Most of my class is at an exciting phase of phonological awareness. They are starting to put things together; starting to understand how letters make sounds and those sounds make words. They are on the verge of being able to stretch out words to make guesses as to how to spell them. They love to look for letters everywhere- on posters, on signs, in books- everywhere. They are starting to recognize words or guess at words; just yesterday a child saw the word "Same," and said to me that has "S- A, like Santa!" It is an exciting, exciting part of their learning. They are absolutely fascinated with letters and words printed and written. Today, we made Blueberry Banana Bread to cover many bases. I started by making a sign with the recipe on it and hanging it up on a board where we were baking. Before we started baking we examined the recipe- I read them the ingredients and the instructions and then they pointed out things they noticed. They noticed all the "B's" at the beginning and launched into a partial recitation of the "Berenstain's B Book," they told me about all the numbers they could "read" that talked about measurement, and some other things like the "T" for "tablespoon" is like "T" for "Tommy" in our class, etc.
Then the best part- making the blueberry banana bread! Baking really does hit so many bases in preschool- there's measurement, motor involvement like pouring and stirring, literacy, and sensory! For mashing bananas, (and in other recipes for mixing), I give them gloves and let them get right into it with their hands.
Here's the recipe we used (if you are interested).
Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup fresh blueberries (or 1 3/4 cup of frozen blueberries, thawed)
Directions
In a bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt. In a large mixing bowl, cream the shortening and sugar. Add eggs and vanilla; mix well. Beat in bananas. Gradually add the dry ingredients, beating just until combined. Fold in blueberries.
Pour into a large, greased loaf pans. Bake at 350 degrees F for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from pans to wire racks.
We ate our bread for snack, (it came out really well!), and I sent them each home with two pieces of the bread in a ziplock bag with the recipe. This class often asks for recipes- even for things that are prepared by the cook in the kitchen for their meals to take home to their parents!
As teachers and well educated parents, we know that when children build they are not really just playing. When children build they are gaining spacial understanding, learning about principles of gravity, engaging creativity, and learning basic principles of, well, building. They are not naming these principles, but rather simply learning from trial and error; they have no scholarly understanding of these things- but they have a real understanding. Building is also often a social activity, requiring cooperation, and resolution skills.
As teachers and parents, we know these things and so we give the children blocks to build with and look for new building experiences for them.
Here are two building experiences recently offered in our classroom:
The first idea is from Bev Bos. A simple idea- building with hangers. In the first trial- I hung a hanger from the ceiling and left a bin of hangers for them to use. They got right to it, but eventually it turned into a game of swinging the hanger to knock the other hangers off. Still a learning experience, but it made me a little nervous about some one getting hit with the hangers. Of course no one did, we took precautions and they made a game of falling to the floor and "ducking" whenever someone swung the hangers. None the less, I thought maybe we should come up with another option, so I took the clothes off the rack from the dress up area and put a couple hangers on the rack to create the environment. I liked this much better. Unfortunately, they did not. They fiddled with it for about 20 minutes, revisited it once for 20 minutes more, but after that it sat just like this for the rest of the day.
The next idea is from Lisa Murphy. On the table I put out an assortment of small blocks in various sizes, large and small Popsicle sticks, and shaving cream. Without instruction they immediately started using shaving cream as a building aid.
Some of them used their fingers to spread it, some used popsicle sticks to spread it and some of them didn't spread it at all- just put some on and squished another block on top.
Some children built a structured creation.
Others leaned on the adhesive quality of the shaving cream to make a less structured creation.
Still others weren't interested in it as an adhesive- they used it to cover block structures that they built.
The kids were nuts over the blocks and shaving cream- it is definitely an activity we will repeat soon, as I have daily requests for repeats since the first!
One day, I made a trip up to the office to ask the church secretary if she had a empty box we could use- she led me into the office to get me a box, and there I saw a treasure of all treasures- a box FULL of poppers (aka bubble wrap) in all different sizes! I carefully asked "are you going to use those?"
"No," she answered, "do you want them?" Did I want them? Why, yes; Yes I did. "I have a whole bag of them over here," she said "take as many as you want." So I took all of them. Treasure!
The children used most of it in a half an hour popping frenzy! It was fantastically fun.
