Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose

I wanted to do a craft that went along with a Dr. Seuss book that was a little less common. When I found Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose, I thought it would be perfect. I had never read it before and none of the kids in my class had, either.

Although I found several cute moose crafts online, I wanted to keep it simple. I could go into labor any day now and I didn't want anything complicated for my sub. So I found a coloring sheet of a cute moose (here) and traced just the head onto another piece of paper.

The kids drew creatures on the antlers (to go along with the story) using pens and crayons. I told them they could make up their own critters, as Dr. Seuss often does.

 

Then they colored their moose.

The kids did a great job drawing their creatures!

The Sneetches

We started our Dr. Seuss theme today and the kids made adorable Sneetches! I got the handprint idea from The Schroeder Page, but I changed everything else about it to put my own spin on it. I only painted each child's palm and thumb, then they made a print. The thumb is the Sneetch's nose. Then I cut out some simple bodies from yellow construction paper. They were just oval-ish with a "stem" at the top. The kids added facial features, hair, arms and legs with markers. They could also add a green star to the belly. (Those were made with a star hole punch.)

 

The kids got VERY creative and the Sneetches turned out so cute. Forgive me for showing you so many up close!

 

This next one has a baby in her tummy!

And this one is dressed for winter!

Ahhhh! I love them all!

X-Ray Hands

We actually did this last week when we learned about the letter X, but it goes with our theme this week (How Our Bodies Work) so I'm sharing it now. It's very simple. I had the kids trace their hand with a white crayon onto black paper.

Then they glued on Q-tips to make the bones.

So simple!

Some other things I have going on in the classroom for Body week are:

Doctor Kit in dramatic play

Operation board game (without batteries in it!)

Reading area with books about our body parts

 

On a different note, tomorrow starts the 2-week countdown to my due date. So if I suddenly disappear for awhile, you'll know why. I do have a few posts saved up so I will check in now and then on my maternity leave, but don't expect anything major!



Brain Puzzles

We are learning how our bodies work this week, and today was all about the brain! I found a great picture of the different brain parts from The Crafty Classroom.

I wanted one that was black and white, though, so I traced it onto another piece of paper.

Then I cut it up into 5 sections. I put the colored copy on the art table as a guide and the kids put the pieces of their brain back together.

Once they had it together, they used a glue stick to attach it to a piece of construction paper.

(Such concentration that little girl has!) Then the kids colored their brains with crayons.

 

I told the kids that the one thing I want them to learn about the brain is that it's the boss of the body. So all day long they were saying, "The brain is the boss of the body!" We'll see if they still remember tomorrow.

Valentine Friends

Earlier this week we made little friends out of a bunch of hearts. I made the hearts with either heart-shaped hole punches or just a scissors. Then I cut strips of paper (about one inch wide) and folded them accordion-style. The kids got busy putting their valentine people together.

They first glued the arms and legs onto the back of the biggest heart. Then they flipped it over and glued on the hands and feet.

Lastly, they used the smallest hearts to decorate the face.

These little valentine friends turned out pretty cute!

I hung them from the lights, after taking down our dancing snowmen.

And here are the valentines I made my kids. It's the same saying that I used last year ("Blow me a kiss, Valentine!"), but instead of bubble gum I used bubbles.

I got the bubbles from Michaels. It was much cheaper than buying all the gumballs and it felt good not giving them more sugar!

 

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!



Scented Dot Art

So I was shopping at Michaels a couple weeks ago and found these cuties:

Scented dot stampers. They were a dollar each, so I picked one up in every scent they had. I waited until today to bring them out and show the kids. You know they love anything scented. So even though they've made dot art in the past, this was extra fun and special for them. They are small but chubby, so perfect for little hands.

They really enjoyed making cool designs with them.

And to top if off, one sweetie even tied it into our theme. We are talking about feelings this week and during circle time I showed the kids different faces and had them guess the feeling. Well, one little boy saw the faces on the bottles and said, "Look! Feelings!"

It was a nice added bonus!

Love and Kisses

I finally got my Valentine's Day display done in our hallway. I'm sure you've seen this many times over, but I'm sharing it anyway. I started by printing out a big chocolate kiss (found through a google image search),

tracing it onto card stock paper, cutting it out and wrapping it in aluminum foil.

Then I put red, pink and purple food coloring in little cups of corn syrup. The kids painted their kisses with the corn syrup.

I asked them to make designs instead of covering the entire kiss in syrup and they actually listened to me! Yay! (I didn't want them to take forever to dry.)

After two days of drying time, I thought they were ready to hang up. If you touched them lightly, they weren't sticky, but if you pushed on the syrup, it would leave a fingerprint. But I was pretty confident that the syrup wouldn't run down the wall after hanging them. (That has happened in the past!) So I added a tag to them with the child's name.

And I hung up the title "Love and Kisses" and displayed the candy kisses all around.

It was a fun project -- the kids love painting with things other than paint!