Wow, so much going on in our lives right now. All good things! But I thought our cute kiddos deserved a post. We have been having an exciting year. We added two new children who seem to be blending in well with everyone. A brief review of what we've done the past few months: We had a week celebrating everything "Dr. Seuss" ( the kids loved having their feet painted for this project because it tickled), we made colorful tye dyed cupcakes (YUMMO), rainbow rice, fun squishy bags and the kids created some great looking cards to celebrate their awesome mothers!
Project Know How:
Rainbow Rice: Fill 6 ziploc bags with 1 cup rice each. Add 6 drops of food coloring ( we did 6 different colors here, one per bag) and 1 tsp. of rubbing alcohol, or 4-5 pumps hand sanitizer if you're in a pinch. Seal and shake. Let dry and have fun mixing it all together in a plastic tub or pan. Kids love this sensory bucket and ask me to bring it out over and over. Clean up is easy and kids even like to help me with that job. It's fun to add in a few measuring cups, spoons, bowls, cups or pitchers to practice pouring skills. Some days we hide coins or different small toys in our rice and have fun digging for treasure.
Rainbow Stew: 1/3 c. sugar, 1 c. cornstarch, 4 c. cold water, food coloring kit. Simmer all ingredients together except for food coloring in a sauce pan until thick. Divide into 4 parts. Color each part with a different color from your kit. Let cool. Place a little of each color int a ziploc bag. Seal with a wide piece of shipping tape to avoid messes. Let kid knead the stew in their bag and watch the colors blend.
Dr. Seuss: On March 2, 1904 Theodor Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) was born. To celebrate this famous author, we read many of his fantastic books and included some fun activities with each. One of my favorites is "The Foot Book" (my oldest daughter learned to read this at age 3 because of the magical way that it rhymes and flows). Our footprint art (above) included a rhyme from the book. These can even be made into placemats if you want to laminate them. We also piled our shoes together and had a race to see who could find the most pairs. Other great ideas to spark your imagination can be found at this fun link- Seussville.com click on educators then classroom activities and printables. And many more throughout the internet.
Carle style Cards: A favorite card I like to make with children are these Eric Carle style art cards. To make it simple I just let the kids go to town painting each page a different color and with a different technique. For instance sponge paint a page in pink, then ask them to color another page green and run a comb through the paint to create different designs. You can get as creative as you want with tools used from around the house to create texture and design. After this is done I help cut out the pieces for their card. I look for areas of their paintings that would be most interesting to use in the card. Then help them to glue their masterpiece together. I pre-print the words on most of my cards, since most of the children I teach aren't writers quite yet. Then let them use their pretend writing to make a sweet message inside for whomever they like.
Tie Dye Cupcakes: These were a little time consuming but really fun. To create I followed this post found at the Bird on a Cake blog or another one your might try is Sandra Lee's post here. You could make these as simple at you want. The kids may even just enjoy decorating these fun cupcakes with their favorite colorful sprinkles. Use this as you talk about and learn colors with your child.
