What's in the Box?

This mantra runs through my head...a lot...more like everyday...and it makes appearance mainly during art..."It's a process, not a product."  I find the most adorable art activities on one super addictive website, I envision these beautiful creations decorating the walls of my classroom...and then we do the activity...it never turns out like the picture, but that is 100% OK because, well, it's a process and I have to step back and let the creativity happen!  Every single person that works with children knows that art, creativity, and imagination are huge parts of the early childhood experience and the majority of children love to paint, so I have the painting box.  My calendar is broken down by themes and of course in those themes are art activities.  Each day of the week brings a new art experience: Painting, Drawing, Prints, Clay, and Collages and we follow that general rule, but sometimes, my kids just need to create without me telling them what they can use or giving them an idea of what to draw, during those moments the painting box comes out.  My painting box is just a cardboard box full of things other than paintbrushes for the kids to use.  I have found items in dollar bins at box stores, had parents donate items, and just collected things I found that I thought would make a unit painting experience.  There are no rules when the painting box comes out...the children can use whatever they choose in whatever way they choose (so long as nobody is getting beaten with a dish scrubber!).  The painting box comes out once every couple of weeks, it is especially helpful on rainy days when we have run out of theme related activities.  So, what's in my box?  Here is a list:

- Dish Scrubbers (long handled and round ones)
-Wine Corks (purchased at the craft store)
-Newspaper
-Bath poufs
-Paper towel rolls
-Bubble Wrap (both small and large bubbles)
-Milk Jug Lids
-Lids off of plastic bottles
-Egg cartons

I am always on the lookout for more fun things to experiment with and add to our box!

Happy Painting!!

A Monster of a Week

While Halloween is not one of my most favorite holidays on the calendar, my children and my daycare kids love it.  Instead of doing a Halloween theme this year I chose to do a week of Friendly, Fuzzy, Adorable Monsters.  I had so much fun making games and researching for activities.  Even though this was only supposed to be a week long theme, it ended up being two weeks thanks in part to a nasty stomach virus that wiped out my whole FCC for four days and kept us from taking a very cool field trip to the pumpkin patch.  I took lots of pictures of the things we did, but something happened and I can't find them...ugh.  So I will try to re cap the week with a couple of the pictures I do have and tell you about some of the cool monster activities we did! 

We made Monster frames.  I bought some Crayola Neon paint and the kids painted the frames and then they glued lots and lots of wiggly eyes on it.  I thought it would be perfect for pictures of them in their Halloween costume!

For one of our group activities I covered a box with paper, added eyes, a nose, rainbow hair, and cut out a where the mouth would be.  It turned out quite cute, just wish I could find the pic I took!  I cut out shapes and passed them out to my kids at morning meeting.  When I called out a shape the kids that had that shape "fed" our monster.  Of course the box monster needed a name, so after much deliberation over names staring with M we decided to name her Merryweather!  

The most popular table activity was based on the book Even Monsters Need Haircuts by Matthew McElligott.  I made a simple monster head and taped yarn to it.  I placed scissors on the table next to it and encouraged the kids to give the monster a haircut.  We played a monster math game too, my kids really enjoyed it because I played it with them!  I made two simple monsters without noses and put a bowl of colorful pom poms on the table along with a die.  We took turns rolling the dice, counting the dots, and adding that many noses.  

Of course during Monster week we had to listen to The Monster Mash!  One day while listening to it the kids painted with potato mashers! 

It was a great week full of cute monster art, songs, and activities.  I think adorable monster week will have to make a regular appearance every year around Halloween! 

 

Creepy Crawly Spiders

What a great week we had learning about and doing spider activities!

 Painting with spaghetti...a new twist on string painting...to make a spider web

 Painting with plastic spiders.  I attached yarn to spider rings and the kids dipped the spiders into orange and black paint and "danced" across the paper.

 

Spider Math...practicing one to one correspondence.  I cut out the webs, colored the spiders, and added the dots.  When a child chooses this activity they put a black pom pom on each dot.  I also encourage them to count the pom poms. 

