindergarten, from them anymore.   BOO!  I got mine off of Amazon.com by other sellers.  The only one I don't have is Summer and was contemplating seeing if I can find it.  I also have the Science themed one which is nice.  I think you can still purchase that one.  Not sure.

It's repeated text...ending with a butterfly on the last page (which is blue paper).  Here's an example of a verse.  Great for preschoolers and those exploring with reading.  They use the flowers that are in the row so they know exactly what flower and color to say during the verse.

Hello, red rose.

Who invited you?

A fresh white daisy...

That's who! 

Art: Mosaic

A cute little flower plate from the dollar store makes the materials look more organized and appealing.  Trent was up for the morning so he participated in his own version.  He really got into the gluing, which is very beneficial.  I buy a large amount of liquid glue in summer/fall when it's cheap.  We go through a lot of it.  I love the benefit of using a glue bottle and we do a lot with it.  SQUEEZE=hand strengthening and control.  Sometimes I tighten the lid a bit so they really have to squeeze!  One child actually used the yarn for a stem of a flower.  Another child used green crayon to make a bunch of stems with one shape on the top.  The other two children just placed the wooden shapes where they wish.  And that is okay!  Mosaics/collage really don't keep a lot of interest here and part of the reason, I feel, is because I haven't introduce it through an artist/illustrator that uses that technique.  So that's one of my goals for this fall is to have a more "formal", for the lack of a better term, art program.  They get none of this once they hit Kindergarten at our school  :-(  The little art they do in the classroom would be, on my scale, a 1 or lower.  Seriously.  It's bad news!  But that's my personal opinion.  I loved it when I worked in the public school system down near Detroit.  I shared space with the art teacher...for K-6.  What conversations we had!  What a learning experience.  So I really feel bad that my own kids don't get that opportunity.

On a brighter note...our hand/foot print flowers turned out lovely.  This was more a sensory activity in my eyes.  This would not be considered a very great "art" activity unless they did it on their own and they way they wanted...and they definitely wouldn't have turned out "cute" by any adult perspective. 

You can tell that I've been doing handprinting with them as Trent, not quite two, looked at me funny but came willingly when I asked if I could paint his feet.  Then when it was time to print his hands...he came and plopped himself in my lap, pulled up his sleeves, and with a big smile, held out his hand.  LOL  His is the red one, and yes, he chose that color.  A note about choices, if it seems that your child is unable to "choose" then you are probably giving them too many choices!  If you are new to giving choices...a general thought to keep in mind is a choice for every year in age.  So 2 years, 2 choices, 3 years- 3 choices.  However, once they are accustomed to this decision making...you can do what I do and just plop all the colors there and they do just find with that decision making.   Here's another picture...after someone thought of glitter and they all took off on that tangent.  So glittered we got.  :-)

I had an older Weekly Reader from one of my own boys about plants growing.  So we also talked about the parts of a flower, that the stem is like a straw, that we need a root system, the sequence of a plant and so on.

File Folder Game

http://www.preschoolprintables.com/filefolder/flower/filefolderflower.shtml

They counted the dots on the petals and matched it to the petal on the flower.  A note about file folder games:  These are really nice...especially for the teacher.  Or maybe I should say, mostly for the teacher.  :-)  All nicely contained.  Can be made for so many different skills.  I find that at the preschool stage, they aren't all into them.  I do use them on occasion or as fillers.  I sometimes use them as an assessment tool as well.  But they aren't a favorite amongst my kiddos.   In the picture on the right, I just folded the folder back to only have the petals 1-5 as that's where that particular student is at for counting sets.  There would have been way too many options out there for him.  So keep that in mind when you are creating file folder games.  You want to make it so that you can easily adjust it for a child at a different level.  I find that a lot of file folder games for preschool specifically are too easy, at least for my students, and the Kindergarten ones have a bit too much information and get overwhelming.

http://www.kindergartenkindergarten.com/file-folder-games/

 has a few downloadable folder activities.  Beautiful artwork/pictures!!!  I'll be keeping my eye out on this site to see if she posts anymore.  Keep in mind that this is a K teacher creating for K students.

Back at it again today!

Beautiful!

Fine Motor: Sewing

We started these today.  Pretty much open-ended.  This type of thing needs to be left out for a few days so they can go back to it and sew in small doses.  I had purchased some burlap-like material but found that my kiddos still needed the stiffer material until I can get enough embroidery rings for them all.  So, plastic canvas in the meantime.  I have the "real" yarn needles...not the plastic ones and they work so much better!

Scissors: Paper Plate Flower

Sorry, these pictures are scary indeed!  I had already plopped them up in the entranceway...which is narrow and not conducive to picture taking.   :-)  But you can get the point.  Cheap activity by the way!  I had them use roller paints (the commercial version of paint in roller deoderant bottles LOL)on the back of a paper plate, because I knew it would be dry enough for them to immediately start cutting.  Other paints, it would have turned into a 2 day project.  You could use crayons/markers I guess...but this is definitely more fun.  They fringe cut around the edges.  Cut their own stems and decided what kind of leaves they wanted...paper or crayon or none.  They all turned out differently, that's for sure.  Simple and easy but good skill practice!