Idea One: Make a Garden Grid
To Make:
Idea Two: Making Seed Containers
You Will Need:
2. Empty planting containers (I save mine each year from our starts)
3. Seeds
4. Containers with Lids
5. Hand shovels for the kids
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Each Spring we garden at my preschool and I am always trying to find ways to make it more independent for the children. This way, they feel more in-charge and I am able to feel less stress from eight kiddos all asking for help at the same time! This year I tried to find a way to teach the kids how to space out the plants, dig holes, and plant starts on their own. And it was a huge success! Idea One: Make a Garden GridIf you have the space to set up garden beds then this is an idea to try out! In the past, kids have planted the starts all in a huge bunch (without enough room to grow) unless I was personally helping each one of them dig their holes. This garden grid allowed me to teach the kids about spacing. We discussed that each square could hold one plant, but two plants was tooooo many. The kids could dig a hole and then come grab a start from me to plant! They could do this all on their own. Woo Hoo! To Make:I have three large garden beds in my yard, and I wanted to give each of them a square grid. The dimensions of a standard sheet of garden lattice from my home improvement store fit perfectly on top of my raised beds. But, most garden lattice has very small openings and I wanted a good sized square. I purchased two pieces of lattice and then used my hammer to pull some of the pieces of wood off. To make my squares: I leaned the lattice up against the side of my house for support, and then started in one corner. I worked diagonally across the lattice removing every other piece of wood until I made it across the whole thing. Then, I flipped it over and did the same on the other side. After removing every other piece from both sides I had large squares! I could then use the pieces I removed to make a third piece of lattice for my last planter box. After I modeled planting a start in the middle of a square, my job was to hand out starts. The kids independently chose a square, dug a hole, and then came over to request a start of their choice :) As an added bonus, these grids should keep the kitties away from your planter boxes. The neighborhood cats love to use these as a giant litter-box (yuck!) and this will keep them out of it. Idea Two: Making Seed ContainersMy preschoolers love planting seeds. Any kind of seed. But they love to choose what to plant, and to know which seeds are theirs. Last year I set up this activity out in our Explorer Club and the kids could use it all Spring independently. You Will Need:1. Bag or bucket of soil 2. Empty planting containers (I save mine each year from our starts) 3. Seeds 4. Containers with Lids 5. Hand shovels for the kids I put our bucket of soil in our explorer club this year, and set a bin of empty planting containers on top of it. On our shelf we have a bucket of shovels, and a bucket of mini rakes. Kids can access this at all times outside :) Sometimes we just set big bags of compost or soil out in the grass and kids don't need to worry about making a mess. I like to cut the picture off the seed packet and glue it to the lids of our seed containers. This way the kids can pick out which seeds they want independently. If your kids like to know which seeds are theirs, you can pre-make sticker labels with their name on it. Then they can stick those on their containers all on their own! Happy Planting!
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The beginning of the Winter season has been pretty exciting in Oregon! With a whole week of snow days it is extra busy trying to fit in all our wonderful holiday crafts, projects, and centers! I haven't posted in awhile due to snow days and Winter colds...but I am excited to share a few last minute holiday/Winter ideas that the preschoolers in your life will LOVE! Enjoy and Happy Holidays! 1. Play Dough SnowmenThis may be the cutest winter activity...ever. It is re-usable all season long, and if you save the supplies it can be reused year after year. To Make:Create some "snow" play-dough. I used my favorite recipe and added Mint extract before cooking and then mixed in some sparkles once it was done and cool. For the accessories I used: -old orange crayons for carrot noses -beans for eyes and mouth -old scrap fabric for scarves -old cardboard to cut out and glue together top hats (I just colored the box with a sharpie marker) -misc buttons, both black and colorful ones Cute, cute, cute! 2. DIY Gingerbread House!I wanted a gingerbread house decorating center out that kids couldn't actually eat, that wouldn't break easily, and that could be re-used all week long. This is what I came up with, and I couldn't have been more pleased! To Make:I found this house and box at Target on sale. I thought it would be perfect for the base of the gingerbread house...and then all the decorations could go inside the box! Any kind of box or cardboard creation could work! As you can see I stuck on a sheet of "sticker" sparkle foam to the rooftop to make it look like snow! I added four rows of velcro stick on circles to the roof-top so that we could decorate it with "candy". The stickers didn't do well with the sparkle foam so I had to use hot glue. But they stuck to the wood just fine! I glued two large cinnamon sticks to the front of the house, and then added sticker velcro circles for candy decorations, two windows, a door, and two candy-canes! I bought sparkle poms for candy, as well as some foam marshmallows that I found at my local craft store. I made the candy canes and mint candy from felt and just hand sewed them together :) The door is reversible...dark brown with a light brown doorknob on one side, and light brown with a dark brown doorknob on the other side. A great chance to talk about opposites! I have noticed the kids using this activity to reinforce pattern building A LOT! They also noticed the opposite colors on the door right off, and commented on it. It is also fun and creative for them. They have brought little people over to play inside the house as well. 3. Holiday Cookie Station!We have a play-dough cookie center out each year around the holidays, and it is always super popular. It is also one of the easiest centers to set up because most teachers have the supplies around the school! This year I had a lot of fun creating the play-dough for the kids to use! To Make:The white mint & sparkle play-dough ended up in the snowman center discussed above, but the other three live in the cookie center! I used my favorite play-dough recipe and then added cocoa powder and brown food coloring to make a chocolate dough, I added red coloring along with cinnamon and nutmeg to the red play-dough, and then I added almond extract and green coloring to the