A few weeks later she came downstairs bringing a hard plastic packaging thing that she thought one of the classrooms could use. I was lucky enough to run into the director first in her search for someone who wanted it. Of course we did!
I knew as soon as I saw it that it would be great for prints; So today we used that and some of the left over bubble wrap to make prints.
For anyone unfamiliar with printing, it is really simple. Allow the children to paint the object, then put a clean sheet of paper on top of it, press, lift, and presto! A beautiful print.
In the past I have also used the plastic candy holders from the inside of valentines day chocolate for prints (take out, flip upside down, and paint) and they have come out really well.
Here are some samples from the day:
Several children chose to do only one, but two of the girls made a dozen or so a piece.
Here are a few fantastic smelling sensory activities that both you and your children are bound to adore!
This first idea is from a Bev Bos conference, and is absolutely fantastic! Set out a few heavy duty mortars and pestles with various delicious smelling things to smash or grind up. Today we used coffee beans, dried rose petals (which should be easily found after Valentines Day), whole cloves, whole hazelnuts, and cinnamon sticks.
In general I let them use as much as they want, but today I had to ration the cinnamon sticks a bit so that everyone could have a couple (since there were only a few left). Without fail every single child does this activity whenever it is presented. It is quite popular with the children and the parents as well. The parents always comment on how great the room smells after the kids have been working on such a project.
After they are done smashing or grinding up all of their treasures I bag it up and label it "a special scent made by Susan" or whatever that child's name is. Some parents have put it in a cup or a dish and left it somewhere in the house as potpourri.
During the holidays this year I put somethings that they smashed up (cinnamon sticks, whole cloves, whole nutmeg, all spice berries, star anise, and other "holiday smells") in little tiny white paper bags, folded them over and put a string through two holes punched in the top and had the children give them to their parents as car air fresheners.
It was a cute and easy Christmas Present for them to give their parents and I had a lot of positive feedback about them. There are a lot of other things you can give them to grind or smash- including cocoa beans, lavender, fresh or dried herbs, and much more! It seems so simple, but the really adore it and it smells fantastic.
When we were done with the coffee beans I added some coffee beans to the beans in one of our sensory bins! Again, the smell was delicious! This bin contains a visually mesmerizing assortments of beans and dried vegetables some of which include pinto beans, black beans, kidney beans, white lima beans, split peas, yellow split peas, red lentils, black eyed peas, giant fava beans, indian corn, and coffee beans! The kids love running their hands through it and I have often spotted adults who can't help themselves from doing the same! They also love the sound of the beans running through the mill, or being poured in the wooden or metal containers we have. For more sensory bin ideas that include coffee beans check out this post by Teacher Tom or this post by Mary Lea (aka Pink and Green Mama).
The next idea came from the the Ooey Gooey Tooey Book by Lisa Murphy aka the Ooey Gooey Lady. For years I have put Oatmeal in the sensory bin, but had never thought to add cinnamon (even though I EAT it in my oatmeal on a regular basis). In any instance I put two large containers of oatmeal in the bin and added a half a cup of cinnamon, a half a cup of salt, and a little nutmeg because I had some and love the smell. Thus far it has had rave reviews.
They have enjoyed playing in it and smelling it, and one poor little fellow even ate some. Today, (of their own designs), they got the clip board and "wrote down" the ingredients for oatmeal cake and then "baked it," putting a little literacy in the mix. The first day I put it out, I caught some of them putting their faces almost down in it to better take in the smell!
Another hit recently was putting babies with soap, water, and sponges in the sensory bin for "baths." Any soap can be used, but to infuse your room with a pleasant smell baby shampoo is nice to use or Lavender baby shampoo (by Johnson and Johnson) like we used today. It smells absolutely beautiful.
Some other things that might be useful include cups (especially ones with spouts) to pour water over the babies and rinse them off, and little hand towels for them to wrap their babies in when they are done bathing (these were after thoughts, so I will use them next time).
If you liked these sensory ideas, here are some links to other posts:
When searching for some new run-around-indoor-games when I stumbled upon "areoplanes and airports" on this website.
In stead of hoops, I used some orange "circle bases" we had around the room. The game is simple; have fewer "bases" than children. These bases will be your "airports" and the children will be the airplanes. Whenever a child comes in for "a landing" the child on the "airport" has to move and go "land" in a different airport. When demonstrating the first time I said "coming in for a landing" and so they did the same thing each time, and after this the game became know as "the landing game" to them.
