Leaf Prints

 We've been picking up tons of leaves on our nature walks recently and I've been looking for ways to incorporate them into projects. These leaf prints worked well with the big sturdy leaves we found. 

We painted the leaves with lots of bright colors.

 Then we turned them over on the paper and and pressed them with our hands.

When we peeled the leaves off of the paper, we had beautiful prints!

Nature Collages

Every day this week we have taken a nature walk through the neighborhood around our school. On our walks we collect leaves, flowers, sticks, rocks, and whatever else the children find interesting. We decided to display our treasures by making a collage. I taped a big piece of contact paper onto the table with the sticky side up. After feeling the sticky paper with their hands for a little bit, the children began to put the leaves on it. 

When everyone was finished sticking leaves on, I covered it with another piece of contact paper so that the sticky sides were together. We taped it onto the wall where the children could see it and feel it. They can still see and feel the leaves through the contact paper without damaging them. 

 We did the same thing with the flowers that we found. 

Next, I guess, we will have to do it with the sticks! 

Planting Flowers in the Sensory Table

 This week we set up a flower planting station in the sensory table. I filled the table with potting soil and added some flower pots and silk flowers that I bought at the dollar store. 

 The children filled the pots with dirt and "planted" the flowers in the pots. 

 We also added some of the flowers to the play dough table.

We made pretty arrangements by sticking the flowers into lumps of play dough.  

Seed Mosaics

I found this idea for seed mosaics at teachpreschool.org.

The children filled small, round plastic lids with white glue.

 When their lid was full of glue, they placed a variety of bean seeds in it. 

 Next, we painted the seeds.

 The children realized that they could swirl the paint in the glue to make a pretty pattern. 

We set them on a tray to dry. The drying took about a week but when they were finally ready, we peeled them out of the trays and hung them up in the classroom. 

7 Car Activities

 Several weeks ago we did a unit on cars but I never got around to blogging about it. Here are some of the activities we did that week. 

1. Car Tracks

We drove the cars through paint and then around the paper to make tracks.

2. Driving Cars Through Different Terrain

I put out trays of different materials (sand, rocks, shaving cream, and wood chips) and the children drove the toy cars through them. During the activity, we talked about which ones were easy to drive through and which were difficult to drive through. 

3. Car Wash

After all those messy activities, our cars needed a good cleaning. We set up a car wash with soapy water and sponges where the children could wash the cars. 

4. Garage

In the playground, we set up a garage where the children could repair bikes. We brought the (toy) tool set out and turned the bikes upside down (because they mostly wanted to work on the wheels). Our mechanics fixed all of the tricycles and shopping carts in the playground! 

5. License Plate Rubbings

I found these old license plates at a flea market. To keep them from moving while the children rubbed, I taped them to the table and then taped the paper over them. The children loved how the numbers "appeared" as they rubbed with their crayons. 

6. Road Maps

 This was probably my favorite activity from the week. I brought in some old road maps that I had at home and opened them up on the floor. After showing the children the roads and how people plan trips using maps, I gave them each a highlighter and let them plan their own road trips. As they worked, they told me about where they were going. Most of the children said were going to visit Grandma or Grandpa or some other family member. Several children planned trips to Disney or to their own homes. They worked on planning the trips for quite a long time. Many of them drew the routes on actual roads while others simply scribbled on the maps. Either way they really enjoyed it and I enjoyed hearing their plans.

7. My Favorite Way to Travel

 I made this chart with pictures of four different ways to travel that I found on the Internet. I wrote each child's name on a circle sticker and let them put it under the picture of their favorite mode of transportation. Then we counted the number of stickers under each picture. Not surprisingly, the airplane got the most votes. 

Planting Beans

We have been reading books about seeds and plants. Our favorite right now is Ten Seeds by Ruth Brown. The book shows how the seeds produce roots and then stems and leaves. Yesterday wwe planted our own bean seeds in plastic bags. This way when the roots and stems appear we will be able to see them.

We started with a paper towel and a bean seeds. 

The children sprayed their paper towels with water until they were pretty wet. 

 We had a little bit of trouble aiming the spray bottle at the towel. Every few moments I would be misted with water or hear one of the children exclaim,"Hey! You're spraying me!" 

Once the paper towel was wet, each child folded (or rolled) the paper towel around the seed and placed it in a ziplock bag. 

We hung the seeds in the window and are waiting for nature to do its work. 

Making Vegetable Soup

We have been talking about seeds and planting all week and have planted some seeds of our own. Today, in keeping with this theme, we read the book Growing Vegetable Soup by Lois Ehlert. In the book a child plants vegetable seeds with her dad and, when the seeds have grown into plants, harvests the vegetables and makes soup with them. Our seeds are obviously nowhere near ready to harvest, but we still wanted to make vegetable soup so I brought in some veggies from home. I brought tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots, but any vegetables would work. 

We carefully cut the vegetables into small pieces.

I opened a can of chicken broth and poured it into a bowl. Then the children put their chopped veggies into the broth.  

 We put the soup into the microwave for five minutes. While it cooked we sang songs to pass the time. 

When it was finally done we let it cool a little and then ate it up. 

Everyone loved it and wanted seconds! 

Bubble Bottles

One of our parents donated a bag full of plastic bottles to our school. In the bag were six small Pom juice bottles. I have wanted to make bubble bottles for about a month now and these seemed perfect for them.  After rinsing them out, I put about a fourth-cup of water, a bit of liquid water color (you could also use food coloring), and a squeeze of dish soap into each bottle. I hot-glued the lids on so that we wouldn't have colored bubbles everywhere.

Before shaking....

After shaking!

The children also used these in the dramatic play area as juice bottles. They pretended to pour the juice into cups and bowls. 

Play-Dough Creatures

Last week we added feathers, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes to the play-dough table just to make things a bit more interesting. 

The children made all kinds of creatures. 

They were very creative. We couldn't stop taking pictures!