We did a group mural, more spider art, two spider related science activities, and more!  I plan on leaving some of the activities out and adding to them until the end of the month!  

 

Gr8 Spiders

This week we are doing lots of spider activities!  The spider theme is one of my favorites and one that all the kids really enjoy.  Today we did a creative math activity.  I cut out a number 8 and 8 rectangles for each child.  When they chose the math center, I armed them with a glue stick and they glued the 8 rectangles (legs) to the 8 shape.  Then they got a cup of glue, Q-Tip, and six wiggly eyes and they glued the eyes to the 8.  In the end it was a spider!  I had them trace the number 8 with their fingers to reinforce the concept of the number 8! 

Apple Books

These are the books I am using for my Apple theme.  

When we read Ten Apples Up On Top we made a matching art piece.  The Owlets drew a self portrait at the bottom of a piece of paper and then glued ten apple cutouts onto the paper.  

Apple Theme Books

____________________________

Ten Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss

Amelia Bedelia's First Apple Pie by Herman Parish

The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall

Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg

Apple Picking Time by Michele Benoit Slawson

Ten Red Apples by Pat Hutchins

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro 

Orange Pear Apple Bear (not pictured) by Emily Gravett

 

My Melting Pot Curriculum

I have taught preschool for years, since I was 18 actually, and in those 17 years I have come across  different curriculum's.  Creative Curriculum, ABEKA, HighScope,  My first job as a lead teacher came at the age of 19 at a daycare that had just opened.  I had only worked as an aide in classrooms so this world of lead teacher was new, exciting, and a bit scary for me.  I was thrown into a 3 year old classroom, no instruction, nothing, just me, my classroom, and adorable three year olds, and I was expected to do something...anything to teach them!  I had the basics down; we needed to do art, we needed to have centers, we needed a schedule..but how did I figure out that art, what activities did I put in those centers, how did I go about making a daily schedule that met the needs of the kids in my class?  Sadly, this daycare provided me with nothing...so I went to the off campus bookstore and looked through books for a good deal of time...and finally bought my first, of many, Mailbox books.  It had everything...art, centers, tips, themes..it was a start!  I was not at that daycare very long and it closed its doors shortly after I left. 
After leaving the failing daycare for something better...and trust me, anything would've been better..I found another job as an assistant teacher in a 3 year old class.  They provided a curriculum, materials, and monthly meetings and training.  I learned so much working there and had the opportunity to be the lead teacher of the 3's for a while.  I moved on when a better opportunity presented itself and fell in love with my new job as, again, a lead teacher for 3 year olds.  I was introduced to the Creative Curriculum and was instantly in love with it!  I had always believed that children learned through play, but now I was looking at a whole curriculum based on that belief!  How awesome!!  The Creative Curriculum quickly became my favorite! 
Fast forward a few years, three kids and three moves later, to the opening of my own Family Child Care.  The FCC uses the Creative Curriculum, so it was easy for me to fall into making lesson plans, creating activities, and setting up learning centers.  Being in school to finish up my degree, I have been studying curriculum's and my addiction to Pinterest, has shown me activities based on Montessori, Reggio Emilia, and others.  I am drawn to these activities because they, like the Creative Curriculum, encourage play and exploration, hands on activities that are fun, but still encourage learning.  I am a huge fan of the natural approach of Reggio Emelia and think about that when decorating my classroom and when setting up activities.  I put Montessori's learning trays into play when setting activities out at the table.  I consider the multiple intelligences theory when creating activities. 
I like to pull bits and pieces from many different options to create a unique learning experience for the kids I care for.  I do not believe that one size fits all when it comes to curriculum and I think it's an important job of the teacher to research different ones to find what works in her class.  What works for me and my FCC?  This melting pot curriculum! 

Marbled Eggs

Start with shaving cream

Add paint 

Use a spoon, toothpick, or fork to stir the paint into the shaving cream.  I like the marbled look!

