I'm backkkkkkkk!!!!!!!!!!

To my readers and followers I am sorry I have been MIA for awhile but since my last post lots has been happening in my life and I needed to give these major life changes my all. I started a new teaching job with a wonderful company on the campus of the University of Miami, Oxford, OH, moved into a new home in Camden, OH and the biggest event was October 18, 2014 when Brian and I tie the knot (will post photos later)!!!
But no worried have have lots of new and fun ideas and helpful thoughts that will be showing up on here in the next few weeks!!!

Smiles,
Melissa

Colors Everywhere!!!!

For the beginning of the school year my co-teacher and I decided on starting with the basics with our preschoolers by starting with letters, number, shapes and colors. The first area we concentrated on was colors, we read the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?, and from there the children were able to write their own book page for our class version of the story. We titled our Preschool 2C, Preschool2C What do you see?

 

The children also had the use of word cards for each of the animals that included a picture of the illustration from the book and the words so they could write out the animal he/she chose for their class book page.

 

 

I also decided that it may be helpful to some of the children in my class if there was a Color Wordbook available to them at the writing table. This way if a children wanted to practice writing a certain color word all he/she would have to do is flip through the book and find the color he/she wanted to use. Not only is the background of each page the color word, but each color word is printed in that color (example, red is in red font and so on).

 

 

After completing the week with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?  We continued the color theme in the classroom but turned to making a class piece of artwork (to add to the canvas art collection in our cubbie area) This time we decided to do the crayon melt project that everyone is talking about from Pinterest. I took crayons (with the wrappers still on) and hot glued them to a piece of canvas in a design I thought the children would find interesting.  The day we melted the crayons all 20 children were given the opportunity to hold the hair dryer and help get the crayons to melt. Below you will see the progression of our beautiful piece of artwork!

 

 

Another item we added to the classroom to help the children with their colors was a clear party tray from the Dollar Tree. I took small pieces of paper to make the individual labels for each section and then just taped them on with packing tape, this way you can swap them out throughout the school year. Below you can see that the children were given 5 colors, and various magnetic letters to sort into the correct color section! This was placed on the shelf in our Math Area.

 

The last color activity i want to share is quick and easy sun catchers. For this activity I used black construction paper and cut 20 half sheets. I then took each half sheet, folded it in half and cut out a rectangle in the middle. Once they were all cut our into a rectangular frame, I cut out a piece of contact paper that fit to the inside of each frame. The children were each given a frame and tissue paper to decorate the clear contact paper with. Below is a picture of the finished product! (Great last minute activity!)

Marble Madness in the Sensory Table

So instead of posting more Olympic items I have decided to back track a little bit and post a few older art activities we have done in our classroom. This one was done in the spring when we were talking about magnets and other simple machines such as an incline plane. In this activity the children were able to choose from many different paint colors offered to them each in a cup with a marble. After choosing the color paint they wanted to start with the children took turns rolling the marbles in each cup down the canvas (which was set on a incline).

Here is the finished product!!!!

Edible Olympic Torches!

Today one of our classroom parents brought in a few items with a great idea in mind.....to make EDIBLE OLYMPIC TORCHES!!!! We used Cheese Popcorn and Ice Cream Cones.

We gave each child one Ice Cream Cone, a small bowl of Popcorn and a pair tongs to use to get the popcorn from the bowl and into their Ice Cream Cone (practicing fine motor skills while not even knowing it!)

 And here is the finished product. The children really enjoyed being able to eat their finished product!!!!

LONDON OLYMPICS 2012

GO TEAM USA!!!!!!!!

Canvas Olympic Ring Painting

Today as our daily special activity we put out a piece of white canvas, propped up in the sensory table, 5 paper plates with the Olympic ring colored paint and a piece of paper towel roll in each color of paint. The paper towel roll is the tool the children had to paint with, actually stamp with. This is almost identical to the project we did on an individual level earlier in the week, but this time we one used ONE piece of canvas and the final product will be displayed in our cubbie area for all to see!!!

THE FINISHED PRODUCT!!!!!

Olympic Theme Writing Center

A simple addition to our writing area to keep with our Olympic Theme was to add simple Olympic Ring colored blank books and also Olympic Ring Printed blank books. This way the children can make there own stories up while using the Olympic Sport themed word cards (shown in bottom picture).

Olympic Ring Paintings

For our Olympic Ring Paintings I took 2 paper towel tubes and cut each tube into 5 even pieces. Then placed 2 in each color of paint for the children to stamp with. And of course to make the children's paintings look much more like the Olympic Rings we used red, blue, yellow, green and black tempera paint on small plates. Each child was given a half sheet of white paper to stamp on. Look below to see the end results!!!!