Cute and Easy Thanksgiving Snack

Check out this fun idea I found for Thanksgiving this year! I found the idea on That's What Che Said. These are great for class parties, after school snacks, or even a preThanksgiving dinner snack to tide the little ones over while they wait. 

Gobble, gobble!

Here's What You Need

• clear food prep gloves
• popcorn (we used bagged kettle corn)
• rainbow fishies 
• small googly eyes
• construction paper
• twist tie

Here's What You Do

1. Fill the fingers with fishies and the rest with popcorn then twist tie the bottom.
2. Add googly eyes on both sides
3. Cut an elongated hexagon for the beak (see the picture above) and a red wattle.
4. Fold the pointed parts into a beak and glue the wattle to the back.
5. Glue the beak and wattle onto the thumb. 

Easy peasy!!

Have an amazing Thanksgiving weekend and enjoy your time with family and friends!

C is for Caterpillar Chain

We used our math skills to create pattern loving caterpillars during letter c week. 

I provided each child with a premade caterpillar head and the kids used paper strips to give each head a body. The trick was that they had to add the chain links in a pattern. 

Some of the kids did an abab pattern. Some did an abcabc pattern. One of our kids even did an ababcdcd pattern. It was fun to see them catch on so quickly. 

If you want to make your own caterpillar chains, here's what you need:

8-10, 1 x 12 inch strips of construction paper in various colors per student

1, 2 x 12 inch strip of paper for the head per student in a different color

googly eyes

2 small strips of paper for the antennae (curl the strips around a pencil or with scissors)

Give each child a premade head and let them create a pattern for the body. It can help to have them create the pattern completely before they start adding chains to the head. Make sure to remind them that after they link the strip through the chain, they bring it up and over the other end of the paper. They often want to sandwich them together in a tear drop shape instead of a chain. 

Happy learning!

Mixing Colors

We switched schools this year and our new school has a program where parents come in and teach art. It's pretty awesome for a state where art is not normally taught in elementary schools. My kindergartner came home with this amazing project last week and I had to share it. They used colored playdough to mix colors and create a color wheel. 

It's so simple, so easy to do with a large group, and not remotely as messy as using paint. 

(Sorry for the horrible picture quality, my daughter only let me have it long enough to snap a quick pic. :) )

B is for . . .

 . . . butterflies painted with bubbles!

Check out this post to get an idea of what we did then come back and read below to get more details on paint, dish soap, and water ratio. 

I don't have exact measurements, but I'll tell you what I did. Then, you can experiment with your own ratios to see what works for you. I'm such a visual learner that I made a little picture. I used a little dixie cup for each color and did something similar to the picture below then mixed it all together.

I don't have exact measurements so try it out different ways until you get a ratio of paint, dish soap, and water that works for you.  If you have too much water your colors won't be very vibrant. If you don't have enough water, you won't be able to blow bubbles.
After you have blown the bubbles, lay your paper on top of the muffin tin, then carefully lift it off without letting any of the colors drip. If you find some of your paper didn't get color on it, blow more bubbles and lay the white parts over the bubbles.  Lay it flat and let it dry completely before moving it. Some of the paper will have thicker paint on it and but letting it dry just like that, it enhances the effect.

. . . balancing while picking up letter Bs

. . . blocks and learning numbers. Can you build a tower that high?

. . . bugs that you can eat! (Celery, peanut butter, and different types of pretzels)

Just taking my caterpillar on a walk