Random Acts of Kindness & Valentine's Day

I'm slow at getting posts made of all the things we are doing in Preschool.  During Valentine's Week we focused on ways to be kind to one another. We talked about how something as simple as a smile can make someone happy.

PROJECT 1- KINDNESS HEARTS

Our first project was Kindness badges.  Each child decorated a heart which said 'I Am Kind."

We pinned these on their shirt to wear home. 

We put their pictures on doily hearts called our Kindness Hearts.  

Each day when we saw a child do something nice we gave them a sticker to put on their heart. Their nice gestures included things like comforting someone who got hurt, helping someone put on their coat, pick up the circle time mats for me without being asked, picking up toys they weren't playing with, etc.  As soon as they saw someone do a good deed they quickly started doing the same thing.  We told them we didn't want them to come tell us when they did something good. We suggested they tell us when they saw SOMEONE ELSE do something good.--kind of a reverse tattling.  It certainly made them more aware of doing nice things for others.

PROJECT 2--SMILE GRAMS

Last year we asked each child to choose someone to send a balloon and special note (a Smile Gram). This year we decided to literally send a smile. We took a picture of each child with their biggest smile.  We enlarged the pictures and cut out only the child's smile and glued them on red lips the children decorated with stickers.  

Once again the children chose someone to write a special note to (a SMILE GRAM) but we asked them not to sign their name.  We put the smile, Smile Gram and a couple poems in an envelope and mailed them to the recipients.  The first poem was printed on the back of the Smile Gram:

'Smiles are Infectious'

Smiling is infectious,
You catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too

I passed around the corner,
And someone saw my grin.
When he smiled I realized
I'd passed it on to him

I thought about that smile
then I realized its worth,
A single smile, just like mine
could travel round the earth

So, if you feel a smile begin,
don't leave it undetected
Let's start an epidemic quick,
and get the world infected!

[Author Unknown] 

The other poem I made up myself:

When I thought of you today

My mouth begin to smile

We took a picture real quick

To save it for a while

I put it in an envelope

To mail it right to you

I may not have signed my name

But can you guess who???

I am learning about being kind

I hope this brightens up your day

Please pass this along

It’s the Random Act of Kindness way!

It would be so neat if everyone who received a 'smile' passed it on to someone else.

We are planning to continue the Kindness Heart idea into March by giving each child a Pot. They will fill their pot with Gold with each kind deed. 

Floor Maze- taking it to the next level!

The Internet has to be one of the greatest resources early childhood teachers have.  I am amazed at the wonderful ideas I have found!  The original floor maze I found at the blog:   Hands on: How we Grow   http://www.handsonaswegrow.com/2012/01/counting-activity-maze-of-numbers.html  .)
I recently found another similar idea using tape on the floor at : http://www.teachpreschool.org/2012/02/everyday-math-in-preschool/

After seeing this I immediately thought it would be fun to make this into a life size board game.  I got my chance this week.

Today as we began our Dr. Seuss Week and the reading of The Foot Book, I thought what a great use of our feet!  I brought out the tape and started making tape lines across the floor.

 I extended this between two rooms. The picture above is in our Truck/Block center. 

  I added lines in between to make boxes.

These are the boxes in the House area.

As the boxes reach the doorway between the two rooms the children find an orange and green arrow. At this box the children will roll a die with green and orange arrows on it.  The arrow they roll will determine if they have to take the long route or the short cut to 'HOME.'  ( Another die with the numbers 1 to 6 will tell them how many spaces they go on each turn. )  

 You will notice the green route is the longest one. The orange route is the shortcut.

Now we haven't actually played a game on this yet.  The kids had fun jumping from box to box as I taped them down. Some rolled from box to box, others took giant steps being careful not to step on the tape lines, and some others just ran along the path.  A few children brought out the trucks and buses and drove them down the 'roads.'  They were just enjoying having something different.  The ideas are endless!!  

Since it's supposed to be cold and rainy tomorrow we should have time to try this out.  I will have to post a follow up blog with the new ideas the kids come up. 

Floor Maze

(This was originally an idea I found on another blog:  Hands on: How we Grow   http://www.handsonaswegrow.com/2012/01/counting-activity-maze-of-numbers.html  .)

After last weekend's snow storm we found ourselves inside looking for something new to keep the kids busy so they wouldn't just run from room to room.  I had just 'pinned' this idea a night or two earlier and decided to try it.  I grabbed whatever kind of tape I could find and just started putting it down on the carpet. In my mind I was making a maze for them to drive cars in.

  The kids soon had different ideas. The red tape is the race track.

They added blocks for ramps for their monster trucks to jump. ( A couple boys had just been to a Monster Truck Rally that weekend)

They decided this table was McDonalds so we had to put the tape around it to be the drive thru.

These girls were taking orders.

Of course we had to make parking stalls too!

Some of the tape has gotten pulled up.  As they play they come up with more ideas and need tape put in different places.   It never seems to be the same game twice.  

