Flower Pie With Meatballs

Some of the kids made this beautiful "flower pie" for me the other day on the playground. They are always making pies and cakes with the sand. Gumballs from the trees on our playground are always in abundance, so of course they added a few. I love that they all call them "meatballs"! Eventually, a few discovered my flower garden from last year and added some beautiful decorations to help make this "flower pie with meatballs" just perfect!

Our camera battery was charging, so we brought it inside for a while to enjoy until we could get a picture. I almost hated to throw it away, but I know they will make many more this year!

Thanks for visiting!  Be sure to leave a little "comment love"---I'd love for you to share your thoughts! 

Check out the little illuminations facebook fan page and see what we're sharing today!

Earth Week and WOYC

This was a crazy week in my classroom. It was the last 2 days of our official school year, then our extended year program started. There was not a lot of time to really spend a long time on Earth Day (Sunday, April 22 was Earth Day) this year. We did manage to squeeze a few little activities in. 


We painted the earth in art center. 

We took time to care for our garden. It's starting to show signs of growth!

We covered large pine cones in lard and sprinkled birdseed all over to make bird feeders. 

After we made them and let them set for a bit, we took them outside to hang on our trees.

In the midst of everything else going on this week, it was also NAEYC's "Week of The Young Child". This year's theme is: "Early years are learning years". While I wasn't able to plan specific activities to go with this special week this year, I think the activities we did do will help shape my little friends into life long learners and lovers of our earth!

Thanks for visiting! Leave a little "comment love"~I'd love for you to share your thoughts!  

Finding Treasure

Today, as I took the kids outside for recess, I found this on the playground. I'm not sure exactly what is was or who made it, but it is quite lovely. I can guess that it either had to put together by members of the 3 year old class or the 2 year old class. (I'm guessing probably the 3's, since they were on the playground right before us.)  The posts I usually share are about things I see and the processes of our activities. This time, I can't tell you anything about this, but I thought it was somehow touching. A few of the preschoolers passed it by as they went about their business of play, but no one seemed to bother it. The moment I saw it, I thought that the kids would certainly see this as prime pickings for their own play, but when we went back inside for lunch, it had remained untouched. Maybe they recognized something special in this little arrangement, too. 

Thanks for visiting! Leave a little "comment love"~I'd love for you to share your thoughts!  

Painting Nature

I saw these wonderful Candied Gumballs on Casa Maria's Creative Learning Zone. Be sure to check out the both of the follow up posts, Gumball Sculptures Project 1 and Tie Dyed Gumballs, as well.

We have so many gumballs around our area, that I knew we had to try this. Our playground is literally covered with them, and the kids spend hours collecting, counting, and playing with them in a multitude of ways. It was a "no-brainer" to put some in our art center to let the children have a go at painting them.

Most of our gumballs fall with pretty long stems attached, so we didn't use toothpicks, we just held on to the stem. Instead of dipping them, we used paintbrushes to apply the acrylic paint.

With the first few balls, the kids were hesitant, and only painted portions of the balls.

They looked pretty cool individually.

After letting them dry for a few days, I added string and attached them to a nice branch to make a mobile to hang from the ceiling. ( For photographic purposes, I placed white paper behind it to show it better.)