Press paper (ours was cut into an egg shape)...remove from paint and remove excess shaving cream...we used the edge of a piece of paper and jumbo craft sticks

Let the paper dry

We made our into a pretty garland decorate for Easter! 

Intriguing Leaves and Dramatic Play

Dramatic Play

Intriguing Leaves

My dramatic play area was giving me a time this week...what could I do for fall?  I thought about adding fake leaves and plastic rakes and having the kids rake the leaves...maybe adding plastic fall vegetables and having the kids make a fall meal...then it hit me...Farmer's Market!  So last night after giving my little Owlets a bath I made pumpkins out of paper bags, newspaper, and orange paint.  I moved the bench to my dining room table to the dramatic play area to serve as the table, added the pumpkins, the apple cider jugs and apples from our apple theme, and some pretend fruits and veggies.  The Owlets had a great time serving up apple cider and selling fruit and vegetables to each other! 
Our art activity for the day was pretty simple, but created a unique masterpiece.  I cut out leaf shapes from magazines and my hubby drew a simple tree shape on paper.  The kids glued the leaf shapes onto the tree! 
In group time we played a color matching game, I drew a tree (a very pathetic looking tree) onto poster board labeled it with yellow, brown, red, and orange dots, and had it laminated.  I took it to Office Depot because my little laminating machine that I love and am so glad I have will not handle poster board..the nice lady there laughed at my sad little tree!  Anyway, I cut leaves out of red, yellow, brown, and orange construction paper, laminated them, and cut them out.  The Owlets picked a leaf and taped it to the coordinating dot.  When all the leaves were on it, it was beautiful and not as sad looking! 
I added colored pencils and paper to the writing area along with some cards with fall words and matching pictures on them. I encouraged the Owlets to try and copy the letters off the cards or to draw a picture of what was on the card. 

There are more fall adventures awaiting us tomorrow...hopefully a nature walk to look for leaves, acorns, and pine cones for our discovery trays if the rain goes away!  :)

Priscilla Pig

Priscilla Pig Before her muddy makeover

Oh lovely mud

Priscilla Pig after a day in the mud 

 

 

 

Well, I couldn't let the box I had picked out for my barn to go to waste, so I enlisted my hubby's help to cut out this pig.  Why do I enlist the hubs on big projects...because I can not cut a straight line with a ruler, much less make a pig out of a cardboard box!  Anyway, I saw this idea on www.pinteret.com (again, love love love pinning and I always find the cutest stuff on there!)  So the Owlets and Papa Owl helped me paint her pink then I added her snout and features.  The Owlets loved her and were so excited about her, we had to name her...so we named her Priscilla, cause that's an awesome pig name! We took her outside and painted her with brown paint "mud" hand prints!  The Owlets had a great time making Priscilla all dirty.  This was a pretty cool way to tell them that pigs like mud because it helps keep them cool, keeps bugs away from them, and keeps them from getting sunburned.  I discovered that there is enough stuff out there on pigs to do a whole unit on them! Maybe next year I'll do pigs one week and the farm the next! 

More Apple Antics

Making Apple Prints

Apple Patterns

Sorting Big A and Little A

Mother Goose on the Loose!

Our theme for this week is Nursery Rhymes!  The Owlets enjoy nursery rhymes, so I thought this would be a wonderful unit.  There are so many fantastic rhymes, but we are only focusing on four (we took Monday off), Humpty Dumpty, Sing a Song of Sixpence, Little Miss Muffet, and Jack and Jill. 
Yesterday we focused on Little Miss Muffet.  After reading the rhyme, I read the morning message to the Owlets, "Why was Little Miss Muffet frightened?"  After explaining what frightened was, the Owlets said with conviction that "She was scared because their was a spider that sat by her and wanted her food."  Then it was center time.  Here are what the centers have to offer this week:

Language/Literacy: I wrote the nursery rhyme Jack and Jill on sentence strips twice.  I placed one set in the pocket chart, skipping a line between the strips.  I cut the other strips and placed them next to the pocket chart.  The object is for the Owlets to place the cut out words in the empty spaces underneath the matching words.