last dough. These smell AMAZING! The kids have really enjoyed making cookies...and we spent a lot of time discussing whether or not we should actually eat them ;) Luckily my kiddos are great at listening to our rules, and the recipe is safe to eat just in case! I set out a variety of cookie cutters, my set of child sized rolling pins (I love the melissa and doug set), as well as some "sprinkles" and cupcake sticks with holiday pictures. I had a bunch of old mini play-dough containers and with some new paper covers they make great sprinkle containers. I just glued on an example of the type of beads I filled it with, so the kids could also work on their sorting skills :) I had a little girl who really wanted to help me sort out our sprinkles to set this up, too! I hope you were able to find a fun activity to try at home or school!It is Dinosaur Week at my preschool and the kids are having a GREAT time exploring and studying these amazing creatures. We like to study Dinosaurs in October normally, but it got pushed to November this Fall. I thought I would share some of the things we have out this week (both store bought and teacher created). I hope you find something you could try with your wee ones! Enjoy :) I'll also add that for the week we tried to learn about 3 new dinosaur facts each day :) What I noticed: During the following activities and projects the kids were able to work on our facts through play! They could work on dinosaur names, talk about their traits...or use our project ideas in their play. Woo-hoo! Fun Group Projects1. Make Your Own Dinosaur SoapThis was a fantastic project. And it is kind of like an awesome Amber fossil :) You could even color it to be the color of Amber. I have done it for the past three years and will continue to do it during my yearly Dinosaur Study. You can read about how we do it at my preschool in THIS post from earlier this week. 2. Make Dinosaur Footprint FossilsThis is engaging for kids and really helps them learn about the fossil process in a hands-on, age-appropriate way. You can read my entire post about how we discuss and make fossils HERE. 3. Predicting: A Dinosaur Surprise!Because we are studying Dinosaurs, which leads to a lot of science-related discussions I thought it was appropriate to talk about "predicting" with the preschoolers. I got some "Dinosaur" Magic Grow Capsules from Micheal's. The kids predicted what would happen if we put them in warm water. Fun! 4. Dino World Fossil KitsI had never tried Fossil Kits with the preschoolers, but braved them this year...and was glad I did! I was a little worried it would be too hard, or that they could stab their fingers, but we discussed safety first :) The tools were plastic and perfectly sized for their hands. We had brown construction paper out as our "dig sites". We decided it would be fun to be Paleontologists for the day, and the kids really got into it. Over and over I heard, "We are just like the real scientists!". This was the most focused I had seen the kids...EVER. It was quiet, except for excitement and sharing when they found a bone. Most of my kids wanted to take the time to do this themselves. My three year old needed some assistance though. The one downside was that the eggs didn't always have all their bones :( We may have lost them, or missed them...but we decided that real scientists can't always find all the bones either...so it was OKAY! **Heads up-these were messy but well worth it! Engaging Centers or Work Stations5. Books, Books, Books!In my opinion, there can never be enough books available for kids :) We transition to our circle time with book time because it is calming and fun for the kids. Our library is open during choice time and our center/stations time. Here are a few of the kids favorites this week: 1. Oh Say Can You Say Di-No-Saur? by Bonnie Worth 2. Dinosaur Bones by Bob Barner 3. ABC Dinosaurs from American Museum of Natural History (this was an awesome book with new pictures based on the new findings about dinosaurs) 4. The Mine-0-Saur by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen 5. First Encyclopedia of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Life by Usborne AND, for something more comical (if your kids like that sort of thing): 6. Golilocks and The Three Dinosaurs by Mo Willems 6. Dinosaur PuzzlesDinosaur puzzles are everywhere and my kids will make them over and over again. Melissa and Doug has a great Dinosaur puzzle- Jumbo pieces and great images :) Such a great brain work-out! Our Center/Work Station time has space for two kids to work at a puzzle. But, during choice time I see much larger groups of kids working together happily! 7. Invitation to Play: Dinos and DoughThis was the most popular center all week long. The kids loved creating landscapes and areas for the dinosaurs to live. I got some really nice mini dinosaurs in a tube at Micheals, added in some play trees and rocks (I set them out organized in an old Melissa and Doug wooden box) and then set out two tubs of play-dough! One great thing was that the kids began making footprints and "fossils" after our fossil project, so it was a way to further that learning too. 8. Invitation to Play: Dinos and BlocksI put out our wooden Montessori city blocks and two bins of dinosaurs and let the kids explore and play! I saw all kinds of cooperative and solo stories and set-ups. This was popular all week long. 9. Big Dinosaurs With Wooden BlocksMost preschools have large wooden building blocks. We always have them out at my school. We also always have a basket of large plastic dinosaurs available for choice time. I paired these two together to make a large Invitation to Play in our circle room for Center/ Work Station time. 10. Dinosaur StencilsI added these to my art center and the kids could use them if they wanted to. Many of my preschoolers used the stencils (which gets them using their "helper hand"), and then colored and cut them out. A great addition to the art center for the week! 11. Color-Your-Own Dinosaur StickersThese were fun! I found them at Learning Palace and they were worth the extra dollars. Most kids love stickers, but DINOSAUR stickers THEY get to design!? Awesome and fun!
**Plus, if you give them colored pencils it is a great workout for their growing fingers! I hope you enjoy this post about Fun Fall ideas for preschoolers! These ideas are great for home and/or school. Many ideas here I created myself, and some I found on sites I follow...and was so inspired I had to try them at my preschool this year. If they are on this page (and I didn't create them) it means I tried them out and can vouch for how AWESOME they are. And, if I didn't create the activity, I have linked to the original page-and you should totally check it out so you can try it too :) I hope you find something to celebrate the Fall season with the preschoolers in your life! FALL themed Group Activities |