I LOVE to see the kids use their imagination this way! 

Humpty Dumpty

This week is Nursery Rhyme week.  In addition to focusing on the rhyming words we wanted to had fun with the  stories behind the rhymes.  I love doing cooking and science type activities so Humpty Dumpty gave us a great opportunity.  Many of the children knew that Humpty is an egg.  What they hadn't thought about before is whether they could put an egg shell back together once it is cracked.  We decided to see if it was possible.

We started with hard boiled eggs.

A cardboard brick/block was our wall.

They got to make their Humpty Dumpty fall as many times as necessary to crack the shell.

Then they worked diligently to peel the little pieces off. ( We had already tried putting a shell back together during circle time with the egg I showed them).

Some children ate the white part, some tried the yoke, some just peeled the egg, some ate the whole thing.

They are already asking when we can do it again!

Indoor snowman building

Shortly after the first snowfall, the kids wanted to go out and build a snowman.  The first few days it was too cold. Once it warmed up, the snow didn't stay around long.  Since the weather wouldn't cooperate with our plans for the Winter theme, we decided to make an snowman indoors.
Our initial idea was to let the kids paint 3 boxes white.

Then we would attach them together and glue on eyes, nose, buttons, etc.  As we were painting the boxes and listening to the children, we decided not to attach them together.  We cut out eyes, nose mouth out of felt and foam.  We attached Velcro to the back of the pieces and to the boxes themselves.  This allowed the children to stack the boxes as they wished and put the features on as they wished.

I should add that we cut a mailing tube in half and made holes in the medium size box to make the arms.  We put gloves, mittens and scarves in the basket to dress the snowman. The hat was actually one a child had brought from home.  We even put Velcro on the back side of the snow man so two children could put facial features on at the same time.  As I was cutting out eyes, noses, mouths,etc the children were picking up scraps and using them for additional features like ears, mustaches and  even whiskers.

As our week progressed we decided it would be a good idea to add more boxes of varying sizes. That way the children could experiment with stacking them and make more snowmen.  I don't know if we will get to that yet this winter or if it will have to wait until another time.

Sorting activities

This month we are focusing on Authors and Illustrators.  When I read a story to the class I always tell them who wrote the story (the author) and who drew the pictures (illustrator).  This week while reading some of the Mercer Mayer books (Little Critter) I tried to find activities that went with the ideas in the books and teach them more about illustrating the books.  For the book Just a Mess I decided it would be a good idea to explore sorting things.  As we read the book we talked about how much easier it would be for the Critter to find his toys if they were sorted out.

I decided that egg cartons would make great sorting boxes.  My first thoughts were to paint the egg cups different colors, paint a shape in each one, and put numbers in the bottom.  Then I would find objects of different colors and shapes to sort into the boxes.  I debated for quite a while how to best design it.  The night before the activity I still wasn't 100% sure what I wanted to do.  I found a variety of objects in our cupboards and in dollar bins at stores. Suddenly it occurred to me. I was making it too complicated--too teacher directed.  I gathered all the things I could find.  I showed the kids some buttons. We talked about the colors and shapes and sizes. Then we sorted them in various ways.  The children were sent to the table with their sorting box (egg carton) and a bag of items.   After sorting their bag, some of the children traded bags to try something different. 

Sorting buttons

Sorting Hair ties

Marker lids

Sorting rings

Sorting shape buttons

We also sorted small spools of thread, Christmas themed erasers, and hair clips.  The children have already asked to do this activity again.

Scarecrows at Preschool

The Preschoolers had fun creating scarecrows of themselves.  Each child brought a milk jug and old clothes. Some brought shoes, coats and hats as well.  To make the heads we put orange paint in the milk jug and the children shook them until the paint covered the inside of the jug.  We put in our favorite dancing music and the kids started shaking!!  The children chose foam shapes for the facial features and we helped them hot glue them to their jug. 

They helped stuffed their clothes with plastic grocery bags.  We duct taped the jug to a stick and stuck it inside the clothes.  Then we placed them outside in our front yard.

We added some accessories like phones, flowers, toys, pumpkins, etc. 

The Tea Party-- "S"- Stocking, "G"- Gum balls, and "C"- Cat. 

"G" Gum balls is texting.

"J" Jellyfish doing the Hoochie-Koochie Dance while "A" Angel sits on top of the mountain.

"R" Rabbit is chillin' while "P" Popsicle is just hanging around (upside down)

"D" Deer " and "A" Apple are ready to go for a bike ride.

"G" Guitar is pulling the firetruck. Firefighters "T" Turtle (in the hat)  and "S" Star are ready to fight fires.

"C" Car is sneaking back over the fence after playing in the back yard.

 "J" Jet (in front)  and "J" Jar (behind) are flying around on their spaceship.

"D" Dog (in red) and "G" Goldfish are sitting in the pumpkin patch. 

We tried to pose the scarecrows doing activities the children like to do and add some silliness too. 

Soon we will let the children take their scarecrow home and they can display them in their own yard.