O is for . . .

So I am a little behind on these posts and I need to pick up the pace a little bit. I have a goal to do two letters a week until I catch up. Wish me luck! :) 

The tricky part about that is some of these posts are going to be a little long.

 But let me tell you, this one is worth it. We did one of the coolest looking art projects we've ever done, and the big thing is that the kids did the work. Sometimes we do cool stuff, but I end up helping with part of it. For this one, I really didn't do much to help and they ended up looking awesome. You'll see as you scroll down. Trust me, it's awesome with color and texture so read on. 

O is for . . .

. . . orange olive paintings in the shape of an o.

 . . .octopus math. Click here. for a free printable. 

(When you click on the link, there are a lot of ads on the page. You want to click the small grey download button right beneath the box that says view document. You will need to sign in to download the paper. You can sign up for a free 4shared account or use your social media outlet to download. Please leave a message below if you have any problems or questions.) 

 . . . ocean art. 

I saw a tutorial for using salt to give a paper a batik fabric feel. When I looked up the tutorial it called for water color paper and liquid water colors. More power to this family for making authentic art, but we are construction paper and tempra paint kind of people over here. (Shhh, but water color paper and liquid water colors are kind of expensive to use for a preschool craft!) So I decided to try it the hard core preschool way - with construction paper and tempra paint. :) The extra cool thing about this way of painting is that each picture ends up really cool in color and texture and each one is really unique. I don't usually take pictures of every child's work, but I did in this case because they were all so cool. Check them out. 

  

Want to make your own? 

Here's What You Need:

• paper (we used construction paper, but you could also try card stock you just might have to get it a little more wet)
• tempra paint)
• water
• pipettes or droppers
• fish cut outs
• salt

Here's What We Did

1. Use a paint brush to paint your paper all over with water. Get it wet enough that it can absorb and spread colors dropped on it. 
2. Water down tempra paint in the colors you want to use. We did green, blue, and teal to give our pictures an oceany feel. 
3. Use pipettes to drop colors on the wet paper. 
4. 
5. Swirl the colors around on the paper so it covers all the white with your fingers or a brush or by tipping the paper back and forth. 
6. Blot off any excess paint with another piece of paper. 
7. Sprinkle salt over your painting and let dry. 
8. After it has dried, add cut out fish to your ocean landscape.

Pretty cool huh? 

Dr. Seuss Math

 One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

For older kids - work on patterns

For younger kids - work on colors, matching, and counting

Fishing for . . .

Here's another idea for a game or center that has so many possibilities. All you need are magnets, string, a long skinny something, and paperclips. Put the magnet on your string on your stick and put the paper clips on your "fish." You could fish for numbers - find the biggest, the smallest, find your age, the number of kids in class, from biggest to smallest, smallest to biggest, etc. You could fish for letters - tell what letter you fished, we each had a card with a capital letter and we had to fish for the lower case letter, fish for the letters of your name, etc. You could fish for colors, shapes, etc.

F is for . . .

We worked on the letter F this week in school.

Art: F is for fish.
We made coffee filter rainbow fish after reading the book Rainbow Fish.
How to Do It:
You Need:
markers
coffee filters
tin foil
spray bottle
glue

To Make:

1. Color the filter completely with the markers.
2. Spray with the water bottle and let dry completely.
3. Cut out fish shape.
4. Decorate with cut pieces of tin foil.

Science: F is for float?During science time, we predicted whether certain objects would sink or float in water and then tested our hypothesis. This activity will keep kids of all ages busy for a long time, just be ready to clean up a lot of water off your floor!

Social Skills: F is for friendship
After reading the book Rainbow Fish, we talked about how to be a good friend. We came up with three things that good friends do:

1. They play with each other.
2. They talk nicely.
3. They share.

The kids then looked through magazines to find pictures of people being good friends and cut them out.

Literacy: F is for Fall
Season Books
We read the book Leaves by David Ezra Stein. We talked about the different seasons of the year and how we are starting the season of Fall. The kids made books for the seasons of the year. Each book had 5 pages: Cover, Fall, Winter, Spring, Summer. Each season page had a picture of a tree with no leaves and the name of the season at the bottom for the kids to trace. Here is the tree that we used:

How to Do It:

You Need:
book pages printed for each student that have a bare tree and the name of a season at the bottom of the page to trace over
pinto beans
fruit loops
red, orange, and yellow small tissue paper squares
cotton balls
glue

To Make:

1. Have the students decorate the cover for their book. Our cover said, "My Book of Seasons, By: ____________." It also had a small picture to represent each season that the students colored. (Leaf, Snowflake, Flower, Sun)
2. Have students create the season pages of the book. Have the students trace the name of the season at the bottom of the page.
3. Decorate each tree with the following: Spring - pinto beans for the buds on the trees, Summer - Fruit loops for the fruit on the trees, Fall - tissue paper squares for the fall leaves, and Winter - torn up cotton balls for snow.