Pretty Parrots

Today we reviewed the colors red, yellow, and orange. I taught about parrots and then we each made our own. I found this craft idea in a book called Pirate Things to Make and Do, but I changed it a bit. First I made a parrot body:

If you can't see that it's a parrot, imagine that the parrot has its body toward you, but is looking to the side. Then I cut out some beaks and feet and short strips of tissue paper for the tails. The kids glued everything on and drew in a big eye.

I know, those are horrible feet. I was orginally going to have the kids glue the body on another piece of paper, and then paint the feet themselves, but at the last minute I decided not to do that. So I had to cut out some feet quick. It's always tricky cutting out bird feet. Parrots have four toes, two facing the front and two facing the back. So I just made two toes, but they look more like little wrenches to me. Anyway, prior to all of this, I had the kids make handprints for the wings. I did this right away in the morning so they would be dry by the time we did art. I had five colors of paint...

...and the kids could pick three colors for me to paint on their hand.

Then they put their hands together to get the paint on the other hand, and then pressed them on paper.

Once dried and cut out, they glued them on their parrot bodies and I hung them on the wall.

Fun Fact: Parrots' toes are so strong they can hang upside down on a branch.

Puffy Pandas

Colors is our theme this week, but since my kids already know their colors I thought I'd make it a little more fun for them by teaching them about animals that go along with our Color of the Day. I love teaching about animals. LOVE. Especially when I get to learn something new along with the children. Today's colors were Black and White, so I chose to teach about the Giant Panda. In the past, I've taught about pandas for my Endangered Animals unit, but I have no idea if I'll get to do that theme this year. So first I made copies of a panda coloring sheet (clip art, actually, found here) that I found through google. Then I put out several colors of tissue paper squares.

I know our colors today are just black and white, but I wanted the kids to have more choices than that.
Then the kids scrunched up the tissue squares, dipped them in glue, and plopped them on their panda page.

Wherever there was black on the panda, they could put a colored tissue square. The white tissue squares were for the white part of the panda.

This project took a long time. After awhile I was scrunching the tissue paper up for the kids, so they only had to worry about dipping them in glue and putting them on their paper. Luckily we had a small class and so everyone was able to get it done in time.
When they were semi-dry, I cut them out (very difficult at times!) and put them on colored paper.

It sure made our display very colorful!

Don't you love the belly buttons?

One of my favorite panda books to read is Panda Kindergarten, by Joanne Ryder.

It's a story about the Panda Kindergarten at the Wolong Nature Reserve in China. I love it because it teaches them about pandas. The kids love it because the pandas are just like them! They play on the playground, eat lunch, and take naps! And it's got some great pictures.

Fun Fact: When a giant panda is born, it's blind, pink, fuzzy, and the size of a stick of butter!

Stained Glass Apples

Yesterday we discussed the letter A. To go along with that, we did an apple craft. I traced an apple template with red and green markers.

Then I set out watered-down glue with paint brushes and red and green tissue squares.

(Know what I love about my new center? We don't use styrofoam cups and plates and bowls! Wahoooo!)
The kids painted the glue onto the entire apple...

...and put the tissue paper on top.

They kept adding tissue paper until the apple was all filled up.

Then to make it shine, they painted the glue on again (very gently), right on top of the tissue paper.

See how pretty they look?

Once dry, I cut them out and we added a little stem. I hung them in the window to catch the sunlight!

Man, it's really hard to capture the beauty!



Marshmallow Toes

Today we talked about all the rules of the classroom and center. When we line up to go out of our room, I always say, "Quiet paws, quiet jaws." Sometimes I let the kids pick what animal we are and tell them we have to sneak up on our lunch (a smaller animal) or it will get away. So we walk very quietly in the hall until we get outside, then we can "chase our lunch!" They love it. However, after reading a poem called Marshmallow Toes, I couldn't resist doing an art project to go with it. I found it here, but it's originally from here. I changed it a bit, of course. I like doing that. Just tweaking something to make it my own. First, here's the poem:

It's supposed to be walking on our marshmallow toes, but I didn't realize that until I had already printed it out. I think it still works. Now, instead of just using a generic footprint for the kids, I had them press their feet on ink pads! We only had small ink pads, so I had to do it one section at a time.

