"I had a happy first day!" Headbands

 

 I have had a lot of success with these headbands in my pre-kindergarten class.  It is a great first day of school project because it is easy and the children always enjoy putting the smile stickers on! I make the headbands ahead of time (including writing their name in tiny letters...although I do encourage them to try to write the name themselves if they can) and then the children can color the headbands and add as many smiley face stickers as they would like.

I used free printable clip art for the smiley faces and copy it on yellow construction paper or cardstock.  You could also print up the happy faces right from the computer.  With the children so fascinated by emojis, it might be fun to print those up and let them choose. On a sentence strip, I wrote the words "I had a happy 1st day in VPK! (The voluntary pre-k program that I teach in my state)

Of course, not every child is happy at school on the first day, but I do have this written for each child.  If a child is sad, we talk with them about SOMETHING that was happy about their day.  Sometimes it is as simple as the snack that they had, but we can usually find a reason for them to smile.

Penguins!

This is definitely one of our favorite "cooking projects" all year! I save a bit of our extra Halloween candy and then all we need is an Oreo. Sometimes we use extra candy corn for the feet, but I didn't have enough this year so we used Starburst candy cut in half.  I think that looks even cuter!

We try to make special snacks once a week.  Usually it coordinates with our letter of the week or a thematic unit.  I print up "recipes" to help build literacy skills.

As part of our penguin unit, we make "shape penguins".  When I do crafts in my classroom, I like to make sure they have some meaning beyond just creating something cute.  As the children build their penguins, we review the names of the shapes which makes it a Math lesson as well as an art project.

We read several nonfiction books about penguins as part of this unit, so the children learn quite a lot of information about these polar animals! 

After the shape penguins dry, I have each child dictate a fact about penguins and I attach it to their artwork. 

A few other things that we did this week to build Math skills were counting mats with penguin shaped erasers (from the Target dollar spot! I use these same mats with different shaped erasers to coordinate with our themes) and beginning addition mats that I made with stickers (also from the Target dollar spot!)  The addition sheets are laminated and work well with dry erase markers, but I made little laminated number squares so that the children could focus on the number rather than on forming the numeral (which really isn't developmentally appropriate for the age that I teach).

A few of our other penguin activities included building a floor puzzle that I got from Scholastic and polar animals with ice blocks in our sensory bin.  

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Snack, Sensory Bin & More

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault is one of the first books that I read in the school year and this is our first "cooking project".  There are actually a few healthy elements and the children usually love it!  I have seen a few different variations online, but this is my favorite. The ingredients are a large pretzel rod, apple slices, grapes and alphabet cereal.  Preparing special snacks is a great way to teach sequencing, following directions and beginning literacy.  We try to "cook" 3 times a month.  Often our cooking projects coordinate with the letter of the week. 

A popular center during Chicka Chicka Boom Boom week is our sensory bin.  I fill it with dyed alphabet shaped pasta, plastic coconuts (from the Dollar Store), large alphabet beads, foam ABC puzzle letters, brown pom poms  and tongs.  

Another favorite of mine is the Chicka Chicka Boom Boom tree that my husband made for me years ago.  It is made from painted coffee cans (it is hard to find the metal ones these days!) that are filled with Plaster of Paris to weigh them down. There are artificial leaves attached to the top.  The children use the tree to retell the story with magnetic alphabet letters. 

 For Science, we observe a real coconut and shake the milk out.  A few of the children are brave enough to taste it, but only a few of them like it! 

I downloaded this Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Alphabet Bingo game from lovetoteach.org.  Cute, fun and a great way to find out which of my prekindergarten students know alphabet letters! 

http://www.lovetoteach.org/by-subject/reading/chicka-chicka-boom-boom-alphabet-bingo.html

I do this craft every year and I think the original idea came from this same website.  The trunk of the palm tree is made by painting the child's forearm and the leaves are made by painting the child's hand and printing it twice.  We add fingerprint "coconuts" and sticker letters the next day. 

Indoor Snowball Fight and a Florida Snowman

Since we live in Florida, most children here haven't experienced snow unless they have traveled to colder places.  We try to provide lots of "winter" experiences and one of the favorites is our indoor snowball fight.  

We start by crumpling white tissue paper. (I tried using toilet paper the first year I did this and the mess was horrible!) This is great for building up the small muscles! The children often complain that their hands are getting tired when they do this, but I tell them that the more paper they crumple, the more fun they will have.  

We bring the "snowballs" into the multipurpose room next to our classroom and then the fun begins! 

  When it is time to clean up, I bring out white garbage bags and they fill them to make snowballs.  Then we create our "Florida Snowman"!  Here are a few that we have made through the years. The best part is that they don't melt! 

Silly Sally Class Book

Audrey Wood is one of my favorite authors of children's books and I think that Silly Sally is one of the best.  It is a perfect story for retelling and to do an innovation.  

Several years ago, I saw a cute class book on Pinterest from Kindergarten Nana and another one from the prekinders blog.  I decided to create something similar for my prekindergarten students.  I loved how it turned out so much that I now do it every year!  I typed up "Silly _______ went to town, walking backwards upside down" on the computer (double column for easier handling), then I cut and pasted clip art of the town in the background. 

I have my kiddos use liquid watercolors for this project because the colors are so vibrant, but regular watercolor paint would work.  

During letter Yy week earlier in the month, I took photos of the children with their arms out like the letter Y. I cut these out, glued them on their artwork, mounted it on cardstock and laminated it.  Then I put it together to make a book.  It is well worth the effort! This class book is always popular and the kids fight over their chance to read it.  At the end of the year, I give each child their page to take home. 

Here is a link to the Silly Sally class book from Kindergarten Nana. I love how she changes the verb in the text for each child! 
https://dbsenk.wordpress.com/2011/06/08/silly-sally/ 

Here is another version  http://www.prekinders.com/class-books/
(By the way, that blog is amazing! Lots of great ideas!!)

Painting with Yarn

I am a firm believer in the importance of Process Art activities for preschoolers.  Process Art focuses on creativity and exploration rather than on the final product. Yes, we do occasionally do crafts where the children are provided a model to follow because I feel it is important for them to learn to follow directions.  I also know that they will be expected to do these types of activities in most Kindergarten classrooms and I want to expose them to it.  Plus, some crafts are just too cute! Primarily, though, the emphasis in my room is on art projects that provide opportunities for the children to create, explore and engage their minds. Even though the emphasis isn't on the end product, the final results are usually beautiful. They are definitely unique!

My preschool does follow a "Letter of the Week" curriculum and I often provide something for the children to paint with that coordinates with the letter.  For Yy, we paint with yarn.  This is messy and fun.  I've learned through the years that it helps to attach a clothespin to the end of the piece of yarn to minimize mess, but some children actually enjoy the sensory experience of touching the yarn coated with the paint. 

Yarn is something that many children haven't touched before.  I show them how yarn looks on a skein and we put some in a sensory table for the children to cut up into little pieces and pull apart the strands.  It always surprised me how much they enjoy doing this! Sometimes the simplest things are the most engaging!  This also gives them a point of reference when we read books about mittens and other winter gear.  Since we live in Florida, even wearing sweaters is rare! 

Here is a great link with an article from naeyc about the importance of process art in the preschool classroom.
http://www.naeyc.org/tyc/article/process-art-experiences

Here is a link to my Process Art Board on Pinterest with many great ideas for open ended art activities
https://www.pinterest.com/cindibernasconi/process-art/