Farmer’s Market!

MY FIRST POST FROM MY OLD BLOG :)

Every month or so I like to transform our drama area into something new.  One of my favorites is the Farmer’s Market.  I have the parents donate different pumpkins and vegetables.  I make a cute sign for the wall and bring in reusable grocery bags, fake flowers, a cash register, play money, aprons, mini clipboards to take orders, price list for kids to reference, and baskets and containers to hold all of the food.  This year the kids have really enjoyed this new center.  It has been a favorite for about 3 weeks now!  Here are some pictures so you can see this adorable center.


I found this sign and the price sheets in my Mailbox Book.

 


I used the class’s Leaf Man projects to decorate the center too.

Merry Christmas Fun!

ANOTHER RE-POST :)

Wow December went by fast this year!  Here is a summary of all of our fun holiday crafts and ideas!



Welcome to Santa’s Workshop!  I Made this banner with the help of my assistant teacher.  Then I hung lights around the sign.  The kids love it when I turn off the lights and the Christmas lights light up the entire room.  I also have elf hats, reindeer headbands, Santa hats, wrapping paper, tape, ribbon, boxes, bags, tags, tissue paper, various Christmas decorations, and little trinkets that the kids wrap and take home each day.  I hit the dollar bins and the kids get really excited to wrap little erasers, pencils, ornaments etc. to bring home.  The rule is one present a day.  By the end of the week they begin picking gifts out for friends and siblings.  I have received wonderful feedback from the parents.  Also to help stock the center I ask the parents to bring in any wrapping materials right after Thanksgiving.  I get a ton of donations this way



We also made rectangle trees, paint washing snow globes,  gingerbread men, advent counting rings, ornaments, and parent gifts.



This was a great math activity with the children putting the strips of paper in order largest to smallest to make their trees.



I had the kids draw with oil pastels and then wash over it with watercolor.  Once it dried we put glue and glitter for snowflakes!

 

We rubbed cinnamon onto the gingerbread man for the sense of smell for this project.


We made counting rings to count down to Christmas and Jesus’s birthday. There is a cute poem that goes up at the top with a star.


The kids loved making these.  They turned out adorable!



Here is the poem we attached.


 



Then they sponge painted lunch sacks, wrapped the ornament in tissue paper, and tied a ribbon on the bag.



They also made these ornaments during the class party.  They filled the plastic ornaments with beads and snow, put in a picture on one side and their name on the other.  Very cute!

Brrrrr! Baby it’s cold outside!

THIS IS ANOTHER RE-POST FROM MY WORDPRESS BLOG.  I'M TRYING TO TRANSFER EVERYTHING OVER TO THIS BLOG.  

We started our Winter unit and we have been hit by the cold weather here in Washington.  Today it was 29 degrees!  This went perfect with one of my new centers.  As many of you know one of my favorite areas in the classroom is the drama area.  I love to get creative and provide the kids with a platform for their imagination!  So today I introduced our cold weather area with a hot cocoa stand

The sign is from the Mailbox magazine and then I laminated it for durability.  I added a cash register and hot cocoa cups and Voila! We had a hot cocoa stand.

I made  the hot cocoa by taking a Styrofoam cup placing brown felt in it and topping it with white pom poms for marshmallows.

Now for the cold weather area I brought in scarves, mittens, gloves, and hats.  The kids loved dressing up and drinking their hot cocoa!
We are also starting a unit on “Mittens” so I strung the mittens and gloves across the hooks.  I placed Mitten related stories on top and I made a pretend washing machine for the mittens out of a cardboard box.  Well actually my daughter made most of it

I just cut the door out, placed a sheet protector for the window and then decorated the box.  The kids place all of the gloves into the box, close the door, and shake it up.  Open the door and pull out the mittens/gloves one by one and match them.  Then they hang them to dry on the line.  This is great for gross and fine motor skills.  And of course you have counting, matching, identifying same and different, and colors as well.  This activity reaches many Pre-K benchmarks and is fun at the same time!

Here is a list of  the books that I placed on top of the shelf:
 

Bringing the winter theme across the developmental domains!

THIS IS A RE-POST FROM MY OLD BLOG FROM FEBRUARY

The last couple of weeks we have been working on learning about winter and polar animals.  Here are some activities we did and what domain they apply towards.
Fine Motor and Cognitive: I downloaded these mittens on-line and then laminated them for durability.

The children put a white button on the picture that matches the letter “Oo” for this activity.  I downloaded it from a learning site and then laminated it for durability.

For art we made icicles out of foil and glitter.  They used hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and creative expression for this project.
  
For Science: we learned about cause and effect with ice in the sensory bin.  I froze containers of ice with fish inside of them and then placed them in the sensory bin full of water.  The children loved discovering what happened to the ice in the water!
  
I also added polar animals and Styrofoam as ice burgs.  This was a very popular center where the children worked on their social and emotional skills!

Another fun art and fine motor activity was making igloos out of Styrofoam cups and marshmallows.  The kids painted on the glue and placed the marshmallows on one by one.

Here is a finished one!

For a gross motor and fine motor we  stamped with bubble wrap.
 
We experimented with “insta snow.” This worked very well in teaching children about making hypotheses and predictions.

We also had a very fun day with our snowman snack party, but that will be in another post
~Meghan