It Smells SOOOO Good!

Our Pre-K teacher came up to me yesterday and asked if we could create a new sensory tub for the Christmas season. She had gotten a great idea from that most stupendous resource, "The Mailbox." I just love "The Mailbox."

The sensory tub has a Gingerbread theme. Here is what you need:

1 5 lb. bag of flour

1 carton of salt

3 tbsp. ground allspice

3 tbsp. ground cinnamon

3 tbsp. ground cloves

3 tbsp. ground ginger

Pour all the ingredients in your sensory space and mix together.

So you're probably thinking this seems like a messy sensory tub. The answer to that is, Yes, it is a messy sensory tub. I don't have pictures, but we had children covered in this mixture, but oh my--they sure smelled yummy. The aroma is just DELICIOUS.

In the tub I had put some measuring spoons, sifters, cups, and wooden spoons. They had a ball with it. When they were done, they got brushed down with the dust pan broom. They thought it was hilarious. We used a broom to get the floor, but the article suggests a vacuum to clean up the floor area. (It says that after vacuuming up the mixture, your vacuum bag will smell like gingerbread.

Oh, one other thing. As many of you know, Mrs. Nodolski "gets by" in the kitchen. So I had to go out and buy the spices needed for the mixture. OH MY! Do you know how much those little packages of spices cost? Sticker shock for me. Next year I can hopefully look around for some cheaper brand of spices.

Bottle Cap Creations

I thank those that have sent in some great ideas. I will try to get to them and post them as time allows. I received a few suggestions from Gisele whose blog is entitled Kids Indoors. Gisele is a stay at home mom with two young children. She lives in Brazil and has some great ideas. Her first idea has inspired me to add a twist to my room. Gisele's blog is not in English, but was very easy to translate.

When I received Gisele's email it said; drawing with bottle caps. Well, my mind had a whole bunch of ideas going around it. Then I visited her post and it was something totally different than what a thought. But--WOW-- what an idea.

The first part of this activity is to collect bottle caps--lots, and lots, and lots of bottle caps. Give them a good washing. Then give them to the children. See what they create. I thought it looked like great fun.

You have to head on over to Gisele's site to see what her children created. They did a wonderful job.

Here is an inexpensive manipulative, that you can have parents help you collect, that can provide so much creativity and fun.

I thank Gisele, and be sure to look for more ideas from her as she has sent me others I haven't gotten to yet.

Thanks Gisele!!!

What 'ch Doin'?

I don't know if you've ever heard that title spoken before. If you have, then your family is an avid viewer of Phineas and Ferb. If you have not heard it before, it is from a cartoon on the Disney Channel called Phineas and Ferb.

Anyway, why am I using that as my title? Well, as many of you know I have been sharing experiences of my preschool life with you for a little over two years now. I have been sharing my classroom experiences, crafts, and odds and ends I come across.

I have started to feel like a bit of a parrot. Since I teach new three-year-olds every year, my projects and school life every year are very similar. If I find something new and practice something new I share that also, but there are many things that are the same from year to year.

My old brain is starting to be filled with spider webs in the "New" category. It doesn't seem like time or creativeness come easily any more.

I would love to continue my blog as I love to hear from everyone, see the wonderful creations of all those around, and I also love sharing fun things we do, but I really would like to add some new material.

Here is an idea I thought of. I was wondering if anyone out there in cyberworld would like me to share something with readers. Do you have a preschool craft you think people would love? Is it an easy recipe that young children could make? Or, is a fun science project, etc?....

Maybe you don't have a blog, or maybe you would like your blog to be recognized. I would love to share readers' ideas, of course giving you the credit. If you would like to share an idea, I would need you to send all the information to trish@preschoolplaybook.com. Then here is what I would like to happen:

I would take your idea and create it here at home so that I can take pictures to share with the readers.

I would let you know that I have tried your project and am going to post it.

I would then post the idea with your name and a link to your website if you have one.

If you have read my posts, you know that I focus on projects that preschoolers can do and that are usually made with materials that are handy or easily found.

Also, if you have a question you would like me to answer, please feel free to ask. I'm sure if you have a question about a certain issue, many other's may be interested in it also. Of course, please remember my answer will be my opinion, or how something worked best for "Me". I'll help if I can.

I hope people will be open to this concept. I would love to add some new material that would be fun and interesting. I thank you in advance and hope to hear from you.

