Truth Tuesday #3 - Box is Best

Truth Tuesday is blog posts regarding my 

Murphy's Laws of childcare.

#3 No matter how much money you spend on toys and materials, no matter how much time you spend carefully crafting manipulatives and indoor/outdoor centers, an empty cardboard box or random stick will ALWAYS be the most interesting item in a child's space.
Tags:  preschool, pre-k, kindergarten, childcare, daycare, homeschool, teaching

Paint Bags

One of the most popular Pinterest ideas, that I just hadn't tried yet. Tuesday is our painting day and I decided to not wait any longer. I wanted cute zebra duct tape to put around them, but that will have to wait for another day. Today was clear heavy duty packing tape, which I think I like better. It allows the children to utilize the entire bag and see the edges.

 

 I was thoroughly surprised by how fascinated they were with these. Mixing the colors, and using different hand motions to make fine lines, bigger lines, multiple lines, kept them busy and coming back to this activity all afternoon.

 The 10yo said the light coming through made the colors look like neon. The effect is really amazing, and this was on a rainy overcast day.

Make sure to use heavy duty FREEZER bags for this activity. Just squirt some paint into the bag, remove the air, seal, and tape up. Easy peasy.

SKILLS:
Fine motor
Art color mixing, light change, fluid movement, shapes and lines, creative expression, unusual medium
Math geometry
Social taking turns and showing something interesting to each other, showing how to do something over
Language describing what they are creating to each other, telling what they are going to draw
Sensory

Tags: art, craft, paint, paint bags, fine motor, preschool, pre-k, home school, childcare, daycare, sensory

Salad Spinner Painting

We hadn't done this in a long time. As in, not since I had all preschoolers...a LONG time ago, in another economic climate. I hadn't tried it with little ones. It went surprisingly well. 

One of the issues with the little ones right off, though, was that in painting we work to paint out the "blobs." In this activity they are purposefully making blobs to spin out. They all found it difficult to not paint out and just leave the blobs in the middle. 

I expected that the 3yo wouldn't have any trouble with manipulating the turning mechanism.

 But even the littlest at 22mo had no problem with just a few moments of trial and error. I did have to hold it. Next time I'll put a rubber mat under it so that they can be independent. 

 As always, even using the same medium and materials, they always do things a little differently and end up with different results.

 The 10yo could REALLY get it going. The children were fascinated to watch the paint flying around and the basket spinning so fast. I do think that this activity is more about the process than the product. They really enjoyed DOING it. 

I did help give them all a final good spin before opening.
They probably would have done better for the littler ones if the paint had been watered down a little. We'll try that next time.

Preschoolers can be shown how to do circles in the middle to overlap and fan out, color blocking, etc. For these young ones, though, I think the blobs of primary colors worked just fine. 

They agree. They gave it a rating of:

Tags: painting, preschool, prek, daycare, childcare, salad spinner, art, color, fine motor, craft

Toddler Sings ABCs

G, 22 months...

Spring Has Sprung (I hope!)

Started seeds for the big garden and planted some spinach, lettuce and radish in the salad tub this morning. 60 degrees in February, birds singing, wind chimes playing and children laughing. It doesn't get much better! Hopefully, either the groundhog was WRONG, or we'll simply have another 4 weeks of the mild winter weather we've been blessed with this year.

The girls filled the seed trays.

 G tamped. His idea, not mine, but it needed to be done. 

He picked a good tool for it and did an excellent job.

We've just started filling these with basil, lavender, cauliflower, broccoli, brussel sprouts and other cooler weather crops. Another month before we start the warm weather ones.

Cleaned out the sprouting weeds from the salad tub next to the deck, used the cultivator to loosen the soil, and the children planted the seeds. The teeny lettuce seeds got spread out and smoothed into the soil.

 The larger spinach and radish seeds were placed individually and pushed in a little.

SKILLS:
Math big/little, empty/full, counting seed pot openings, sequencing i.e. we have to fill the pots before we plant the seeds/we have to plant the seeds before we water/etc., we divided the salad bin into thirds
Language vocabulary
Science we eat plants, plants need soil/water/light/warmth to grow, soil has food for plants in it, seeds make food for us and animals, we plant seeds, we plant seeds in the spring time here and they grow until summer or fall, farmers grow most of our food, we eat leaves/roots/stalks of plants
Fine Motor scooping/moving/placing dirt into seed pots, placing seeds and pushing them in, covering the seeds with additional soil
Gross Motor balancing the dirt as they moved it from the sack to the container, holding balance as they bent over the salad bin to place seeds

Tags: preschool, pre-k, childcare, daycare, teaching, science, gardening, toddlers, seeds, plants, outdoor play

Kool Aid Play Dough, non-toxic

Woo Hoo! Love, love, love, LOVE 

(you get it but I could go on) 

this new play dough recipe!

