Thursday, September 27, 2012

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Build An Apple Tree (Preschool & Toddler Craft)


It's Fall!  Johnny Appleseed's birthday is this week (September 26th), and October (National Apple Month) is just around the corner!  It's the perfect time to make an apple tree!


I love projects that preschoolers can do independently (mostly!) while I help younger children at the same time.  This apple tree is one that crosses age barriers easily...and has room for creativity, expression, and experimentation.  It is also great exercise for little fingers and a sensory experience!

Simple Supplies:
* construction paper (I used blue, yellow, green, and tan.)
* glue (I like to squeeze some on a piece of paper and let the children dip their paper into it.)
* scissors
* paint
* paint aprons or bibs

Easy How-To:
1- Prepare the construction paper: cut tree trunks and cut the green paper into thirds so children have the appropriate amount of paper for the leaves.

2-  Prepare the paint.  I put red, yellow, pink, and orange dollops in a tin.  Hand out aprons!  Make sure your child can reach all the supplies.

3- Show how to place the trunk on a background page, tear the leaves, dip them in glue, and place them where the child wants.  Also, show how to make fingerprint apples and invite the children to use any color they like or to mix the colors with their fingers.  At this point, my older children (three years old and up) were able to complete the project on their own.  I love that the three-year old decided to crumple his leaves before gluing and the five-year old added some extra steps, more backgrounds (a sun and ground layer), and a fence!

4- Optional steps for toddlers:  Tear the paper leaves for toddlers.  Younger children should have fewer leaves.  Smear glue in the leaf area of the tree, and let the your toddler press the leaves into it.  Talk with them as you work with them--one of my 2-year olds told me to put some glue at the bottom of the page so he could put leaves down there too!  Let your toddler paint those apples on however he or she wants! 






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Thursday, September 20, 2012

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Halloween Alphabet Printables!



I love Halloween!  I don't like scary or gory, but I love the cute, friendly, and Fall-themed Halloween fun!  I had a ton of fun making these Halloween (and Fall) Alphabet printables, and am excited to share them!  I hope you love them!


You can download all the pages, or just the pages you like.  Each individual page is free!  Just click on the letter you want!  The "Student Cover" has room for your child to write his name and draw a Fall or Halloween picture.  You can help him staple the cover to his own personal book when he's done!  Each letter page has a picture to color and room to practice writing letters or words. You can see what the letter pages look like in the picture to the right.


A         B         C          D         E         F         G         H         I         J         K        


L         M        N         O          P         Q         R         S         T        U         V



W         X           Y         Z          Student Cover
    

Or, click here to visit my Teachers Notebook store and get all 27 pages at once!

And be sure to check out my Halloween Preschool Packet!




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Tuesday, September 18, 2012

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Rainbow Pumpkin Tutorial



This was such a fun project!  I'm so excited to share how we made it work!  I first shared the idea of using melted crayons to decorate a pumpkin about a week ago on Facebook, after I saw it on this blog.  Several people were curious about the process, and my daughter was very excited to try it, so today I'm posting our tutorial.  Try it out...I'd love to know how it goes!

Simple Supplies:

*  At least 6-8 crayons, not broken
*  A hair dryer
*  Tape
*  A white-ish pumpkin
*  Paper towels

Easy How-To:


1- Peel all the crayons. 



2- Prop the crayons up with tape around the pumpkin stalk.  They tape isn't completely necessary, but it makes it a little easier.  You will still need to hold the tops of the crayons so the hair dryer doesn't blow them over.  Set everything up on paper towels.

3- Set the hair dryer on medium and aim it at the base of the crayons.  After a few minutes, the crayons will be soft and bendy.



4- When the crayons are soft and bendy, lay them down on the top of the pumpkin.  


5- When the crayons begin to melt, gently press them into the pumpkin so they stay put.  Then, turn the hair dryer on high and watch the magic!  I thought this step was so cool that I'm including a short video so you can watch it.




We took the project one step farther and made individual melted crayon pumpkins on cardstock.  We also used it as a science lesson to talk about melting, solids, and liquids.  I'll share more on that in a moment.