Dramatic Play: There is a lot going on in our dramatic play area this week!  The Owlets will be hanging laundry on a clothesline (made with yarn), I added doll clothes to the prop box for them to hang.  I added bowls, spoons, rolling pins, plates, and pie plates in the prop box so the Owlets can make pies.  Finally, I will be adding props so the Owlets can be doctors.  I am incorporating fine motor into this center as well by using the clothespins. 

Gross Motor:  I added a candle cut out to three different heights of wooden blocks, the Owlets jump over them.

Math: I made ten cat cutouts and ten mitten cutouts.  I numbered the mittens and the kittens 1-10.  the object is that the Owlets match the mittens to the kittens.

Blocks: The Owlets are building walls and putting plastic eggs on them.

Our letter of the week is E.  The story we are reading is an awesome classic, Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss.  We are doing some pretty cool activities related to this book and the Owlets used their hand prints to make elephants! 

So far in art the Owlets have made spiderwebs after saying Little Miss Muffet and added a plastic spider ring and today we made crowns after reading Sing a Song of Sixpence. 

The Owls Nest Returns to Earth

It's been an exciting week going through our Outer Space unit!  The Owlets have had a lot of fun and some new experiences that I hope made an impression on them.  Sadly, we have wrapped up our space theme and returned to Earth today.  The last day is space was certainly a fun one.  The Owlets painted with sponges and gray paint on a round sheet of white paper, the texture of the sponge resembles the texture of the moon.  They also did a little mining for moon rocks.  I crumpled up pieces of aluminum foil and hid them in sand.  The Owlets used tongs to move the sand around and take them out, then they explored the moon rocks with a magnifying glass.  Of course, this activity could be done with actual small stones!  I showed them how craters form and they got to take turns making craters in the sand.  It's so much fun to drop a big rock in sand and see the dents it makes!  The other centers were open as well, they have spent a lot of time at the pocket chart singing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star and pointing to the words with the star pointers!  We had a fabulous week! 

The Owls Nest will not be operating on Monday September 3rd, 2012.  I hope everyone enjoys their long Labor Day weekend!  Have fun and be safe!!

Out of This World Art

Yesterday we got a late start on school and ended up doing activities after Clever Owl got home for the day.  Our art activity was pretty cool, the Owlets (even Clever Owl) made a moonrock!  These are so simple but are fun to make and they look pretty awesome displayed during Outer Space week.  All you need is aluminum foil, black paint, and gold and/or sliver glitter.  The Owlets crumpled up the aluminum foil into a loose ball and painted it black then they rolled it in silver glitter.  We put them in a box and labeled it "Moonrocks".  We read Zoom, Zoom, Zoom, I'm Off to the Moon before we did this activity and then I showed them the page in the book that showed a box of moonrocks!

I revamped the control panel board that is in our Dramatic Play center for the week.  I covered a tri-fold board with aluminum foil and glued the pictures from the previous board to the new board.  The Owlets are loving being astronauts! 

