Groundhog day

Using a blog as a tool to archive means that the activities that I post are sometimes a little behind the times.   Here we are almost to Valentine's Day and I'm posting about groundhogs!  If you're reading this blog for ideas in the classroom, here's some for next year ; )

I thought it would be great fun to celebrate groundhog day with some special centers.  Introducing the groundhog to preschoolers is a lot of fun.

Groundhog Puzzle (found on Pinterest, from here):

I copied the picture 2x onto card stock, left one whole and cut the other into pieces so my younger students could match the puzzle easily.  These would also be fun to make one for each child to take home.

Shadow Match: (this blog has an entire groundhog unit, complete with emergent reader books and this cute shadow match activity).  For the matching cards, I glued the printed paper onto black construction paper, cut them out and covered with contact paper.  I placed them on a tray with felt underneath to help the cards to not slide around so easily.

Groundhog Magnet Page: 

(makinglearningfun.com has all sorts of magnet pages and MUCH more)

I slipped the sheet into a page protector and placed it on a cookie sheet.  My magnets were a little big for the circles on the page, but this was the first time my students had seen an activity like this so they were interested in  checking it out.

Groundhog Puppet:  (also a Pinterest find, from here)  

I printed the groundhog picture onto card stock.  I gave the kiddos all the tools they needed to put the puppet together.  They colored and cut out the groundhog then taped a craft stick to the back (glue takes too long to dry!). 

To cut cost, instead of using a green cup, I cut out strips of green construction paper and stapled them into tubes.  The students trimmed the top of the tube to make it look like grass, then poked their groundhog through the tube.  

I'm sorry I didn't get a finished shot, but my kids were running around with their groundhogs looking for their shadow.  The question is,  did the groundhog see his shadow?  Hmmmm...

Miss Eileen

lion around

We learned about lions when we were focusing on the letter "L". Every time I held up the picture of our animal friend, Larry Lion, one of my little ones would say, "Miss Eileen! Miss Eileen! That's like the Lion King!" Yup, great connection (thank you Disney!). 

Here are some of the activities we did while we were learning about "L":

Lion Painting:  

I loved the painting process I found here at Teach Preschool, and I would have used Deborah's entire project idea, but I had a bazillion copies of lion color sheets in my file drawer.  I decided that we should use those (I'm a little neurotic about using supplies that we have on hand...especially leftover color sheets that are taking up space in my file cabinet!).  So, we painted the lions using cotton balls pinched by clothes pins and a yellow/orange paint mixture.  The cotton balls got really soggy and sloppy by the end, but it was fun to paint with something other than a brush.  We also glued on "Ll Lion" - another leftover. : )

Lego, Leaf, & Lace Prints:  

Usually when we paint my kiddos want to use copious amounts of paint and smear everything around so all they have is one big painty, falling apart piece of paper.  I knew if I wanted to do a print project (which would require major paint-control), I'd have to offer two ways to paint.   I covered our tables in paper and gave each student an "L" cut out of construction paper.   I took some time to show my students how to make prints using the objects.   Then I instructed them to make the prints on the "L" shape.  When they were done with the "L" they could then paint on the paper covering the table and experiment with the paint and objects in whatever way they chose.  The prints turned out pretty good, the legos worked the best, the leaves were ok, the lace just got soggy and didn't print very well at all.  I think next time we'll just use legos.

Lion Small World:

I put beans, raffia, cardboard tubes, trees (made from paper and tubes), and a "cave" that I made from a piece of an oatmeal box into a sensory bin.   I've found that the "small world" pretend play spaces are much more popular with the 4 and older crowd... my 3's just like to take everything out of the bin, throw the beans around, and hijack the lions : ).

Do you have any other lion activities that you do with your kiddos?

Miss Eileen

wings and water

Here is the promised continuation of our transportation unit.  These are some of the activities that aided us in our exploration of flight and floating.

{Art} Aerial View Collage

Finding interesting preschool art projects that go with airplanes is a was tough.  After a little brainstorming, I came up with this collage idea. We've been working on using scissors and glue so this activity helped us practice those skills as well as give us a view from the air!

First, I created my own cutting pages by using Publisher and Google Images.  On one page I inserted a picture of an airplane (from clip art)and added a thick black border around it.  On the second page, I pasted eight aerial view photos that I copied from Google Images.  I also bordered those with thick black lines to create cutting lines.  I placed the pictures on a table with scissors, glue, and construction paper.  My youngest students just had fun using the scissors to cut the pictures.  My oldest students took the time to create a collage by cutting out all the pictures and gluing them to the construction paper.

{Dramatic Play} Airplane!

My plywood "house" transformed into an airplane for the week.  SUPER simple dramatic play with old keyboards to "fly" the plane and chairs for the passengers.  The students were also able to use dress-up from our housekeeping area to add to their imaginative play.

{Dramatic Play} Boats!

Another super simple dramatic play option... 2 cardboard boxes, a bit of duct tape and viola, boats!  We were rowing all week - the boxes barely made it to Friday!

{Sensory} Boats Float

What better time to add water to the sensory table?  We have the coolest set of toy boats, they have removable sails that match their boat by shape and color.  

This is just a sample of some of our activities.  We also sang songs, read books, and had group discussions about transportation. 

What are your favorite transportation activities?

Miss Eileen