Simple, fun, and takes the edge off of cabin fever.
All kids love to sing, and music is incredibly important for youngsters. In fact, (according to Gardner and his theory on multiple intelligences) musical intelligence is the first to develop in young children. Edwin Gordon an important figure in the world of music research and education has identified that even infants are able to take in, discriminate, react, and create musical sounds. It is part of creation and expression for little ones, and part of their brain development. On top of this we have all heard the research: children and teens who are in music programs have better grades and higher IQs statistically.
Aside from all of this, music in the preschool classroom can be used in many ways. It can be used for quiet time and nap time. It can be used to keep the atmosphere calm in the room. It can be used as a gross motor activity, a transition activity, a cultural enrichment activity, an opportunity for creation and experimentation, or as just an opportunity for fun.
Since my original college track was in music education, I thought it would be a good time to offer some suggestions for music in your room.
1. Use music with words and without words. While children obviously connect to music with words more quickly than instrumental music or music without words, music without words ensures that children are listening to the music not just the words, which is better for their musical development. When listening to instrumental music children may start to notice harmonies and musical textures that they would not notice when listening to music with words; it is the early stages of "ear building."
This being said, I am not discouraging singing with words, since this is enjoyable and adheres to their insides. :-)
2. Sing and play a variety of music. Present them with music that is fast and slow, major, minor, and even modal. Play music in different time signatures, and different keys, with different rhythmic patterns. Their musical brain, just like the rest of their brain, is a little sponge that takes in and starts to process all of those different things. As Bev Bos, Lisa Murphy, and a hundred other early childhood experts say: children need a variety of experiences to attach words to. We give them hundreds of art, sensory, science, play, motor experiences and more, so why wouldn't we want to give them just as many musical experiences.
3. Sing WITH them. A recording does not take the place of a human voice and the experience of community that comes with creating music with a group of people. They also will learn a lot more from you than a tape, and singing with them SHOWS them that they, like you, should embrace their inner musicality, let it out, and sing! (and dance and play instruments!) Another note: do NOT sing low. Children's voices are not developed to speak (let alone sing) very low and it is not fun for anyone to growl songs. I cannot tell you how hard it is for me to walk past a room where they are singing "good morning preschool friends, how are you?" to "are you happy and you know it" in a key so low that none of the children can match pitch; all I want to do is walk in and take over their singing and first of all sing the real song, because it is more fun, and secondly sing in a key that is kid friendly so that the kids can fully participate! This is not to say you have to sing incredibly high. Somewhere in the middle is perfectly suitable. In general you should not sing much lower than a middle C with preschoolers; For those of you who don't know what a middle C is, just observe how your class is singing. MOST children can match pitch, even infants are capable of matching pitch, believe it or not, in the right range; if most of the children seem like they are growling or aren't matching the notes that you are singing, chances are you are singing too low, and should try singing a little higher.
Lastly I will leave you with a couple song suggestions for singing and playing that perhaps you haven't thought of before.
5 songs to sing:
1. Here we go loopty loo
2. Wickitaw do ya. There's a recording below. We walk around in the circle for the Wickitaw part and then starting at ahshatanayah (I have no idea how to spell it) we rush into the center of the circle and back out. They love this.
3. My name is flow by Shari Lewis: (you have to skip to 1:20 on this clip to hear the song I am mentioning)
4. L is for the way you look at me: An old love song, but they love it
5. Deep and Wide: based on an old spiritual. After singing it the first time leave of the word deep and sing mmm instead, the next time leave out wide, the next time fountain, and then flowing, until you are singing "mmm and mmm, mmm and mmm there's a mmm mmm mmmm mmmm mmm and mmmmm." They think it's hilarious.
Songs to play (instrumental only)
1. Barber's Adagio for Stings
2. Dave Brubeck's Take Five
3. Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue
4. Bizet's Carmen Overature
5. Bernestein's Dance at the gym from Westside Story
Do you ever have times when the "lesson" you planned for a paticular day completely flops? It doesn't happen to me very often, but whenever it does I am always surprised that something ALWAYS emerges from that failure.