Kool-Aid Play Dough Recipe

2 1/2 Cups         Flour
1/2 Cups            Salt
2 Packets           Koolaid (unsweetened)
1 teaspoon        Cream of Tartar
2 Cups               Water-  boiling
3 Tablespoons    Oil


PRINT

You can add essential oils for scent, glitter, sand, flower petals or other sensory items to the basic dough. Beware of essential oils that can cause skin reactions. A list is available HERE. Items that can spoil, such as flower petals, will reduce the shelf life of the dough.

I hadn't made play dough in...well...years. I really liked the cooked one I did, but it was messy, produced inconsistent results, and it didn't last long at all. This one came out PERFECT the first time, was easy, went together smoothly and quickly, has a great consistency, and the kids love it as well.

Play dough is such an important activity, working hand-eye coordination, fine motor, logic/reasoning, physics, creative expression, sensory, and even gross motor. Given that we have three large bins of play dough toys, I was so pleased to finally come across a recipe that made it possible to routinely use them.

I love that it is totally non-toxic and not harmful if swallowed. That was one of the reasons we hadn't done playdough in a long time, the little ones just wouldn't keep stuff out of their mouths. YES, the little girls did try it, but only one taste, so it must not be that appetizing. 

(Update from original post: G fell in love with the taste of it. His mom asked him what he wanted for dinner a couple times and he said, "Play dough!" We are working on that.)

 I only had Tropical Punch on hand, but it made more than enough for the 6 children to play with. I will be getting other flavors quickly to try out! When they are a little older, or I'm certain they won't eat it, I'll try adding glitter. 

Even my home-schooling tween had to get in on the action! 

I saw something similar packaged up as class gifts, both completed and as a make-it kit which I think are wonderful ideas...made up for younger children and as a kit for older ones to do with adult assistance, as it does use boiling water. 

We made this orginal batch on 11/30/11and it's been stored in the fridge since. I always have the children wash their hands prior to playing with it to keep it relatively sanitary, and it is STILL, 3 months later, like I just made it.

G doesn't eat it any more. That took some effort, though. 

Must be tasty.

3/8/12 We have FINALLY made some more...

Lemon Lime Koolaid

Not much scent, and the green is more intense than in these pictures.

and Orange Koolaid

some scent, more of a peach color

J's creation..."Phillip"

Tags: play dough, playdoh, craft recipe, no-cook, preschool, pre-k, toddler, preschooler, craft, art, sensory, childcare, daycare, homeschool, edible, non-toxic

Magnetic Boards from Cookie Sheets

My kids love these magnetic boards. 

They use them with their magnetic letters, shapes and numbers, but also for keeping their craft items from being pushed onto the floor or into their neighbor's work zone. N (pre-k) is using one to work on his color word spelling, using the color word wall as a reference if he gets stuck.

We also use them for marble painting. I just saw a blog post that used magnetic marbles and a wand magnet underneath a cookie sheet to manipulate the marbles in a more precise manner. We will definitely be trying that soon. Since we use these a lot for art projects, I wanted something that cleaned up easy. I am thinking about painting the backsides with chalkboard paint, to have the best of both worlds. We have very large both indoor and outdoor chalk boards, though.

Since they have a hole in the ends, and nest, we store them on the manipulatives closet's door on a hook. If you use a good quality paint, they hold up very well. I've been using mine for 7 years and they show very little wear even though they've been scraped, dropped on the floor, etc.

As a professional commercial painter for many years, please take my expert advice. If you want these to hold up, don't skip any steps!

• Take an old cookie sheet, light rust is fine 
• Sand lightly with 220 grit sandpaper or go over with a liquid sander 
• If you are using a USED cookie sheet, ensure it is entirely free of grease 
• Spray with a metal primer, let dry 
• Spray with a light coat of a good quality enamel for metal, let dry 
• Apply a second light coat 
• Let dry thoroughly, preferably a week to let the enamel cure hard 

We seriously use these nearly every day.

UPDATE: Since I posted this nearly 2 years ago, it's gotten a lot of traffic and a ton of copying. Here's some of what others have done with the idea:

Tags: magnetic board, manipulatives, cookie sheet, pr
http://sewscrappyday.blogspot.com/2012/08/from-cookie-sheet-to-abc-123-magnet.htmlesch


ool, pre-k, marble painting, magnets, homeschool, daycare, childcarehttp://sewscrappyday.blogspot.com/2012/08/from-cookie-sheet-to-abc-123-magnet.html