Holiday Gift Suggestions Version 2.0

It is that time of year again when we are shopping for the children in our lives.  I just reviewed my blog post with gift suggestions from last year.  I am still a fan of that list but have a couple of things to add.

There are three games that my students love to play, and can play  fairly independently.

The game Hsss! combines color identification and visual logic.  It also uses counting skills when children are tallying up their score at the end.

Zingo is an adaptation of bingo where players match a picture chip to the picture on their boards.  The words are also listed allowing children to make connections to print.  They love sliding the chip holder to reveal the next pictures.  

The last game is The Storybook Game.  In this game a player draws a card and has to incorporate the item featured into the story that is being told by the group.  It is great for language development. 

The last new item I want to suggest is very simple and open ended.  A dry erase board and markers from your local office supply store.  

Children love the feel of using this material traditionally used by adults.  The fact that erasing is so easy is very freeing.  I have a large bin of them that I keep out in my classroom.  The children use them to draw ideas for block structures, signs for dramatic play and as their easels for playing school.  They have been very fond of making graphs lately and having their classmates respond to their questions.  They come in various sizes so your child could have one to use while driving in the car and a bigger one to use at home.  And don't forget to get the eraser...they LOVE the eraser!

This child is now building the idea he sketched on the white board

The white board became a "specials" menu.  Pizza, ice cream and pie are being served.

I would love to hear your suggestions for the young children in your lives.  Share with us the great things you have discovered.  

Happy Holidays!

Sensory Sachets

We do a lot of baking in our classroom.  Around this time of year we use a great deal of fragrant spices in our baking such as ginger, cinnamon and allspice.  When we bake, we simply measure out these spices from the jars purchased at the store.

A great sensory experience that we wanted the children to explore was to see these spices before they are ground up and placed in containers.

We purchased the whole spices from a spice store and put them out with mortars and pestles for grinding.

We had fennel seed, cloves, star anise, allspice, nutmeg, cinnamon sticks and fresh ginger(for this we added a grater).

The children enjoyed using the mortar and pestle and seeing how the spices changed under their twisting.  The room was incredibly fragrant as the children discussed among themselves how they felt about each smell.

The clerk at the spice store even found a large piece of natural cinnamon for me to show the children.  In this state it really looks just like tree bark from the back yard.

After a few days of grinding and exploring spices, we had quite a bowl full of ground up material.  Rather than waste it, we decided to make sachets.  This was another learning opportunity as the children did not know what that term meant.

We cut up some fabric that we had on hand.

Put out fabric markers for the children to use to decorate the material.

Then they scooped out a couple of spoonfuls of the spice mixture and we helped them tie it up.

 
This way, although this was primarily a process oriented activity, the children had a piece of it to bring home and use to explain their experiences to their families.

Leaf Printing with the Twos

My guest blogger, Lini, is back sharing another wonderful activity.


This week my 2s class made leaf prints, a project I have done before but with a few tweaks it was more interesting and the results more impressive than in the past.
I set out large leaves and tempera for painting. 
I encouraged the children to paint both sides of the leaf (we used paper plates to paint on).

I helped children transfer the leaf by the stem onto a folded paper closing the leaf in between.

 Using their hands, children rubbed the paper with the leaf inside, then opened it to see the fabulous print it made.

Some children wanted to leave the painted leaf stuck on the on the paper, others chose to pull it off. 


Some added glitter to finish it off.

I know it is all about the process, but it doesn't hurt that they came out stunningly beautiful!
I love them on the bulletin board, but they would also be lovely to laminate for holiday placemats. 

This morning I got a fabulous email with photo from the parent who worked in my classroom on Friday who had already done the activity with her older daughters in the morning!

Community Soup

We recently read two wonderful books for children, Pumpkin Soup, and Delicious both by Helen Cooper.
In the first story three animals engage in their regular ritual of making pumpkin soup.

 A squabble soon arises causing a serious problem for the friends to solve.
   In the next tale, the friends are once again in a difficult situation as they do not have any pumpkins with which to make their soup.  They have to get creative with other vegetables.
We also read, one of my favorite stories, Tops and Bottoms.  
This is a clever story line that engages the reader to learn about roots,stems and leaves and from which part of the plant different vegetables come.

After reading these stories we started talking about various vegetables and soups and decided to make our own soup.  We made a list while brainstorming vegetables we knew until we had come up with a different vegetable for each student to bring to class.  That was 16 different ingredients for us!

 The children brought their vegetables to school on Monday.  We asked for them the day after a weekend to allow shopping time and an extra day before soup making in case someone forgot an item.  We used that day to explore the veggies...we sorted them, looked at them with magnifying glasses, held them, smelled them, and then they began comparing how heavy they were to one another.

 Upon observing this, we brought out our pan balances and the children engaged in weighing various combinations of the vegetables.

We had to be willing to allow the children to touch and explore the food and not worry about germs at this point.  We knew we would be scrubbing and pealing them.

The next day, we started our soup activity by writing the recipe together which I copied for each child.

  We set up stations for washing, peeling and chopping the vegetables. I even brought in my food processor for the tough to chop items such as the rutabaga and the children enjoyed putting the items in and watching them get sliced.

 After adding all of our chopped vegetables, we added chicken broth and put the pot of the stove to cook.

  We could smell the cabbage fairly soon.  It was certainly an interesting smelling soup and a very pretty color due to the beets.  We predicted how the vegetables would change during the cooking process.  Most of the children though they would get softer.  When it was cooked, in true community soup nature, we offered some to all the classes in the building.  The children enjoyed explaining to the younger children how we had made it.

Sadly only about 2 children actually liked the soup, but everyone did try it.  If we do this again sometime, we will think of a vegetable other than cabbage....hmmm, how could we forget green beans or peas....?!

It was a community and cooperative effort and many of these children learned about some vegetables they had never heard of or seen, much less tasted.