First, though, a few cautionary notes:

1.  Little fingers get tired.  My children were all happy to peel one crayon each and then watch me either peel or "start" the other crayons for them.

2.  Melting takes a long time.  Our pumpkin took about 25 minutes before the crayons were melted enough.  If you're doing this with young preschoolers, expect them to get bored, run away, and then come back when it gets more interesting.  


3.  I'm not sure how all the hot air affected the life of the pumpkin.  Pumpkin is a squash and it does cook...that said, it seems fine today.  I'm just not sure how long it will last.

4.  Crayon wax can get hot fast.  Hair dryers are hot too.  Keep your fingers and your children's fingers safe.



5.  The drips on the paper towels are fun too!



And now, the rest of the fun:


Science:

Discuss melting and compare the process to other things the children are familiar with, like ice and cheese.

Discuss solids and liquids and go on a treasure hunt to find more solids, liquids, or both.

More Art:

Give your child a piece of cardstock with a pumpkin drawn on in permanent marker.  Let your child color it in, and then choose 2-4 pieces of crayon to melt onto their pumpkin.  Soften the crayon bits in a paper bowl, then press them onto the paper (so they don't roll away).  Let your child use the hair dryer to melt the crayons one last time!



What do you think?  I'd love to hear from you!  Feel free to comment and/or upload pictures of your own pumpkin projects to my PreschoolPowolPackets Facebook page here!



Happy Educating, Carla

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Friday, September 14, 2012

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Butterfly Craft & Song (Waiting For Wings -- Lois Ehlert)

Butterfly books, butterfly crafts, and butterfly songs are some of our preschoolers favorite things!




This year I will be joining a fabulous group of bloggers in a Virtual Book Club for Kids!  I am so excited!  We already loved the time we spent with Waiting for Wings by Lois Ehlert...today I'm sharing the butterfly craft and caterpillar song we did, as well as a few other Lois Ehlert resources!


First of all, the butterfly craft.  This project is so simple a toddler can enjoy it and still layered enough to create a challenge for preschoolers and older children.

Simple Supplies:  

** Pipe-cleaners, cut in half
** Coffee filters
** Water-based markers (I recommend Crayola's Washable Markers)
** A spray bottle with water in it
** Paper towels (to help clean/contain the mess) 

Easy How-To:



1.  Let your child color on the coffee filter with the markers.  


2.  Let your child spray her butterfly to make the colors move.  Do this over a sink, outdoors, or close to paper towels because it does drip.

Older children can talk about chromatography and how the colors move through the coffee filter.


3.  Let the coffee filter dry.  I sped this up using a hair dryer.


4.  Help your child pinch the middle of the coffee filter together and wrap the pipe-cleaner around it to shape the butterfly and add antennae.  Ta da!  Your butterfly craft is done!

5.  Zoom, Zoom!  Watch your butterfly fly!




UPDATE: My newest preschooler LOVES making these and my son thought of a way to make them fly!  The kids had a blast shooting their butterflies all over the house this week!  You can see the video here!


And then, of course, sing the caterpillar song:


(to the tune of Eensy Weensy Spider)


The eensy weensy caterpillar climbed up on a leaf.
     (use finger to inch along like a caterpillar)
He spun a cocoon and then he went to sleep.
     (spin hands around each other and lay head down)
While he was sleeping he dreamed that he could fly.
     (wave hands like wings)
When he awoke (pause!) he was a butterfly!
     (use hands to make a butterfly)

source: unknown


And last, but not least, here's a few links about Lois Ehlert:


Do you have a favorite Lois Ehlert book?  Do you want to join in the Virtual Book Club fun?  Check out the Facebook page here or visit Toddler Approved here for an overview of the upcoming year!



UPDATE:  Learn about butterflies coming out of their chrysalis here and learn more butterfly songs here!



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Monday, September 10, 2012

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Sidewalk Chalk Pumpkins



Some of my best secrets are the ones my kids come up with themselves...like these sidewalk chalk pumpkins!

The children don't need any special instructions or tools.  Just show them the pumpkins and hand them a pail of sidewalk chalk.  They'll figure out the rest!