Lots to Be Thankful For

Even though we were having so much fun with brown last week, we did get to talk about Thanksgiving. I had two activities for the children last week.

Thanksgiving activities actually started with the cornucopia at the end of the good food unit. This week we read our Thanksgiving rebus story about the Pilgrims coming to America on the Mayflower. After this story we made a Mayflower. Click here for the directions.

Then on Thursday we talked about things we are thankful for and made a Thankful Turkey. Here is the post with the directions to make the Thankful Turkey.

Some other Thanksgiving fun projects are:

Indian Corn

Apple Turkeys

Vests for Native Americans

Handprint Turkeys

Pilgrim Hat

Pilgrim Bonnets

Turkey Table Decoration

Native American Headdresses

Our school is off this week. I hope you and yours have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Beautiful Brown

In all your life did you ever think the color brown would be described as beautiful? I have to say it's not the first adjective that comes to mind for me either. But, we had so much fun with brown this week that I thought "beautiful" was appropriate.

We were so busy with brown activities that Thanksgiving activities took a back seat to our brown fun.

For our color books we painted a brown acorn. This week we used feathers to paint the brown. I thought since Thanksgiving was upon us, a feather would be appropriate. Our second page was to give Spot the dog some brown spots.

The real fun came with our extra brown activities. A new one I introduced last year was fun for me, but I'm not sure for the children. It's a sensory activity--"worms in mud." It's not really worms in mud. I make some spaghetti and add finger paint and then let them play in it. It is amazing to me that many of them actually think the spaghetti is worms and don't want to play in it. For the activity I show the children the cooked spaghetti that I made at home. I pour the spaghetti into our water table and add some brown finger paint. I then mix it all together with my hands so that they can see it's not really worms. Maybe it just looks to real too them.

I added an extra step this year, if anyone wanted to participate--using the "brown worms" to make a picture. If the children wanted, I got them a piece of paper and they piled up some brown worms on the paper, we poured the worms off and had a beautiful creation.

Our second activity was to make chocolate pudding. They had a lot of fun with this too. We poured and mixed and filled our bellies. One aspect that I was letting them do, was to serve themselves and clean up after themselves. They did well with it, but some weren't too sure about it. They would sit at the table and wait. I told them to go ahead and fill their bowl and they would look at me like, "Really?"

We had a great time with our color this week. If only I could come up with things like this every week.

Be Back Soon

(picture from google images, found at seniorsforliving.com)

I am on my way to some sun and fun with Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. We will be back soon.

While I'm away next week the children are going to finish their good foods theme by making a cornucopia. Then making some delicious fruit salad.

The color for the week will be blue. They will watercolor a big blue whale and add a page with some blue stickers to their color books.

See you soon!

Our Purple Plans

Our color this week was the color purple. Even though we don't have lots of purple things in the classroom, (or clothes in our closet), we have fun with this color.

On Tuesday we did printing. I had a picture of a Pterodactyl--sure he can be purple. I then had a cross stitching mat and piece of textured fabric. I let the children decide which pattern they like for their picture. Then they rolled paint onto the mat or the fabric, pressed the picture onto the painted area, and--tada--a beautiful print. They thought it was amazing.

On Thursday we got to glue some purple grapes onto a picture so that Ernie would have a big pile of yummy grapes.

To follow the theme of purple grapes, and good foods, I had a big piece of paper with a bowl drawn on it. I then asked the children to used their fingers and a purple stamp pad to add some grapes to the bowl--oh, and the table, chairs, dolls, blocks, etc. Good thing it cleans easily.

We also used some red and blue color windows to blend together to see the color purple. Lots of fun!

Doing Nothing at School Today?

I am very sorry Mom and Dad. Yes, we were very busy today in the classroom, but I forgot to get the board out so you could see what we were up to. I scanned in the note I had written so if you would like to take a gander, here it is:

We got to be mini-chefs today and whip us a favorite treat--muffin pizzas. This week we have been focusing on foods that are good for us, that help us grow big and strong. It's always fun to have real food when we discuss this. I had English muffins, pizza sauce, and cheese for the children to put together a muffin. Then I baked them in the toaster oven and they enjoyed them for snack.

I also had pictures of different foods out on the rainbow table. If the children wanted to they could make a collage. I had paper plates and glue, then then decided what they would like to glue on the plate to take home.

We finished up reading, "The Little Red Hen Makes Pizza," by Philemon Sturges. A new favorite book of mine. It also goes very well with our theme.

Have a great weekend.