Blast Off

This week we learning about outer space!  I am a serious space enthusiast, so I love this theme!  Recently I ordered a book from Amazon www.amazon.com, it is a Mailbox book called Prop Box Play, I was especially excited to see the awesome space themed prop box that was included in this book!  I have been preparing all weekend for this unit, cutting out stars and programming them with letters and numbers, creating and collecting props, and everything else that goes along with getting a unit ready.  Papa Owl was quite confused when I asked if he had any MRE's or emergency blankets I could have for my prop box!  I made a control panel for our space shuttle by folding a piece of poster board into three equal parts.  I glued on some lids and caps, but you could also use spools. I found pictures of a speedometer, clock, view of the Earth from a shuttle, and a control panel, printed them off and glued them to my poster board.  I also drew on some windows and controls.  In my space prop box I added backpacks, flashlights, water bottles, a magnifying glass, and tongs.  I am looking for things to use as space helmets, space suits, and astronaut food! This is our Dramatic Play activity for the week!  The Owlets had fun being astronauts today, flying the space shuttle, and doing space walks!  Hopefully tomorrow they will get to find some moon rocks!
I finally got my pocket chart hung up and it is getting used all this week for a literacy activity.  I wrote the words to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on sentence strips and placed them in the chart.  I made glittery star wands to use as pointers and the Owlets can use the wands to point to the words while singing the song.  Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star is one of the Owlets favorite songs so you can imagine how much they enjoyed this activity.
Our letter for the week is "N".  So, we made nests our of brown lunch bags.  The Owlets glued three blue pom poms into the nest to look like little eggs.  Since we are trying to do a hand print craft for every letter, the Owlets used their thumbs to make a thumb print necklace.  
Art: I put white tempera paint into spray bottles and added water.  The Owlets sprayed the mixture onto black paper to create a solar system.  We did this activity outside because paint ends up everywhere!
Math: I cut out 20 star shapes, on 10 of them I wrote the numbers 1-10 and on the other ten I placed dots for each number.  The idea is to pick a star, count the dots, and find the matching star.  I laminated the stars for durability. 
Writing: I cut out 16 star shapes and programmed them with some of the letters we have been working on and some new letters.  The Owlets were encouraged to find the matching pairs of letters.  Again, I laminated the stars for durability!
Blocks: I found pictures of the International Space Station, the moon, and the solar system, I printed them out, laminated them, and put them in the block area with some play people.  The Owlets built space shuttles and sent their play people off to new planets, the moon, and the space station.
Fine Motor: I incorporated a Montessori activity into our fine motor center for the week.  I put out two bowls of water and some sponges.  The Owlets squeezed the water from the sponges out of one bowl of water into the other bowl.
This was a great first day of our Outer Space week! 

Dinosaur Week Roars to a Close

We finished up our exciting week about the dinosaurs yesterday!  Before we did our daily school routine we went to the post library for storytime.  The Owlets love the library and they love storytime!  The librarian read books about caterpillars and then they made a caterpillar craft out of scrapbook paper circles, pipe cleaners, wiggle eyes, and glue dots. 
We came home and the Owlets were excited to start learning and playing!  For a math activity I made ten dinosaur footprints and ten dinosaurs, I numbered the footprints and dinosaurs 1-10.  I laid the footprints out in a line and turned the dinosaurs face down.  The Owlets picked a dinosaur, said what the number was, and then laid the dinosaur on the footprint.  I was impressed with how well they did on this activity and they had a lot of fun doing it!
Our art activity was pretty cool, I gave the Owlets a plate full of uncooked pasta in different shapes, some glue, a q-tip, and a piece of black construction paper.  The idea was to make a dinosaur skeleton, but the instructions were, glue the pasta on however you want so your skeleton looks however you think it should look!  The skeletons came out very interesting!  The Owlets also made Dinosaur Handprints for our letter "H" activity.  They dipped the side of their fist into green paint and laid it on paper then they used their thumb for toes.  Some of the prints had ten toes!
The Owlets had a lot of fun this week and I am hopeful they learned a little about dinosaurs!
We have a brand new theme for next week and some pretty exciting stuff to go along with it ! 

A Dino Good Enough to Eat!

As our dinosaur unit comes to a close we made added a cooking project to our list of activities.  The Owlets made dinosaurs that were good enough to eat!  We started with bananas and the owlets stuck Chex cereal into it so it looked like spikes, then they put a chocolate chip on it for the eye.  The Owlets enjoyed making this special dino treat, but the best part was getting to eat it up!
 The Owlets worked in the centers that have been set up throughout the week, but of course we did a new art activity and a new letter "H" project.  For art the owlets made dinosaur footprints using their hands and the Owlets made hula skirts out of paper bags, yarn, glitter, crayons, and stickers!
Gross motor activities are important to all child development programs and this week we have moved like dinosaurs and today we listened to one of the Owlets favorite singers, Laurie Berkner, and her song We Are the Dinosaurs.  The Owlets had fun stomping and dancing!  It was a good day for learning and we have more fun in store for tomorrow!