My younger preschoolers and older toddlers especially appreciated this activity.  It lets them be creative, express themselves, strengthen fine muscles and motor skills, color, share their creations, and touch pumpkins (oooh!  When was the last time they did that?)!  They can even "erase" it all and do it again!  After they explore, take the time to talk about what they did, the colors they used, the colors of the pumpkin, their favorite parts, if all the pumpkins felt the same, and what they noticed about texture.

My five-year old did point out that the pumpkins have a different texture than sidewalk, and that the texture makes some of the pictures look funny.  She also noticed that sidewalk chalk makes a different picture when it's wet than when it's dry. 

Clean up is a snap:  wipe the chalk off with a paper towel, rag, or spray it off with a hose.  You can do it again the next day, or admire it for a few days!



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Friday, September 7, 2012

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{FREE} Fall Game: Superhero Scarecrow!!



Yay!! Fall is here!!  Halloween is coming soon!  To celebrate, I have a fun freebie: 
Superhero Scarecrow!

You can download it for free here



There are two boards in the file: one with crows numbered 1-6 and the other with crows numbered 1-12.  If your child can add and choose whether he needs one or two dice, use the board with more numbers.  If your child is working on number recognition, use the 1-6 board.  This is great practice for number recognition, counting, adding, and coloring (fine motor skills).

It's time to help the scarecrow save the corn!  Get rid of the crows by rolling the dice and coloring in the correct number.  To make it a team game, take turns rolling the dice and coloring in the birds.

To make the board re-usable, either laminate it or put it inside a sheet protector.  Either way, you can write on it with a dry-erase marker and erase it with a paper towel! You can also put it inside a folder and use it as a file folder game!

Click here to download Superhero Scarecrow for free!!

Are you looking for more fall and Halloween games?  Check out this file in my Teacher's Notebook store:






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Tuesday, September 4, 2012

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Walking On Eggs Science Experiment!

We've been learning a lot about birds lately, and I was sure the kids would be excited to try science experiment involving walking on raw eggs!



Surprisingly, though, my children were much more worried about the eggs cracking under their feet during this science project!  They were, however, very happy to watch me attempt (successfully!) walking on eggs.  They even took the picture (I know...little kid feet would have been so much cuter, but...you get what you get.)!

If you want to try this with your own kids, here are a few tips:

* The tips of the eggs are the strongest part (notice the arch shape).  Make sure all your eggs are sitting in the same direction.  I put mine pointy-side up.

* The secret is to spread the force of your weight out over as much area as possible.  If your heel isn't big enough to sit on four eggs, place it carefully between four of them.  Make contact with as many eggs as possible.  If you're working with older kids, get into the mathematics of how the pressure on each egg decreases when the force is applied over a greater area.  (Pressure = Force / Area)  This is the same principle behind lying on a bed of nails.



* If you are walking on eggs and young children are your support team, place your first carton of eggs near a wall or other strong support that you can lean on while you climb onto the first carton.  It is very important to place your weight on as many eggs as possible at the same time--one or two eggs getting an uneven amount of weight (from your heel or toe pad) will crack.  Cracked eggs are messy.

* Okay, so there are two other tricks to this.  The first one is that the eggs are in the egg carton.  Tradition holds that Joseph Coyle invented the egg carton in 1911 to protect eggs that were traveling from a farm to a hotel.  Apparently, the hotel owner and the farmer were often upset at each other over broken eggs, but Coyle's invention prevented eggs from cracking...then and now.  The individual compartments support and strengthen the eggs.  It would be much more difficult to walk on eggs that were simply lying in the grass.

* The last secret is that eggs really are much stronger than they look.  Birds that weigh as much as my kids sit on their eggs to keep them warm while their babies grow.  As I stepped onto the second carton, the first carton actually held my entire weight (balanced on one foot!) for several seconds.

* Remember to wash your hands and feet with soapy water, especially if you crack some eggs.  Eggs can carry salmonella, and nobody wants to get sick.

* And, just to review, the eggs we buy at the store for this science experiment will never grow into baby chickens.  They are unfertilized and will never become anything more than what they are when you buy them...unless, of course, you cook them into something yummy! Make sure the kids know this so they won't feel worried during the science project.


Happy Educating,
Carla

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