Today, I had planned a big ice activity (I will spare all of the details until this project is successful). We put containers with water outside and I asked for a hypothesis about what would happen. There were two answers: 1. The water would evaporate and 2. It would turn into ice. However, when we checked it an hour and a half later NOTHING had happened, (although the children astutely observed that the water got really cold). The reason? The temperature outside was 33 degrees. SERIOUSLY? 33 DEGREES? I was frustrated. Why didn't it freeze, Miss Elizabeth? Well, it seems it is not quite cold enough outside. It feels cold to us! Yes, it is cold but it needs to be a little colder, 32 degrees, to freeze, and I just checked the thermometer and it is 33 degrees. Do you think we should leave it overnight and see if it freezes? YES!!
Surprisingly, they weren't frustrated by this, and didn't seem to mind waiting until tomorrow.
We went back inside and play resumed as usual. I set to work hanging clothes line across the ceiling to hang pictures up on. Apparently, according to "the regs" I have too much art on the walls- only "20% of the wall can have paper on it," so as a solution, and so that we can still have children's art work in the room, I am hanging some on the ceiling.
*instructions for the art on the front row can be found here, and for the back row here.
What are you doing, Miss Elizabeth? Hanging some rope. For what? To hang paintings. Why? To decorate our room and display your art work. Can we decorate our room? If you want to. What do you need? Yarn.
So I gave them some yarn, and they started "decorating" the area where the blocks are kept. It started out as just strands of yarn here and there, but eventually they decided to make a "spider web."
As you can see they worked very diligently, both boys and girls together.
We left it up for the entirety of the day. They enjoyed adding to it and crawling under and over the strings.
The spider web did its job and captured a pest!
A little spider even slept in the web during nap time. (You can see the blue cot in the corner of this photo).
The spider also got our table. The kids thought it was interesting that the table was round, but the spider web was square because of the legs.
All and all it was a good day. They also played limbo and jump rope with the string. So I guess the moral of the story not to fear when my plans don't work out, the children will always find something else to learn from.
One of my favorite things is to find new ways to paint and new things to paint with. (I also love finding new interesting tools for discovery the sensory table). The honest truth is that if I gave children the same paints in the same way, there are some of the kids in my class that would NEVER tire of it. There are others, however, that only want to paint when I come up with a new way for them to paint or a new thing to paint with. So it is for them (and admittedly for my own amusement) that I search for new ways to paint all the time.
While shopping at Target the other day (this was probably a quick trip in for toothpaste and dog food), I stopped in the "one spot" bargain section (where they have treasures for either a dollar or sometimes 2.50). It was in this section that I found some dish washing tools that you will see below and thought immediately of painting. I put in each container 1/2 liquid tempera paint and 1/2 water, and shook well then put it out on the table with paper to paint. Now, I did end up telling them that they had to push the button on the top to get the paint out after hearing several complaints of "it doesn't work!" Once they had this working, however, they really had some fun.
This activity didn't appeal to everyone, but it had a few visitors that don't frequent art opportunities, and a few of the regulars made dozens of paintings.
The letters on the paper above, by the way, are actually created by a child attempting to spell dog on her painting for some reason.
This week I had two activities that I put out for the kids that shared the common thread of "things grown ups do." This was not accidental, and not really an idea of mine; it was the idea of the children.
I often put out sponges in water with a little bit of baby soap in it on Fridays in my room and let the kids clean the tables, chairs, shelves, and toys. Obviously, this is not a replacement for regular room cleaning, but it stemmed from their interest in watching teachers cleaning tables, toys, and other things during the course of the week., and asking to help. Sometimes I put out little squirt bottles (with just water) and rags for them to clean with since this is what we actually use; I tend to do this in the summer since the fans are running and windows open to help dry out the excess water (and we can escape outside while it does dry).
There are plenty of benefits to this activity- pride and sharing in responsibility in their classroom, gross motor development, and learning words like "wring," but importantly, the children really enjoy doing this, as they enjoy mimicking many other activities that adults do. I also keep little hand sweepers in the room for them to sweep whenever they want but also to sweep up spills from the sensory table or little pieces of paper at the art table, etc. (Generally, I do not make them sweep things up, but when they are done I ask them if they could help sweep up (they usually are excited to do so) , if they say they don't want to then I "help" sweep- meaning I sweep and they come to my aide as much or little as they want to).
