My friend Karen, over at Flights of Whimsy posted about her "Cloud Dough" recently, and I knew we just had to try it. We used some store bought "Moon Sand" about a month ago. It was very expensive and came in a very small container.
Karen's recipe is very easy:
8 cups of flour I cup of baby oil Mix well
The kids decided since it was fairly close to Halloween that we should rename our concoction from "Cloud Dough" to "Ghost Dough". They've had a lot of fun with it, but it is very messy. We have a carpeted classroom and the flour mixture can really make a mess on our dark colored carpet. We've been putting a tarp down, but of course, children seem to have a knack of getting the dough just outside the boundaries of the tarp. All in al, the sensory experience far outweighs the mess. The children delight in running their fingers through it and molding it with playdough or sand molds as their hands. I guess we'll have to rename it again now that the Halloween season has ended. Hmmmm...maybe "Snow Dough" ?!! :)
We celebrated our imaginations and talked about monsters a couple of weeks ago. We made these "Marvelous Monsters" using some basic shapes of green and black construction paper and a few art materials.
One of my friends made this cute Frankenstein Monster puppet with odd materials from our "Make A Puppet" box and our "scrap box". The skeleton head was left over from the q-tip skeletons a few friends made a week or two before.
There are so many great ideas out there, it's hard to pick and choose sometimes. Little Wonders Preschool posted a picture on Facebook of the skeletons they made recently. It reminded me that I did this several years ago with my class and they really enjoyed it. I thought I'd make one today and put in my files so next year I would remember to put in into my lesson plans.
While I was finishing mine up, some of the friends came over and asked me if they could make one, too. I gave them a little skull and a pelvis like I had used from white paper and a handful of q-tips. I wasn't sure exactly what they would come up with, but I was curious to see what they would do with all the "loose parts"
I think they did a pretty good job!
We've also been singing along to to this fun song!
Fire Safety is one of those units that I feel like we need to teach, but I think sometimes, because it's a "have to" unit, I feel like it gets a little stale. I tried to "heat things up" this year to put a little more excitement into my fire safety unit.
Teach Preschool posted recently about making construction paper fire trucks in "We Made Shapely Fire Trucks in Preschool". I remember years ago making a little paper fire truck craft, but I hadn't thought about it in a few years. Deborah's post made me want to try this cute activity again. We gave the kids some very basic shapes and let them see what they could come with. I think they did a wonderful job!
We practiced how to dial "9-1-1" in an emergency, "Stop, Drop, Cover and Roll" if our clothes are on fire and to "Get Low and Go" if there is smoke in the house. We have monthly fire drills, so we discussed the importance of doing a good job on the drills so that we will be fully prepared if ever there were a real emergency. We also talked about smoke detectors and creating a home evacuation plan with our families.
Even the teachers got into the act and had a little retraining on the use of fire extinguishers.
Yep! That's Me!
We explored with red, orange and yellow paint in art center. We tried blow painting, but I think the paint was a little thick. Smear art painting was a lot of fun and produced some beautiful masterpieces.
We got out a few of our favorite fire safety themed toys and puzzles.
The kids love dressing up as community helpers. And our little fire station proved to be pretty popular, too! Many, many traditional (and non-traditional ;) firehouse meals were prepared and served at our fire station.
I love this fire truck one of my little guys drew at the art table. "It's a fire truck going to put out the fire. These lines mean the light is too noisy!"
One of our favorite fire books is now on YouTube with the accompanying song. We listened to this many times on cd, but I also heard the kids singing as they worked in centers, "Fire truck! Fire truck! I want to ride on a fire truck!"
Hands down, I think the favorite was making our fire truck cookies as our culminating activity. They were just as fun to make as they were yummy to eat!
Apparently, due to the Sept. 11 anniversary, our fire station is busier than usual with school tours, so we were unable to visit during Fire Safety Week. A few weeks late, but we are finally scheduled to go next week, so we're pretty excited! I'm sure there will be an upcoming post about that adventure! :)
