Monster Madness

Our theme this week was monsters! 

We read the story Even Monsters Need Haircuts, then we created these fun Frankensteins from Life in First Grade.  Check out Ms. Leslie Ann's site,  http://lifeinfirstgrade1.blogspot.com/, for the free patterns and other great ideas!

We also drew and watercolored monsters.  If I were to do this again, I'm not sure that I would go with size 11x17 paper again, as it was pretty time consuming to complete the watercoloring.  Very cute turnout though...

Finally, we created Monster Glyphs.  The Monter Glyph and the watercoloring ideas both come courtesy of Deanna Jump.  Here are some of our monster glyphs... I think they turned out adorable.

The patterns for the monster glyph activity are in Deanna's Back-to-School-Math-and-Literacy-Fun unit on Teacher's Pay Teacher's.  I also used many activities from Mrs. Lee's Monster unit.  We had a lot of fun with monsters!

Spiders!

This week in preschool, our theme was spiders.  To start the week, we read and sang The Itsy Bitsy Spider.  Then we made this fun craft from Mrs. Lee's October 2010 post "Spiders, Spiders, Spiders:"

If you have never visited Mrs. Lee's site, head on over now!  It is one of my absolute favorite teacher blogs!  She has wonderful ideas and excellent units available at TPT.  Here is a link to her blog:  http://mrsleeskinderkids.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2010-10-17T22%3A00%3A00-05%3A00&max-results=10

I also LOVE Deanna Jump's blog and used her "Silly Willy Spider" activity this week.  After singing everyone's name in the song, which students loved, we drew self-portraits with a "silly willy spider" on our head.  Here are some examples:

We also created silly spiders.  I was able to download the templates for FREE from Doodle Bugs Teaching:  http://doodlebugsteaching.blogspot.com/

I'm still trying to decide what to do next week!  I've collected so many great ideas from the blogs that I follow that it's hard to choose!  I think I might do a monster theme!  Check back next week to find out!

Fire Safety continued...

Here is the other craft we did for our fire safety awareness week:

This idea came from the blog Preschool Playbook. 

The name of our preschool is Creative Preschool, so I wrote "Creative Fire Co." on the fire engines.  I had hoped to find a picture of a firefighter from the waist up, but despite all of my searching, I didn't have any luck.  I still love how the fire engines turned out though.  Next week, I will be doing a spider theme, so come back soon to see our projects! 

Fire Safety

I've been SO excited for my kids to fingerpaint the spots on a dalmation for a fire safety activity.  I found this idea at Miss Renee's Kindergarten Pad quite a while back and knew I had to use it!  Here is a link to Renee's site:  http://lilteacher.com/firepreventionweek.html.  She has lots of creative ideas.  The pattern I used comes from Mailbox Magazine.  LOVE those magazines!! 

I thought about writing a number on the helmet of each dog and having students fingerpaint that many spots, but I decided to let my kids go ahead and fingerprint away : )  As a center, students can match the number on the firehat to the number of spots on the dalmation. 

Next year, I'm going to run the dalmations off on cardstock instead of regular copier paper.  Hopefully the paint won't spread as much on the heavier paper.  That was my only disappointment with this project. 

My students also extended a "Stop, Drop, and Roll" pattern:

Tomorrow, we are going to make a fire truck out of construction paper!  I'll post pictures by Friday. 

Columbus Day Craft

I know that Columbus Day was yesterday, BUT if you need an idea for next year, here is what I did with my 4 year old class this past Friday:

This idea was featured on April Larremore's blog, Chalk Talk:  A Kindergarten Blog, and I believe that it's a TLC project.  As I had mentioned in a previous post, my students don't seem to enjoy tearing paper for some reason.  I think it's because they're not very confident about doing it since they haven't done it much.  For this project, they only had to tear the dark blue construction paper for the water.  I was pleased with how their projects came out, and I would do this craft again in the future.  What do you do for Columbus Day? 

Fun with Pumpkins!

Last week our theme was pumpkins!  I read the story The Legend of Spookley the Square Pumpkin and then gave my preschoolers square pieces of orange construction paper.  For some scissor practice, they snipped the corners off of all four sides to make their very own "Spookley" pumpkins.  Then they glued them onto a blue piece of construction paper and added their choice of a happy face or spooky face.  They also added stems.  Below are examples from my 3-year old class.  I thought they did a great job.  I found this idea in a Mailbox magazine and slightly modified it. 

Another pumpkin activity we did, is an idea that comes from Mrs. Tracy's Pre-K class.  I dotted numbers for students to trace, and then they got to stamp that many pumpkins with a circle dabber.  Although this was hard for some of my students who are still learning their numbers (those students tended to be the ones who got "circle happy" and went to town painting pumpkins,  we loved this activity, and I thought it was good number practice.

I wish I could have done more with pumpkins, but I only have my 4s three times a week and the 3s only come twice a week.  Tomorrow I will post what my 4s did for Columbus Day, and coming up later this week, I'll be posting our Fire Prevention week activities. 

Apple Activities

To celebrate Johnny Appleseed, my preschoolers did this Johnny Appleseed glyph, an idea that comes from K. Ables courtesy of Mrs. Lee's Kindergarten.  Next time, I hope to have actual apple dicuts or stickers!! 

We also made apple cores by tearing paper.  I got this idea from the shared reading section of Jessica Meacham's website.  I think the apples turned out really cute, although tearing the paper was a bit stressful for my little 4 year olds even after I demonstrated "good tearing technique." 

We also painted paper plates red to make paper plate apples.  After they were dry, I stapled on a leaf and stem.  They were adorable, but unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures!

Goodnight Moon and other Moon ideas

After reading Goodnight Moon, my preschoolers made this cute craft.  This idea came from a Mailbox magazine.  Keeping with the moon theme, I also read I Took the Moon for a Walk later in the week, and we then created this project... (idea from I Heart Crafty Things- a great blog with lots of wonderful craft ideas)

This one says, "If I could take the moon for a walk, we would go to my house."  I did the writing for the kids, but they did the precious artwork.  Here is another one...

This one would take the moon to the zoo! 

Finally, I read the story Happy Birthday Moon and students completed this craft which also comes from a Mailbox magazine.

Students got to paint their moon with a mixture of white paint and flour.  To complete the moon, they added "craters" using the lid of a water bottle!  So much fun and SO cute!