The next activity is new to my "repertoire," after I had a child ask to use my hole punch and then several others wanted one too. I bought several hole punches and left them out with colored scrap paper and let them go to town. They seemed happy enough just to punch holes for the sake of punching, and I kept the "dots" they didn't want for collages, etc.
While they just enjoy this activity for its own sake- it is also a very practical activity. This develops hand muscles and coordination needed for writing and cutting. A child, who had just been using the hole punch, and then started to use the scissors, said to me "scissors easy after the hole puncher." Sometimes I wonder if they read my mind. :-)
"If it hasn't been in the hand, it can't be in the brain." Bev Bos
Here are some ideas to accomplish just that. Most of these things can be used multiple ways- in and out of sensory bins, at home and in schools.
#1: Mixed dried beans
Last week we had beans in the sensory bin (actually there were peas and corn as well). This isn't really anything special, but it it really pretty and promotes sorting. They were specifically fascinated by picking out the huge white lima beans.
The mix of kidney beans, pinto beans, white lima beans, black beans, black eyed peas, split peas, and left over indian corn kernels make up this mix, but really any mixture of beans/ etc will do. Below you can see there were spoons scoops and cups in the sensory bin but also sometimes ice trays or muffin tins can encourage sorting as well.
#2: Goop (also known as "Cloud Dough")
Last week we also made what my kids call "goop"- a concoction borrowed from Lisa Murphy, the Ooey Gooey Lady. This mixture is made up of only two ingredients flour and baby oil- so you have double sensory smell and touch. (I love the smell of baby oil).
I let them help make the goop, they decided to have just slightly more runny than doughy.
They also wanted to add a little blue.
After a while they asked if we could have more goop in the sensory bin, so we made more- this time the "goop" was much more like dough.
#3: Moon Sand
Recently, a parent donated four small bags of Moon Sand with "Moon Sand toys" to our classroom. While, yes, you can make really cool sensory things on your own or use just wet sand, Moon Sand is pretty cool, and versatile. For anyone unfamiliar with it, it holds shape like wet sand and never dries out. This Moon Sand came with some houses, a swing, some cars, and some people molds. They didn't care much about the swing or houses, but they (of course) loved the car, and also really loved the people molds.
I put it out on box tops, (that we seem to have an abundance of), for easy set up and clean up. They seem to enjoy it as a quiet activity. This is also really great for any children that require sensory input. If he or she starts losing control I can just pop the top on the table and ask the child if he or she would like to play with Moon Sand (the answer is always yes). For an "on the go" option, I can put it in a ziplock and stick it in my apron pocket, then when I need it I just hand the bag to the child and let him or her squeeze the bag. It works for sensory input or as a transition activity.
#4: Water, ice, snow
See entry here about water play. There is really no end to what they can do playing with water in any form.
#5: Colored Noodles, Scented Rice
I took full advantage of the snow day today to create some new things for collages, mosaics, and our sensory bin.
The scented rice idea came from this entry at teachpreschool.org. I modified it slightly, however. In a bowl I mixed 2 packets of Koolaid with 3 teaspoons of boiling water and a teaspoon and a half of rubbing alcohol, until completely dissolved. Next I put this liquid into a ziplock bag containing six cups of dry rice. I mixed the rice and liquid completely. Then I laid it out for four hours on wax paper before putting it in an air tight container.
For the pasta I started with the instructions found here, but, again, modified it. I used only a teaspoon of food coloring, and three teaspoons of rubbing alcohol, then added it to a ziplock bag containing 3 cups of pasta. The instructions at the website above suggest that there should be more food coloring and less pasta, but as you can see below the pasta is quite dark and while they will lighten a bit when they completely dry, it will not be a lot.
Today, we made Blueberry Banana Bread to cover many bases. I started by making a sign with the recipe on it and hanging it up on a board where we were baking. Before we started baking we examined the recipe- I read them the ingredients and the instructions and then they pointed out things they noticed. They noticed all the "B's" at the beginning and launched into a partial recitation of the "Berenstain's B Book," they told me about all the numbers they could "read" that talked about measurement, and some other things like the "T" for "tablespoon" is like "T" for "Tommy" in our class, etc. 
