Rain, sleet, and snow

Tapping out the sound of a thunderstorm:

Raindrops

(contact paper and tissue paper scraps) 

and thunder clouds 

(contact paper, cotton balls, and foil that the children cut into "lightening" pieces):

Snowflakes

(coffee filters, folded into triangles, and pulled out to make puffy balls)

The children categorized words into seasons.

We were surprised that once we began talking about the weather and seasons, the children came up with a lot of their own insights and ideas, which made for a fun circle.

Shared on:

Foil collage

Inspired by Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds, we used foil and sequins to make our own "shiny collages".  I was surprised and delighted by how many children wanted to do the activity, and also by how long the activity lasted!

You notice how few sequins are actually on each collage. Some kids were very intentional about placement and only wanted a select few in a specific arrangement. However, much of the time at the table was spent looking for a very specifically shaped sequin which the children called the "shelf elf", and once it was deemed the "shelf elf" shape, that's the only shape they wanted.

In preschool classrooms, scarcity is an interesting component to social dynamics.  Digging through the sequins to find the shelf elves created a little social quandry that seemed to be more tied to the goals of seeking out the shelf elves than the pieces themselves.  It was like digging for gold or something.  I could see some fundamental aspects of human behavior surfacing.  Fun to watch and I learned something about the nature of human behavior.

Eventually, it wasn't just the shelf elves that they wanted. Their criteria became more specific to color once the shelf elves became in increasing supply (ie. when I started digging through the master supply for more of the blasted little things).  The value went down as the supply went up, and soon the purple shelf elves were the new gold.

When all was said and done, they drifted away from the table and forgot all about their new discovery. What was just minutes before SO important was just a passing fad. Human behavior, right before my eyes!

And what more beautiful venue for the children to practice working out larger social problems--scarcity, getting their needs met while maintaining awareness of others' needs and desires, figuring out how to make everyone happy when all they want is a purple shelf elf--than during their play.  

I linked up at:

the NurtureStore Play Academy

Craft Stick Activity; Collage Tray

Inspired by my latest find on Pinterest (and also Leslie's craft stick puzzles):

Can be adapted to many themes and many levels of ability. We have four sets of three sticks.  In this game, they build picture components as well as contextualized words.

I've noticed that if I introduce a new little something each day, the kids get into a rhythm of pulling activity trays off of the shelf to do independently (or with other children).  I also stole this idea from the blogosphere:

a miniature collage strip activity 

The way I see it, if I bring just one new thing a day, and a few of the new things hook in a few children at any given time, then introducing new works into the classroom really is an easy and highly beneficial classroom management strategy.

Another Rainbow Fish Activity

Rainbow Fish Scales Collage

Materials needed:

Fish cutouts

Tiny metallic muffin tin liners cut into quarters (got these from the dollar store!)

Adhesive (e.g. glue)

Bleeding Tissue Paper Fish Scales

We will be featuring many of our beach-themed activities in the coming couple of weeks as we wrap up our August beach theme!

The day we studied rainbow fish (and were disappointed to see how many are not so rainbow colored at all but are indeed quite iridescent!), we made scales our of tissue paper. Brush some water on top, and then peel off the tissue, and oila! A tissue-printed scale!  Easy and fun!

The kids decided to supplement the tissue-print scales with some decorations of their own.