Dots, Paleontology, and More!

We are continuing our Dinosaur theme.  Yesterday we got out of the house and went to the Fort Rucker PWOC Kick-Off!  The little owlets had fun playing with boys and girls their own age and Mama Owl had a lovely time praising my Savior, listening to the information about the classes offered this semester, and getting to have some grown up conversation with other mamas!
 After we got home and ate lunch we did a short circle time, we are counting our days in school and I wanted to make sure we at least got our stick in the bucket so we can get to 100 days!  I cut out several shapes and let the Owlets glue them to paper making a dinosaur, they turned out to be very abstract dinos!
Today in circle time we sang a song and went a dino hunt.  The activity taught the owlets about positional words, above, in, under, beside, behind, ect.  They had fun looking for and finding the dinosaurs and using new words!  We used big plastic dinosaurs and brown paint to make dino footprints on white paper.  Another way to do the dino footprints would be to add soil to brown paint and encourage the children to paint paper with the mixture then walk a dinosaur through it.
Our literacy activity today was dot markers on a letter H and we read A House for Hermit Crab, then decorated a hermit crab shell cutout.  We tried a science activity, I found a picture of a dinosaur skeleton and printed it out.  I was a little small so I cut it out and enlarged it on my printer.  The owlets put glue on the skeleton (with some help) and then dumped sand all over it.  They shook the excess sand off the paper, but all over themselves, the chairs, anything in their path, which is the main reason we did sand outside!  When it was done it looked like they had just dug up these dinosaur bones!  They were so excited about it and had so much fun with this activity.  I love watching them explore, learn, and have fun!  It is such a joy to be their Mama Owl...I am truly blessed!!  

Here Come The Dinosaurs!

We kicked off Dinosaur Week today!  The owlets are super excited about this week so that makes it even better! In preparation for this week the owlets and I spent a morning at the library looking for books on the subject of dinosaurs, buying plastic dinos at the store, and picking up sand!  Sadly, we don't have many books at home on the subject and we didn't have any plastic dinosaurs. Yesterday after church we ran to Lowe's to get some sand.  50 pounds of sand is not a light a load to carry, but Clever Owl and I made it happen, next time though I will send Papa Owl in for it!  I spent last night cutting out dinosaurs, I was glad that Papa Owl helped or I would've been up all night!
During our "circle time", we talked about what we knew about dinosaurs, I think my favorite answer came from Sassy Owl: "Dinosaurs live with Little Einsteins."  Then we discussed what we wanted to learn about the prehistoric creatures. 
This morning I added colorful dinosaurs to two dish pans and filled them with sand.  I gave the owlets paintbrushes and shovels so they could be paleontologists and dig for the dinos.  They got so excited when they found one!  This is also a good dramatic play activity!  For art, I added food coloring to spray bottles and cut out an egg shape, the owlets sprayed the egg shape and when they are dry we will cut them with a zig zag pattern and glue a baby dino coming out of the egg.  The owlets enjoyed doing these activities outside.  I copied a pattern of three types of dinosaurs onto construction paper, numbered them 1-10, laminated them, and finally cut them all out!  This is our math activity for the week and the owlets are going to sort the dinosaurs by type and then put them into sets.  Today they just sorted them by long tails, horns, and spikes! I'm sure our letter for the week should be D, but it's not, we are learning about the letter H.  For our literacy activity the owlets made hippos with their hand prints.  I love the idea of using hand prints to make something for each letter of the alphabet!
We have many more exciting plans for the week and I can't wait to share them with Sassy Owl and Monkey Owl and of course with all of you!  Have a fabulous Monday!!