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.  :-)

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!