Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Tree Decorating

Today we finished our ornaments by bringing out the paint and glitter. We made them last week using a salt dough recipe and painted them today since they were finally dry. 


When the girls came into class I had a bunch of green triangles in different sizes on the table and the girls created wacky christmas trees on red paper. They used colored scraps to decorate them.




Googl-y eyes make everything better.
Mixing the colors to paint our ornaments.



Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Mixing in Math

A perfect project for 2 year olds! Salt dough is extremely easy to make and it's non-toxic. I had a bunch of measuring cups Ms. D'Auria let me borrow from the STEM room. There were some large ones as well as a tiny half cup size which were perfect.

I measured out one cup of flour into each of the large cups, and half a cup of salt into the smaller ones. I gave a set of cups plus a large Ziploc baggie to each toddler/parent pair. The girls dumped the flour and salt into the baggie and I added a little water into each of the bags. The girls mashed it and squeezed it and I watched and added more water as needed. If you add too much, just sprinkle more flour in it. SO SIMPLE!


Most of the girls didn't want to touch it in it's gooey phase and let the moms do the work, but were okay once it was more dough like. Once we had the dough formed, the girls flattened it out (I should have had rolling pins!) and then used cookie cutters to cut out shapes. We used small straws to make a hole so we could hang the ornaments later. We put them on the windowsill to dry, and next week we'll paint.





Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Pat-a-Cake!

Today we played with some model magic; a type of clay that is soft and pliable and will air dry into whatever shapes we make. We used cookie cutters and plastic tools to mould, shape, roll, and cut our clay.
We usually bring out hula hoops and indoor gym equipment, but, today for a change, we took a big stack of cardboard boxes and let the girls stack them, push them, and hide in them (their favorite part). It was nice to see them enjoying these everyday items so much. There were lots of giggles as they climbed inside and out!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

ROY G. BIV!

Today was all about rainbows. A welcome change of scenery after the stormy weather we've been having. The girls "built" them by layering the colors and gluing them together. After we finished the rainbows we painted the clouds using water colors.










Tuesday, November 6, 2012

N is for Nest

Today we took cute little felt birds and created nests for them using recycled paper. We placed them on tiny branches we found scattered around the yard. I think the best part may have been the messy glue. The girls loved it!