Artsy Pumpkins

There have been some very crafty kids in our school! Pumpkins, pumpkins are everywhere! I thought I would share some of my favorite pumpkin crafts that are the current decor in our classrooms.

Craft bucket clean-out Pumpkins
  The inspiration for these cute jack-o-lanterns was actually the need to clean out their craft bucket and use up some of the leftover materials from other projects. These are the school-aged jack-o-lanterns.

  Our pre-k class was inspired and wanted to try it, too!

Painting Mini Pumpkins
We recently visited the pumpkin patch and brought back mini-pumpkins to decorate.We have been painting and adorning them with glitter in our art center every day.

Easel Painting Still Life
This was a still life pumpkin painting done by a preschool student.

Knuckle Pumpkin Patch
These have been around for years, but I still love them! The teacher painted the child's knuckles to help them make a pumpkin patch.

Paper Plate Pumpkins
Paper accents added to an orange painted paper plate make adorable little pumpkins!

Free-hand circles and tissue decoration
I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this fine motor activity!!!! The 3's class drew circles with markers, then filled in the pumpkins with craft tissue!!!

Pick-a-part Magazine Face Jack-o-Lanterns
We've made some cute jack-o-lanterns by cutting facial features out of magazines and gluing them on the pumpkin shape. Somehow I managed to have this activity going for a couple of days, but didn't get any photos of the finished products. I'll try to add some here later.

Paper Bag Pumpkins
We've also made lots and lots of paper bag pumpkins. Here's a pic of them added to our pumpkin patch from a couple of years ago, as well as a few of this year's crop.

In all honesty, Halloween is my least favorite time of year, but seeing all these pumpkins adorning our school classrooms have really brightened my season!

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Make Your Own Gel Paints!

I'm back!!!! I've been a little absent lately--my computer completely died right at the end of the school year. I finally got a new one, but it has taken a while to get familiar with the new operating system. By that time, school was starting again, and all the craziness that goes with a new school year has kept me very busy! I'm glad to be "back in the saddle" again!

They say that necessity is the mother of invention, and that is often the case in pre-k! We haven't had much luck with purchasing fingerpaint lately. One batch was much too runny, one really smelled (and the children didn't want to use it) and the last batch came in fairly small tubes, so after just a few kids had a turn the paint was gone! Frustrated, I went to my cabinet to see what I could come up with to improvise some fingerpaint. 

I pulled out some hair gel that I keep on hand for sensory bottles and added a little food coloring. This made fantastic paint that can be used for fingerpaints, brush paints or even as watercolors that are easy for the kids to manage! 

While I did make these for the purposes of fingerpaints, the children love them so much that they ask to use them with brushes, too.

One of my little friends was very much involved in the process of loading the brush, painting a dab or two and rinsing the brush in the water, over and over again. Even with all the water, the paints dried vibrantly!

I think next I'll let the kids experiment by mixing some colors to make their own custom colors. They enjoy these paints so much that it can't hurt to have plenty on hand!


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Sweet Genius! Cooking Up A Little Playdough Fun

As you might guess, there are a few drawbacks to sharing my classroom with another group when Pre-K in not in session. There are also some major benefits. The elementary school age kids share my room in the mornings before school and later in the afternoons. I taught a majority of these kids when they were in Pre-K, so it has been a bonus to me to watch these kids grow and mature each year.

This morning, the kids were busily working with playdough at the table. I watched for a minute, thinking about how much their play with playdough had changed over the years. As I listened, there was a lot of talk of winning and getting judged, so I asked what they were doing exactly. "We're playing Sweet Genius",  one of them said. Apparently, "Sweet Genius" is one of those competition cooking shows on The Food Network ( I don't watch cable. I know, I live under a rock.). They were making a variety of pies, cakes and cookies and some of the other kids were going to judge them just like on the show. We talked for a minute, then I let them get back to their game. As I started to leave them to their game, they asked me to take pictures of their creations. They know that if they do something cool or interesting, no matter how busy I am, I'll want to see it and take pictures. I'll make the time. They know me well. 

Here are some of the sweet treats I found them making this morning:

Candies with Fruit

A Fancy Cake

 Layer Cake

 Fancy Pastry 

Cookies

 Adding Sprinkles to a Cupcake

Fancy Cupcake for the New Year

Just because a moustache is fun!

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St. Patrick's Day in Pre-K

St. Patrick's Day is always exciting! I was feeling a little blue because I wasn't able to fit in all of the fun activities we usually do when our themes last for more than a week. I don't think the kids noticed, though. There was plenty to keep them busily having fun and learning in our classroom this week.

They created various types of leprechauns throughout the week. Some friends made paper bag puppet leprechauns, some made "Shamrock People" leprechauns and others made leprechaun faces from paper plates.

                                  


These Shamrock People turned out really cute, especially "Angry Leprechaun Guy"!!!  They really made for some fun decorations to hang on our walls and bulletin boards.

                                 

There were learning games going on everywhere. This is a little board game was copied from a teacher book and laminated. We use classroom materials for playing pieces.

This is a shamrock pattern matching game with bottle caps.

In one of our small groups, my assistant played this shamrock letter matching game with the kids.

                             

 

We made Fruit Loop necklaces. They are as much fun to wear as they are to eat!
(Yeah, you guessed it, we were playing with our food again!  ;)

                           

 

One of the classes made these cute hats. They hung them from the ceiling during the week, then wore them at their party!

Some of the after~schoolers shared their St. Patrick's Day spirit!

                                            

 




We went on a leprechaun hunt all over the school. At the end, he left us a colorful rainbow to eat and a few gold coins.

He also left us this little surprise in our bathrooms, just to let us know that we missed him! He promised to come back next year. Maybe our luck will be a little better! I keep thinking of all the wonderful classroom materials I could get, if I just had that pot of gold!

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