Light Table – Invitation to Play with Paint and Stencils

I’ve wanted to get my girls a light table since the moment I saw one at a local nursery school.  They are so awesome it’s kind of ridiculous.  Unfortunately, however, they are majorly expensive so I’ve been waiting and waiting to take the plunge.  I ended up finding this one on ebay for Gigi’s second birthday.  It’s definitely not cheap at 150, but it was less than a lot of the other ones and I like how simple the design is.  I think it might be someone’s DIY project because it kind of seems like an Ikea Hacker job.  Regardless, we love it!  It was super easy to put together and the light works great.  Very pleased so far.  We’re two days in.

First night I set out some magnatiles and a big crystal, which was pretty cool.  We LOVE magnatiles in our house.

The next day, I covered the table with white butcher paper, filled a cup with paint and put down some plastic stencils.  Gigi had a blast.  We talked about the different shapes and she filled them in with paint to see the stencil.  Her favorites were the bottle and the teddy bear.  She’s only two, so she didn’t cover all the white space to make the stencil, but it didn’t matter at all.  She loved lifting the stencil and looking for the design.

This is definitely something we’ll do again.  She really enjoyed it.

It looks like the listing for this light table is down on ebay.  Maybe they make one at a time.  If you want to get crafty and make your own, here is a really thorough tutorial and here is a way more basic tutorial.  If you just want to go ahead and buy the real deal, this one and this one come highly recommended.  I bet they come up on Craigslist from time to time too.  Enjoy!

Salt Dough Sculptures for Toddlers

Man oh man, salt dough is easy.  It’s 1 cup salt, 1 cup water, and 2 cups flour.  That’s it!  Just mix it up and add food coloring if you want.  Gigi and I made it together and it was so much fun.  She doesn’t have the whole mixing thing down quite yet but she’s getting there.  She loves to add food coloring to absolutely anything so that part was a hit.  We did a mix of blue, green and purple.

After we made our dough, I set up a carousel of art supplies including toothpicks, popsicle sticks, wood shapes, beads, sparkles and gems.  By far the biggest hit was the toothpick dispenser.  Gigi loved shaking it to get the toothpicks out.  She also managed to get a few beads on the toothpicks which was a nice surprise.  Almost two!

Water Beads for Little Ones – Great Toddler Activity

I’ve read about water beads and seen them countless times on different mom blogs over the past few months.  I can finally say I get what all the fuss is about.  These things are freaking awesome.  First of all, they are gorgeous.  I just kept staring at them in the bowl.  They look so juicy and delicious.  Second, they bounce, which I definitely didn’t expect.  I’ve been brainstorming all day on how to create some sort of plexiglass bouncy box for them.  Third, they feel so mushy and slippery you just want to jump right in the bowl.  As you can see, I couldn’t resist putting my foot in the tub.  Gigi did too but she wasn’t as into that part as I was.

Little d turned six months this week.  I can’t wait for her to get in on the action.

I’m not totally sure why I think this is science but I do.  I guess because Gigi was exploring new materials and watched a chemical reaction when water was added to these little suckers.  Yeah, that’s why.

*Note* If you are going to use water beads, I highly recommend doing it outside or putting down a sheet underneath your child.  This can get really messy and you want to enjoy them, not want to kill them.  I’ve read they are also super fun in the bath with or without water, but don’t let them down the drain.  Enjoy!

Science for Toddlers

Ok, this was seriously fun.  Again, I am so thankful to Play at Home Moms.  Their “Invitation to Play” post really changed things over here at our house.  It’s the weekend (yay) so I have plenty of time to set something up for Gigi before she wakes up.  I had ordered these great measuring containers and droppers on Amazon and have been waiting all week to use them.  I just added some food coloring and water to each container, cut up some water color paper to look like litmus paper and set out some square papers as well.  I love putting everything on a bench.  It’s the perfect table for toddlers!  When we do this again I will use liquid water colors but I didn’t have any so the food coloring worked fine.

Gigi had the best time playing with all her science tools.  It was a little difficult for her to use the droppers because she didn’t want to let go once she squeezed but it didn’t hinder her play.  Her favorite was definitely pouring the different colored water together and moving it around from container to container.  I had set up a shower curtain I used to use for verymeri displays behind her for pics.  About halfway into her science play, Gigi turned it into a whole play area for hide and seek.  She ran behind it over and over yelling “mas, mas.”  I love when she speaks spanish.  It kills me.  After peek a boo I was thinking maybe she’d be ready to move on but she got right back into the pouring.  It was really fun.  I am already brainstorming more ways to do science invites.  Any ideas?

