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

Scissors Practice

 I remember my first day as a preschool teacher. I planned the cooperative crayons activity. We were going to color and cut out the crayons and it was going to be great. The kids colored their crayons so I gave them some scissors and said, "Okay, cut it out" . . . The results weren't very pretty. 

I didn't realize that as a preschool teacher, it was my job to teach them how to use scissors and cut. I guess I thought they would just naturally know how to do it. 

Well, I've come a long way from that naive first day teacher and I know that we need to practice using scissors a lot before we move on to cutting things out. Here's a few ways we practice using scissors

Mosaics

Provide your students with scissors, white paper, glue, and strips of colorful paper of varying widths. (I do 1 inch, 1 1/2 inch and 1/2 inch)

Let them practice holding and using the scissors by cutting up the colored strips and gluing them to the white paper.

Then, the teacher can cut out their papers into a bigger shape to make a mosaic. We did butterflies, but you could do any shape that fits with what you are learning that day. 

Scissors Practice Pages

These pages are designed to help students practice cutting straight, curved and zigzag lines. The - open, move forward, close, open, move forward, close - pattern takes some practice to master. You can find a bunch of good pages at dltk-kids.com. The link is here. 

B is for . . .

To celebrate letter B week, we did our annual teddy bear picnic. To prepare for it, we made our lunches and filled them with all sorts of letter b stuff.

We decorated brown bags.

In our bags we put bear sandwiches . . .

. . . butterfly snacks . . .

 . . .  and berry juice. Then we put our bags in a basket to carry it to the park.

Butterfly Snacks
Here's What You Need:

• clothes pins
• colored paper
• pipe cleaners
• snack size baggies
• treats
• googly eyes

Here's What You Do:

1. Cut your paper the same size as your clothes pin and glue onto your clothes pin. 
2. Glue on googly eyes.
3. Fill your baggy 1/2 full with your snack.
4. Twist the bag and pinch the twist with the clothes pin. 
5. Cut your pipe cleaner in half. Then, fold it in half and curl the tops. 
6. Pinch the pipe cleaner in the clothes pin above the baggy.

Let's Go Fly a Kite!

Since we were talking about spring this month, I thought it would be really fun to make kites. This project ended up being one of those exciting moments when you're goofing around and you create something great! I kind of frankensteined a bunch of kite ideas I saw online so when I made it and tested it out, I was thrilled that it flew and that it flew pretty well for a homemade kite. It's kind of a hybrid kite meets paper airplane.

Here's What You Need:

• Construction Paper
• Crayons
• String or yarn
• Tape
• Small Hole Punch
• Bamboo Skewer
• Scissors
• Crepe Paper

Here's What you Do:
(This is just a picture to help show what it will look like, it isn't meant to be printed as a pattern. The dotted lines are the places you will fold.)

1. Fold the construction paper in half.
2. At the top mark a line 1 inch from the folded corner.
3. At the bottom mark a line 2 1/2 inches from the folded corner.
4. Connect the lines.
5. Draw butterfly wings using the line you just drew as the body of the butterfly. Try to conserve as much of the paper as possible. Cut out the wings and body while your paper is still folded so they are symmetrical.
6. Decorate the butterfly using crayons.
7. Fold on the lines you drew for the body and tape the wings together with a long strip of tape to make a flat top.
8. Cut bamboo skewer to 9 inches. I found that the best way to cut it without splintering it is to notch it with the scissors at the length that you want. Then put your two thumb nails into the notch back to back and snap it.
9. Using small strips of tape, tape the bamboo skewer across the top of the wings.
10. Punch a hole about 3 inches down on the body and reinforce it with a piece of tape.
11. Tie about 3 yards of string to the hole. (Anyone like my homemade kite stand? Yup, that's playdough we used during center time. : )
12. Tape two 12 inch pieces of crepe paper to the body, one on each side of the end. It is important that the strips are the same length or your kite will fly in circles.
13. Take it outside and enjoy your kite!

B is for Butterflies and Bugs!

We had fun creating butterflies and bugs for snack this week to celebrate the letter B.
It was simple: celery, cream cheese or peanut butter, twisted and straight pretzels.