The kids sat on a little stool so it would be easier. Then they stepped on a piece of paper.

I used a wet washcloth to clean their feet. The ink is washable, so it came right off. The kids went to the art table to put the marshmallows on their toe prints.

Hmmm, now I see that drop of glue on the heel. I wish I had seen that earlier. I had placed another piece of paper on that part of the footprint and at the end of the day they were stuck together!
Here is a picture of the display in the hallway. We have skinny halls, so it was hard to get a good picture of the whole thing.

You like? I got real lucky because I had 4 right feet and 5 left feet, so I could display them as if they were walking. As I was cutting them out I got worried that they'd be all the same foot! WHEW!! So if you plan on doing this, you might want to figure that out ahead of time (how many of each foot you need). I just let the kids pick whatever foot they wanted!
Oh, and of course I let the kids eat a marshmallow after the project!

"All About Me" Posters

This week with our Back to School theme, we are getting to know the friends in our class. I made these posters with large construction paper. I had 6 open spaces, a long one on the top, a long one on the bottom, and four squares in the middle. Let me show you my example before I explain further.

The top part was for their name. They could decorate it any way they wished. The bottom part was for their family. (Mine's a big one, if you didn't already know from reading this.) The four middle boxes were as follows: Favorite Food; Pets or Favorite Animals; What you like to do for fun; What you want to be when you grow up. I just printed out the little labels on colored paper. The kids spent most of the morning working on these.

Then we shared them at group time and I hung them up so everyone could get to know the friends in our class!

The kids were excited to show their parents at pick-up time!

Back-to-School Display

Many, many years ago I made this crayon box poster:

I didn't come up with the idea. I found it in a Mailbox book. It was so cute, I just had to make it to welcome the students to Pre-K. I put each child's name on a crayon and scattered the crayons around the box. But I left that crayon poster at my old center, so I had to make a new one this year. I planned on hanging it on my door, so I made it smaller.

Everyone loved it and the kids had fun finding their crayons! Even I had a crayon because I'm new, too!
UPDATE:
I've been getting several requests for instructions on how I made the crayon box, so I thought I'd add to this post. For the second box I made, I cut out two rectangles from poster board. I made one slightly longer than the other. The taller one goes in the back. I cut the top of the taller one to make it look like it folds down, like a real box of crayons. So I cut at some angles and then creased the board.

For the shorter rectangle, I cut a shallow U-shape from the top. Then I put glue on the bottom and sides of the shorter rectangle and glued it to the back rectangle. I wanted to leave the top and middle open so I could slide the crayons in. I glued the crayons to the back piece of poster board.

Then I just colored with crayons and markers so it looked like a box of crayons. For the first one I made, I used stencils for the words "our new pack." For the second one, I printed them off my computer, cut them out and glued them on the box.

As for the crayons, I used a template from a Mailbox book, but if you google crayon coloring sheets or crayon templates, I'm sure you can find something you like. Here is one I like:
http://freecoloringpagesite.com/coloring-pics/crayon-coloring-2.gif
Just enlarge it to whatever size you need. I printed the crayons out on colored paper, cut them out, added a few to my poster and the rest were scattered around my poster with the children's names on them. I hope these added instructions help those who want to make one!

Watercolored Flip Flops

For our last Summer's End art project, I printed out a picture of flip flops (found here, but I cut off the beach umbrella and made the flip flops bigger) and put out watercolors for the kids to use. They turned out so pretty!

(I actually used these flip flops when I made the Footloose Display.)
Then I let the kids cut them out, if they wanted to.

Finally I hung them on the wall, as if they were "walking," and put up the title, "Flip-floppin' out of Summer." I actually got that from a shirt that one of the kids was wearing. It read, "flip-floppin' in summer" and I thought, hey, I could use that!

Cute, huh?