Kindergarten and The 5 Senses – Bulletin Board

I got a great email from a fellow kindergarten teacher a few days ago.  Loren, from Shalom Torah Academy in New Jersey, sent photos of the 5 Senses bulletin she made with her students inspired by this idea I did with my students last year.  I am soooo excited to see someone is using my ideas and making them better!  Here are the photos she sent.  The board looks fantastic.   I think I’ll do one next year!  Nice job Loren!

Kindergarten Symmetrical Butterfly Project

We learn all about butterflies the last few weeks of kindergarten.  For these symmetrical butterflies I did a directive draw of half of a basic butterfly shape on folded circular diffuse paper.  After the butterfly shape was drawn the kids used a shape template to put in different shapes all over half of the butterfly.  It was a great end of the year review of shape names and attributes.  Then they flipped over the half circle and traced their shapes and butterfly outline with sharpie, creating a symmetrical butterfly.  Pretty simple and everyone succeeded.  Lastly we used smelly markers to color in the butterflies and sprayed the whole butterfly with a water bottle to make the colors run.  They dried instantly in the sun.  I had the kids place another circle under the front and cut out both the front and back at the same time to make it simple.  Then I stapled and stuffed each one with recycled newspaper, added the pipe cleaner antennae and strung them up.

This one has a batik effect.  Really beautiful.  It was fun to see the kids ooh and ahh as each were strung up.

Kindergarten Bee Unit-Duct Tape Honeybees

We use the the Gems unit Buzzing a Hive in our kindergarten.  I really like it and the kids learn a lot.  This year, I decided to add 3-d duct tape honeybees.  The kids have been going bonkers over them.  The hive was unexpected and totally came from the kids.  Duct tape makes anything possible.  Now they want to make a huge duct tape tree and hang the hive.  Oy.  I have my work cut out for me.

How to make the bees

Materials-black and yellow duct tape, scotch tape, transparency paper or recycled water bottles, newspaper, googly eyes, black pipe cleaners, a straw, a black sharpie and a stapler

1.  Make a ball shape from newspaper for the head.  Cover with yellow duct tape.

2.  Make a slightly larger ball shape from newspaper for the thorax.  Cover with yellow duct tape.

3.  Make a longer shape from newspaper for the abdomen.  Cover with yellow duct tape.

4.  Attach all three shapes with yellow duct tape.  Make strips of black duct tape to use as stripes.  Tape as many stripes as desired onto the thorax and abdomen.

5.  Duct tape the eyes onto the head.  Add three more eyes with a black sharpie.  Honeybees have 5 eyes!

6.  Cut two black pipe cleaners in half.  Use three crisscrossed pipe cleaners for the legs.  Attach them to the thorax with duct tape.  Bend as desired.

7.  Use the fourth pipe cleaner length for the antennae.  Duct tape to the head and bend as desired.

8.  Cut four wings from the transparency paper or water bottle and staple together.  Scotch tape the wings to the top side of the thorax.  Then duct tape the scotch tape down to the thorax to keep the wings secure.

9.  Duct tape a black straw to the abdomen for the stinger.  If you don’t have a black one just duct tape it in black and then add.

10.  The hive is one big wad of newspaper covered in gold duct tape.  I cut a little door at the bottom and covered the inside flap with more duct tape.

One of the kids added a proboscis to theirs with yellow duct tape and a red straw.  Great idea!

Toilet Paper Roll Owls

These totally rock.  The kids LOVE playing with them, putting them in size order, making their prey, etc.  They just love them and so easy to make.  I got this idea by Rebecca Mikami on pinterest also.  Have I mentioned that pinterest is the best thing since sliced bread?  FOLLOW ME HERE!

Anyway, just collect toilet paper rolls, fold in the sides at one end and tape.  Then paint and embellish.  Voila!  So much fun.

Penguin Thump Prints

We just finished our penguin unit in kindergarten.  This year I added penguin thumb prints to our art agenda and the kids LOVED them.  They thought they were the cutest thing going.  We used our thumbs and stamp pads for the bodies and then popsicle sticks dipped in paint for the details.  Some of the girls begged for glitter at the end and I’m glad I caved.  It looks like there’s a blizzard in the pictures.  Really easy, messy and fun.  The perfect kindergarten combo.

Kindergarten and The Five Senses

Every year we start our science curriculum with the 5 Senses.  I finally got my act together and prepped huge pictures of each sense and laminated them so I don’t have to start from scratch every year.  We talked about the 5 Senses as a group and then I instructed the kids to cut out pictures from magazines to match each sense.  They LOVED it!  I think the fun part was leaving the posters all together on the rug so the kids could just come over and decide where the wanted to tape each picture.  I assisted with finding cool cutouts which helped them get even more excited.  This activity was super fun and the kids really got it.  And now I can easily repeat it next year.  Nice!